TV Cream

TV: K is for...

Kenny Everett Video/Television Show, The

"It's the wonderful...me!" Why don't we get jokes like this anymore? Eh?

SHOUTY SCOUSE sound effects nerd herein masquerading as A1 kids comedy champion. VIDEO was done on a shoestring but made a virtue of it, using camera crew for audience, globular titsci-fi Captain Kremmen cartoon (by Cosgrove-Hall) plus bank of TVs, gags based on Quantel effects console and the baiting of the “mates” Rod Stewart and Freddie Mercury who appeared for bugger all. Arseing around with Thames continuity was icing on the cake. SHOW was for the Beeb and cemented legendary roster of characters: Gizzard Puke (“but don’t we all?”), Cupid Stunt (Michael Parkinson’s corpse, “best possible taste” legs routine), Marcel Wave (“my little rubik cubes”, rubber jaw), Sid Snot (“Snot Rap”, fag-catching), Reg Prescott (“Our old friend the cross-cut saw”), that clown who “drew things”, outraged bloke in bowler hat, exploding head bloke, “Round ’em up, put ’em in a field and bomb the bastards!” shoulder pads general, Brother Lee Love (giant hands, etc.) and copious use of white limbo backgrounds and blue screen. Futurist “I Like Electro People” theme. Oh, and the Bee Gees. BARRY CRYER co-wrote the lot.

29 Comments

29 Comments

  1. Matt Patton

    December 18, 2009 at 6:57 am

    “I only cheated on him twice. Once with the director and once with the camera crew . . .”

    “Did Whistler’s Mother sit? Of course she did! What did she know? She was a FAG!!!”

    priceless stuff. More laughs in an average episode of this than the entire 30 years of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

    And here’s to Miss Oily. All three of her . . .

  2. David Pascoe

    December 18, 2009 at 10:16 am

    “Sweaty tea towels. Dirty old stained drinks. Hollywoodsville!”

  3. Chris Jones

    December 22, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    Bloke who drew things was called ‘Morris Mimer’ I believe.

  4. Cameron Yarde

    December 24, 2009 at 6:31 pm

    It was written by Kenny Everett, Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron. The Kenny Everett Video Show was meant to be a show playing music videos with a few linking bits from Kenny. But the bits inbetween were so popular that they did more of those and less music as the series went on.

  5. Glenn A

    December 26, 2009 at 11:41 am

    In other words it was supposed to be like his earlier television ventures which weren’t very successful, but the comedy soon took over from the music. The Video Show was the funniest thing Everett did, but his last Thames show was ruined by being shown against TOTP and he left.

  6. Suzie W

    December 27, 2009 at 11:06 am

    I was lucky enough to meet him at the old Capital Radio studios. Still have a signed copy of the Captain Kremmen cartoon book. Carla was always the favourite with the guys I knew. Weren’t Hot Gossip on there as well?

  7. Glenn A

    December 27, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    I spotted Kenny rushing into the Capital studios in 1987, but as he was in a hurry I didn’t bother him. Hot Gossip were the resident dancers from 1978 to 1981, but they didn’t feature much on the BBC shows, same as Captain Kremmen was only seen on the Thames shows (something to do with copyright).

  8. James

    January 3, 2010 at 12:15 am

    I would like to know who composed the music when Kenny Everett was dressed up as Morris Mimer and started to draw his funny sketches.
    Sounds a bit like Vangelis type of music…..please can anyone help on this? Thanks.

  9. TV Cream

    January 3, 2010 at 1:03 am

    The Morris Mimer Soundtrack is Wachet Auf from Wendy/Walter Carlos’s Switched On Bach LP (or at least a version of same), as showcased in Stanley Thingy’s Clockwork Summat. Good to see a neglected film get a little boost of credibility via the old soundtrack route there!

  10. Simon Mclean

    January 3, 2010 at 3:35 pm

    The Everett version of the Bach piece is by Sam Spence, from the soundtrack LP of some German Francis Durbridge TV movie I think.

  11. johnc

    January 24, 2010 at 7:20 pm

    Does anybody know who did the song that was featured on the KE video show called “video love”?
    I’m certain it wasn’t used on the KE Video cassette. i did have it as a single at one point, but has been lost to the mists of time… .

    Any info greatly appreciated,

  12. televisualcabbage

    January 24, 2010 at 8:09 pm

    Kenny, a genius in more senses in the word….

    How a DJ should work on television by deconstructing the medium and trying to put it together with tinsel and glitter!

  13. Joe Dredd

    January 25, 2010 at 12:07 pm

    It’s new, yum yum
    It’s neat, yum yum
    It’s ever such a treat
    Electro-meat!

    I always wanted to learn that great big word at the start – “Before you can say…” What was that word?

  14. jonc

    January 28, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    In reply to Joe Dredd, that word he’s looking for is –

    Taumatawhakatangihangakoayauo-
    tamateaturipukakapikimaungahoro-
    nukypokaiwhenuakitanatahu

  15. Arthur Nibble

    January 29, 2010 at 2:00 pm

    This was the opening line of “The Lone Ranger”, a top 5 hit for Quantum Jump in 1979. The single was banned at some stage due to the lyrics suggesting a ‘love thing’ between The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

    “Taumata…” is the Maori name for a particular village in New Zealand, making it the Kiwi equivalent of “Llanfairpwll….”.

  16. gman

    April 17, 2010 at 11:13 pm

    My favourite Everett character was Jim Strange, who appeared from a giant top-hat wearing an old-fashioned bathing suit and saying rude words like “belly-button”, “armpits” and “nasal hair”, before being blown up. Priceless stuff

  17. Lee James Turnock

    May 1, 2010 at 12:10 pm

    I recently watched the first two series of Television Show again, it more than stands the test of time and very frequently had me in absolute stitches.

  18. Chris

    May 23, 2010 at 5:37 am

    As asked before who does the Video Love song as used on closing credits of the Video Show?

  19. James

    September 9, 2010 at 9:49 pm

    Good info here. I’ve looked everywhere, but does anyone know the name of the musical piece that plays in the background during “Marcel Wave” sketches? Thanks,
    James

  20. THX 1139

    October 4, 2012 at 12:31 am

    Watching the BBC Four compilations of The Television Show, you could tell the later stuff wasn’t quite as funny (Verity Treacle, etc), but earlier in its run it was almost consistently hilarious. That 3D TV sketch is really obvious, but doesn’t stop it being sidesplitting. Pity they didn’t show the General.

    If only ITV4 (or someone) would repeat the Thames shows, especially now I can get the innuendo-laden jokes.

  21. Garrick

    October 28, 2012 at 3:20 am

    The music to the “Morris Mimer” sketches was NOT from “Switched-On Bach”. In fact, in the mid-1980s I hunted down and bought “Switched-On Bach” believing this to be the case, and was very disappointed when I found it was not. The Morris Mimer music is “Fredericus Rex Favorite” from Sam Spence’s 1976 album “Fantastic Sounds”. It is indeed however based on a JS Bach piece, “Wachet Auf”, from Cantata 140 fact fans. (A version of this piece does appear on “Switched-On Bach” but it is not jazzed up like the Sam Spence version).

  22. Louis Balfour

    February 17, 2014 at 3:54 pm

    Quite simply my funniest memories of growing up. The Thames shows far outshone their BBC equivalent partly because of the camera crew laughter as opposed to a studio audience, but mostly because Kenny was almost in complete control at Thames whereas he wasn’t at the Beeb and was therefore less risqué. I was in Tenerife recently and had the misfortune to go and see a knife-throwing act, throughout which I sat and giggled uncontrollably at the memory of “The Amazing Slasho & Betty” (Kenny and Suzi Quatro.) Great comedy, I still miss him.

    • Glenn A

      December 26, 2017 at 10:27 am

      I agree with Louis, the Thames show was more risque for its time slot and Kenny would have probably stayed with Thames was it not for the daft decision to screen his fourth series opposite TOTP, which killed it. The first two BBC series were very good, as Kenny introduced a new set of characters and gave more prominence to Cleo Rocos, but later on, the humour didn’t seem as sharp.

  23. Glenn A

    December 14, 2015 at 8:52 pm

    ITV did a tribute to Kenny last night and Slasho and Betty featured, where Betty is severely wounded by the knives and the camera crew are all dead. You can see why the show was so popular at school, it was like a more knowing version of Tiswas.

  24. Richardpd

    August 13, 2021 at 10:58 am

    The Thames shows were produced by David Mallett, who has directed many pop videos over the years.

    When Kenny moved to the BBC, Thames wouldn’t let him take his characters with him, which was why Gizzard Puke was created to replaced Sid Snot for a while while things were sorted out.

    Reg Prescot seemed to lose his fingers on a regular basis, & was probably one of the better later characters.

    Later on, most of Kenny’s puerile humour that my Dad didn’t like was toned down, also music seemed to play less of a part in the show.

    Another later character was a legionnaire remembering his endeavours as a young man, quite funny but felt like a Russ Abbott sketch which was delivered to the wrong office at TV Centre.

  25. Tom Ronson

    March 6, 2023 at 3:02 am

    Just watched a terrible thing from 1981 on YouTube – The Kenny Everett Naughty Joke Box, which was a rental VHS tape aimed at the stag night crowd. Filmed at a nightclub in Soho with some celebrities in the audience and guests like Willie Rushton, Lennie Bennett, Fogwell Flax, Pat Mooney, Barry Cryer, Leslie Crowther, and John Junkin, it captures that awkward era in the early eighties when alternative comedy was just taking off, but the old-fashioned ‘Eeh, my mother in law, ladies and gentlemen’ club comics doing endless jokes about homosexuals, racial minorities, and mothers-in-law were still hanging on, and the naughty c-word is censored in Everett’s opening routine. If I had to compare it with anything, I’d compare it with Spike Milligan’s last series for the BBC, There’s a Lot of It About, which had Spike spinning excellent absurdist and satirical material one minute, but in the very next sketch you’d get John Bluthal in blackface, comedy Scotsmen, tits for the sake of it, jokes about ‘the Jewish piano’ – the kind of thing that signified ‘adult humour’ at the time but which now seems incredibly childish and crass.

  26. Glenn Aylett

    November 9, 2023 at 3:24 pm

    I watched some of the Kenny Everett Video Show on Youtube last night and it was amazing such a risque show was allowed to be shown on ITV at 7pm as the material was quite adult and an uncensored version of Walk On The Wild Side formed part of a Hot Gossip dance routine. While some of the material was toned down when Kenny moved to the BBC in 1981, I do recall a controversial sketch where Cleo Rocos whipped Kenny, and there were still plenty of adult jokes. All done in the best possible taste, though, and Kenny was my favourite comendian in the early eighties.

  27. Richardpd

    November 9, 2023 at 10:50 pm

    Kenny’s style of humour seemed to wobble between the cheerfully naive to dirty, often within the same sketch.

    Harry Enfield spoofed his style with Dave Nice doing lots of tacky boob jokes against a plain white background!

  28. Glenn Aylett

    November 10, 2023 at 9:45 am

    The only thing I didn’t like was Reg Prescott, as the sketches with his hands being ripped off by power saws became repetitive. Otherwise Kenny would get a ten from me for his Thames shows, which were pure genius, and 8.5 for his BBC shows, which were still good fun to watch, just lacking the spontaneity of the Thames years and missing Captain Kremmen.

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