Stuart Millard's Blog, page 4

Owt Good On Mam? – 1994 Tech Special

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This video first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could watch it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my podcast and videos, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s over 775,000 words of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

The Cannon and Ball Gospel Show

My favourite and oft-repeated piece of trivia regards the Born Again status of one Syd Little, which occurred backstage of a Blackpool theatre in 1996, during bible study in Bobby Ball’s dressing room. Naturally, Tommy was there, along with Jimmy Cricket, who stood watching in his wellies as Bobby encouraged Syd to pray for forgiveness. “I don’t know what I said,” recalled Syd in a 2009 interview, “but I cried, and that’s when I let the Lord into my heart and he’s been there ever since.” Syd would go onto join Christians in Entertainment, an organisation which aids and promotes believers who work in the biz — names such as Cricket, Pam Rhodes, and (up until his death) the vicar off Dad’s Army. Consequently, Syd’s early post-split work consisted of one-man shows in provincial churches.

As evidenced by the names listed above, the world of British Christian entertainers is somewhat of a shallow pool, so when one of the big boys comes over — Syd Little! Off the telly! — it’s like Gazza signing for your non-league club. Like with Bibleman, many faith-based families seek to avoid the muck of yer secular comedians, always talking about their toilet-parts and “do you ever notice when you’re having intercourse…” So to land a new signing, even the most D-level showbusiness player can instantly find themselves a massive fish in a tiny, very lucrative pond, with eager new fans slinging tenners across merch tables to support one of their own, fighting the good fight against Old Scratch’s Hollywood minions. I don’t want to cast aspersions, but one wonders how, say, Cliff Richard’s career would’ve done without the nitrous boost of Britain’s church-goers behind him once we got out of the sixties.

In terms of fresh blood, the arrival of Cannon and Ball must’ve sent shockwaves through the church community, and the closest thing yet to the actual second coming. I’ve told the story more than once, about the lads bringing their faith-based show to my family’s church, and me going along, to find myself affixed with what can only be described as violent eye contact from Bobby when he put out a plea for any non-Christians to come onstage in front of everyone and pray with him and Tom, while giving their life to Christ. It’s testament to my commitment to sin that even under the Hypnotoad gaze of Ball, I remained in my seat. Proceedings that night were a stripped-down version of a show they’d taken out on tour for 27 dates in 1995 — and Satan only knows what sort of foul depravities Syd was getting up to back then, a year before being saved.

What with Russell Brand getting baptised in the Thames recently, I want to be clear in discussing this that Cannon and Ball always felt very genuine in their faith and their desire to share it with others, and it never came across like a grift or cynical way of tapping into a new market. I’m aware you mentally read these written pieces in my sarcastic YouTube voice, but for once I’m being earnest. I’ve always had a huge affection for the pair, in a non-ironic, non-Syd ‘n’ Eddie way, as evidenced by my short-lived series to dissect every episode of their TV shows, which ceased when Bobby died as I felt like a bit of a turd. That said, The Cannon and Ball Gospel Show — or at least the VHS release — absolutely belongs in my catalogue of television oddities. For your regular punter expecting a secular night’s entertainment, it’s a bit of a con-job, because even seeing the title on the poster, you’d be thinking “probably won’t be that gospely…” You would be wrong.

Things open normally enough, with home movie style camcorder footage of Southampton beach and the sort of theatre you’d expect to see Billy Pearce laying on his back and kicking his legs in. A poster outside advertises C&B with a hyphenated “to-night” like in Victorian times, as crew members with mullets and missing teeth lark about on a tour bus and heave lighting rigs and massive road cases. It’s a real circus vibe; Bob and Tom are coming to town! Which is fitting, for what’s basically a light-ent tent revival, albeit inside a seaside theatre. And there’s a leather-jacketed Bobby, accompanied by some young teenager in a blue baseball cap. Hold on; it’s Cannon! Holding back the years with the renewal of God’s love.

Blinding white spotlights search a black stage, the Riverdance song from an unseen angelic voice – “…hear my cry in my hungering search for you.” Onscreen text informs us “Britain’s Kings of Comedy” launched a nationwide tour “with a difference…” Such excitement in those ellipsis, a tease possibly suggestive of full penetration or live firearms, but which tonight simply means they’ll be talking about God and that. Live musicians are the Mike Ryal Band; one man with a pony tail cranking on a tremolo, another wearing sunglasses indoors and finger picking a bass, grey hair bobbing; a bloke blowing into the rarely seen wind synthesiser. I feel awful for whoever’s first out of those wings. Imagine opening for Cannon and Ball!

That’s why they’ve gone with a real heavyweight in Danny Owen, suit like a country and western undertaker, jet black and dotted with a silver lining and buttons plus a white tie, as he belts out Power of Love from Back to the Future, with flicks of the ankle like he’s avoiding leg kicks at a UFC. More scrolling text informs us “Danny celebrates 30 years in showbiz as Tommy and Bobby’s special guest.” Watching Danny do that dance where one merely hops from one foot to the other, you can’t help but feel for a pair who played Royal Varieties and headlined their own series for a decade, alongside enormous guest stars from stage and screen. This is like seeing them at Butlins — or even busking outside of Butlins — sharing the bill with the sort of act who’d not make it past the comedy montage on Britain’s Got Talent.

Owen’s down on his knees for the big finish, arms outstretched, illuminated by four criss-crossing spotlights, for an emotive number which surely must be from the Christian rock playbook? Turns out, this is from the Jekyll and Hyde musical, and what’s more, a deep cut which only appeared on the soundtrack album and not the stage show; a song about drinking a potion which unleashes the monster within, at least that’s how it was conceived. This will be one of tonight’s themes; appropriating existing songs, and through either subtle lyric re-edits or dramatic posture, repurposing them to be about Christ.

House lights drop, a background of tiny lights like a starfield, and the band breaks into the instantly recognisable opening notes of our national anthem, by which I mean Together We’ll Be Okay. The lads run on as everything kicks into high gear, Tommy in a mustard coloured jacket singing Jackie Wilson’s Higher, with Bobby as hype man — “Oh yeah! Alright!” I’m gonna need someone to edit Ghostbusters II so it’s this version which makes the Statue of Liberty walk. There’s a cracking bit of business where Bobby reaches down into the front row to heave an old lady onstage for a dance but pulls his hand away at the last second — like offering a handshake then running it through your own hair. Realising she’s been Ball’d, she slaps the back of his legs. Tommy swivels his hips like ‘Ravishing’ Rick Rude and crescendos with a 360 spin and a “hey, alright!”

At 12:57 mins, we get our first of many leh-geh-man, though it’s here a good chunk of the audience will realise this is not what they were expecting. “We’re havin’ a great night tonight,” promises Tom, “we’re gonna be singing, we’re gonna be dancin’, we’re gonna be laffin’, but most of all, we’re gonna be praising the Lord.” And then, viewers find themselves in the sudden confusion of waking from a fainting fit. You know I’m all about the tonal shifts, but even I’m thrown, as we’re in the middle of a classic Tom ‘n’ Bob argument, with a punchline about the drummer’s bad breath, and then — BANG — different camera angle, different clothes; markedly different atmosphere. Bobby in close-up, gone from shouting to completely sedate, telling the audience “I used to drink a bottle of whiskey a day.”

This is the real story of The Gospel Show; not the rags to spiritual-riches tale of two rugged club comics who found their faith, but that the editing of its commercial release was handed over to a maniac. I think what’s happened is someone worried the audience wouldn’t stick with all the religious stuff — put it at the beginning, they’ll fast-forward through; at the end, they’ll just switch it off — so decided they’d simply just cut the two things together; a live variety show and sit-down testimonial, bleeding into each other, like eating a big bowl of spaghetti bolognese and ice cream at the same time. Done properly, this is a familiar technique in documentaries, but never, ever so haphazardly. It’s like someone shuffled together a pack of playing cards and an Uno deck, lurching us back and forth during the middle of routines — the middle of songs — from Bobby dicking around onstage to confessionals about how much they hated themselves in their heyday.

“I used to have a different woman every night, and I were married. I used to fight about three times a week.” Goddamn if I don’t need to see the Bobby Ball biopic. Fightin’, fuckin’, twinging on the braces. I’d love to hear more about it, but the tape puts us back onstage, pointing out a fella in the audience with big ears. The viewer’s forced to piece it together themselves, even though born again testimonies are always a bit ‘you’ve heard one, you’ve heard ’em all.’ He was rich and successful, but unfulfilled inside. Then he was quite rude to a vicar, forcing him to remove his collar before even letting him in the dressing room — “I’ve got a Rolls Royce outside. What have you got? You’ve got nothing.” Fair point. Though the vicar replied “I’ve got Jesus,” and soon Bobby was doing his first prayer since school assembly. “And I felt washed. And I felt clean. And more than ever, I felt loved.” Bobby knew he’d been forgiven for all his sins, which presumably included Boys in Blue.

As the tape goes on, the cuts gather momentum, like whizzing down a water slide which is starting to tilt at an increasingly steep angle, allowing us less than ten seconds of the lads dressed like Teddy Boys, Bobby with teetering ducktail wig sat on his head like Frankenstein’s, before we’re dropped into Tommy’s anecdote about Bobby grinding him down into entering a church for his grandson’s dedication. If it carries on like this, we’ll be down to a single frame of each, flickering like a zoetrope of a galloping horse, except with Bob saying both “he’s got me piggin’ skin!” and “I love you, Lord!” simultaneously. We learn Tommy got caught during the old “does anyone here want Christ in their life? Identify yourselves!” sign-up routine, and from that day forwards, never swore again. “And I used to swear with the best of ’em.” “He did,” confirms Bobby, goading him “give ’em one now.” As if to rub in our faces they can no longer make dirty jokes, Tom says the words “unless you’ve had the holy spirit come inside yer,” and neither have so much as a wry smile on their faces.

Tommy’s now looking Heavenward for a solo Wind Beneath my Wings, though he could be singing All Things Bright and Beautiful and still look like he’d make you bite down on an ashtray before stamping the back of your head. “I would be nothing without you-oooo!” he croons, finger pointed at who Hulk Hogan would refer to as The Big Man Upstairs. The final note of Tommy’s performance is lost to yet another cut. We also meet the final bosses of Redcoat style entertainment, with male/female singing duo Perfect Match. They’re one of those ones who could be husband and wife or brother and sister, and three whole numbers feel unfair when escape artist Steve Legg’s upside down straight jacket routine barely gets two minutes, via insulting ‘page flip’ transitions from whatever Fisher Price editing suite this was cut on. Barely legible text whizzes by informing us Steve beating Houdini’s time was “to illustrate what the bible says about Christ setting people free.”

As far as actual laffs, the show is almost entirely free of them, and at points, it’s the earnest sections which end up feeling like a skit; Bobby in a gold jacket singing “make someone happy, make someone smile, LET’S PRAISE JESUS!” with the cadence of an American Southern Baptist preacher, though still with that Bobby Ball twinkle in his eye. Even the ‘fun bits’ highlight the sense that any comedian moving into religion neuters themselves creatively. But regardless, the editing makes for an infuriating watch, pulled between the Good Cop of Bobby with his thumb hooked in his red braces, calling Tommy a little liar, and the Pious Cop, telling how they did loads of fucking back in the day, but it was Bad, Actually, and none of us should do it.

But it’s fine, as it’s another thing I’m aware I’m not the intended audience for. Except, I think I am? Hellbound non-believers like me are exactly who they hoped to reel into the fold here, it’s just a shame whoever put this together didn’t have the conviction to let their stories be told coherently. At one point, Bob gives such a top class analogy about what the cross means to him, I briefly consider tossing all my Baphomet memorabilia and giving the old God thing a try. Reminiscing about seeing crosses next to his maths tests, putting one on the bottom of a teenage love letter, and on a ballot paper when voting, Bob says “the cross means to me: we were wrong, he loves us, and he gives us a choice.” For a final treat, the entire cast come out for a big Greatest Love of All, where once again, lyrics have been amended to keep things on-topic. “It makes no difference because He still loves me,” and “no matter what they take from me, they can’t take away my dignity eternity.” All of them stood in a line, fists clenched, singing with their whole chests, feels like being ganged up on, inducing a flashback in me of the stare I got that Sunday evening in 1999. “Learning to love the Lord,” they sing, “is the greatest love of all!” But the moment, and whole tape, could’ve been saved with a Lord-based rewrite of Together We’ll Be Okay. “Laugh me a laugh, purge me a sin, cos it’s with Jesus I can win…”

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This piece first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could read it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my videos, my podcast, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s a ton of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

GamesMaster Does Wrestling

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This video first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could watch it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my podcast and videos, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s over 775,000 words of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

Record Breakers: Roy Beats World

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This video first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could watch it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my podcast and videos, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s over 775,000 words of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

Bring Your Husband To Heel

This is rare for me, a jaunt into television of the 21st century. But it’s a pungent era, 2005; a place both three weeks ago and almost twenty years behind us. The mid-noughties were the bully’s era, with every tabloid sidebar, every celebrity gossip magazine cover a collage of paparazzi’d thighs deemed too thunderous, tummies too large and saggy, and red circles gleefully highlighting crow’s feet and cellulite dimples. If you had the gall to exist while not being a size zero, or failing to fulfil whichever arbitrary requirements would prevent Perez Hilton from drawing globs of spunk dribbling from the corners of your mouth, you were in for it, buster! 9/11 was but a few years ago, so if you’re upskirted getting out of a taxi by any one of a dozen hooting photographers laying in the drains, that’s on you.

Television wise, this all manifested in a fad for self-improvement through humiliation, with participants demeaned and belittled into proper worthwhile human beings, rather than disgusting and fat (Fat Families, Fat Club/Celebrity Fit Club, Supersize vs. Superskinny), disgusting and frumpy (What Not To Wear), or disgusting and old-looking (10 Years Younger). Benefits was a well-tapped vein, with the rich/poor divide focus of explosive us/them series like Wife Swap and Holiday Showdown, or Anne Widdecombe Versus, where the pudding-bowl Tory stayed with various “scroungers” living off the state, including Mick Philpott and his wife, in perhaps the all-time worst collection of people gathered in a single room. Noughties telly was also big on sending aghast experts directly into people’s council houses to take charge, over naughty kids (Supernanny) or a toilet full of skids (How Clean Is Your House?), and of course, reality talent shows were in their ascent, through viral savaging by celebrity judges, destroying the dreams of hopefuls with learning difficulties, who’d been hand-picked and lied to by producers, to end as punchlines in weekly montages backed by a comedy soundtrack.

Into this landscape of cosy evenings watching dry-heaving presenters gasp “look at the state of that!” at nervous housewives clad in underwear and surrounded by full length mirrors, came perhaps the weirdest of all the “stop being such a wretched loser!” series. Bring Your Husband To Heel‘s premise sounds like a fetish, aiming to bring feckless British husbands in line solely using actual dog training techniques. BBC2’s expert presenter is Annie Clayton, a former actress of some note, best known for over 100 television appearances with Morecambe and Wise, but having left showbiz to forge a new career as a dog trainer. There’s a real push for Annie as an eccentric ‘character’ presenter — not your daddy’s Barbara Woodhouse! — in the brand of a David Dickenson, having aged into the category of ‘very posh old lady’, and trying to bed in catchphrases like “you clever old baggage!” to dogs who’ve done well, along with the Kim Woodburn style pseudo-sexual undertones of praising human participants with a “good boy/girl!”

Heel and Clayton herself are very much from the TV ads school of gender; a world casting men as drooling Neanderthals returning from Sunday league caked in mud, as nagging wives, hands on hips, tut a knowing “what is he like?!” before slinging his kit in the machine. Opening credits depict one of said oafs slouched in an armchair surrounded by empty cans, as a kennel falls on him bearing the label DOG HOUSE. Knowing men, he probably blew up a birthday balloon with his farts or summink! Wandering on with two lovely pups, Annie tells Britain’s housewives to worry no more, as “I’m going to get them ship shape by using dog training techniques…” Yeah, that’s the only way to deal with those dumb stinky animals you exchanged vows with, isn’t it, ladies? The stupid fucking idiots in your bed. Morons. Beasts. Turd-eaters!

Men and dogs are both creatures of habit; “they’re happy when they’re fed, aren’t too fussed what they drink, have a healthy obsession with balls and enjoy sniffing out the opposite sex.” A montage breaks us blokes down to our component parts, shovelling food in our gobs, playing 5-a-side, vigorously scratching ourselves, and wolf-whistling as we crane our heads to get a good look at a stranger’s nice arse. Guilty as charged on all counts, officer! Annie is living proof men and dogs think as one, as thanks to her system, “I haven’t washed a dish in years!” It is truly unfathomable that a woman this posh doesn’t have cleaners and a dishwasher she’s never had to touch sat next to the Aga.

First to demonstrate are Margaret and John. Married 37 years, they live in an enormous country house, and their issue is that John’s a bit untidy. Forget the fashions or chunky video recorders; the most mid-noughties thing on display here is that Britain’s biggest stress was living in a mansion with someone who didn’t put their dirty plates in the sink. Unknown to John, Margaret’s been sent to Annie’s dog training school, where the magic formula for fixing his innate male fecklessness (other than a ruddy good neutering) is written on a blackboard — IGNORE, REPLACE, REWARD.

Annie pisses herself as Margaret’s dragged around a field by a dog who doesn’t listen, a moment designed to show Margaret that all women do is nag, nag, blummin’ nag, so it’s no wonder their husbands tune out! The full range of stereotypes are at play here, and if men are lazy good-for-nothings, barely human in the ladies’ chats, it’s because their better halves never stop moaning. Keep telling a fella to put his mug in the sink is exactly the same as repeatedly shouting a dog’s name and expecting it to stop jumping at strangers. Do you see?! Consequently, Margaret’s taught the positive re-enforcement method, gradually retraining him by doling out treats and a “good boy!” for any minor efforts.

Preferring the Pavlovian clicker training method, Annie’s constantly snapping a little plastic device in her palm. There’s so much focus on it, with an animated clicker popping into the corner of frame when a husband displays good boy behaviour, had the show taken off, there’d have definitely been a branded range in pet shops. The crux of the show’s premise is that the husbands themselves are not in on it, believing they’re being filmed for a plain ol’ documentary about relationships, with hidden cameras installed all over the house to chart their progress (even one in the toilet, Chris Evans style). Let’s hope he doesn’t get the Rosemary Conley tape out and drop trou.

As training’s put into practise, Annie commentates over cam footage — “I feel a nag-alanche coming!” when silly old John leaves his coat on the back of the chair rather than hanging it up. Mags uses the very 2005 bargaining chip of suggesting John help clear the table so he can have “a bit more time on the broadband,” while there’s so much hidden footage, it feels like illicitly hacking onto an unsecured webcam. Margaret teaches a dog to fetch its toys in return for treats, which can be applied to a husband and his dirty cups. Thanking him for making a brew earns Margaret a “good girl!”with John having no idea he’s literally being treated like a dog.

There’s a telling moment when John gives her a kiss goodbye, and Margaret says she can’t remember the last time that happened. Then he’s peeling apples for tonight’s crimble crumble, and the sight of a bloody man cooking — surely moments from putting a football in the oven and getting his nob stuck in the tap — is soundtracked by the sort of wacky music you’d hear in a Ronnie Barker silent film where a postman’s trying to force a big parcel through a small letterbox. Can you believe what you’re seeing, folks?! Now trained to prepare food and not just stuff it into his cakehole, after which it will be converted into foul-smelling faeces, Annie’s work is done. For the denouement, John’s sat down in front of a video message, revealing the truth; that his wife has trained him as you would an animal, complete with humiliating footage of his obedient compliance. Incredibly, he doesn’t immediately file for divorce.

They make use of the end credits by filling them with doggy safety tips — “never drive with a dog loose in a car, because when you crash, you could both be injured!” In another, we’re warned off extending leads beside busy roads, and Annie bids us goodbye with a “see you next week, dog fans!” That’s me! I’m a dog fan! And despite the otherwise appalling content, there are at least plenty of lovely dogs, although each time you think “what a lovely dog!” it’s immediately followed by the awareness they are long-since a jar of ashes.

A second episode — opening with the big statement “your husbands aren’t hopeless, they’re just not properly trained” — follows Michelle and David, the latter of whom’s ‘thing’ is obsessively working on his computer in the kitchen, spending four whole hours a night staring at its screen, the absolute fucking amateur. “Oh dear,” sighs Annie, “a computer geek. Time to start rebooting him right away.” Husband analog for Michelle’s training is a golden retriever who doesn’t come when he’s called, “just like naughty David,” sat at his PC browsing nipple pokies from EastEnders on Robbs Celebs all night. But the dog won’t listen to Michelle because “forgive me, but you’re boring,” so she must adopt the marital equivalent of the high voice one might use when calling an animal. She’s made to chuck bits of chicken at a miniature poodle called Tinker, directing it towards plastic cones, and if a dog can learn this in an hour, “ladies, imagine what you can get your husbands to do in a lifetime!”

There’s a real sickly psychosexual quality to this system of treats for good behaviour, David installing a flat-pack dining table while Michelle pushes grapes into his mouth and peppers him with kisses. For this, he compromises, hiding his computer from view with a dressing screen, like something a shy cowboy would watch a pair of stockings get slung over. “Not wanking behind there while we’re eating our dinner are you, love?” “[sounds of wanking] No, definitely not. [a nob-full of hot jizz arcs above the top of the screen]” He doesn’t seem particularly thrilled with the reveal video and the realisation he’s been trained to respond like a dog, as the old ball-and-chain teases him with a “here, boy!” Annie crows another of the nation’s husbands has been brought to heel, “just 10,940,299 to go!” Over the credits, she handily tells us the stink of dog piss can be removed by leaving a bowl of vinegar in the room overnight. Now you tell me!

By episode three, the show’s already at full-stretch, having used up most its ‘dogs = men’ possibilities, with Ron and Elaine, another well-off pair in a massive country house, married forty years. He’s a retired ex-jockey, and now spends his days reading the Racing Post, watching gee-gees, and taking his own horse for a gallop. Big W for Ron, who seems nice and supportive, telling Elaine not to venture too far when she goes for a walk, and speaking to her respectfully. This is simply a man with a hobby, though Elaine wishes he’d “spend more time with the old mare at home.” Given the opportunity, the show goes hog-wild with horse puns, from “stubborn as a mule” and “champing at the bit” to “swaying around like a big smelly horse cock!” (one of which I may have made up).

Elaine’s lesson is to have a dog walk to heel, which it won’t with her saying its name over and over. “It sounds like nagging, doesn’t it?” says Annie. To lure hubby by her side and away from Channel 4 Racing, she needs to be metaphorically slinging sausages at him. Good luck being more interesting than John McCririck! They do the crossword together, Elaine polishes his trophies, then they go for a walk, but when she breaks the no-nag rule, he’s pissing off to his horses again. “Now Ron’s shot his bolt, and he’s off to find something more interesting!” Annie, mate, I don’t think you know what that means. But really, it’s all about Elaine finding the confidence to explore new hobbies — confidence gained after making an Italian greyhound jump through a hoop — and she comes in laden with newly-purchased drawing equipment for a sketching session. Ron describes the resulting drawings as “rather nice,” and then she’s away to the ceramic-painting shop to make an anniversary present. What this has to do with dog training is anyone’s guess, and they’re a couple with a good relationship, whose story isn’t a bad husband and neglected wife, but a woman who needed some hobbies of her own. Though Annie takes the credit anyway.

Bring Your Husband To Heel ran out of ways to use its own format after two episodes, and though it carried on for six, it was not renewed for a second series. Even aside from notions of all men as complete morons who can — and should — be correctively brainwashed into performing simple tasks by having slices of salami dropped into their gobs, if nothing else, it’s an extremely limited idea. Once you’ve done fetch and roll over, what’s left? If it’d run to multiple series, how long before a “hapless hubby” ended up getting his nose pushed in shit? Although, at least he’d have gotten some idea of what watching the show was like.

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This piece first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could read it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my videos, my podcast, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s a ton of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

The Big Breakfast: Up The Aisle

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This video first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could watch it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my podcast and videos, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s over 775,000 words of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

Watch Out, OJ’s About! – Anatomy of a Fumbled Comeback

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This video first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could watch it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my podcast and videos, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s over 660,000 words of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

Owt Good On, Mam? – Rolf and Raquel

[previous OGOM: The Three L’s — Bear Special — When Game Shows Had The Horn — Celebrity Helpers — Su Pollard — Forgotten Sketch Shows — Sky One Originals — Pub Athletics — Dave Courtney]

In trying to theme these Owt Good On, Mams somewhat, we’ve reached a pair of specials which tie together only by sharing an identical title format — the first name of their star. Though Rolf! appears on none of the involved’s IMDB resumes, thanks to the adverts, I managed to figure out a date. Harry Enfield for Worthington’s Bitter; Harry Secombe fronting the Pickwick musical at the Oxford Apollo; snowflakes on the continuity announcement; this is December 1996. Merry Christmas, everyone! Though Rolf Harris practically camped out inside our televisions for decades until Yewtree came a-callin’, the 90s saw him in his most powerful form. Bottle-feeding chimps and sobbing over elderly cats about to get the needle as host of Animal Hospital, plus a wobble board cover of Stairway to Heaven charting in the top 10, his fans spanned every generation, from adults and kids to adults who used to be kids, having grown up with Rolf’s Cartoon Club and that swimming ad where he waved with his foot, and now trekking to Glastonbury for one of the proper ledge’s multiple appearances, parping on the didge for ironic Pyramid Stage renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody and a none-worse-aged I Touch Myself.

As a time traveller, the easiest way to give anyone in the late 90s a confusion-based aneurysm is to show them one of many future newspapers bearing headlines BEAST ROLF TO DIE IN JAIL. But while there’s lots to be said about his status as a mega-nonce, today I want to focus on Rolf’s self-appointed role as Mr. Australia. The one hour special, sharing a director with Baddiel’s Syndrome, The Ralf Little Show, and Jason Manford’s Funniest Ever TV Adverts, starts as it must, with asthmatic noises and a CG boomerang cutting across the screen. “G’day,” says Rolf, backdrop of Aboriginal designs, live audience in attendance, to whom he immediately starts rapping. “I met this mate, bit of a dag, rough round the edge like an old char bag…” This is one of his old standards, in a career that’s all old standards, centred around the Australian dessert, pavlova, with the “paaaaav” bit sung by gargling loads of saliva.

It’s the perfect beginning to a show that’s all about establishing Rolf’s position as Australian ambassador, endlessly harping on about kangaroos and billabongs and whatnot. There’s something really cynical about taking ownership of all these plundered elements, and presuming not every one of his fellow countrymen and women are sat in the bush poking at a barbie in a corked hat, to actual Aussies, he must feel like one of those tourist tat shops in London; all beefeaters and authentic Union Jack pencil toppers. There should be a name for this role, the sole cultural attaché from each nation embedding themselves into British television; Gino DiCampo and his Super Mario accent, Russ Abbot in a kilt. Maybe I should set up in a foreign country and get famous singing My Old Man’s a Dustman, and monologuing on fish ‘n’ chips and all the bleedin’ dog muck everywhere! “At number one for the third week running, it’s ‘Sir’ Stuart with Poo On The Shoe…”

To prove my point, Rolf’s next bit is a comedy anecdote about the town Wagga Wagga. When he reaches for a wobble board, knowingly asking the audience “whadda you reckon,” they let out a massive cheer. “An old Australian stockman, lying, dying” is the jovial lead-in to a classic sing-along of Tie Me Kangaroo Down, such a successful song, says Rolf, that it’s been translated into multiple languages. He clicks his heels with a Nazi voice to demonstrate the German version, and gives an aggressively Russian take on an accordion, as lyrics in Cyrillic drop from the ceiling. Am I hating this because he’s a paedo, or because it’s piss-awful?

A single brush stroke on a giant canvas and a “can you tell what it is yet?” ignites applause and yays of recognition, in the equivalent of Hulk Hogan cupping his ear. Then he’s right into the didgeridoo, frantically hitting all the Rolf Harris beats, like a child excitedly showing you all of their toys. We’re taught the proper blowing technique for the didge, making a plop noise with the air in your mouth; “forget about your chest — not you madam!” he says, suggesting there’s a lady in the audience with big knockers. After a joke about Neighbours, he brings out Wallis Buchanan, didgeridoo player from Jamiroquai (a job description if ever there was one) to accompany his banging of Aboriginal beating sticks over Sun Arise. “…flutterin’ the skirts all around.” Oh aye?

Part two kicks off with Rolf as the triple-legged Jake the Peg. Regardless of everything else, it is a nifty routine, though these days, the sight of Rolf with his hands in his pockets causes extra anxiety. But if Jake were real, you have to wonder how he dressed. Left, right, or straight down the middle? What’s the biology? Is the junk sat between one pair of legs, or balanced atop the middle thigh in the centre? The whole thing’s saved by a truly unexpected cameo from Nora Batty, emerging from the wings with four stockinged legs under her big overcoat! “Poor chap, I wonder how he lost his other one?” Same question about Jake’s junk but with Nora Batty’s dual fannies. No wonder Compo was so persistent! “Flamin’ Nora,” says Rolf, “that lady must be batty!” Then he tells a story about performing in Japan, with a genuine “ah-so,” and the punchline “ah, velly simirar to plevious Austlalian, all Austlalians rook arike!”

We learn that the old ‘flicking his cheek for a doik droplet noise’ was taught to him by Ray Stevens, singer songwriter of Everything is Beautiful, before a confession that all the asthma noises are another thing he’s nicked; hillbilly beatboxing from Tennessee, known as ‘eephing’. In a proto Reggie Watts section, the live band record his exhalations, looped and played back to add percussion wheezes, hand slaps up the arse and chest, and a bit more rapping. “So’s you know I’m not a fraud, better do a bit on the wobble board… what’s next, Rolf? Oh, give us a clue. Better give a blast on the didgeridoo.” Adding topical references to his absolute nonsense (“and if this diamond mine seems strange, you could be Nick Leeson on the stock exchange”) and smacking at his open gob to make echoey sounds, it hits you you’re watching an elderly paedophile repeatedly referring to himself as daddy and scatting like the fella from Korn over a loop of his own panicked breathing.

After sitting at the piano like an even worse Jools Holland for some Boogie Woogie, part three opens with his Bohemian Rhapsody, obviously lip syncing and accompanied by a folksy backing band; hippie shaking a tambourine, drummer with a pastry brush, beardy redneck on a fiddle, baldy in shades on an upright bass. Someone’s made an Avengers of all the world’s worst buskers. “I’m just a poor boy,” opines Rolf, mournfully shaking the wobble board, “nobody loves me,” as one can’t help but think back to media coverage of his death, every headline making a punny-reference to his new place of residence — Hell. “Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?”

A wobble board masterclass brings out Bradley Walsh, Dannii Minogue (about whom Bradley makes a wanking joke under his breath), Nora Batty, and June Whitfield, as Rolf leads the foursome through Old McDonald. Bradley asks if Dannii can do it on her own in front of him (so he can watch her tits bounce up and down). More painting, with a bit that’s not a joke, where he pulls up a sleeve to reveal a baby’s nappy sewn inside, to absorb any paint sliding up his arm. The audience are absolutely rapt as wheezes through a big mural of a watery outback scene — “the little Aboriginal kids sittin’ in the boat” — singing about sleepy children being taken away by the boat of dreams. We finish up with the British version of Tie Me Kangaroo Down, sang poshly and over-enunciated to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory, everyone waving little flags as the credits roll, and running close second with Gulf Aid as Hope and Glory‘s worst ever usage. Whether or not this has been an authentic portrait of a country 9,500 miles away, the studio audience of cobbers lapped it up like Bunyips with a Castlemaine XXXX. “You’re as mad as I am,” shouts Rolf, “goodnight!”

With the dire need to cleanse my palette with whatever the opposite of Rolf Harris is, I’ve happened upon exactly that. In the 1970s, American television spewed out variety specials at a voracious pace, and if you were famous, you’d almost certainly find yourself fronting a song/dance/comedy special. The Osmonds, the Bradys, Star Wars and Paul Lynde, Julie Andrews, Engelbert, Tom Jones, Sonny and Cher; and at the turn of the decade, one of the world’s brightest stars, Raquel Welch. I vividly remember the first time I ever saw Raquel, as a twelve-year-old boy watching Mork and Mindy, where she guested as a horny alien captain in a low cut silver spacesuit, and being in disbelief that a woman who looked like that could even be real. But today, I’m watching a rip from the 1990 VHS release of her 1970 special, whose opening voiceover brags was “filmed on location in London, Paris, Acapulco, Mexico City, Big Sur, Sun Valley, Yucatan and Los Angeles.”

Yeah, they’re not dicking around, with a jet-setting 49-minutes which took 91 days to shoot (as long as your average movie), and with a huge budget of $350,000 in 1969 money. Every penny is onscreen, mostly in dozens of extravagant costumes designed by Bob Mackie. Like our previous show, this is simply titled RAQUEL, and after a brief opening of bloopers with Raquel’s hat falling off, it’s right into the first of many big, big numbers. Singing a mournful California Dreaming, she slowly saunters through the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in a long red cape like the ghost of Princess Diana. When the tempo kicks up, the cape’s billowing like Hammer’s Dracula, Raquel admiring middle-aged Frenchmen drinking glasses of blue liquid through a cafe window, and scattering pigeons as Mother serves a silver platter of Cunt (I’m sorry, I’m sorry, everyone talks like that on Twitter!), power-walk framed directly beneath the arch of the Eiffel Tower.

Like the whole special, it’s artfully shot, the camera finding her in zooms through gaps in gothic statues, or in long push-ins where she begins as a dot, and filmed almost entirely at magic hour, blinding tendrils of a white-yellow sun perpetually reaching from the edge of the horizon. But then — bang! — she’s out of the cape and in a sci-fi outfit which barely covers the vitals, gyrating with two men in retro-futuristic tinfoil jumpsuits, doing fanny-flashing high kicks in front of enormous modern art sculptures, backed by frenetic tribal drums and the drugged out squeal of guitars. 51% of all homes in America tuned into Raquel (58% in New York), and this is the moment millions of dads leaned forwards in their seats. Back to Paris; stood on the Pont Alexandre III; climbing more steps; on the prow of a boat. This is less a California Dream than a three-day fever from the bite of an exotic insect, and what we’re witnessing is the arse-end of trippy hippie culture, hot on the tail of Woodstock and the Manson murders, where it was all about embracing weirdness, spirituality and body autonomy, expanding both the mind and the willy.

Least mad thing is the section putting across her hectic lifestyle, montages of airports and taxis and reporters asking in broken English “do you ever feel ugly?” over the on-point soundtrack Everybody’s Talking At Me, cutting a lonely figure on a deserted beach. It feels like one of those 80’s VHS profiles of teen heartthrobs, with shots of her on vast, empty locales giving the vibe of an ethereal alien wandering the ruins of a long-abandoned Earth, a million years after the fall of man. Look upon our wonders.

On these pages, sudden comedy skits have us primed for the arrival of Keith Harris; Bella, Les Dennis. But for Raquel’s first sketch, she’s teamed with John Wayne, in a bit which aired just 19 days after he’d been handed the Oscar for True Grit. I was unprepared for the sight of John Wayne doing comedy, even in the form of light banter, but needn’t have worried. After a line about her nice legs, it quickly segues into a PR piece. Turns out, “Big Bad John” is just a teddy bear, and “a real pushover when it comes to kids. About 600 kids to be exact!” as they show the pair visiting a Mexican orphanage. Holding kids’ hands and talking up the wonderful people who run the place, John remarks “they don’t need love, they give out love. They feel secure. It’s unbelievable.” By ‘remarks’ I mean, as part of the weird commentary they do over the footage, John Wayne chuckling “oh, look at the kids up on that balcony!” What was the pitch for this?! John Wayne and Raquel Welch visit a Mexican orphanage and then do a commentary track over it?

From that to Raquel up an empty ski lift singing Kenny Rankin’s Peaceful, which accompanies a Jackass-style montage of skiers eating shit, going arse-over-tit to her dulcet tones. But I suppose if you’re going to break your neck on the slopes, there’s worse soundtracks than Rachel Welch and panpipes. Next, she’s by a fountain dressed as a little cockney bootwhack, even doing the old ‘grab the lapels, elbows out’ move, clicking her heels during Raindrops Keep Falling. The pace and jarring shifts of a life flashing before your eyes next put her in a bejewelled Aztec outfit, singing Little Darlin’. There’s zero connection at any point between song, location, choreography or costume, every scene always four things at once. Now a medieval princess, soldiers on a rampart brandishing pikes; an Egyptian princess; an Indian princess in a colourful sari, sashaying Bollywood style in flames outside a Mexican hotel; an orange bikini. It’s hard to breathe. My chest hurts. Good Morning Starshine. A ruined temple. A beautiful dress. Leaning on weathered statues of forgotten old gods. “I’m dying, but it’s nice…”

At the base of a (real) Mayan temple, you expect men to start cutting off their own heads to send them rolling down hundreds of steps and land at her feet. But this is the Age of Aquarius, and the show’s most mental section pans down a line of dancers representing signs of the Zodiac. The costumes defy decent description, the kind of visuals half-glimpsed in a bath-dream, but when you wake, you can’t find the words; things which can only be comprehended outside the tangible world. Perhaps we’re looking at a clockwork gold lion; a lady in a black bodystocking with a giant, multicoloured crab for a head; a silver mermaid whose skull has a vast, tassled fish growing out of it; a goat-man; a minotaur; two men tied together; Baphomet with a man’s face emerging from his stomach. It feels like God slurped down an ocean of ayahuasca and hit randomize on the character generation screen. And at the end of the line, Raquel, looking resplendent.

We’re allowed no breathers, numbers bleeding into one another, as a tribe of Aztec warriors surround their queen in a moshpit of bare chests and feathered head dresses. Slam the brakes into an intricately domed church, panning down to reveal Tom Jones, the lyrics of whose I Who Have Nothing are rendered a bit silly by his exchanging loving looks with Raquel Welch, watching from the balcony in a wedding dress. Wish I had as nothing as you, mate. His sideboards are bigger than most men’s entire heads, and he gets a medley in a startlingly conventional nightclub — “I’m gonna rip it up!” — Raquel dancing beside him, audience of young boppers smoking and tapping match-books against tables. “Tutti Frutti!”

From that to a downbeat Hello Darkness, laid along on a deserted beach, slowly walking the dunes like an ad for life insurance before scaring some wild horses by running at them, then riding one to an Old West town where Bob Hope’s waiting in a comically tall hat. Bob makes history with likely the first onscreen use of the phrase “hasta la vista, baby,” in a skit where he feuds with another villainous cowboy — also him, in an even bigger hat — shooting himself in the foot, his moustache sticking to her face when they kiss, and so on. Bob’s so low energy, I had to check they didn’t film it after he died, and it’s noticeably cheap, like they finally ran out of money. It did occur at the end of the shoot, and one day prior to wrapping, it’s during this sketch that Raquel fell over and fractured her arm.

As we come to the end, holding a bunch of flowers, Raquel thanks her guests “for playing along with us,” before we’re treated to more out-takes, laughing and sticking her tongue out like a regular gal, plus a shot of her being wheeled out on a stretcher. As top-level bizarre as Raquel is, she doesn’t miss a single beat, resulting in a genuinely astounding piece of television. It’s a gloriously weird snapshot of an era, perfectly capturing all the beautiful 1970’s trippiness from a time TV wasn’t afraid to experiment, or throw vast sums of money and time at something just to make it interesting, in contrast to Rolf!, which was nothing more than a strange man doing the Same Old Shit.

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This piece first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could read it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my videos, my podcast, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s a ton of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

Before Gulf Aid, There Was… Ferry Aid

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This video first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could watch it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my podcast and videos, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s over 660,000 words of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.

Scavengers AKA Aliens: The Game Show?

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This video first appeared on my Patreon, where subscribers could watch it a month before it landed here. If you’d like to support me for as little as £1 a month, then click here to help provide the world with regular deep dives about weird-bad pop culture, early access to my podcast and videos, and all kinds of other stuff.

There’s over 660,000 words of content, including exclusives that’ll never appear here on the free blog, such as 1970’s British variety-set horror novella, Jangle, and my latest novel, Men of the Loch. Please give my existing books a look too, or if you’re so inclined, sling me a Ko-fi or some PayPal cash.