ISIHAC at 50

[DrGreggles]

Yes, it's gone to shit now, but the 90s and 00s shows were some of the most unapologetically silly and downright funny radio I've ever heard.

Thought it would be nice to have a celebratory thread.

[purlieu]

Having been brought up on my dad's tapes of the 70s episodes, I always felt like it was treading water by the 00s, although was still always worth a listen. Haven't heard any since Humph died, actually vaguely surprised it's still going.

[DrGreggles]

The first few years of Jack Dee were decent, but then the regulars started doing fewer and fewer shows. And then dying.

[famethrowa]

Would you like to play a game of charades then? I can totally see you bending over the chairman's desk to receive 12 Angry Men.

[Twonty Gostelow]

"Who can forget the look on Lionel Blair's face when Michael Aspel handed him a card that said 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' and he realised that it would be quite hard to mime that?"

[gilbertharding]

Have they dialled back on the old homophobia now then? I mean, they've probably stopped referring to Lionel Blair altogether now, I guess.

They played the first episode on 4Extra last week - my GOD it was bad. Worse than I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again (for which it was, I think, a kind of sequel).

I don't mind that it's still going. Mixed feelings about some of the new folk. It's absolutely appalling when they have people on who are *really really good* at singing. Hateful.

And a lot depends on the audience - sometimes they make the same noise as people in a restaurant when a waiter trips, and that's a load of shit.

[Bad Ambassador]

Very fond memories of the "complete public information film quotes" round with Jack Dee many years ago.

"Mrs Brown Rabbit is putting them to bet with a hot water bottle, and then is going to get Dr White Rabbit. Dr White Rabbit says:..."

Spoiler alert

"Bloody brown rabbits, coming over here..."

[close]

"Awfully decent of you to give me a lift, old boy. Had an accident with my car yesterday - first day out too. I was going along a main road, just like this one as a matter of fact, plenty of traffic. There was another car in front of me - just where that one is now, old man."
PARP, PARP

Spoiler alert

"Wind the window down, old boy."

[close]

[letsgobrian]

And a lot depends on the audience - sometimes they make the same noise as people in a restaurant when a waiter trips, and that's a load of shit.

They do a bit of audience manipulation on the edit. Jon Naismith always points out before the recording that your laughing might appear in reaction to a different joke to the one you laughed at. And he encourages you to give a joke a benefit of the doubt if you're not sure if its funny or not.

They don't encourage you to clap along to the songs however, the bastard audience do that on their own and its worse live than on the recording mix.

[pigamus]

There was an hour-long compilation on Radio 4 last week - I heard it in hospital.

[gilbertharding]

There was an hour-long compilation on Radio 4 last week - I heard it in hospital.

Oh dear. You better now?

One of the tiny consolations of a spell in bed is the chance to listen to loads of radio (or watch stuff: I finally got the time to watch Lawrence of Arabia a few years back after crashing my bike).

[pigamus]

Yes thanks - bit wobbly but I'll survive. Yeah the first half was noticeably better than the second, but over a whole hour it's bound to drag a bit somewhere. Still loads of glorious bits.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016gwk

[Gurke and Hare]

They played the first episode on 4Extra last week - my GOD it was bad. Worse than I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again (for which it was, I think, a kind of sequel).

ISIRTA was great!

[gilbertharding]

ISIRTA was great!

You're entitled to your opi ion, of course, but to me it was just a lot of undergraduate shouting. Like a 30 minute migraine with the added danger that Bill Oddie will almost certainly burst into song and do a racism.

Like, calm down lads. Slower. Do less. Breathe.

[Gurke and Hare]

It has the best corny jokes you'll find in pretty much the whole of comedy.

[Brundle-Fly]

Making a great funny corny joke is like making a great disposable pop single. Not as easy as it looks.

[Ray Travez]

It has an end-of-the-pier nostalgia feel to me now, so I haven't listened for years. I loved Humph, and I never took to Dee presenting, even though I think he's very good.

ISIHAC and ISIRTA were both formative comedy experiences for me. They are there in my sense of humour; I'll always reach for a pun before anything else, which actually rather irritates me. Wordplay is a refuge of scoundrels- Richard Osman being a prime example- but I can't help but do it, and I fully blame the BBC light entertainment department of the 1970's.

[Brundle-Fly]

...and also 1970s ice lolly sticks and kids comics?

[beanheadmcginty]

Sound charades always struck me as the most complex round. The way it built to a moment of realisation was beautiful.

[Famous Mortimer]

I saw @Jemble Fred , formerly of here, in some news article about the 50th anniversary, perhaps he's updating his book (which will hopefully just be "not as good as when Humph was alive" about all the recent ones).

[purlieu]

Sound charades always struck me as the most complex round. The way it built to a moment of realisation was beautiful.

The Portnoy's Complaint one is responsible for one of the biggest laughing fits of my life.

[Autopsy Turvey]

You're entitled to your opi ion, of course, but to me it was just a lot of undergraduate shouting. Like a 30 minute migraine with the added danger that Bill Oddie will almost certainly burst into song and do a racism.

Like, calm down lads. Slower. Do less. Breathe.

The John and Mary sketches were an oasis of calm, but on the whole fair enough ISIRTA is ridiculously jam-packed with jokes and noises and desperate puns, and to take against it on that basis is like pooh-poohing Pinter for his lack of razzmatazz. Bill Oddie did some of the best comedy songs (and racisms) of the era: Cloughie, Julie Andrews, Cactus In My Y-Fronts, Identikit Gal, Stuff That Gibbon, "how dee do dere honeh" etc.

Cleese hated the ISIRTA audience reaction didn't he, he liked to work a bit harder for a laugh. Fair enough, but the audience really feels like a member of the cast - and the lukewarm, bemused studio reactions for contemporary Python and Goodies episodes were so dismal and deadening, you'd think in comparison he'd be glad of the really warm, clued-up responses on radio.
I do wonder why those ISIRTA audiences weren't flocking to Goodies recordings - or maybe they were told to pipe down or fuck off. Every now and then when a gibbon or a dog called Spot is mentioned you get one or two lonely cheers, where on radio they'd be greeted with waves of euphoric adulation.

[Ray Travez]

...and also 1970s ice lolly sticks and kids comics?

yes! But the radio shows came first, before I could read (that again)

I don't know why I was so negative about wordplay just then. Think I'm feeling a bit nihilistic today.

[pigamus]

Humph just had the most marvellous voice. It had that bone-weariness to it that made everything he said funny.

[Tony Tony Tony]

The beeb are flogging tickets to the recording of the 50th anniversary show

Tickets

Its going to be at the Albert Hall.

[Billy]

The beeb are flogging tickets to the recording of the 50th anniversary show

Tickets

Its going to be at the Albert Hall.

I'm at this now, all tickets were £9.50 in the end, even the fancy box seats which must be the cheapest they've been for decades at the Hall. Nicely entertaining although the gutting feeling is there that if this was just four years ago we'd have Hardy, Cryer and Brooke-Taylor still with us along with Iain Pattinson on the writing side. My peak Clue years must have been around the early-mid noughties so it's all rather nostalgic for me.

[Tony Tony Tony]

I'm at this now, all tickets were £9.50 in the end, even the fancy box seats which must be the cheapest they've been for decades at the Hall. Nicely entertaining although the gutting feeling is there that if this was just four years ago we'd have Hardy, Cryer and Brooke-Taylor still with us along with Iain Pattinson on the writing side. My peak Clue years must have been around the early-mid noughties so it's all rather nostalgic for me.

Can you reveal who was on the panel?

Unless you were made to sign an NDA.

[Replies From View]

It was funny when it was really old men playing these stupid games.  Once they started fading them out and replacing them with the cast of Just A Minute and then Dave panel shows it was increasingly a case of "well they would play stupid games - they're only about ten years old."

[Replies From View]

There was a brilliant version of Alice in Wonderland they did many years ago.  Humph in Wonderland it was called.  Don't know if that's ever been uploaded somewhere.

[Petey Pate]

There was a brilliant version of Alice in Wonderland they did many years ago.  Humph in Wonderland it was called.  Don't know if that's ever been uploaded somewhere.

That was Humphrey Lyttleton's swan(ee) song. Actually quite literally, as it ended with him playing trumpet along to a swanee-kazoo version of Winter Wonderland. I think it was broadcast on Christmas day 2007.

[DrGreggles]

There was a brilliant version of Alice in Wonderland they did many years ago.  Humph in Wonderland it was called.  Don't know if that's ever been uploaded somewhere.

I've got it somewhere - will upload.
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Christmas Carol too.