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r_caton
Reviews
The Friday Show: Episode #1.7 (1960)
Thank heavens for Archives
I saw this show from.a DVD and it was an eye-opener. Presumably this is a kinescope so the picture was fuzzy occasionally but the show was a fascinating "fireside reminiscences" from George Formby from his leaving school at 7 to his early problems starting on the halls....interspersed with songs that were for the most part unknown. There are bits on YouTube but if you can get the DVD it's worth it it's a fascinating glimpse at a man who would be gone inside of five months
It's That Man Again (1943)
Radio is not film is not TV. Interesting record of a great artist...
Tommy Handley was supremely talented in rapid fire delivery and in making scripted humour sound spontaneous. Listening to his work on the Radio in ITMA or his work on record with Ronald Frankau (Murgatroyd and Winterbottom, or in earlier days North and South) you will marvel at the sheer speed of delivery matched to clarity of diction. He was a broadcast comedian who had started with the BBC as early as 1922 but it was with ITMA that he truly became a national icon. The problem with ITMA is that like most really good comedy it was very topical and what was recognised in 1943 might need research by 1948 to even understand. When translated to film radio comedy is doubly hampered by the need for a plot which a show that depended on catchphrases fast delivery and topical humour simply didn't need on its home turf. This applies to most radio comedy, as has been remarked on with the Goons, and films like Bandwaggon (where Big and Stinker... Arthur Askey and Richard Murdoch.... end up running a pirate TV station). Yet ITMA holds up. Handley's character as the rascally mayor of Foaming at the Mouth is a joy to watch as he keeps extracting himself from trouble only to get caught with his own trick at the very end of the film. Don't like ancient radio comedy actors? Go watch something modern! But comparing the verbal dexterity of Tommy Handley to the slapstick antics of the Three Stooges? That's like comparing steak to sea bass... both delicious but nothing like each other.
Tickertape (1968)
Sunday television fare for the kiddies
It's hard to comment on a show one hasn't seen for 40 years but I recall the theme song (by Jake Thackeray) even now "Tick-tick-er tape, Tick-Tick-Er Tape, A most pec-uli-er mach-ine" The other think I recall about it was that it had an animated sequence - cutout animation I think, the sort that has legs and arms without knee/elbow joints which would feature a boy and another character who was the devil/tempter - this would have been a nod to the fact that the show went out on Sunday. It is hard now to imagine the poor standard of shows that went out on Sunday, and as a result were supposed to be edifying and morally educational to the children watching. Not that children's TV has ever not had a message for its audience, just that Sunday shows were expected to be especially moral. Why did we watch them? because the stuff on the BBC was even worse from the preaching aspect. I will give this show credit for introducing me to the inimitable Jake Thackeray though!
Ruddigore (1966)
Interesting attempt
I saw this on the television....the animation as has already been commented on is adequate, certainly up to contemporary Halas & Batchelor standards (as per "Foo Foo & Go Go") The voice cast are from the D'Oyly Carte Opera company at the time and I suspect that the voice track may have been edited from the then current LP version of Ruddigore. I would recommend this certainly against the Brent Walker sponsored version of the 1980's which does not take itself as seriously as the plot (a parody of Victorian melodrama) needs to be in order to work. Ruddigore itself has a somewhat chequered history since it fared ill on the work's original presentation, being unfavourably compared to "The Mikado" which preceded it at the Savoy Theatre. It was tinkered with during the original run, and then further mutilated in 1920 when some numbers were cut which also necessitated the provision of a new overture. It has recently been given in a version close to the original however the version that the animation uses is of course the 1920 revision.
Foo-Foo (1960)
Forgotten Minimalism
I remember these short cartoons from my childhood...they were very simple in terms of animation, with very stylized characters and very limited backgrounds. Foo-Foo was based on circles, and had a bowler hat (circular crown, and very curved brim). His antagonist Go-Go was about 2½ times his size, triangular in shape with the bulk of the body black to provide the beard of the traditional pantomime villain. Arms/legs were lines, and no dialogue was spoken.
They were featured in the (British) "TV Comic"; but as far as I know the only home movie exposure they got after their TV career would have been the 8mm Sound films (200 ft one reelers) issued by Mountain Films. I had a couple, I'll have to go look. In one such, Go-Go replaces Foo-Foo by a computer which is duly sabotaged by having booze poured into its input slot... It burps and outputs a card with "PARDON" punched on it. This was the film that the late Denis Gifford in "The Armchair Odeon" said had a strange apparent moral "If you want to get a head, get a thick one".
Hunt them out; they were undemanding fare but strangely entertaining as much wordless comedy seems to be.
Blazing Dragons (1996)
heartfelt plea
It's a pity that this film series isn't available on video or DVD - in the UK its been aired once on terrestrial TV (1996), and I doubt given the fashion in cartoons now whether they will ever air it again. The second series was cruder in animation than the first,and even the first lacked attention to some details, but the gags were excellent and the characterizations - particularly the Loungealot/Flicker dialogues - superb.