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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