FORGET RUNNING WILD, their hopeless first foray into television during the 50s. From 1961 when they barrelled onto ATV, Eric ‘n’ Ernie’s small screen shows were incomparable. Masterstroke was acquisition of Scouse gag-master EDDIE BRABEN and producer JOHN AMMONDS for the BBC series after 1968. Out went KENNY BALL’S JAZZMEN and MILLICENT MARTIN and in came a dazzling array of guest stars, the brown paper bag and invisible stone schtick, the shared double bed, big musical numbers, and that Groucho Marx inspired dance. Reflecting a music hall inheritance, each programme would open with the pair appearing from behind mock theatre front-cloths. Some ribbing of Ernie would follow (“get out of that”, “short fat hairy legs”, “you can’t see the join”) and a guest star, usually asking for payment. Then some pastiches, like “Singin’ In The Rain” with Eric getting soaked while Ernie “does” Gene Kelly. SHIRLEY BASSEY wearing hob-nailed boots, or ANGELA RIPPON high-kicking to “Let’s Face The Music And Dance”. A bit more variety nonsense padded out the rest of the show before the final act, usually a play “wot Ernie wrote”, disrupted heavily by Eric’s asides to camera. In later years, with Morecambe’s health fading, Ernie would duet their signature tune, “Bring Me Sunshine”, with DES O’CONNOR or similar whilst Eric wandered around nonplussed in the background. Move back to ITV in 1978, leaving Braben behind, was the cue for a slow decline into creaky retreads, laboured gags and too many white studio backgrounds. When Eric died in ’84, Ern went on to write gardening columns for the News of the World.
Posts Tagged With '1961'
Morecambe and Wise Show, The
Avengers, The
THE FORMAT might have been through the mill countless times, but when it got itself sorted, this was close to the best damn thing on telly. Way back at the beginning the whole thing was taped as live: a bonkers idea that had PATRICK MACNEE, aka John Steed, inching out of shot at the earliest opportunity in order to swap his cumbersome mackintosh for a lightweight morning suit ready for the next scene. Plots involving private zoos and crates of rotting fruit singularly failed to reel in many viewers, but as least the episodes had ace titles like ‘Nightmare’, ‘Square Root Of Evil’ and ‘The Tunnel Of Fear’. The decade rolled on and some supposedly stereotype-bashing judo/leather business came and went, though given it was all still as-live HONOR BLACKMAN (Cathy Gale) shared top billing with Stunt Man In Blonde Wig. ’65 saw a Connery-bound Blackman switched for the magnificent DIANA RIGG (Emma Peel) and here everything clicked into place helped by loads more money and pre-recorded escapades. New titles, new gimmicks, acres of new wardrobes and endless flipping between spy thriller, science fiction and telefantasy all helped, despite proceedings almost always ending up unravelling into a long car chase around the Shire counties. By now loads of people were watching, and even more were talking about it, so when a Lazenby-bound Rigg pissed off the self-appointed power that was, Brian “BUGS” Clemens, pressed on regardless. Sadly what followed was pretty dire: MacNee suddenly looked wrinkled, new sidekick LINDA “20 YEARS OLD” THORSON seemed to have only read her script first thing that morning, and PATRICK NEWELL was conscripted in to play dopey boss Mother, seemingly purely to trot out “Mother knows best” gags. JOHN CLEESE even showed up to dust down his besuited lunatic turn. It all ended with MacNee and Thorson being blasted into space for no reason – “They’ll be back!”.
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One Step Beyond
ESP-BASED SELF-CONTAINED yarns with people travelling back to Krakatoa or the holocaust and forward into the future by means of juddery-camera visions.
Read MoreA for Andromeda
EPONYMOUS FEMO-BOT spawned by malevolent machine made of giant spinning tape loops and teleprinters proceeds to run (slowly) amok in a Top Secret Government Laboratory on a Remote Scottish Island. Crinkle-faced shiny-haired boffins are powerless to do anything but clasp their hands to their bespectacled moon faces. Turns out Mrs Replica (JULIE CHRISTIE) has – gasp! – a human side, thanks to the fact a) she is a woman and b) she has her clanky head turned by the dapper Professor John Fleming (PETER HALLIDAY). Titular constellation is also to blame, by dint of sending signals to earth which spell out the instruction manual for making an evil bastard computer. Sequel, THE ANDROMEDA BREAKTHROUGH, found Fleming, his cyber missus (now regenerated into SUSAN HAMPSHIRE) and “scheming sidekick” Madeline (MARY MORRIS) taken prisoner in a Middle East state for propaganda purposes (topical) and made to destroy the ozone layer (ditto). Faulty machinery once again to blame.
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Creamguide's Pick of the Day
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The People’s Songs
Wednesday, 22.00, BBC Radio 2This series certainly isn’t just aiming for the standard Radio 2 demographic as it’s been true to its word of covering the entire sphere of post-war British pop, and we mark the halfway point with another more recent tune in Cigarettes And Alcohol. The reason it’s here is because it became the unofficial anthem of the new lad, a movement that seemed quite exciting at the time. Remarkably Loaded is still going, even though we haven’t got a clue who reads it, but it’s probably still more relevant than the world’s worst magazine, the truly appalling GQ.
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