Why did they do this in the first Dad's Army episode?

[McDead]

I agree, but also

[Cold Meat Platter]

PHWOAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[Harlequin]

no i am sorry you are both dickeads

[jamiefairlie]

no i am sorry you are both dickeads

"You silly arse"

[Glebe]

[Gurke and Hare]

Why is Lord Charles in a newsreel though?

[Matthew Dawkins Jub Jub]

Your cock, m'lady?

[McDead]

Jesus that picture is big!!

[Wacky Homemade Badges]

fucking hell, and i am sorry, but phwoar. she absolutely serves.

Didn't she have a thing with Prince Andrew? Yeucch.

[Fambo Number Mive]

After this thread I can't stop thinking of penises (or penes) whenver I think of Dad's Army.

[McDead]

Captain Manwanking
Sgt Willie-son
Private Prick
Private Wanker
Private Codpiece
Lance Corporal Bones

That's you, FNM, watching this charming old classic of British television. Makes me sick.

[Harlequin]

1920s men's fashion on women goes hard i'm not gonna apologize

[Pranet]

These are interesting- biographies of the characters from a 1975 script book.

https://bsky.app/profile/waltydunlop.bsky.social/post/3l3do3oxzrf2w

[FredNurke]

The Wilson one is great, although the chronology as stated seems hard to reconcile with his being Pike's father, unless he met Mrs Pike on a previous occasion.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Wilson's role as chief clerk was bascially Mainwaring's deputy, is that correct? Someone who manages the clerks and is the liasion between him and Mainwaring?

[Pranet]

The Wilson one is great, although the chronology as stated seems hard to reconcile with his being Pike's father, unless he met Mrs Pike on a previous occasion.

Ah, I missed that, you are right.

[Pranet]

Wilson's role as chief clerk was bascially Mainwaring's deputy, is that correct? Someone who manages the clerks and is the liasion between him and Mainwaring?

That's how I understood it.

[Ignatius_S]

The history of the characters was basically cobbled together as the series went along and don't think they worried about if everything made sense or fitted together perfectly.  Personally, I feel Mainwaring's war service (or rather post-war service) made more sense if he was a slightly younger man than his 'official' age.

There was a 'A-Z of Dad's Army' that contained biographical information for all the characters, which was roughly along the same lines as those but presented more seriously.

[The Bumlord]

I'm afraid I will need a potted biography of Cheeseman. Everyone's favourite character.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I wonder how many people Jones killed. Rather apt he became a butcher.

[jamiefairlie]

Rather jarring to realise all the older characters would have been born in the 1800s. The war still seems quite modern to me.

[JesusAndYourBush]

There's an article here about David Jason being up for the role of Lance Corporal Jones before being passed over for Clive Dunn.

In true clickbaity fashion it makes you think the BBC is making a remake of Dad's Army and that David Jason has been #cancelled.

"Sir David Jason sacked by BBC - just hours after landing iconic Dad's Army role"
https://uk.style.yahoo.com/sir-david-jason-sacked-bbc-162048402.html

[Captain Z]

David Jason was originally up for the role of "first person from David & Jay's Touring Toolshed to be arrested" before they went with Jay Blades instead.

[McDead]

Love that the formatting of this page is forever fucked because of that absolutely enormous Lord Charles at the top

[JesusAndYourBush]

Love that the formatting of this page is forever fucked because of that absolutely enormous Lord Charles at the top

@Barry Admin Would it be fairly easy to make the forum auto-resize overly large photos?

[studpuppet]

David Jason was originally up for the role of "first person from David & Jay's Touring Toolshed to be arrested" before they went with Jay Blades instead.

The first, but not the last...

[Barry Admin]

@Barry Admin Would it be fairly easy to make the forum auto-resize overly large photos?

Don't think so, you can ping me to fix though, or report it.

Edit: I put width=500 in the IMG tags to cap any pics I'm posting. If anyone doesn't know how to do that, then quite one of two posts at the top of this page.

[Ignatius_S]

There's an article here about David Jason being up for the role of Lance Corporal Jones before being passed over for Clive Dunn.

In true clickbaity fashion it makes you think the BBC is making a remake of Dad's Army and that David Jason has been #cancelled.

"Sir David Jason sacked by BBC - just hours after landing iconic Dad's Army role"
https://uk.style.yahoo.com/sir-david-jason-sacked-bbc-162048402.html

I'm not sure why the story is doing the rounds again, but it's popped up a lot!

Getting back to the casting, I'm reasonably confident that it was Dunn who was first approached for the role, but wasn't able to do it due to a scheduling clash; certainly some of the interviews with Jason touch upon this.

Perry and Croft then cast Jason but pretty much straight away, the project that Dunn was going to do fell through and he was available, so Bill Cotton pulled rank and said Dunn was in the role.

Thanks to massively successful Army Game spin-off, Bootsie and Snudge, Dunn was already well known to audiences playing an elderly, easily confused army veteran, who had served with Lord Kitchener.

In a few Dad's Army books I've seen, Jason's casting doesn't get mentioned so although it's an interesting 'what might have been' it's more interesting from the perspective of Jason's career. From Do Not Adjust Your Set, Jason had a fair few false starts and missed out on, what would proved to be, an important/big show. ITV sitcom, Lucky Feller, about two London brothers (one a womanising wide-boy, the other a gentle and sensitive type) was well received and would have had a second series, but writer Terence Frisby likely needed more time and could have become a much bigger show, for instance.

[A Hat Like That]

I think Mainwaring being just too old to serve in WW1 but still giving it his best go has the right air of determination meets low level despair that absolutely IS his character.

1902 leaving school would make him 1886 birthday, 28 at start of WW1 and 32 at end, then early 50s for Dad's Army. (EDIT almost exactly as started in the biography, 1885 DOB and 55 in 1940)

FWIW, I think he would have been awarded maybe the Victory medal (it's stated he's in a non-combat role defending Scapa Flow in one episode) and maybe the General Service medal. No medals is, of course, funnier.