Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 08:48:15 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Two Ronnies Star Wars parody musical number.

Started by Glebe, July 17, 2022, 09:39:39 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Twilkes

I'm sure they did a tango song, and while dancing with a lady some of the lines sung to the traditional tango melody were

Ronnie: "Get, those, pants, down."
Lady: "Not bloody likely."

which seems very direct, even for the 70s. Can't find the clip anywhere though, possibly the Tango Tease sketch from S6E4.

beanheadmcginty

Quote from: Twilkes on July 20, 2022, 12:14:05 PMI'm sure they did a tango song, and while dancing with a lady some of the lines sung to the traditional tango melody were

Ronnie: "Get, those, pants, down."
Lady: "Not bloody likely."

which seems very direct, even for the 70s. Can't find the clip anywhere though, possibly the Tango Tease sketch from S6E4.

Are you sure that line isn't from their legendary recreation of the "squeal piggy" scene from Deliverance?

poodlefaker

hardly an original thought, but there was just so much of the Two Ronnies - 15+ years of it - that once you get beyond the great stuff that always appears on the compilations, an awful lot of the week-in week-out content is of-its-time hackwork.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Twilkes on July 20, 2022, 12:14:05 PMI'm sure they did a tango song, and while dancing with a lady some of the lines sung to the traditional tango melody were

Ronnie: "Get, those, pants, down."
Lady: "Not bloody likely."

which seems very direct, even for the 70s. Can't find the clip anywhere though, possibly the Tango Tease sketch from S6E4.

That features in Carry On England with Sally Geeson and Patrick Mower.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: non capisco on July 17, 2022, 09:51:29 PMInterminable fare but I like how the approximation of the Star Wars theme at the start is basically just the melody to 'Born Free'. 

I thought it was across between Star Trek and Aqua Marina's theme from Stingray.

Anyway, you want a comedy parody of Star Wars with Melvyn Hayes? Fill your moon boots.



Replies From View

Quote from: poodlefaker on July 20, 2022, 01:08:03 PMhardly an original thought, but there was just so much of the Two Ronnies - 15+ years of it - that once you get beyond the great stuff that always appears on the compilations, an awful lot of the week-in week-out content is of-its-time hackwork.

Yep; the Two Ninnies parody is spot on in lots of ways.

Quote from: poodlefaker on July 20, 2022, 01:08:03 PMhardly an original thought, but there was just so much of the Two Ronnies - 15+ years of it - that once you get beyond the great stuff that always appears on the compilations, an awful lot of the week-in week-out content is of-its-time hackwork.

True of Python too, even with a much lesser output.

Video Game Fan 2000

#37
I remember finding out about By The Sea in a Ronnies documentary and discovering the horrible truth that Ronnie Barker had the worst sense of humour in the world. It's still inexplicable to me. All that talent and that beautiful comedy face, the great allrounder, and By The Sea was his idea of what was the funniest and how comedy should be, his Playtime*. Seeing later stuff wot he wrote, especially after Porridge ended, reminds me of someone like Jim Carrey - someone who could do anything at all with ease going broad beyond belief because his imagination stops a lightyear before his talent does.

I'm also reasonably sure he thought the serials were funnier than the regular sketches too. Maybe it was his modesty but he seemed down on the bits that everyone loved. I don't think the bum bum titty stuff is hack work really, he was doing what he wanted and got the laughs. Dirty rhymes and pinching bums was his steez.

*think I first heard about Tati because of a Ronnies line about "Jacques Tati, Jacques Scruffi and Jack Absolutely Falling To Pieces"

Twilkes

Quote from: Ignatius_S on July 20, 2022, 01:25:45 PMThat features in Carry On England with Sally Geeson and Patrick Mower.

Ah thank you, that makes more sense. Sorry Ronnies.

Autopsy Turvey

Quote from: poodlefaker on July 20, 2022, 01:08:03 PMhardly an original thought, but there was just so much of the Two Ronnies - 15+ years of it - that once you get beyond the great stuff that always appears on the compilations, an awful lot of the week-in week-out content is of-its-time hackwork.

Quote from: Phoenix LazarusTrue of Python too, even with a much lesser output.

Are you saying that only about 20% of Monty Python was any good, when you look at it?

When the Two Ronnies DVDs came out I was surprised how much good stuff was in it that I'd never seen in any of the Best Of programmes, records and/or tapes. Even the of-its-time hackwork attained a certain level of quality.




Video Game Fan 2000

#40
There are probably less than a dozen Python episodes that are funny all the way through but a lot that are very good to watch because the absurdity really works and there is normally at least one great sketch. Sometimes Jones and Chapman can carry babbling nonsense on presence alone.
But much of it does seem like a regular 1970s sketch show except the sexism is done with an ironic wink and the sketches end nowhere in a way thats more slack than subversion. Palin and Cleese saying most of it was shite can be put down to old men being embarrassed by their former love of televisual shitposting.

Me mam was watching Two Ronnies full episodes on TV Gold ages ago, no idea if they were edited for broadcast but so much of it was horrible, far more stereotype humour than I remembered,  but occassionally there was a really good bit I'd never seen before among the endless replays of Fork Handles and Your Nuts, M'lord. And I really, really enjoy a Ronnie Corbett monologue I've never heard before. The boomer Stewart Lee. Did people really think these were boring?

Des Wigwam

When I think of the monologues it's like someone tuning a radio. I can remember them being the bit to endure then a brief period of getting bits of them and then they were the really good bit I looked forward to. It's like they suddenly came into focus.

Which is like the tuning of the eyes so that still works.

George White

Quote from: McDead on July 19, 2022, 02:34:11 AMI'm going to have Pink Rupee in my head when I wake up, I just know it
Corbett in brownface looks uncannily like the actor Sethan Rosh Roshan Seth (Gandhi, Temple of Doom, My Beautiful Laundrette, etc).

There was another TOTP parody where Barker in full blackface as 'Big Mama' sings this song called 'I'm a big bad mama, and I'm blacker than a black-eyed pea', which is grimace:, but somehow not quite as offensive as Walliams in blackface twenty years later.
The same sketch also had Corbett as 'Steamy Winder', singing 'I Just Called to Read Your Meter'.

Quote from: Glebe on July 18, 2022, 05:24:26 PM*BLACKFACE/DODGY ACCENT ALERT*

The Two Ron's rap!


Can't find their Grease musical number. You'll have to make do with Syd & Eddie's version (at approx 18mins):


1991. 1991.

The Grease sketchthe Rons did is Saturday Night Grease, part of that weird thing where they'd do a Saturday Night Fever parody but conflate it with Grease, so would sing rock and roll rather than disco.
The 'Mr. Saturday Night Fever' dream sequence in the Rising Damp film with Rossiter done up as a greaser while Frances de la Tour in Sandy cosplay sings R-I-G-S-B-Y.

Quote from: idunnosomename on July 18, 2022, 07:04:41 PMimagine as a kid you'd get so excited "OH WOW ITS DARTH VADER STAR WARS YEAAHH!!! THATS BESPIN WHERE HE DUELS IN THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!!" and then you get six fucking minutes of unfunny patter songs about robot mother in laws.

he says "low bot" at one point which I like to think is a reference to the Bald robot bloke Lando has.
I have a vague memory of as a child of 4/5 watching the French and Saunders Phantom Menace parody and thinking it were real Star Wars.
All I remember was that I thought Jimmy Krankie was a real boy.

George White

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on July 19, 2022, 11:07:09 AMSuch a loud cheer when Little and Large come out as New Kids on the Block. Not sure whom the other three people dancing with them are.




Kenny Baker, R2D2 himself and Eli Woods...

McDead

Quote from: George White on July 20, 2022, 08:38:13 PMCorbett in brownface looks uncannily like the actor Sethan Rosh Roshan Seth (Gandhi, Temple of Doom, My Beautiful Laundrette, etc).
 

I know exactly who you mean, terrific actor. And now, also, I wish Corbett had done more dramatic roles (albeit not in brownface). His turn as Timothy Lumsden showed he had a real flair for it.

Also, I loved his monologues. The material could be so-so, but there was something pleasurable in the intimate "just between you and me" framing. Easily comparable to Dave Allen for "cosy fireside chat" vibes. There's something about that set up - a spotlit figure in a chair against a starkly black backdrop - that's so appealing (and, these days, rare)

George White

Wasn't he in that David Renwick thing Love Soup as a necrophiliac pantomime dame?

Video Game Fan 2000

Doesn't "big bad mama" come from the same skit as Corbett's horrible Boy George impression? I half remember it, it might have even come up in a program about racism and blackface?

Quote from: Des Wigwam on July 20, 2022, 06:45:03 PMWhen I think of the monologues it's like someone tuning a radio. I can remember them being the bit to endure then a brief period of getting bits of them and then they were the really good bit I looked forward to. It's like they suddenly came into focus.

Which is like the tuning of the eyes so that still works.

Hated them as a kid, especially on cassette because it seemed like total filler and a waste of the tape. I love them now. Total disregard for the time and patience of the audience tickles me. Dice Clay for coffin dodgers. So said to the proooo-dooo-ser, Hour...Back....*pushes up glasses* Get it? ANYWAY. I'll call you back in a hour.

Cold Meat Platter

The worst bit by far was always "Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome... Elaine Paige."

why

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on July 20, 2022, 04:47:04 PMDid people really think these were boring?

When I was a kid, yeah. When I was that age, the serials were the best bit and I just wanted this week's episode of The Phantom Raspberry Blower to hurry up and be on.

George White

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on July 20, 2022, 09:05:39 PMDoesn't "big bad mama" come from the same skit as Corbett's horrible Boy George impression? I half remember it, it might have even come up in a program about racism and blackface?
No, it was in the one with Steamy Winder and Status Who?, hosted by Dave Lav Trellis.
Big Momma was also a G. Wiley script.

The Coy George one was in a sketch with Barker as 'Kid Coalhole and the Monkey Nuts' (also a Wiley/Barker script),  doing a fair impression (boot polish aside) of August Darnell singing 'There's Something Wrong - My Parrot's Died'  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGVx7zogIPY

Jake Thingray

Quote from: Ignatius_S on July 20, 2022, 01:25:45 PMThat features in Carry On England with Sally Geeson and Patrick Mower.

Actually it was her sister Judy, but otherwise correct.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: idunnosomename on July 18, 2022, 10:43:56 PMoh interesting. guess they were fed up of penning crap like this?...

I've read that Pearson was venting frustration but don't think it is was due to the quality of the work. In any case, he continued working for The Ronnies and was later responsible for the short-lived ITV sitcom, Constant Hot Water of which, other than my memories, I have this poor quality recording of the theme song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyQK8bTMJcw

I believe that Brewis hadn't yet started working on The Two Ronnies, but think it was later that year... one day, I shall check the credits!

In any case, I rather lean towards David Renwick's view that The Two Ninnies smacked somewhat of double-standards, which the fashionable are excused:

Quote"Personally, I found bits of it quite funny - the silly Beefeater song - but thought the smug jibes at the news-desk, where they couldn't even get their positions the right way round, were fairly hypocritical considering their own track record of smutty innuendo. The trouble was, Not the Nine O'Clock News was 'hip' and on the ascendant, and just as people like Mike Yarwood were now suffering next to Spitting Image, the Ronnies began to look dangerously old-fashioned."

McDead

Phantom Raspberry Blower scared the shit out of me at the time and continues to trouble me to this day. He's just so fucking unhinged looking.

Glebe

#53
Quote from: George White on July 20, 2022, 08:38:13 PMThe Grease sketchthe Rons did is Saturday Night Grease, part of that weird thing where they'd do a Saturday Night Fever parody but conflate it with Grease, so would sing rock and roll rather than disco.

Aha, right!

Quote from: George White on July 20, 2022, 08:38:13 PMI have a vague memory of as a child of 4/5 watching.the French and Saunders Phantom Menace parody and thinking it were real Star Wars.
All I remember was that I thought Jimmy Krankie was a real boy.

Flippin' 'eck I feel old, I was in my early 20s by that stage!

There's also John Inman as Palpatine!

French and Saunders: The Phantom Millennium.

Quote from: Cold Meat Platter on July 20, 2022, 09:09:40 PMThe worst bit by far was always "Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome... Elaine Paige."

why

RONNIE CORBETT DRESSED FOR AN AWARDS CEREMONY: Ladies and gentlemen Elaine couldn't make it this week so here's Elton John or Phil Collins or summit to hawk their new single!

I recall Ron B introducing Lisa Stansfield on The Two Ronnies Sketchbook in a really posh, gentlemanly way, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mizz Lisa Stansfield!"

jamiefairlie

Quote from: McDead on July 20, 2022, 09:50:49 PMPhantom Raspberry Blower scared the shit out of me at the time and continues to trouble me to this day. He's just so fucking unhinged looking.

Ha, me too!

Video Game Fan 2000

Quote from: George White on July 20, 2022, 09:17:29 PMNo, it was in the one with Steamy Winder and Status Who?, hosted by Dave Lav Trellis.
Big Momma was also a G. Wiley script.

The Coy George one was in a sketch with Barker as 'Kid Coalhole and the Monkey Nuts' (also a Wiley/Barker script),  doing a fair impression (boot polish aside) of August Darnell singing 'There's Something Wrong - My Parrot's Died'  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGVx7zogIPY

Wow yes, that brings back unwanted memories.

QuoteBig Momma was also a G. Wiley script.

...

 (also a Wiley/Barker script)

Fucking hell, so hard to square this with his performance of Fletch and his wittiest Ronnies deliveries. At least his Kid Creole parody shows he was into that new pop music enough to mimic it, but not enough to know not to brown up. Stage actors truly contain multitudes.

George White

Especially when you realise he hated wearing makeup and women's  clothing.
He only did it because he knew people'd find it funny.

I love in his scripts, he seems to think that UHura in Star Trek was named Lt. O'Hara.

Video Game Fan 2000

Quote from: George White on July 20, 2022, 11:38:17 PMEspecially when you realise he hated wearing makeup and women's  clothing.
He only did it because he knew people'd find it funny.

Is the Big Bad Momma the same one where he has some sort of contraption to make his boobs shoot out but it just looks like a metal rod in his shirt? No way I'm youtubing it to find out

My half-repressed memories of Two Ronnies repeats are like a crudely animated Bosch painting

Glebe

Shot-on-film movie parody sketch 'The Secret of the Sorcerer's Tomb' (which I can currently only find in the form of this shitty upload) features a
Spoiler alert
giant puppet Rabbi monster
[close]
(yes,really) that cracked me up as a kid but yeah, 'kin 'ell.

It's from the second-last ever Two Rons... there was a Gold rerun a few years ago that cut the entire offending piece out, except that part of it was shown during the closing credits!

Oh yeah, here's David Baddiel, Jenny Eclair and a priest reacting to the moment:


Think I've seen that before, from some doco about racism in comedy presumably.