A MACHINE that told jokes. Old jokes. For kids. As if real people didn’t have enough trouble doing this and doing it fucking well. Said machine was called Fearless Fred for a bit, then (with no explanation as to the change) Charles. “In charge” of him were, respectively, THE KRANKIES, ANDREW O’CONNOR and JIMMY CRICKET. PAT COOMBS and JIM BOWEN cranked the handle from time to time. And told a few jokes to boot.
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The People’s Songs
Wednesday, 22.00, BBC Radio 2I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor tonight, which allows us to mention that when it got to number one, Calendar showed a clip from its Whistle Test-inspired video and captioned it “amateur video”. In fact that video was the first we’d heard of them or it, when it was shown on Popworld in fact, and we never thought the record version was quite as good because it was a bit overproduced. Anyway, it’s included here because it started bands being broken via the internet and that rather than the major labels and Top of the Pops.
Now all I can think about is Jimmy Cricket wearing a Pringle jumper and singing “Don’t Be Mean Turn on the Joke Machine”.