Copy Cats - Saturday evening entertainment on ITV

[Twonty Gostelow]

There's nothing else on as funny as this tonight, so why not sit back and enjoy some old-fashioned (trigger warning) comedy with Bobby Davro and the gang!!!

Highlights include a pre-Yewtree joke about Freddie Starr having sex with a schoolgirl, an impression of Larry Grayson that's worse than mine, and Andrew O'Connor doing Basil Fawlty (also worse than mine), Neils Kinnock and Pye, Kevin Turvey and Rowan Atkinson... and Bobby Davro as someone who used to post on CaB, 44 seconds into the first show:

Inevitably the top youtube comment: "LOL brilliant - remember this so well! Before they said we weren't allowed to laugh anymore..."

[kngen]

'The 80s!? Fucking Bobby fucking Davro pretending to be Freddie fucking Starr pretending to be fucking Hitler!' was his pained, incandescent response to the wave of 80s nostalgia that gripped those in our extended social set not old enough to know better about 20 years ago.

And he was right. I might send him those clips to see if I can induce an anuerysm.

The meow sound in the title was enough to fill me with Thatcher-era ennui.

[ImmaculateClump]

Oh god, I think there might have been enough terrible impressionists on "britain's got talent" over the years for ITV to bring this shit back.
I imagine Gary Wilmot and Bobby Davro are terminally available, if they need to round out the numbers.

[Twonty Gostelow]

This one's easily the funniest sketch, although I'm not sure about Davro's Geordie accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3rT47NaoxA&t=660s

[DrGreggles]

Oh god, I think there might have been enough terrible impressionists on "britain's got talent" over the years for ITV to bring this shit back.
I imagine Gary Wilmot and Bobby Davro are terminally available, if they need to round out the numbers.

Wilmot is very much in demand in the west end, and has been for about 30 years.

[ImmaculateClump]

Yeah, well, Les Dennis then.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Yeah, well, Les Dennis then.

Les Dennis is a very successful and critically acclaimed stage actor, he left this sort of shit behind years ago.

[phantom_power]

First two minutes and two blacking ups and Molly Slocombe from Filthy Rich and Catflap. I'm sold!

[Dr Rock]

Really sticking it to Thatcher there.

[phantom_power]

Even more blacking up throughout that third episode, with Davro even doing a comedy black man voice as well

Why do all the men in it apart from O'Connor have the same face?

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

I used to watch " Copy Cats" regularly, partly because of Andrew O'Connor and his niche impressions ( Kevin Turvey, Black Adder) and partly because I had a thing for Cheryl Taylor ( crap impressionist, but fit as; check out the Debbie Harry impression in that second episode).Also, Allan Stuart's impression of a pissed up Sue Ellen is genuinely amusing.
I distinctly remember seeing that second episode on original broadcast, Inclusive of Hilary O' Neil's uncanny impression of Samantha Fox ( ie a Cockney woman), and the announcer at the end advising us viewers not to be daft cunts and set fire to gloves while wearing them, like what Andrew O' Connor had done at the end of the show.

[ImmaculateClump]

Les Dennis is a very successful and critically acclaimed stage actor

Steve Coogan

Look, alright then, it's me up there, is that what you want? Big old smelly me, shaking like a leaf, shitting myself, stammering my way through an ill-prepared "Golem at the launderette" skit I've scraped together in the train on the way there.
Gary and Les in the wings slapping each other on the back, shaking their heads and smoking big cigars.

The pace was quite modern. I remember telly back then being very slow and boring, but they did a decent job hacking the different bits into pieces and jumbling them up and keeping the show ticking along.
I don't know why but I found the line up of David Bellamy's joyous.
The song at the end of the second one, hard to tell if it was the same forgettable song as in the first one, or just another, equally forgettable song.

[Fambo Number Mive]

It does seem astonishing that people were still blacking up in 1986. You'd think they would have booked black impressionists to do impressions of black celebrities.

It's fascinating to watch, have only laughed once 20 minutes in, it makes me feel a lot older than I actually am that this shit, which feels like it was from the 1970s , was on TV the year I was born. I don't recognise a lot of the celebrities they are trying to impersonate , in particular the soap stars.

[kalowski]

Christ, that song during the credits, punctuated by poor impressions and them laughing at their own jokes, was the utter pits.
Davro doing Barry Norman just sounded like Davro.

[Virgo76]

Without Andrew O'Connor, there would probably have never been a Peep Show.

[Dr Rock]

It does seem astonishing that people were still blacking up in 1986. You'd think they would have booked black impressionists to do impressions of black celebrities.

It's fascinating to watch, have only laughed once 20 minutes in, it makes me feel a lot older than I actually am that this shit, which feels like it was from the 1970s , was on TV the year I was born.

In retrospect one of the reasons alternative culture was so strong around this time is because this is what it was the alternative to.

[Jake Thingray]

Today Davro is the guest on practically every programme on Jim Davidson's "exciting" streaming service Ustreme. Have said this before, but just as Davidson ended up being Charlie Drake's only showbiz friend and the only one to visit him in old age, in turn either Davro, or Jon Gaunt tribute act Alex Belfield, will end up performing the same function for "Jimbo".

[kalowski]

Andrew O'Connor is 59. He's 9 years older than me meaning he was around 24 when this was made.

[Alternative Carpark]

Oh, Cheryl Taylor doing Molly Sugden / Mrs Slocombe - she turned up in an episode of Filthy Rich and Catflap the following year, doing the same impression for the 'Oo-er Sounds A Bit Rude' Blankety Blank parody.

Ironic, given that there's a line in FR and C where Eddie says that no-one can tell who any of the impressions in Copy Cats are, "Unless they say something like 'Hello, my name's Benny from Crossroads', in an Irish accent..."