Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Faces Of Jim

Faces Of Jim with Jimmy Edwards, June Whitfield, Ronnie Barker, Richard Briers and some interesting guests. Each episode stood alone from the others and there were a total of 20 produced but most have been lost. The Face Of Fatherhood was the origin of The Glums (with Ronnie Barker as Ron Glum). Unfortunately, whoever made the transfers used a variable bit rate on the audio and the A/V sync goes way out of whack here and there and can't be fixed like it could if they had used constant bit rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faces_of_Jim

The Dustbinmen


The Dustbinmen was the creation of Jack Rosenthal and spawned from the 1968 low budget film There's A Hole In Your Dustbin, Delilah. A lot of later familiar faces in this one. Brian Wilde (Last of the Summer Wine, Porridge, Wyatt's Watchdogs), Trevor Bannister (Are You Being Served?, Wyatt's Watchdogs, Last of the Summer Wine), Paula Wilcox (The Lovers, The Liver Birds, Man About The House, The Smoking Room), Tim Wylton (A Bit Of A Do, As Time Goes By, My Hero and many guest appearances on some of most popular programs made including many dramas), and Bryan Pringle.

Doctor In The House

Doctor In The House was the first of the 7 "Doctor" sitcoms, producing 26 episodes between the Summer of '69 and Summer of '70. This first program was about "the doctors" in medical school and centered on Barry Evans as Michael Upton, as did the 2nd program Doctor At Large. All the "Doctor" programs had good writers, multiple characters and a fast pace that kept them from getting stale (through Doctor At Sea at least).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_in_the_House_%28TV_series%29

Dad's Army

Dad's Army is usually included on any All-Time Top 10 Britcom list. It concerns the organizing of a WWII Home Guard unit in fictitious Walmington-On-Sea (probably in East Sussex) directly across the channel from France. The program was inspired by co-writer Jimmy Perry's personal teenage experiences in such a unit. Everybody knows about Dad's Army so there's no need to say more. Even though it was a comedy and we laughed at the characters and stories, I think the production did an excellent job reminding viewers that these people weren't running away, they weren't evacuating, they weren't just standing back and doing nothing. They were standing their ground, carrying on daily life, and preparing to do the best they can if an invasion comes knowing they would likely all be killed. The last scene of the Dad's Army movie showed Germans on the French coast looking through a telescope at the Walmington Home Guard standing on Beechy Head (or someplace). It was a comic scene, but think about it.......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad%27s_Army
http://www.dadsarmy.co.uk/

Monday, May 10, 2010

Curry & Chips

Curry & Chips was a controversial sitcom featuring 2 big names in comedy, Dick Emery and Spike Milligan, with Norman Rossington, singer Kenny Lynch, Sam Kydd, and a young Geoffrey Hughes (Onslow on Keeping Up Appearances). The powers that be deemed it racist and that was the end of it. That's kind of tough to swallow since a major factor of British comedy seems to be they don't like people from Scotland, Wales, the West Country, northern England, Spain, France, Germany, Catholics, the lower class (yes, they still have a class system) and most of all the Irish and Americans. But goodness gracious me! don't be British and portray an Indian. Very selective with their racism claims. It was alright for Michael Bates to be Rangi Ram in It Ain't Half Hot Mum because he was born in India and spoke Hindi. That's what they said anyways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry_and_Chips#References

Chalk And Cheese was a late 70's sitcom starring Michael Crawford and followed his role in one of the most popular sitcoms of that era, Some Mothers Do 'ave 'em. http://www.phill.co.uk/comedy/cheese/index.html

Comedy Playhouse

Comedy Playhouse was a long running program of one-off comedies and pilot episodes. The list of sitcoms that got their start on Comedy Playhouse is impressive. Steptoe And Son, Meet The Wife, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas And Gaiters, Beggar My Neighbour, Not In Front Of The Children, The Liver Birds, Up Pompeii!, Last Of The Summer Wine, It's Awfully Bad For Your Eyes Darling, Are You Being Served?, Happy Ever After (the forerunner of Terry And June). Nearly all of them are now lost, but here is a collection of some of the survivors most of which feature very familiar faces.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861749/

Cold Comfort Farm

2 television adaptations of the 1932 Stella Gibbons novel. The 1968 3-parter was also one of the first selections featured on the fledgling PBS' Masterpiece Theatre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Comfort_Farm