Goons, Pythons, Beyond The Fringe

Today we spotlight the post-WW2 UK heroes of comedy: the British invasion that preceded the Rickenbacker-brandishing lads from Liverpool, beginning with The Goon Show




And Beyond The Fringe




And Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

This Weekend's Binge Watch: Sir Alec Guinness and Ealing Studios

Determined to avoid the news AND the plague, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog continue the Brit-com bent that started with The Goons, The Pythons, The Two Ronnies and Alexei Sayle and now begin an Ealing Studios and Alec Guinness binge. Batting leadoff, just one of many outstanding movies starring the one, the only Sir Alec Guinness - The Horse's Mouth.



There is Kind Hearts & Coronets, in which Guinness plays eight incredibly disagreeable and loathsome characters with perfection. For this writer, the Ealing Studios masterpiece ranks high on the list of greatest feature films - and most wicked comedies - ever made.



Very much enjoyed seeing one of this blogger's favorite standup comedians, authors, B-movie historians and cartoon voice artists, Patton Oswalt, introduce and discuss Kind Hearts & Coronets, the black comedy to end all black comedies, as a TCM guest programmer.





As is the case with the great comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, there's no such thing as too many viewings of The Lavender Hill Mob.



The late, great Robert Osborne elaborates:



The Lavender Hill Mob is so cool, it even includes one of the earliest silver screen appearances of the iconic and always winsome Audrey Hepburn.



Another Alec Guinness vehicle we dearly love is The Man In The White Suit.





Next up: the brilliant black comedy The Ladykillers.



Alexander Mackendrick, the director of Whisky Galore!, The Man In The White Suit and The Ladykillers, was a master of the witty Ealing Comedies style, but also helmed an all-time favorite American film of the classic movie fans at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, the warm and cozy Sweet Smell Of Success.





We're also quite fond of the ever-so-slightly less well known but very funny Passport To Pimlico.



We'd be remiss to not mention the classic 1949 Ealing Studios comedy that was the directorial debut of Alexander Mackendrick, Whisky Galore!





Before watching another 15 or 20 Ealing Studios Productions, followed by several episodes of Hancock's Half Hour, we shall finish off today's post with this look at the Ealing Studios from the British Film Institute.

And This Blog Loves Alexei Sayle

"If you travel to the States ... they have a lot of different words than what we use. For instance: they say 'elevator', we say 'lift'; they say 'drapes', we say 'curtains'; they say 'president', we say 'seriously deranged git!" Alexei Sayle.

Headlong into a Brit-com binge, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog is revisiting the career of one of our favorite comedians who is still living and performing, Liverpool's Alexei Sayle.

A standup comic and actor, Alexei Sayle made his name along with Rik Mayall and Nigel Planer as one of the punk rock comedians who performed at Soho's The Comic Strip in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

First noticed the comedy of Mr. Sayle in The Secret Policeman's Other Ball, a favorite film, which also features John Cleese, Peter Cook and Rowan Atkinson.



For many, the first look at Alexei Sayle was as one of numerous over-the-top characters in The Young Ones.



In this clip from The Young Ones, Alexei Sayle does a sendup of Benito Mussolini, which now comes across as most apropo in fascism and authoritarianism-friendly 2020, the era of Vladimir Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, Kim Jong Un, Viktor Orban, Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi, Rodrigo Duterte and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.



Very much Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we'll quote Wikipedia's entry on Alexei:


When the Comedy Store opened in London in 1979, Sayle responded to an advert in Private Eye for would-be comedians and became its first master of ceremonies. In 1980, comedy producer Martin Lewis saw Sayle perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and became his manager. Sayle became the leading performer at the Comic Strip. He appeared on The Comic Strip Album (1981) and recorded Cak! (1982). He also appeared in the stage show, film and comedy album of The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (1981–1982). Sayle's material covered a broad range of topics, but one of his favourite subjects remained politics. His angry persona, coupled with his vociferous delivery, gave immense bite to his material.


Our favorite of his TV series remains Alexei Sayle's Stuff.



This show carries on the anarchic tradition exemplified by Peter Cook & Dudley Moore's Not Only But Also, Spike Milligan's Q series and Monty Python's Flying Circus.




There were three Alexei Sayle's Stuff series, first broadcast in 1988-1991.



All three series are hilarious.



Of the British comedy shows from the late 1980's and early 1990's, they are right up there with Red Dwarf and A Bit Of Fry & Laurie in the untethered inspiration department.



They would be followed later in the 1990's by The All New Alexei Sayle Show and Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round.



Do we love the Bobby Chariot character in The All New Alexei Sayle Show? Yes, very much.



Bobby Chariot is as unrelentingly terrible a performer as Andy Kaufman's tres toxic lounge lizard Tony Clifton, not to mention SCTV's egocentric entertainer Bobby Bittmann (Eugene Levy) and even less talented brother Skip Bittmann (Rick Moranis), but weirdly endearing.


The last of the comedian's TV shows we can point to that is still within the 20th century pop culture focus of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog is Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round.





While we in the States have not seen Alexei Sayle on TV in too many moons, the actor-writer continues to tour, write new material and perform standup comedy. In the past decade, this has included extended engagements at London's Soho Theatre and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He also hosts and writes the BBC 4 radio series Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar, a.k.a. stand-up, memoir and philosophy from behind the counter of his Imaginary Sandwich Bar.

Happy Natal Anniversary, Ronnie Barker of The Two Ronnies!

Today, we pay tribute to the great comedian, character actor and writer of countless comedy sketches and teleplays (under the name Gerald Wiley) Ronnie Barker, born in Bedford, Bedfordshire on September 25, 1929.



We're enthusiastic fans of Mr. Barker and Mr. Corbett, together as The Two Ronnies, separately and in their movie appearances.





Here are The Two Ronnies with fellow British comedy stalwart Stephen Fry, star of at least three all-time favorite TV shows of the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.



Do all of us comedy-centric sorts at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog enjoy Barker's tongue-twisting wordplay immensely? Yes.





Mr. Barker began his career as a character part specialist in repertory theatre and soon branched out into radio and TV.



The Wiki on Ronnie Barker notes that he made his name on radio by playing a variety of characters demonstrating formidable skill with dialects on Alistair Scott Johnson's BBC radio sitcom The Navy Lark.







Ronnie Barker would be an ubiquitous presence on 1960's English TV and supporting parts on the hit series The Saint and The Avengers followed. The first appearance of The Two Ronnies would be in the satiric sketch comedy series The Frost Report. They co-starred with John Cleese and Marty Feldman was among the show's writers.



The Two Ronnies also did solo projects. Ronnie Barker starred in several series, among them Hark At Barker (which preceded The Two Ronnies and ran from 1969-1970), His Lordship Entertains, Porridge, Open All Hours, Going Straight and Clarence.

PBS remains responsible for giving this writer quite an education in British comedy, including The Two Ronnies, many moons ago.

San Francisco's PBS affiliate, KQED, found that British comedy shows were the most highly rated and anticipated programs in their evening lineups.

Monty Python marathons meant lots of new memberships and enthusiastic renewals for PBS, so the weekly Brit-com nights expanded to include a wide range of non-Python and non-Goon Show series. These included half-hour cutdowns of The Two Ronnies shows.

The British comedy lineups on KQED included everything from The Two Ronnies to Dave Allen At Large to Dad's Army to Frankie Howerd to Rising Damp to shows representing comedians who were then the new generation (Not The Nine O'Clock News). The Two Ronnies followed my favorite, Monty Python's Flying Circus.

A few years later, in the 1990's, the PBS affiliate in San Jose, KTEH, treated San Francisco Bay Area viewers to the next generation of British comedy: Blackadder, The Young Ones, Alexei Sayle's Stuff and Red Dwarf, but, alas, no more Barker and Corbett series.

Bear in mind, with the exception of Are You Being Served, the overwhelming majority of British comedy shows from the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's never aired on United States television. For an idea of how many series were in comedy-drenched British television, take a gander at these three videos (and enjoy the shredding electric guitarist on the soundtracks).







Never dawned on me that Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett were a different genre and generation of entertainment from the Pythons as it did emphatically when Frankie Howerd's Up Pompeii! series ran in the PBS Brit-com lineup, but The Two Ronnies often represented a blend of English music hall traditions with the anarchic sensibility of The Goon Show, Beyond The Fringe and the Pythons.



As Ronnie Barker's background was in repertory theatre, mastering character roles as a player stock company player and Ronnie Corbett's experience was as a variety/vaudeville performer, closer to the music hall sensibility of Eric Morecambe & Ernie Wise than the Pythons, the new school - old school synthesis worked like a charm. And, unquestionably, The Two Ronnies and the Pythons shared a love of extreme silliness delivered with British understatement.



Furthering that comedy yin-yang was the presence of various Pythons and Goons in the writing of the Two Ronnies shows. Some of the funniest Two Ronnies episodes I recall seeing way back when were written by two duos from Monty Python: Graham Chapman & John Cleese, as well as Terry Jones & Michael Palin. Eric Idle receives writing credits on season 1 episodes of The Two Ronnies, along with Jones and Palin. It is entirely possible that programmers at PBS pulled all the Two Ronnies shows that were written by Pythons and showcased them, given the considerable popularity of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers and Ripping Yarns. Spike Milligan (The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town serial in season 6) and Tim Brooke-Taylor also were writers on the series.

These days, the BBC cable channels and streaming services demonstrate an aversion to non-current content and show no interest in "classic" shows whatsoever, but a poster on Daily Motion who's either a super fan of the Two Ronnies or a member of the Barker and Corbett families has posted a Two Ronnies playlist featuring 82 episodes of the series.

So it is possible to binge watch the series, even if you do not have a Region-free DVD player, at least at the moment, via this playlist.



There are clips from Two Ronnies shows, as well as slightly truncated 40 minute versions, sans openings and closings, on YouTube. Note: some YouTube posts, such as the following one, are out-of-sync.



Closing today's post with clips from the BAFTA tribute celebrating the six decade career of Ronnie Barker, hosted by Ronnie Corbett, with David Jason, Peter Kay, John Cleese, Gene Wilder and Rob Brydon.



Thanks a million to all of you stiff upper lip merrymakers!

A Bit Of Morecambe & Wise: Live In Concert, 1973

Here are some extremely funny bits from a Morecambe & Wise concert appearance at Fairfield Halls, Croydon. Enjoy - Eric & Ernie sure did!

The Beatles On The Morecambe & Wise Show

The Musical Comedy Of Morecambe & Wise

The team of Eric Morecambe & Ernie Wise, along with Benny Hill, were among the last comedians influenced by the rollicking humor of English music halls.



Morecambe & Wise, A.K.A. Eric and Ernie, brought that tuneful joie de vivre into the television age.



Morecambe & Wise started performing together in 1941 and grew up watching variety shows, the British version of vaudeville. It would be an understatement to suggest that music is a cornerstone of their comedy.





The contagious silliness factor and good humor of the Morecambe & Wise musical sketches works for me and also is reminiscent (in a very good way) of the American team from numerous absurdist 1930's movie musicals produced by RKO Radio Pictures, Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey.





Too bad Allan Sherman was never a guest star on the Morecambe & Wise show (I can hear the intro now: "Hello Eric, Hello Ernie. Hello, Harvey, Sheila, Bernie").



The Morecambe & Wise Show proved a rousing success in Great Britain, first on radio (beginning with the You're Only Young Once show in 1953-1954) and then on television, with the BBC-TV program that ran from 1969-1977 representing its apex.



Eric and Ernie's musical comedy variety program, unlike the post-1960's seasons of The Benny Hill Show, never quite made it to television in Your Blogmeister's neck of the woods, the San Francisco Bay Area, unfortunately.





It's official: this blog loves Morecambe & Wise, much as it loves a comedy team that inspired them, Laurel & Hardy!

And This Blog Loves Peter Cook & Dudley Moore

Today, the Brit-com aficionados from Way Too Lazy To Write A Blog pay tribute to the comedy team that got big laughs in the legendary Beyond The Fringe revue and the BBC television show Not Only But Also - Peter Cook & Dudley Moore.

And This Blog Loves Spike Milligan

As comedy and showbiz fans ponder and mourn the recent passing of powerhouse Sid Caesar, today's posting remembers another wild and crazy guy (and favorite of this blog) who blasted into the comedy zeitgeist in the 1950's, the great Spike Milligan.



Like Marty Feldman, he was a trumpet player who, instead of leading a British bebop big band, became a comedian. The musical nature of Spike's writing proved a constant in his career as a performer and author.



Born in British India in 1918, Spike made his name as a writer, cast member and co-founder of BBC radio's The Goon Show.





In over 200 radio shows and a few TV and film appearances, The Goons - Spike, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe - for all practical purposes threw out the comedy playbook and invented a new one.



After The Goon Show, Milligan began doing standup comedy and guest appearances on various TV variety programs.







He would soon follow up The Goon Show by producing, writing and starring in his own sketch comedy program Q.



Very likely the first time Americans saw Spike Milligan was on the short-lived but glorious 1970 sketch comedy show, The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine.



Unfortunately, the 10+ seasons of Spike's Q series, at least on Your Blogmeister's home turf, the San Francisco Bay Area, did not get TV distribution in the United States, even during the 1970's and 1980's stretch when British comedy - Python and Python offshoots (Fawlty Towers, Ripping Yarns), The Two Ronnies, Benny Hill and such lesser known shows as Dad's Army and Up Pompeii (starring Frankie Howerd)- could be found everywhere on the boob tube, especially via a then more prosperous PBS. Granted, non-Python British comedy (Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, Sid Field, Flanagan & Allen, George Formby, Tony Hancock, Kenneth Horne, Jimmy James, Morecambe & Wise, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Williams, Norman Wisdom) was also seldom seen.



Thanks to YouTube DailyMotion and other online portals, it is possible now for comedy-challenged Americans to spend a bit of time in Spike's surreal comedy world.





Onscreen, he was the silliest of the silly, but offscreen was quite the activist in the environmental and animal rights arenas, as well as a prolific author. His books included a seven-volume autobiographical account of his World War II service. Hitler, Nazis, fascism and pompous twits in general were frequent targets of his humor.







Since Spike was known as a poet and author of Silly Verse for Kids, let's finish this post with one of his poems!

Laughs From The Great Marty Feldman

Now that we're living in an age in which comedies on both television and movies are few and far between - one would guess that The Suits have decided humor is insufficiently profitable - it's easy to be nostalgic for that last wave of outstanding screen comedians. One of the last, who would have fit right into silent era slapstick, was a trumpet player who became a comic in the 1960's, Mr. Marty Feldman.







Marty Feldman died in 1982 and boy, do we miss him!

More Marty Feldman Covers Of Tom Lehrer Tunes

Marty and Derek Griffiths perform Tom Lehrer's hilarious National Brotherhood Week on the 1974 BBC series Marty Back Together Again. While the quality of this clip isn't great (appears to have been mastered from a VHS tape that's going-going-going and soon to be gone), I can't complain, having never seen any excerpts from this series before a few days ago.



Thanks, flashbackcaruso, for posting this on YouTube!

Marty Feldman Covers Tom Lehrer

Marty covers "The Vatican Rag" as a high-stepping production number and sings "Pollution" with guitarist Derek Griffiths.

Marty Feldman and Spike Milligan, 1971

In "The Undertaker Sketch", from the Marty Feldman Comedy Machine show.

Palin For President - Michael, That Is

This Palin is all right by me: has been for a long time.

The other Palin? The recent incident involving bigots in the Alaska governor's rally audiences yelling "TERRORIST!", "OFF WITH HIS HEAD" and "KILL HIM!" about Senator Obama was an ugly and appalling blast from the past, a most unwelcome throwback to the bad old days of 1965 George Wallace and 1948 Strom Thurmond.

Sir Terrance Allan 'Spike' Milligan

Attention! Minimalist absurdist at work!

Otherwise known as Spike Milligan (1918-2002), who, with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, created (Python predecessor) The Goon Show for BBC radio from 1950 to 1959. This and the following sketch are from his last television series, There's A Lot Of It About, circa early 1980's.

To paraphrase Catharton.com:

At the 1994 British Comedy Awards, host Jonathan Ross was going along on autopilot spouting cliches as he presented Milligan with a lifetime achievement award and read a gushing letter from Prince Charles. Here is Spike's response, on live TV:




Spike later sent Charles an apology - and cheerfully asked if he'd blown his chances of a knighthood.

The Two Greatest Television Comedies You Never Heard Of

My first exposure to no-holds-barred British comedy was not Monty Python, but a show that ran on American TV in 1971, I believe as a summer replacement. An international production featuring wildly outrageous sketches and Terry Gilliam cut-out animation, it was titled The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine.

Terry Gilliam's opening with Marty Feldman as a "reject" on an assembly line - and closing with a host of bizarre 1890's figures "losing their heads" while saying "Goodbye" - resonated with me. I also recall a delightfully campy musical segment with Barbara "Agent 99" Feldon singing "The Codfish Ball". More generally, I remember that I just loved this program, and wouldn't see its like again for a couple more years, when the Python shows hit PBS.

About ten years later, I got the opportunity to see a complete Marty Feldman Comedy Machine show. The cast included chief Goon and patron saint of Britcom Spike Milligan, as well as three actors from The Benny Hill Show. The guest star: Orson Welles. The writers: Milligan, Feldman, Barry Levinson and a post-Sid Caesar, pre-M*A*S*H Larry Gelbart. While not necessarily brilliant from fade-in to fade-out (what sketch comedy program is?), much of it was unbelievably funny. Among many highlights: Marty as Dr. Jekyll - AND Mr. Hyde - accepting an award at a banquet, Orson Welles hawking "DICTIONARY - THE MOVIE" and Milligan as an insane lounge-lizard performer singing "The Girl From Ipanema."

Let's also hope that whoever is sitting on those Marty Feldman Comedy Machine shows will decide there's a buck to be made by reissuing the series on a DVD box.

Unfortunately, because these shows - and Feldman's BBC programs - are obscure, there seems to be a lot less interest in him out on the Web than in his contemporaries and successors.

Here's an inspired and Python-esque program (that actually preceded Monty Python's Flying Circus) in which Marty Feldman was a cast member, At Last The 1948 Show, featuring John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor and the late great Graham Chapman: