Smith and Jones - new series

[The Mumbler]

The montage was terrible.  Are they going to do that every week?

For the most part, though, enjoyed.  Both Mel and Griff are funny people and the new links were surprisingly effective (much more, I have to say, than in the Two Ronnies compilations last year).

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Today's Standard Lite featured a review of this written by Terry Ramsey. The actual Evening Standard, however, had a slightly longer version of the same review attributed to Imogen Ridgway.

So...off-the-peg opinions, not really held by anyone who actually exists, but passed off as the thoughts of a 'character columnist'? Seems that way.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I don't remember much Smith & Jones and being a big NTNOCN fan I was really looking forward to it, and it didn't let me down. I'm glad I watched this and not Green Wing. There's jokes, and laughter and it seems so effortless unlike the hour-long-watch-for-ten-seconds-worth-of-laughs masquerading as comedy. I'll certainly be tuning in for this and I'll be trying to get my hands on more of their older shows.

[Jemble Fred]

Interesting how Griff insisted that Mel always remained the same, because he really does look incredibly melted, doesn't he? Never mind though, it suits him. He'd be a great Rumpole.

I was particularly glad to see the Scottish Lighthousekeepers sketch again – I'd been paranoid of having plagiarised it for years, and it was 100% fuck-all like what I'd written.

Yep, it was funny.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Yay, they left all the links nice and loose, and didn't resort to laughter washes or anything either.

That'll be the Naismith touch, then.

Although you'd think he'd make the show in 4:3 though wouldn't you? Or is he not allowed to?

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Just been going through the AS&J eppisodes on the Infax site (http://81.138.21.183:3000/catalogue/infax), trying to put together a complete tx history. We know the main broadcast dates, but Infax also lists repeats and (sometimes) sketch-content.

Here's Series 1. The tracklistings are direct from the database, and will be incomplete/inaccurate in places.

31 Jan 84 (Tue 9:30pm) : 1.1

Sketches include: Police Chiropodist, "You must remember this", Head to Head:Old Songs, Malt Loaf Song, Granny News, Classic Serial: "Benny Hill"

7 Feb 84 (Tue 9:30pm): 1.2

Sketches inc "Public Service Announcement:Underpants","Squirts" with Geoff CAPES "Adultrey", "Kidnapped" "Head-to-Head: Bran" & "Perry Como Song".

14 Feb 84 (Tue 9:30pm): 1.3

SKETCHES: These incl "Razz III", "No Crap Opening", "Wandering Tribe", "Oscars", "Head To Head","Transplant", "Eamonn ANDREWS/Clive JAMES", "French Resistance","Clive James II","Chart Challenge", "Pop Star Death","Party Runner","Nun Runner", "Pope At Home", & "Stately Home".

21 Feb 84 (Tue 9:30pm): 1.4

RUNNING SKETCH: Head to Head : Mother's Cooking Head to Head : Ice Age Head to Head : Real Ale SKETCHES: "Jekyll & Hyde" "Where Do We Get Our Ideas From" "Train Runner" "Thatcher Story" "Shoe Shop" "Surrender" "Bluebottles" "Shufti" "Northern Pub" "The Great Gobbo" "No Time For Anything Else" 1/1

28 Feb 84 (Tue 9:30pm): 1.5

RUNNING SKETCH: Head to Head - Barnardos Head to Head - Car Head to Head - Millionaire Head to Head - Antiques Head to Head - Beethoven SKETCHES: "Tinker, Sailor, Soldier, Spy" "Chilli Beans" "Injuries Opening" "Natural Childbirth" "Problem Child" "Starmaker" "Shaw Taylor" "Woofers" "Did You See?" "Antiques Road Show" "Concert" "Geriatric Ward" "James Galway" "Things Go Wrong" "Joanna Lumley/Valkyrie" "Night Siege" "Dr Tactless"

6 Mar 84 (Tue 9:30pm): 1.6

inc "Open University Sleep" "Exorcism", "Polar Exploration", "Horror Story:Teenage Party", "Bores", "Spanish Civil War", "Haircut", "The Visit", "Womens Group" & "Public Service Ancemn't".

3 Sep 84 (Mon 9:10pm): Series 1 compilation #1 (edited 23 Aug 84)

SKETCHES: "Thatcher Story", "Chart Challenge", Pop Star Death", "You Must Remem- ber This", "Old Songs", "Perry Como Song", "Walter Meets Smike", "Dr Morris's Seat", "British Licencing Laws", "Real Ale", "Spanish Civil War" "Divorce", "Baby In Washing Machine", "Bluebottles" & "Joanna Lumley"

6 Sep 84 (Thur 9:10pm): Series 1 compilation #2 (Edited 23 Aug 84)

SKETCHES: "Police Chiropodist" (2m08s) "Granny News" (1m06s) "Geriatric Ward" (30s) "Dr Tactless" (8s) "Shoe Shop" (16s) "Maltloaf Song" (1m40s) "Eamonn Andrews & Clive James" (1m10s) "Haircut" (1m23s) "Shaw Taylor" (24s) "Joanna Lumley & Nerys Hughes" (20s) "Starmaker" (4m40s) "Concert" (2m35s) "Things Go Wrong" (2m15s) "Natural Childbirth" (20s) "Designer Closing" (2m09s) RUNNING SKETCHES: "Head to Head:Growing Old" (30s) "Head to Head:Sperm Bank" (4m33s) "Head to Head:Crime Rate" (30s) "Head to Head:Millionaire" (25s) "Head to Head:Womans Movement" (2m33s)

19 Feb 85 (Wed 8:30pm): First repeat of Series 1 compilation #1
26 Feb 85 (Wed 8:30pm): First repeat of series 1 compilation #2

18 Jun 93 (Fri 9pm): First repeat of 1.1
25 Jun 93 (Fri 9pm): First repeat of 1.2
2 Jul 93 (Fri 9pm): First repeat of 1.3
9 Jul 93 (Fri 9pm): First repeat of 1.4
23 Jul 93 (Fri 9pm): First repeat of 1.5
30 Jul 93 (Fri 9pm): First repeat of 1.6

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

Twat in yesterday's Guardian about the Sketchbook: 'For every brilliant satire on police interview stitch-ups you get ten sketches about thieves stealing lamp-posts and leaving bikes behind'.

Um, yes...it was the mix that made it, you demographic-loving fool. Confused by a sketch show which features a variety of sketch styles are you?

[The Mumbler]

That INFAX guide also mentions that Smith & Jones appeared on The Late Late Breakfast Show on 10 December 1983, which was the last episode of its second series.  To plug the Smith & Jones World A(t)las, perhaps?  I got that for Christmas that year.

Sketchbook's a strange beast.  Having watched 3.1 of Alas earlier (the one with What Do All The Buttons Do?, the Head-to-Head with the 'What, every night?' punchline, the Irwin/Merton graveside sketch, the collective noun professors ("a masturbation of black-tailed godwits"), and of course, the Do-It-All song), I was irritated to find that Buttons was cut down to the graphic equaliser bit.  They still haven't banished that opening montage either, so that's a regular bit I won't be enjoying.

Yet Mel and Griff are such likeable, funny hosts, and I like the fact they left in references (Who Dares Wins, Jimmy Mulville) which most current producers would have slashed from the final edit right away.  I really wish they'd broadcast 40-minute versions of Alas instead, though, with the pair bookending the edition with comments, memories and so on.   Could have been a lavish DVD, that.  I really hope the DVD that's on its way isn't a straight transfer of Sketchbook.

[sick as a pike]

I feel proud;  deeply, deeply proud that my terrrible "it's a baby- nine pounds" "Here you go mate, have a tenner" sketch was in tonight's show.  I intend to spend the residual fee on a small celebratory firework.

[alan strang]

I feel proud;  deeply, deeply proud that my terrrible "it's a baby- nine pounds" "Here you go mate, have a tenner" sketch was in tonight's show.  I intend to spend the residual fee on a small celebratory firework.

Heh - reminds me of when Lee & Herring were on Loose Ends and Neddy Baby played an old Weekending sketch of theirs - a woman noisily giving birth for ten seconds with the punchline "Congratulations - it's a controversial advertising campaign!". They just sounded baffled ("What, that's an example of our early writing is it? Just some woman going "Ah, ow, oowwww...").

[poor fool]

Twat in yesterday's Guardian about the Sketchbook: 'For every brilliant satire on police interview stitch-ups you get ten sketches about thieves stealing lamp-posts and leaving bikes behind'.

Um, yes...it was the mix that made it, you demographic-loving fool. Confused by a sketch show which features a variety of sketch styles are you?

I thought the point was that for every sketch that was funny, there were ten that were predictably, mind-alteringly shit. And they'd be right.

[The Mumbler]

I think it's a bit unfair, though, to lambast Smith & Jones for sketches that last thirty seconds when you get so many sketch shows now which don't know how to edit material.  Post-Big Train, sketch shows invariably now contain flabby four-minute items which have a big revelatory gag about 45 seconds in, and then just diminishing returns of that joke over the long, long minutes that follow.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I'd forgotten how funny the names 'Porno and Bribeasy' are. If I was to isolate a particular tone of comedy that's completely disappeared these days, I would point straight to those names. Gleefully unsubtle and old-school, and yet they sound like real names at the same time.

I'd forgotten how great that police interview sketch was as well. 'I even bloody know 'em!'

But yes, bad show for editing Hi Fi Buttons. Written by Docherty and Hunter, that one, and you can hear their voices in it. 'The Dolby button allows you to listen to your cassette with the little green light on or off...'

I'm concerned by the absence of songs, though. Some of Peter Brewis' finest hours.

I wouldn't mind the montage if it only featured ultra-quick stuff that wouldn't fit in elsewhere. But I hate the idea of cutting up longer skits.

I just wish they'd repeat Alas in full. Is there any reason why they couldn't do that? As recently as '93, the idea of repeating Series 1 and 3 didn't seem ridiculous.

[alan strang]

I'd forgotten how funny the names 'Porno and Bribeasy' are.

Originally characters in the Capital Radio show 'Tales From the Crypt' - although one of them was played by Rory McGrath in that.

[lazyhour]

It's just dawned on me that they did indeed remove the Chris Langham bit that they did on the night of taping episode one.  Shame!

I'm really enjoying this series so far, and so are my family and girlfriend.  We're laughing a hell of a lot.  We all hate the butchered intro montages, though.  Just a montage of quickies would be fine, but this mix of genuine quickies and context-free money-shot moments from longer sketches is ridiculous!

[Autopsy Turvey]

I'd forgotten how funny the names 'Porno and Bribeasy' are. If I was to isolate a particular tone of comedy that's completely disappeared these days, I would point straight to those names.

I felt exactly the same, as soon as I heard the names Porno and Bribeasy again I was struck by how unusual it was to hear pleasingly silly surnames on television. The BBC hate silly names nowadays. They "totally scream Oxbridge," as a production company bod once put it within my earshot. That's why we've got sketch characters called things like Vicky Pollard, Emily Howard, Matthew Waterhouse (tee hee),  Nan Taylor, Don Peacock etc. You could blame Reeves & Mortimer, but they had a rare genius for crafting names like Chris Bell, Alan Davidson, John Price, Hugh Bond, Judith Grant and indeed Graham Lister, names that are funny precisely because they're so boldly mundane and inappropriate for such bizarre personalities.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I was thinking of starting a thread on comedy names, actually, about how they've changed over time. Lee and Herring used to call characters things like 'Ian Stephenson' as a direct rejection of Pythonesque names like Ethel Spunkcreature or whatever. I'm not sure what's fashionable now, or indeed why 'Porno and Bribeasy' type names don't get used any more. What's wrong with screaming Oxbridge?

[Mr. Bleaney]

I was thinking of starting a thread on comedy names, actually, about how they've changed over time. Lee and Herring used to call characters things like 'Ian Stephenson' as a direct rejection of Pythonesque names like Ethel Spunkcreature or whatever. I'm not sure what's fashionable now, or indeed why 'Porno and Bribeasy' type names don't get used any more. What's wrong with screaming Oxbridge?

It just went on too long. I remember the first couple of series of "Stuff" using names like "Mrs. Enda Wittgenstein-Clitterhouse" and me thinking Jesus! that's so boring! Python have done that! That's why R&M were such a relief.
No reason why they shouldn't bring silly names back now though - although they'd have to be slightly different silly names.

[Autopsy Turvey]

What's wrong with screaming Oxbridge?

My thoughts exactly. What seems fashionable these days in sketch comedy is not giving characters names at all, hence the recurring characters that are identified solely as "woman who wants a fucking baby" or "twitching darts players" or "bloke who says the number '4' a lot".

The only example of an old-fashioned silly name in modern comedy that I can think of off-hand is Ting Tong Macadangdang, which rankles in a way that Rastus O'Ginga O'Dinga never did.

[Autopsy Turvey]

It just went on too long. I remember the first couple of series of "Stuff" using names like "Mrs. Enda Wittgenstein-Clitterhouse" and me thinking Jesus! that's so boring! Python have done that!  

You could say that about all of Stuff though! Anyway, "Mr Numismatist" rules. Fry & Laurie, writing at about the same time, are the all-time masters of the comedy name. Fenella de la Twee, for starters.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I suppose things like Look Around You use names which are odd-sounding without being 'wacky'.

I still think 'Porno and Bribeasy' is unique to a specific generation of 70s/80s comedy writers, though - people who had grown up on Python, but weren't ready to reject trad comedy names quite yet.

Also, it comes from a time when everyone took it as read that the police were corrupt/racist etc - nowadays, the names 'Porno and Bribeasy' would seem more heavy-handed, as if you were deliberately trying to make a clumsy point about something. Back then, right-on references to the police being cunts was just taken for granted - those references turned up in silly sketches as often as they did in 'proper' satire. I don't know what's changed though, or why - after all, people are probably more aware about police corruption now than they were 20 years ago.

[neveragain]

I'd say that the silly names in Look Around You were partially inspired by Chris Morris' (or indeed Armando Iannucci's, I don't know) silly names in OTH/TDT/Brass Eye but then they were different beasts to the names of Python, these were more to do with creating odd sounds through amassed letters.

[alan strang]

During Brass Eye a few of the cast members were of the opinion that the one thing letting the show down was the character names - all the 'Gypsum Fantastic'-type monikers. "It's a shame Chris doesn't realise that the reign of the silly character name in comedy is over", said one.

What struck me was just how long it took for that opinion to develop from (as mentioned above) the days of Vic Reeves Big Night Out choosing deliberately sensible or mundane names for fantastical characters (Alan Davidson the fox and Glenn Mitchell the dog being the most obvious examples) to being regarded as a general opinion-to-have within the comedy industry. Brilliant and original as a device in the early 90s but considerably tired by the close of the decade when others finally started to latch onto it. Certainly, when TMWRNJ christened Nostradamus' horse 'Alan Stevens' it looked terribly forced. *

Lee & Herring's general character names were great though - most of them based on the idea of laughing at - as Stewart Lee once described it - "names with an unnecessary consonant right in the middle of the surname".

* Edit: Actually it was 'David Colins' not 'Alan Stevens' - the latter was the Dating Agency partner wasn't he?

[trotsky assortment]

Until reading an earlier post, I'd almost forgotten about 'What Do All The Buttons Do?'... I've not seen it since I was in my early teens, but I remember it being really funny.

'B is for button...C is for...cutton.'

I forgot to put a tape in for this on Friday...Please tell me I haven't missed this sketch...or Gregorio the opera singer.  :-/

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

'What does the Mic Vol button do?'
'The Mic Vol button doesn't do bugger all! Mic Vol...was the bloke who invented the machine.'
'Good old Mic, where would we be without him? Now, sales areas...'

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

A lot of people recall that opera singer sketch (Linehan and Matthews, I've always assumed), but does anyone remember a similar sketch from Harry Enfield and Chums, in which an actor threw constant tantrums when his filn crew objected the gurgle he included during a dramatic speech? I assume that was Linehan and Matthews too.

[trotsky assortment]

Yup - I recall that one too.  It was meant to be a period drama, but Enfield's spoilt actor character wanted to make a cat-type noise.  It amused me at the time, but like a fair chunk of Enfield's work, I'm unsure whether I'd enjoy it so much now.

[Darrell]

That Enfield bit was definitely Linehan and Mathews because he mentions it in the coffee table book that came out at the same time. L&M also did the Camp Jockeys.

I'll have a go at MP3ing the Hi-Fi sketch later. It's in its glorious entirety on the (excellent) Alas best of video that came out in the 1990s.

[The Duck Man]

Mel Smith is in Miss Marple on ITV, NOW.

[Paaaaul]

Mel Smith is in Miss Marple on ITV, NOW.

That sentence put a revolting image in my mind.