Mrs Slocombe's Pussy
 

There's been a thread of smut running through the Cellar lately, and I do like that. It makes me feel right at home does that.

To give you Merkins an idea of why I, and the other Brits here have such a refined sense of smut, here's an example of prime-time family entertainment from the early 70s. I used to like this show. I watched it with my mum and dad and brother. I couldn't swear to it but I may have watched it with my grandparents. It had simple comedy archetypes (The upper-class manager, the lower class caretaker, the Dizzy young blonde on the shop floor, the effeminate gay floor assistant in the men's section, etc etc) with a simple palette of catch phrases.

Mrs Slocombe has a cat. From this much mirth ensues. This is a collection of Mrs Slocombe's best moments.




Hopefully this explains much about the general smuttiness of British minds.

Are you being served was great dinnertime viewing at my house.

We used to watch that show when I was a kid too. It was very funny.

Brilliant! You got to see it too:) That explains why you're all so filthy too

Did you get a lot of that stuff over there?

Now can you explain Benny Hill?

Mrs. Dallas and I used to watch Are You Being Served regularly.

Yep, we got heaps of it here. Benny Hill, Fawlty Towers, Dad's Army, Black Adder, Yes Minister...the list goes on and on. There was the one about the greeny couple with their rich neighbours (can't remember the name) and the dimwit Frank with the wife named Betty, On The Busses was another one we got too.

i love british comedy

fawlty towers, python, benny hill.... there were several others that would come on PBS at night before we had cable. there was a distinctly bawdy feel to most of them. like you had a better chance of catching a glimpse of something you oughtnt to have.

Hmm. I think LJ might be going British. (wording sounded vaguely British to me)

That 46 second video must reflect hours of takes ruined by someone on set cracking up.

'Allo 'Allo, Open All Hours, Last Of The Summer Wine...

The Young Ones, Father Ted, Coupling...

The Good Life and Some Mothers Do Ave 'Em :) He did all his own stunts you know. Went on to play the Phantom of the Opera.

Yeah...that's them. And yeah I knew he did Phantom too. Amazing really when you consider his character Frank. I think that was a big part of his appeal as the Phantom to be honest.

My Dad and I used to watch The Young Ones. That show was so gross. lol I remember the one where Neil had a cold and kept snotting everywhere. Eventually into a garbage bag. Ewwww...

I have the Young Ones collection with all the episodes on DVD.

If you google "cornflakes cornflakes" this is the first result.

Dana, if I flick through the channels, it's a given I'll either be able to find "Are you being served" or "Keeping Up Appearances". I think the Merkin BritHumorPhiles have a thing about ladies of a certain age in twinsets and bouffant hairdos with fake posh accents.....

I see. I knew Benny had made it over there, hadn't realised they had all the smut:P

it almost pained me to name those two programs in the same sentence. apparently they find the latter funny too..... :eek:

Oh god no. Hyacinth Bucket? That's a fucking unfortunate cultural envoy no?

I love that show.

Really? Seriously?

I never liked it.

Ok, cool. I loved it. Funny as hell. Great escape. You probably hated Faulty Towers as well. Whatever.

Oh no. Fawlty Towers was brilliant!


(you were talking about Keeping up Appearances right?)

NO.

lol. Ok. I see.

yup, Hyacinth is the benchmark by whom we are all judged....

(it is assumed we all find her hysterical ...and benny hill)

Oh, god, no....

Hand me my pearl-white slim-line push-button telephone with automatic last-number redial. It's an exact replica of one in Sandringham House.

My Royal Doulton with the hand-painted periwinkles will never do...

I wasn't allowed to watch the Young Ones, but the guy on the left was in Drop Dead Fred, which was one of my absolute favorite childhood movies.

I was addicted to the Young Ones when i was a kid. Me and my bro used to do do impressions, we knew all the main lines of dialogue.

Next day at school that was all we talked about.

Man this is really heavy! We plant the seed, right, then nature grows the seed, and then we eat the seed!

There was a Smpsons episode which baffled me. Bart was watching a British (English) sitcom, and the family were all really violent to eachother. I mean it was like Itchy and Scratchy, but realistic and involving the whole family.

I spent ages trying to work out what they were referencing. I may even have asked on here, because it genuinely puzzled me.

In the end, I decided it was The Young Ones (or one of the Edmondson/ Mayall spinoffs) translated into a family sitcom. Which they were never meant to be. But then I guess the casual violence of The Young Ones, Filthy Rich & Catflap and Bottom is shocking in its own way.

Wow, I just had a flashback. I think someone I used to know would talk about The Young Ones a lot, and maybe I watched some videos?

I'll have to google it and see if it's familiar.

I never saw the episode, but it very well might have been a "Punch & Judy" reference. We've sort of crystallized that one thing for all time as being representative of all British humor, and it's only in recent years started to fade as we get access to more and more of your media.

Punch and Judy shows fascinate me. I don't mean to watch, I mean as a cultural expression. It's an old voice. It speaks from a past Britain.

Rik Mayall. I was in Grad school with his sister at the time he had the quad bike accident. The media reporting all the worried family gathered at the bedside was somewhat of an exaggeration.... and guess what! Apparently, IRL, he's...... a complete arsehole.....imagine that! :lol:


Did Bottom Ever make it over here? or the one about Alan B'Stard MP? ...the New Statesman

I know someone who knows someone who was at Manchester Uni with Rik Mayall. It sounds like a random connection, but the person I know, I know very well, and he knew the person who was at Uni with Rik very well too. And yes, from what I heard too, he was a complete monster.

Huge ego, no respect for other people - and especially their property - and just not very easy to be around. The way he treats property and people in Young Ones/ Bottom et al was pretty much developed in real life in his late teens, just with real people and real things. He might have been honing his comedy, but it real life it came across as cruel and hurtful. The person who knew him was really quite bitter about it.

I wonder what Edmondson's like in that case? I didn't hear any stories about him. Maybe Jennifer Saunders keeps him in line.

I've seen him interviewed in recent years and he seems tohave softened somewhat. He seems to realise he's a jerk. Described himself as one big ego.

Wow, that looked just like a double negative reality inversion.


Ahh, good memories.

I love brit sitcoms...fawlty towers, are you being served, the young ones, and Keeping up appearances are my favorites...i used to watch them at 3 in the morning with my grandmother(who recently passed on) when we couldnt sleep or were waiting for my grandfather to get home from work! Man i sure do miss her

Oh, hi, Wickedly. Welcome to the Cellar, home of food fights, bomb shelters, and the occasional wallful of wines. With or without an H.

On a related note, this is another show I use to love to watch. I have not started to collect them on DVD yet but I plan on it someday.

Rumpole of the Bailey creator John Mortimer dies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009...-mortimer-dies

Oh shit, no.
He's on my Celebrity Death List purely because no-one on there dies!

Off to the Bummed Me Out Thread asap.

Ohhhh Rumpole! Rumpole of the Bailey is to me forever linked to the feeling of being off sick from school. It was on mid aft. I loved it. The music barely has to start and I am suddenly 12 again.