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Don't forget Eoin McLove.... "I smell wee... this one smells of wee." And of course hairy baby maker Pat Mustard. There were so many priceless characters it's impossible to remember them all.
Coming to think of it they never portrayed women in a favourable light apart from the nuns. They were mostly all senile old biddies like Eoin's admirers or those on Henry Sellers' quiz show.
I have the boxset; every now and then I like to binge watch it. ''I believe you're a racist now, Father. What's the Church's position - should we all be racists now? Only, I wouldn't be able to dedicate myself to the racism thing full time, as the farm keeps me busy most of the day, and in the evening I just like to have a cup of tea'' (paraphrasing again, but that was one of my favourites) I know they didn't exactly paint women as girlboss types, but I liked it better that way, as the trio of priests were the focus of the series and the Catholic Church is, at its a core, the most patriarchial institution in the world. If the series were being made now; it definitely would not be what it was, and it would portray the priests as secondary characters, to a very liberated, opinated Mrs Doyle, who would always save the day, and the priests from mishaps of their own making with her quick wit and ingenuity. And, she wouldn't be ''Mrs'' Doyle, either, but ''Ms'' Doyle, instead, and the priests would treat her with deference and respect, because, as everyone knows, girlboss characters are the most intelligent people on the planet, who can do things far better than any man ever could, or, at that, any woman who is not aligned with their way of thinking. Those women, like the nuns, would be shown to be sad, pathetic, self-hating women, who needed ''Ms'' Doyle to guide them and give them confidence.
Also, John and Mary who own the shop, would likely be a gay couple called John and Mark, and there would be none of the comedic antics that John and Mary were famous for, due to ''violent'' content. It wouldn't be the same series, but something completely different. Something that would be aimed at Gen Z and older Gen Alpha, therefore anything deemed ''offensive'' would not make it into the final script, thus robbing it of all its unique charm.
My uncle is a Jesuit priest, and he said that his fellow clerics were all big fans of Fr Ted, and didn't find the portrayal of the Church to be offensive in the slightest. Though exaggerated for comedic effect, he said there was a kernal of truth in it. The Church is male run and dominated, and real life nuns are deferential to priests, and, yes, priests in the old days who entered the Seminary at a young age, without experiencing some degree of ''normal'' life first, were often awkward around women - in particular, young, single women - and, when not discussing some aspect of religion, or some fairly humdrum topic like the weather or the price of groceries, those old men have a hard time relating to women - though nothing to the degree depicted in the series. I mean; no priest would ever tell a female solicitor that he didn't believe that it was possible for her to be a solicitor, or nuns, in general, aren't mega fans of a particular priest, and they don't collect souveniers of the Masses he's performed over the years, but, it's that grain of truth that made it funny. A lot of younger people, misunderstand it, and don't realise that it's not women or minority groups who are being mocked; but the institutional Church itself, and the dysfunctional household of celibate men.
I quite often run into the John and Mary couple in the supermarket who absolutely hate and verbally abuse each other but apparently still live together for some unknown reason. Perhaps the fear of being alone is the reason why they endure each other.
Some of my other favourites apart from FT are Blackadder, Peep Show and Armstrong & Miller, particularly the "Origins of..." and WW2 Pilots. On the drama side I loved Callan but I suppose you were way too young for that cold war series.@frank22 Blackadder is amazing. I know a lot of people dislike the first series, but it's probably one of my favourites. I love Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Bottom, Spaced, Keeping Up Appearances, 'Allo, 'Allo, May to December, Red Dwarf. I like Little Britain too.
My dad was a fan of Callan. I used to hear him talk about it a lot.
I love a lot of Brit drama from the seventies, eighties and early/mid nineties.
When it comes to films, I have a special place in my heart for the old Hammer Horrors. My dad was a dead ringer for Christopher Lee, so his version of Dracula never frightened me. lol And, the Carry On films will always have a special place in my heart.
My dad looked a lot like Clark Gable. The Carry On films were great and Benny Hill of course.
This Micthell & Webb parody of them is hilarious. I'm also a massive Bottom fan.... ooh err.When I was eighteen or nineteen, I was with a group of friends in a pub and we got into a discussion with an older gentleman about old horror films. When I mentioned that my dad could easily have made money as a Christopher Lee double, the man smiled at me and said: ''I didn't want to be rude, but when you walked in I thought to myself: ''By heck, but that young lady looks like a female Christopher Lee.'' Lol I took it as a compliment.
Mum was a massive Benny Hill fan.
Remember the episode of Bottom when Eddie created the conterfeit notes?
''Spudgun, take 25 grand. Hedgehog, here's 100 grand. Richie, have a fifteen pound note.''
I didn't have to look at that link because I basically know all the scenes and dialogue by heart, including the live shows. Dick Head is also a great character in that episode. Eddie's £27 note.... "It's Sylvester Stallone, fisting, what looks like Mr McHenry from the Magic Roundabout." Only Eddie, sorry Dirty Eddie, has an imagination like that. Even the show's minor characters were side-splitting, Tight-Mouthed Larry, Gas Man, Mr. Rottweiler, Spudgun.
The guy in the sex shop from Smells...
Man - No thank you sir, I'd rather have a pineapple inserted violently into my rectum.
Eddie - You've been working here too long mate.@frank22 Lol!! That was priceless. Also '' Bloody hell, is that Dick Emery? Didn't know he could ride.'' ''No, he's not riding, that's Princess Anne.'' That whole episode is one of those that makes me laugh so much I can barely breathe. The halloween episode was one of the classics too!
Edward Elizabeth Hitler will always be one of the all time greatest comedy characters.
Trivia - Did you recognise the barmaid, Dick Head's daughter, in Parade? She's done a lot of TV shows but nothing like Bottom.
@frank22 I can't remember her real name, but she played Saffy in Ab Fab.
Yep I remember her from Press Gang in the early 90s. Julia Sawalha.
It's been nice talking to someone with the same tastes in comedy and horror films. BTW I'm a twin too though no longer close to my brother or my four sisters. We got on well but we drifted away to other states here in Oz.I've heard of Press Gang, but never watched it. Yep; I remember now - doesn't she have a sister who used to be on one of those daily panel/talk shows, back in the early 2000s?
Yeah, it's been great to chat with someone about comedy I like, for a change, instead of arguing with someone who thinks the American version of The Office was comedy gold.
I know there are some notable exceptions, but I'm going to say something controversial here: In general, American comedy is not funny. Lol
Are you identical or non-identical? (My boys are identical; they'll be eight months old this month, and no one can tell them apart, now that the smaller boy has now almost caught up to his brother in size.) Twins run in our family. My mum lost my twin early on in her pregnancy. My gran was a twin, also.
My brother and I are identical but as we grow older not so much. I really know next to nothing of my parent's history. Some people are intensely interested in their ancestors but not me. All I know is my dad was an orphan at age six, then the Royal Navy then came over here when WW2 ended. My mum was a farm girl from NZ and that's about it.
As for comedy I agree with you. Leader in the completely-not-funny stakes has to be Jerry Lewis. I've watched some films and someone should have told him that putting on a stupid voice and acting like an idiot isn't what comedy is about. My mum said that tying himself in knots to get a laugh was pathetic.
On our discussion about memento mori, a few years ago a girl in my Year One class, also a twin, died of leukemia. I thought I was tough but it deeply affected my for a long time and much more than I thought it would, probably because my youngest was the same age then. "Still, life goes on, and here we stand." - Dumbledore.I wonder if my boys will still look alike when they grow up. Most identical twins I know, look noticeably different from the mid-teens on. My cousin has twin daughters. When they were both toddlers they were mirror images of each other. My cousin is a lot older than any of us, so I was about thirteen when they were born. I used to babysit them all the time and sometimes had a hard time telling them apart. Then, when the girls were four, he (my cousin) got a job in the Midlands, so the whole family moved. Afterwards, we rarely saw them, apart from family weddings, funerals, special birthdays and the like. I didn't see the girls properly again until they were sixteen, and the younger twin actually looked more like their older sister than she did her identical twin. They were very different fashion wise as well. Their parents used to always dress them identically - something I'm never going to do with mine - so, maybe that added to the illusion that they resembled each other so much more.
Both sides of my family are proud of their heritage and I have heard so many anecdotes passed on via word of mouth down through the years. Some of the stories are sad, but some are comedy gold. Like the legend of ''Aunt Kitty'' who lived back in the 1870s, who was as beautiful as she was saintly''. She lived until she was ''105'' and ''her face was unlined and beautiful as ever''. She was so devout, she used to do ''penance for the sinners of the world, by bathing in ice cold water and fasting''. She also brought ''slabs of ice indoors to rest her bare feet on, just so she'd suffer more, but she did it all with a smile''. Oh, and a song. Because, according to legend, not only was she ''beautiful, holy and kind''; she was also a ''great singer''. One day, at the age of one hundred and five, she took to her bed, but made sure she did her daily penance first, then proceeded to ''sing every song she had ever known''. When she was finished, she called in the family and told them she was ''ready for the next life'' and said goodbye to them ''one by one''. Then she ''shut her eyes and died with a smile on her face.'' I don't know how much of that was true; it always sounded exaggerated to us, we used to get mum to tell that story over and over again, for a laugh. Then, on dad's side, there was an old man called Edward, who lived in the early part of the nineteenth century. He was always deemed ''strange'' and ''lazy''. But one day, ''he took to his bed and didn't get up for seven years'' because he found the daily grind - which in his case amounted to fuck all - ''exhausting''. He used to receive visitors in his bedroom to entertain him and bring him news.
Agree on Jerry Lewis. And, I know he's Canadian - but Jim Carrey is one of those modern day comedy actors who basically plays the same idiot character in everything he does. Adam Sandler is another unfunny bastard.
Ah, that's so sad about your friend.... I'm so sorry... Since mum passed away, I've become so much more conscious of my own mortality, and when I hear of the death of someone I knew, whether old or younger, that feeling of sadness and dread lingers.
If you want a level-headed view of life and death you can't go past the wonderful Mrs Brown from National Velvet.
"Things come suitable to the time, Velvet. Enjoy each thing, then forget it and go on to the next. There's a time for everything. There's a time for having a horse in the Grand National, being in love, having children; yes, even for dying. All in proper order at the proper time."
But sometimes not so much in proper order or order in time.
Well, this girl who died, she was my friend, a refugee from Iraq who came here in a small boat and told tales of how horrible that was. She told the class how terrifying that was. She became much more to me than any compatriot with her resilience and strength of character and a stoicism well beyond her years. We became soul-mates in nine months and then suddenly she was gone. The hole she left in me is still there though smaller than it once was. I don't think it will ever go away and I don't think I want it to.
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