The cover seems only to be justified by two sentences in the whole magazine. Here’s the first:

NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker is “very high” on a pilot starring Chevy Chase he describes as an updated My Three Sons, “only it’s my three daughters.”

And here’s the second:

Good Morning, Miami managed to last 39 episodes over two season. And there’s yet another attempt to make a sitcom from Animal House, nearly 25 years later (more here).

The Chevy Chase project doesn’t appear to have been picked up, but the pilot was shot. I know this, because one of the actors who appeared in it has posted this clip online.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AL21vDLsU

The only other mention of the show in B&C comes a month later.

A comedy with Chevy Chase also has a good shot at making the new lineup.

But that’s it.

Variety were reporting on the show in December of 2001, in their usual weird house-style.

Chevy Chase is going back to his comedy roots, teaming with former “Saturday Night Live” boss Lorne Michaels to develop a half-hour laffer for NBC.

Chase will star as a modern-day Fred MacMurray, playing father to three teenage daughters in a twist on the classic 1960s laffer “My Three Sons.” Rick Dresser and Tom Leopold (“Madigan Men”) will co-create and exec produce the NBC Studios/Broadway Video project.

Chase and Michaels are also expected to serve as exec producers on the potential skein, targeted for fall 2002. Deal for the project is still being hammered out, but NBC is expected to make a premium script commitment to the concept.

Best known for his “SNL” work and feature pics such as “Fletch,” “Caddyshack” and the “Vacation” series, Chase also hosted a short-lived Fox latenight talker. Last year, he developed a half-hour comedy through Artists Television Group.

So clearly Chase was trying to get a sitcom off the ground somewhere during this time.

Not for the first time either.

There’s an intriguing entry on his television credits list on Wikipedia which just says ‘Untitled Dan Aykroyd Project‘, listed as a pilot, with his character being called Adin A. Oss. Anyone know what this is?

The only Aykroyd TV project I can find is this:

At a press conference two weeks ago, Kim LeMasters, president, CBS Entertainment, acknowledged that his network’s comedy development in a number of instances was unsuccessful. For example, Eddie Murphy Television Enterprises’ pilot, Coming to America, which the network had high hopes for, failed to make the final cut. The network had commissioned a comedy pilot from actor -producer Dan Aykroyd, Mars: Base One, which also didn’t pan out.

(Broadcasting Magazine, 29th May 1989)

Lee Goldberg describes the pilot in his excellent book Unsold TV Pilots: The Greatest Shows You Never Saw:

The misadventures, a la The Jetsons, of a family adjusting to life on Mars, where they live next door to a Soviet technician and his American stripper wife. The 1988 Writers Guild strike forced production of the pilot – and any serious consideration of it for the network schedule – to be put on the back burner.

Just look at how many sitcom projects used to get developed:

… for 1987

If you know your Red Dwarf lore, you’ll be aware that the first series was delayed due to an electrician’s strike, and that the first episode was remounted several months later … but it’s interesting to see an announcement for the show a full fourteen months before it arrived on screen.

There’s not much I can find to show you for Crisis!, but the MPs in question were Gerald Kaufman, Francis Pym, and Roy Jenkins. It aired on 4th January 1987 at 7.50pm. Here’s how it was listed in the Radio Times.

A plane has been hijacked.
The facts are imaginary – the problem only too real.
What should the government do? Should it negotiate with the terrorists or should it send in the SAS? Will diplomatic pressure work? Is a secret deal possible? How can the government buy time?
In tonight’s programme, a special crisis committee of distinguished politicians, with diplomatic, military and legal experts, grapples with these hypothetical problems. The response of the terrorists will emerge through dramatised news reports from Pamela Armstrong and Jeremy Paxman at the scene of the hijack. Which of the six different endings prepared by the production team occurs depends on how the committee reacts. Taking the decisions: The Rt Hon Francis Pym , mp The Rt Hon Roy Jenkins , MP and The Rt Hon, Gerald Kaufman , mp
They receive expert advice from Sir Anthony Parsons Lord Rawlinson, QC and Lt Gen Sir David Young
Chairing the committee is Professor Paul Wilkinson , a world expert on terrorism. Narrated by David Jessel Researcher SANDRA JONES
Executive producer GEORGE CAREY Producer LAURENCE REES

New Monkees was a syndicated show, developed from the original by Matthew Fassberg and Victor Fresco. It lasted 13 episodes, and was jointly produced by Coca Cola Telecommunications and Straybert Productions.

Clearly they didn’t sell well enough to warrant making the planned 44 episodes.

This is the appearance on Good Morning America that’s mentioned in the above article.

News of the show reached UK shores.

With a much bigger profile, full-page spread nearly a year later, marking the group’s first album release.

Here’s the opening titles.

And there it probably ended …

… except …

What’s this? The New New Monkees?

Simon Fuller – creator of hit UK TV talent show Pop Idol – has begun talks to remake the 1960s cult comedy series The Monkees.

Fuller, who also first managed the Spice Girls, began discussions with US TV network NBC on Tuesday, according to trade journal Variety …

Fuller’s updated show would feature a new handpicked American all-male group in the roles made famous by the musical, accident-prone foursome. If Fuller’s plan gets the go-ahead, the revisited show would first be screened in the US in the autumn of 2003.

Fuller, who also created the UK pop group S Club 7, bought the rights to The Monkees concept and name.

The Monkees was also the inspiration for S Club 7 – the chart-topping who group who also starred in their own US-based children’s show.

Fuller’s updated Monkees would feature many of the elements that made the original series popular, such as comedy sketches and music.

(Pop Idol creator eyes Monkees remake, BBC News, 24th July 2002)

As far as I can see, it only ever got to the script stage, with this final mention in Entertainment Weekly.

Though it’s only in the script stage, NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker is already singing a happy tune about ”The Monkees,” an updated version of the classic ’60s comedy that will chronicle the search for four young men who can sing, dance, and act goofy for the camera. (The gang may even recut ”I’m a Believer.”) ”Look at what’s going on in TV right now, with unscripted programming and musical talent,” says Zucker. ”’The Monkees’ combines all of that.”

(EW, 13th February 2003)

I like television.

I like television so much that the first thing I modelled and printed on my new 3d printer was this …

I made some more after that too.

There’s a few more, including TVS, ATV, and HTV, but I bought you here to talk about my new book.

It’s called Nineteen 90s Shows, and it’s about nineteen different television shows from the 1990s.

These nineteen:

• Sylvania Waters
• The Day Today
• Noel’s House Party
• ER
• Murder One
• The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air
• Men Behaving Badly
• Cracker
• Prime Suspect
• Absolutely Fabulous
• Bottom
• The X-Files
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
• Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends
• The Big Breakfast
• TFI Friday
• Changing Rooms
• The Larry Sanders Show
• Seinfeld

But it’s about a lot more than those, of course.

Here’s the cover.

You can buy it here if you like.

Coming so soon off of the back of The Late Late Breakfast Show tragedy, Whatever Next? was perhaps a surprising inclusion in the schedules. So it’s worth having a look at how the show was being covered in the press.

It’s striking how little bloviating and bluster there is, to be honest.

And when it came to broadcast time, in October, it was all being presented as just another jaunty and jolly evening gameshow.

This reviewer engaged with the show on its own merits.

While this one makes a vague allusion to it all.

Is the show’s title a reference to the incident? Like, Noel’s got a new show? Whatever next?

I like this, when comedy worlds collide and remind me that sometimes shows that seem from different eras actually shared a schedule. Which is nice.

This one is more interesting from a TV history point of view. I’m amazed they were pitching this to ITV as their first port of call, to be honest, but it’s likely they were trying Channel 4 too.

And wither The Fast Show movie?

I always forget about Jumpers For Goalposts.

First of all, is that Doon Mackichan singing?

Second, this isn’t the first time the song has been used in a campaign for the weirdly sexualised chocolate bar.

Here’s a much earlier one, with a weirdly sexualised Frank Muir.

I suppose it was inevitable that Spin City would make some references to Back To The Future, but this was a great way to do it – using the time change element.

Unfortunately, this is the best quality version of the promo I can find.

A year later, and the series paid further homage to the film, this time with a guest spot for Christopher Lloyd, in the season three episode Back The Future IV: Judgement Day.

Here’s a nice interview with Michael J. Fox about the genesis of the series.

I wonder how far things got with an Alf Garnett return. He appeared on TV screens once more, in September of 1998, but that was over on ITV. Maybe everyone got cold feet, and ITV picked it up. Who knows?

It can’t just be the brilliant performance of Rik Mayall. Alan B’Stard, Rick, Micky Love, Drop Dead Fred are all brilliant characters, brilliantly realised, and I think about them a lot.

But I think about Richie. Every. Single. Day.

I’ve thought about Bottom so much over the years that I decided to write a book about it. I gave it the very grown up title Proctology: A Bottom Examination, and in it I explored the events and cultural changes that led Rik and Ade into comedy, informed their early work, and culminated in a bleak sitcom warning about the dangers of nostalgia, that skewered toxic masculinity before it was even a thing, and I placed it in the context of a post-Thatcher Britain. It’s no wonder I wanted to write something about it here.

But I thought I’d written everything I could about Bottom.

And still, I think about Richie. Every. Single. Day.

In recent months, I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I probably have ADHD. Realising this as an adult in my mid-forties has been quite the head fuck, recognising that behaviours I believed to be neurotypical are no such thing, and realising that my bouts of inactivity aren’t signs of laziness or fatigue, they’re a symptom. Being exhausted by socialising, feeling over stimulated and anxious in the supermarket, being overwhelmed by last minute change, having a favourite piece of Lego to fiddle with – it’s always there, and sometimes, often, the only thing I can do is dissociate and stare at the TV for hours, day after day.

This is all to frame an epiphany.

Richie from Bottom resonates with me because he’s everything in my brain made manifest.

To be clear, this isn’t an exercise in diagnosing a fictional character, I mean, what would be the point? It’s merely using a diagnostic tool to try and understand why I related to, and continue to relate to a completely made up person.

People with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder have difficulty concentrating and focusing, and struggle with hyperactivity and impulsiveness. Not everyone falls into both these categories, and by adulthood, many people have learnt to mask these behaviours (which in itself is exhausting), and develop strategies and coping mechanisms to make their lives ‘easier’. According to NHS online the main signs of inattentiveness are:

• having a short attention span and being easily distracted
• making careless mistakes
• appearing forgetful or losing things
• being unable to stick to tasks that are tedious or time-consuming
• appearing to be unable to listen to or carry out instructions
• constantly changing activity or task
• having difficulty organising tasks

The main signs of hyperactivity and impulsiveness are:

• being unable to sit still, especially in calm or quiet surroundings
• constantly fidgeting
• being unable to concentrate on tasks
• excessive physical movement
• excessive talking
• being unable to wait their turn
• acting without thinking
• interrupting conversations
• little or no sense of danger

If you want to see half an hour of someone exhibiting all of these behaviours, just watch the episode Culture. It’s brilliant, and you won’t regret having watched it, or re-watched it.

How long does it take Richie to settle down and play chess? How many side-quests does he go on before they start playing? How often is he back up on his feet, pacing and talking excessively?

‘Richie, I’ve been here since ten o-clock last night, it’s five o’clock in the morning … I’ve explained the rules of chess to you one hundred and twenty four times, and I’m buggered if I’m going to let you delay the game another ten minutes while you scan through a few back copies of Amateur Photographer. OK?’

For larks (it’s good for morale), let’s ask Richie some of the questions on the Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale – a questionnaire used to evaluate the executive function of adults in daily life. Presented with a statement, the subject is then asked to self-report how often this happens, on a scale of Never, Sometimes, Often, or Very Often.

‘Find it difficult to tolerate waiting; impatient.’

In series three’s Break, Richie absolutely cannot wait to go on holiday. This bottle episode is a lovely little study on the bleakness of hope, letting us revel in the claustrophobia of excitedly waiting for something. Some people with ADHD describe waiting mode, which means if they have something coming up, an appointment, it becomes very difficult to do anything other than just wait for the time. I do this, and I get incredibly restless, urging myself to do something, anything, but utterly incapable of acting.

‘Overreact emotionally.’

In Accident, when Eddie claims Richie has forged his own birthday cards, Richie massively overreacts to this slight. Likewise, in the pilot episode Content, he evicts Eddie after an argument. He overreacts to women showing interest in him, he overreacts to being accused of using an art book for onanism, he overreacts to everything. Richie would tick Very Often to all twelve questions in the emotional regulation section.

‘I cannot resist doing things that produce immediate rewards even if they are not good for me in the long run.’

We’ll have no jokes about masturbation thank you. But the way he sabotages his own party because he needs the instant gratification of acceptance, also in Accident, is an excellent example of this.

‘More likely to drive a motor vehicle much faster than others (excessive speeding)’

I don’t do this, and Richie doesn’t drive. Except once, in Finger, when he impulsively steals a car and drives it recklessly through the countryside.

‘Trouble following the rules in a situation.’

Having had the rules of chess explained to him exactly one hundred and twenty four times, Richie then just makes up his own game of chess, culminating in one of the best comedy fights committed to video tape.

‘Find it hard to focus on what is important from what is not important when I do things.’

In ‘S Up, Richie can only focus on his white coat, and the insistence that Eddie wear a brown one – culminating in forcing Eddie to wear his jacket backwards.

‘Easily distracted by irrelevant events or thoughts when I must concentrate on something.’

Having been put in charge of the shop downstairs, also in ‘S Up, Richie wanders around lost in a fantasy of his newfound power, beheading little Johnny from the flats and reporting him to the Feds.

There are countless examples of everything on the scale, liberally strewn about every single episode.

Perhaps the most striking thing to me about Richie is the way he stims.

‘Self-stimulatory behaviour, usually known as stimming, refers to atypical movements, sounds or behaviours that are repeated as a way to cope with overstimulation, or provide needed stimulation. Neurodivergent individuals can often use stimming as a protective response to environmental or circumstantial factors that may cause them to feel nervous, anxious or impulsive. Stims can also soothe the body and allow for increased engagement with the environment and people around you.’ (Neurospark)

Think of Richie’s over-excited laugh, for example.

But he has others.

He paces around a lot, he steeples his fingers and moves them in a wave, he repeats words (‘baaaam-boo’), he repeatedly flips through books, he plays with his hair, he strokes objects as he passes them, he stares into space, he rubs his hands on his clothing, he picks up objects and comments on them, he picks at his own fingers, and he bites his nails, to name just a few. None of these things are played for laughs, none of them develop the plot, they are just part of who Richie is, moments Rik found on set in front of the camera, and each and every one of them jumps out at me every time I watch. I recognise my own stims in them. Talking to myself as I boil the kettle. Repeating a word to feel it in my mouth. Using accents. I see so much of my own self in Richie, it’s no wonder he has been such a profound part of my psyche for the past thirty plus years.

Richie lives deep inside me (oo er), and every day he’s fighting to erupt (oo er), and I have to use all my energy to beat him off (oo er), because walking around like him in front of everyone would be … let’s say, frowned upon. Richie can’t function in the ‘real’ world, and so it’s incredibly comforting to see a depiction of him on the television (a box that has meant so much to me over the years). Richie makes me feel seen.

In fact, let’s be honest, Bottom is the sitcom embodiment of the inside of my own head. It’s very loud, and it’s very messy. Their flat could well be a visual representation of my own brain.

And what about Eddie?

That was my final epiphany. Eddie’s inside my head too. Eddie is my inner critic. He’s there to heckle Richie, to roll his eyes, to sit in silence judging while Richie thunders around a room. He’s the one exhausted by Richie, who needs to sit in a quiet room all day watching television, the one who can’t motivate himself to do anything, no matter how much he wants to. Slime in this ear, slime in that ear, JUST STOP TALKING. Eddie hates Richie, but he can’t live without him. Eddie loves Richie, but he drives him to the brink. Eddie needs Richie, and Richie needs Eddie. 

Together, they live in my head. 

Thankfully for them, it’s rent free.

A Utah screenwriter has filed a $105 million suit against Sylvester Stallone and officials of MGM/UA studios, claiming they stole his idea for the smash-hit movie ‘Rocky IV.’

Tim Anderson said in a suit filed Monday in Superior Court that he wrote a screenplay and plot outline in June 1982 that was very similar to the hit movie.

In his screenplay, boxer Rocky Balboa ‘beats his huge, young Aryan East bloc opponent in a climactic boxing match behind the Iron Curtain despite enormous odds and is eventually cheered on by the communist crowd.’

Anderson seeks $100 million in punitive damages and $5 million actual damages, claiming Stallone and the MGM/UA executives breached the oral contract they made to compensate him for use of his plot concept and screenplay.

Stallone sued over ‘Rocky IV’ idea, Catherine Gerwertz, UPI, 4th November 1986

According to Anderson, after watching Rocky III, he wrote a 31-page treatment for a movie called Rocky IV, which he handed to MGM executives at a meeting in October of 1982.

There was one slight wrinkle.

The Court identified it like this:

[T]he Court notes that an alleged infringer also rarely has direct irrefutable evidence – such as Stallone’s press conferences describing his ideas of an East/West boxing confrontation before receiving Anderson’s script – that he had independently developed the idea which he allegedly copied from the defendant.)

So taken by this was the Judge, that the whole decision opened with it:

The movies Rocky I, II, and III were extremely successful motion pictures. Sylvester Stallone wrote each script and played the role of Rocky Balboa, the dominant character in each of the movies. In May of 1982, while on a promotional tour for the movie Rocky III, Stallone informed members of the press of his ideas for Rocky IV. Although Stallone’s description of his ideas would vary slightly in each of the press conferences, he would generally describe his ideas as follows:

     I'd do it [Rocky IV] if Rocky himself could step out a bit. Maybe tackle world problems. So what would happen, say, if Russia allowed her boxers to enter the professional ranks? Say Rocky is the United States' representative and the White House wants him to fight with the Russians before the Olympics. It's in Russia with everything against him. It's a giant stadium in Moscow and everything is Russian Red. It's a fight of astounding proportions with 50 monitors sent to 50 countries. It's the World Cup - a war between 2 countries.

I get the impression that the Judge, William D. Keller, was mostly unimpressed by the plaintiff’s whole argument:

This Court also finds that the Rocky characters were so highly developed and central to the three movies made before Anderson’s treatment that they “constituted the story being told”. All three Rocky movies focused on the development and relationships of the various characters. The movies did not revolve around intricate plots or story lines. Instead, the focus of these movies was the development of the Rocky characters. The same evidence which supports the finding of delineation above is so extensive that it also warrants a finding that the Rocky characters – Rocky, Adrian, Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Paulie- “constituted the story being told” in the first three Rocky movies.

     3. Anderson's Work is An Unauthorized Derivative Work

     ... This Court must now examine whether Anderson's treatment is an unauthorized derivative work under this standard.

     Usually a court would be required to undertake the extensive comparisons under the Krofft substantial similarity test to determine whether Anderson's work is a derivative work. See I M. Nimmer, § 3.01 at 3-3; pgs. 25-28 supra. However, in this case, Anderson has bodily appropriated the Rocky characters in his treatment. This Court need not determine whether the characters in Anderson's treatment are substantially similar to Stallone's characters, as it is uncontroverted that the characters were lifted lock, stock, and barrel from the prior Rocky movies.

But the Judge did apply the Krofft test nonetheless, and having outlined the plot and story of Stallone’s Rocky IV screenplay (and subsequent movie), he did the same with Anderson’s treatment.

ii. Anderson’s Treatment

     Several scenes at the beginning of the treatment chronicle the development from childhood of an East German boxer Adolph Heinemann. He begins boxing in international competition by the age of sixteen. He goes on to capture the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics. Heinemann then fights the heavyweight champion, Clubber Lang, at Madison Square Garden. Heinemann defeats Lang in the first round. Rocky and Apollo Creed watch the fight from ringside. They are partners in the fight promotion business.

     Heinemann makes several successful defenses of his title in Eastern Europe cities of Leningrad, Moscow, Leipzig, and East Berlin. Due to dominance of professional boxing by eastern block fighters, all major fights take place in eastern block countries. Rocky and Apollo continue their fight promotion business. Rocky and Apollo use their own money to finance three days of boxing at Madison Square Garden. They place their fortunes on the line to buy television coverage. The main event pits Clubber Lang against an Irish fighter. There is little interest in the event. Rocky and Apollo go broke. Rocky sells all of his possessions to pay his creditors.

     Rocky returns to the "row house apartment of Rocky I". (This setting is appropriated from Stallone's first movie by Anderson) He goes to work in a meat packing plant in Philadelphia. (This portion of the story also borrows heavily from Rocky I.) A Soviet leader gives a speech to the United Nations in New York. He states that the Communist world is prevailing over the West as exemplified by their boxing champion. He refers to Rocky as an old and weak ex-fighter. Upon hearing the speech, Rocky and Apollo become very distraught.

     Both Rocky and Apollo, unbeknownst to the other, regroup and begin training in ... seclusion. Rocky is in Philadelphia and Apollo is in Los Angeles. Thereafter, Rocky and Apollo simultaneously take planes to visit the other and break the news of their respective comebacks. Coincidentally, both are on planes which are stopping over in Chicago. While in one of the terminals at the airport they bump into each other. They decide to begin training together.

     Rocky and Apollo return to the "old gym of original movie" (setting and training scenes based upon Rocky I) and devise a secret strategy for Rocky to beat Heinemann. An East German representative to the United Nations informs Rocky that Heinemann will not fight him because he is too old. Rocky and Apollo then go to New York to East Germany's United Nations ambassador. They barge in the office and intimidate the ambassador into calling Heinemann to ask him to fight Rocky. Rocky insults Heinemann* and convinces him to agree to a fight.

     To raise money for his training, Rocky fights in exhibitions in Europe and South America. He fights in France, England, and Spain. He also trains in a Parisian bordello and a London nunnery. In London, Rocky is approached by CIA agents and followed by KGB officers. The CIA offers to pay Rocky's training expenses and he refuses. Rocky runs through a number of European capitals and ends up at St. Peters Square in Rome on the day the Pope is to appear.

     Rocky fights Heinemann at an outdoor stadium one hundred yards east of the Berlin wall. Heinemann originally dominates the fight. However, Rocky makes a heroic comeback and wins the fight when Heinemann refuses to answer the bell in the sixth round. The East German crowd cheers Rocky's victory.

*The idea that Rocky would insult someone demonstrates a lack of understanding of the Rocky character.

After explaining, in several hundred words the material differences between the two stories, and pointing out that any similarities are intrinsic to the developed Rocky saga (eg, Rocky being the underdog against bigger, better opponents) …

In any event, the Court finds that no reasonable audience would recognize the movie Rocky IV as a dramatization or picturization of Anderson’s work. … no reasonable jury could find that Rocky IV is a picturization of Anderson’s treatment …

     The Court finds that Rocky IV is not substantially similar to Anderson's work. Nor is any portion of Anderson's work entitled to copyright protection under 17 U.S.C. sections 103(a) & 106(2). The Court GRANTS defendants summary judgment on Anderson's claim that they infringed Anderson's copyright.

     IT IS SO ORDERED.

Further Reading:

Full Court Order
Editor Fights a Round for Rocky

Look at just how many sitcoms were being made.

And here’s the coda …

This was clearly where the idea for NTV was born.

Sylvania Waters exploded on to Australian TV on 21 July 1992. The link to the fictional soap that inspired it was clear in the tagline: “Could these be your neighbours?” Aussie critics immediately fired up, with the Daily Telegraph Mirror writing it was “a vicious putdown tailor-made for British audiences”.

The Sydney Morning Herald agreed, arguing that Watson was pandering to “every British preconception about Aussies” with a family that was “materialistic, argumentative and heavy-drinking”. Unsurprisingly, Sylvania Waters attracted a huge audience and the morning after it aired everyone seemed to have an opinion on it.

Remembering Sylvania Waters: the real-life Neighbours that angered Australians and titillated Brits, by Andrew Mercado, The Guardian, Tuesday 21st November 2023

Politicians waded in, apologies were made, and as always, opinions were shared.

Sylvania Waters screened in the UK in 1993 with one critic saying it was “Neighbours gone mad, Home & Away on drugs!” English fans seemed to love that and they lined up to get Noeline’s autograph when she visited, prompting her to say: “After the fuss in Australia, this is a dream come true.”

ibid

This show is indelibly lodged in my brain. Take a look for yourself.

But before we get to that, let’s talk about No’ The Archie Macpherson Show. It’s Wednesday 6th July 1988, and BBC Radio Scotland is about to debut a new youth oriented show that blends news, current affairs, music, and comedy. It’s made BY young people, FOR young people. That’s a fact, it says it in print.

I mean, you could even call it ‘a midweek romp’.

The show did well, and even warranted a repeat run in September, complete with a slightly different name.

By October, it was announced that the show had spawned its successor.

Bite The Wax was well received by The Scotsman.

Then it was time for Armando to step back on to the live stage …

If anyone knows the story about the Whose Line Is It Anyway? audition, I’d love to hear it.

‘I want to do more theatre next year. There is an offer of a film, possibly about The Young Ones, but that’s still only an idea at the moment.’

Imagine the trailer, with voice over man growling ‘Once in every lifetime …’

And now I want to see the Drew Struzan poster for it.

PROCTOLOGY: A Bottom Examination is my in-depth guide to all things Bottom.

Available now on Kindle and in paperback.

Learn more …

It’s the sort of fact that sounds totally plausible.

The trivia track on the pilot episode says that the show was first called Stand Up, with early drafts featuring George discussing his own stand up act with Jerry, and that it was next called The Jerry Seinfeld Show.

But here’s a rather more contemporaneous reference, albeit with no attribution.

It does seem a little unfair on the ABC show to only be remembered as a footnote to another show, so here’s the first episode. I love how populated the sets are, and there’s even another Seinfeld link, with one of the regular extras having a snog on the train.

Ken Levine has an excellent blog about the show too, which is well worth a read.

The show aired on BBC Two, beginning its first series in September of 1996, and ending after its second series with a Christmas Special the following year.

It featured a mix of members of the public and celebrities, all asking Julian to pass judgment on something or other. It also starred Frank Thornton as Geoffrey Parker-Knoll. Airing stright after Shooting Stars at 9.30pm on Fridays, it had the unfortunate pleasure of clashing with Friends over on Channel 4, but still managed a very healthy 2.96 million viewers.

Here’s how the Perthshire Advertiser promoted it on the first day of broadcast.

Seeing article like this from the Mirror, it’s impossible not to lament the way mainstream broadcasters moved comedy onto their feeder channels.

So, here’s the first episode, and I can’t help wondering if it’s borrowed some set elements from Knowing Me, Knowing You … With Alan Partridge. That notwithstanding, it hits the ground running, and the premise is nice and clear from the outset.

So am I right in thinking British Seinfeld?
‘We have more of a Seinfeldian interest,’ she says carefully.

The Real Rhona, Ben Dowell, The Stage, Thursday 20th July 2000

Then there was this:

So, it wasn’t unusual to see little snippets in the trades like this from time to time:

Turning to page 3, we get rather a lot more information. As you read, see if you can guess which show Hewitt became …

I rather enjoyed small potatoes when it was on, and often try and find it for a re-watch. I’m glad they dropped the whole Seinfeld-a-like thing when the full series launched, because it does the show a disservice.

Here’s how the second series arrived on our screens …

(As an aside, here’s the slightly less famous (possibly forgotten) Gladiators one they did).

But in actuality, the Boost was first seen on our shelves in the mid-1980s, in a rather different form – as a coconut and caramel based snack. And here’s one of the first ways it was advertised.

Here’s another one from the series, this time complete with Harry Enfield voice-over.

As far as I can see, they soon moved to a more cartoony look, maybe skewing to a younger audience, while launching a new flavour or two.

Here’s an early review of Kathy’s work – a performance in the play Ghosts.

In 1989, Maureen Paton is bang on the money with the closing lines of this review.

The timing of this play is rather interesting. This is the summer of 1989, and by November of the following year, Kathy was playing Waynetta Slob in Harry Enfield’s Television Programme. It’s possible the two things are related.

This wasn’t the only sketch show she was involved with in the early 1990s. Here’s an article that mentions the early stirrings of what would become The Real McCoy, at this time referred to as Flick.

Anyone know more about the game show mentioned in the final sentence?

And finally, here’s a small write-up of Life’s A Bitch, by Clive James.

Rik also made a corporate video in 1988, but his was for John Cleese’s Video Arts production company. Managing Problem People: Behavioral Skills For Leaders was directed by Charles Crichton (who directed A Fish Called Wanda), and was written by Stephen Fry.

At the time I wrote it, that was about as much information as I could find, but since then, Video Arts have been slowly releasing their archive on YouTube, and it’s well worth exploring.

Here’s Rik’s scene, in amongst what appears to be a compilation of other problem employee type videos they made through the years.

It was written by Stephen Fry, and there’s plenty of the Stu and Gordon from A Bit, and it appears Stephen himself is dressed as Jeeves, for reasons that aren’t apparent in this clip.

It’s great that this trove of previously hard to find comedy history is being released.

PROCTOLOGY: A Bottom Examination is my in-depth guide to all things Bottom.

Available now on Kindle and in paperback.

Learn more …

And here’s some nostalgic in-vision continuity …

Second, I always presumed that the house viewing scene from A Room With An Alan was shot on location.

But on the DVD commentary track, Armando Iannucci confirms that this set was in the studio, and the rest is on location. They’ve done an excellent job of matching it all.

So, did they re-use some of the set pieces from Mrs Warboys’ house in the One Foot In The Grave episode The Worst Horror Of All?

The first thing to note is how the addition of a ceiling really adds a verisimilitude to the set, and allows for a much lower shooting angle.

But that forty-five degree double door piece leaps out as something a bit more unusual for a studio sitcom – in both series.

The banisters and rails certainly look similar too, even if the staircase itself is different.

I get the impression that I’m Alan Partridge used the alcove Mrs Warboys is stood in to wall off another room, which is glimpsed later.

Anyway, what do you think?

Some shared elements or am I imagining things?

Anyway, here’s Rick’s exclamation when he firsts sees the bomb.

On the DVD it’s subtitled like this:

But he’s definitely saying ‘Wood & Walters’, isn’t he?

Bomb was recorded on the 1st and 2nd of September in 1982, a good few months after Wood & Walters aired on ITV at the beginning of the year.

So, if Rick had watched it, he would have seen the Mitch sketch, as performed by Rik.

PROCTOLOGY: A Bottom Examination is my in-depth guide to all things Bottom.

Available now on Kindle and in paperback.

Learn more …

I am constantly amazed by all the gaps in my sitcom knowledge. Bootle Saddles is a new one to me. It was written by Ray Mansell & Paul Benn, and aired on BBC Two in the autumn of 1984. It had the unusual broadcast time of 8.30pm.

The show was announced among the big autumn line-up like this:

It was up against some strong opposition, with Chance In A Million over on Channel 4.

But Bootle Saddles’ first episode was watched by 3.95 million viewers, and Chance was watched by 1.35 million.

Or this, from 1984 when the full series first began …

A charge at the time of Dad’s Army’s first series was that it was too soon – a charge that is remarkably still being thrown at ‘Allo ‘Allo.

The series hit the ground running, and was well-received by some critics and audiences alike.

But it did take us all a few episodes to start laughing with recognition at some of the catchphrases. Listen to the silence on Michelle’s here for example.

What’s more, he has some seemingly dark peccaddiloes.

When he first returns at the start of series two, in In Luton Airport No-One Can Hear You Scream, he’s clutching a rental video, and no reference is made to it.

This is what he rented …

This anthology series was only released in the UK on video rental, and not for sale until 1993. Safe Sex was the seventh of eight volumes – so Mr Swainey is deep into his watch.

By the time we get to episode four, Who Will Buy?, Mr Swainey has organised a variety show, and here are all the acts he’s booked.

In the middle of all those (presumably) fictional acts, we see he’s booked Jerry Sadowitz too. And this was well before he had been seen much on UK television screens.

Shaping Up was an ABC sitcom, which aired in 1984, and had quite the pedigree. It was created by Emmy-award winners Sam Simon and Ken Estin, who wrote most of the five episode that aired, though they were joined for one by Merrill Markoe.

Apparently it was orginally called Welcome To The Club.

There’s not much else to be found about it, alas – except these great publicity photos.

This week, an encounter with fame, local radio, the shipping forecast, a mythical figure, the secret ruler of the world, and some snooker.