As there doesn't seem to be a 'radio' thread, I'll put this here because it sort of fits.
In the words of Max Miller, "Here's a funny thing". The other day I installed Radio Garden on my phone. By chance one of the first stations it located was "ROK -British Comedy (London, United Kingdom)". In the car today, fed up with the usual crap on radio I switched over to the Bluetooth and, blow me down, there was Kenneth Horne and gang doing a spoof of Night Of The Big Heat. First broadcast on 24th June 1960 (therefore still Beyond Our Ken), they were obviously sending up the teleplay shown on ITV just ten days previously. Horne's neighbour has a bad case of nerves and explains that she'd been watching 'The Fantastic Heat', leading in to Horne, Kenneth Williams (in the role played in the later film version by Christopher Lee!), Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden doing their condensed, gag filled take on the story - complete with jokes about giant alien insects, the 'original' monsters which were replaced by slithering jellies in the 1967 movie. A couple of nuggets: " I don't remember it ever getting so hot!" Are you forgetting that weekend in Brighton?" and "What about those horrible things out there?" "If one of those things gets me it'll just be one of those things"Shame the TV play is apparently lost.
Episode six of the third series of Doc Martin features 'The Black Widow', a retired Porton Down research scientist with a sinister reputation, living in an isolated house with a home-built basement bio-lab, conducting illegal experiments on her crippled spinster sister and accidentally spreading fungus spore infections among the locals. The scenes at the house are deliberately filmed and scored so as to play up the 'creepy' angle.
While in England last month I discovered Lee Mack (whom I'd never heard of) and his sitcom Not Going Out (which I'd never heard of). I've been enjoying several episodes of the several series (and bhf connection, Geoffrey (Silas, son of Silas) Whitehead plays the curmudgeonly father-in-law). Today I came across a Halloween special.
Lee Mack is at his finest in the panel game Would I Lie To You? It's probably the funniest show on British telly, particularly when Bob Mortimer makes one of his amazing guest appearances.
I remember being quite puzzled when British sitcoms started doing Hallowe'en-themed episodes that depicted Hallowe'en as it was in American sitcoms and nothing at all like how the night was marked in the UK. I think 2point4 Children was first to go down that unwelcome route.
Bilko's Vampire was an episode from The Phil Silvers Show, originally shown in the USA in October 1958. In the episode, Bilko's usual poker patsy, Rupert Ritzik, won't come out to play as he's addicted to watching late night horror films. Bilko decides to scare Ritzik out of it by convincing him that he has turned into a vampire ... then tries to sign him up to a Hollywood contract as the newest horror star.
The 4th and final season of "Bilko" saw the writing start to deteriorate somewhat with an increased number of gimmick or guest star episodes so, although entertaining enough, this is a long way from the show's glory days of The Court-Martial or The Twitch. Although (Horror of) Dracula had been released a few months earlier the episode's "vampire" is very much in the Bela Lugosi mould and Joe E. Lewis manages to look like a fat(ter) Bela at times.
Our gang present a 1960s-set horror this week, as the mysterious Albert Fortenoy welcomes a young family to his crumbling old house. What is the secret behind the death of Albert’s late wife Vera? Who is the creepy vicar’s daughter playing outside?A number of clever theatrical horror devices are used to create a spooky atmosphere and plenty of jump scares, and every single one manages to go horribly wrong. Worse, the designers have taken ‘crumbling’ to heart and the cast contrive to fall off, out of, and through everything. A stairlift develops a life-threatening mind of its own, a talking deer-head fails to understand its cues, and entire rooms seem to go missing.Worse the play has been running short in rehearsals, and the only solution they can find involves adjectives...
I haven't seen any of this series myself as it sounds ghastly, like the witless and annoying National Theatre of Brent that was inflicted on is a number of years ago. I don't suppose I'll tune in for this one either!
As there doesn't seem to be a 'radio' thread, I'll put this here because it sort of fits.
In the words of Max Miller, "Here's a funny thing". The other day I installed Radio Garden on my phone. By chance one of the first stations it located was "ROK -British Comedy (London, United Kingdom)". In the car today, fed up with the usual crap on radio I switched over to the Bluetooth and, blow me down, there was Kenneth Horne and gang doing a spoof of Night Of The Big Heat. First broadcast on 24th June 1960 (therefore still Beyond Our Ken), they were obviously sending up the teleplay shown on ITV just ten days previously. Horne's neighbour has a bad case of nerves and explains that she'd been watching 'The Fantastic Heat', leading in to Horne, Kenneth Williams (in the role played in the later film version by Christopher Lee!), Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden doing their condensed, gag filled take on the story - complete with jokes about giant alien insects, the 'original' monsters which were replaced by slithering jellies in the 1967 movie. A couple of nuggets: " I don't remember it ever getting so hot!" Are you forgetting that weekend in Brighton?" and "What about those horrible things out there?" "If one of those things gets me it'll just be one of those things" Shame the TV play is apparently lost.
Episode six of the third series of Doc Martin features 'The Black Widow', a retired Porton Down research scientist with a sinister reputation, living in an isolated house with a home-built basement bio-lab, conducting illegal experiments on her crippled spinster sister and accidentally spreading fungus spore infections among the locals. The scenes at the house are deliberately filmed and scored so as to play up the 'creepy' angle.
While in England last month I discovered Lee Mack (whom I'd never heard of) and his sitcom Not Going Out (which I'd never heard of). I've been enjoying several episodes of the several series (and bhf connection, Geoffrey (Silas, son of Silas) Whitehead plays the curmudgeonly father-in-law). Today I came across a Halloween special.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3rdQ0NMPB0
I remember an episode of F Troop titled "V is for Vampire" with Vincent Price.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6sewet
Bilko's Vampire was an episode from The Phil Silvers Show, originally shown in the USA in October 1958. In the episode, Bilko's usual poker patsy, Rupert Ritzik, won't come out to play as he's addicted to watching late night horror films. Bilko decides to scare Ritzik out of it by convincing him that he has turned into a vampire ... then tries to sign him up to a Hollywood contract as the newest horror star.
The 4th and final season of "Bilko" saw the writing start to deteriorate somewhat with an increased number of gimmick or guest star episodes so, although entertaining enough, this is a long way from the show's glory days of The Court-Martial or The Twitch. Although (Horror of) Dracula had been released a few months earlier the episode's "vampire" is very much in the Bela Lugosi mould and Joe E. Lewis manages to look like a fat(ter) Bela at times.
The Goes Wrong Show
Episode four: The Lodge.
Our gang present a 1960s-set horror this week, as the mysterious Albert Fortenoy welcomes a young family to his crumbling old house. What is the secret behind the death of Albert’s late wife Vera? Who is the creepy vicar’s daughter playing outside?A number of clever theatrical horror devices are used to create a spooky atmosphere and plenty of jump scares, and every single one manages to go horribly wrong. Worse, the designers have taken ‘crumbling’ to heart and the cast contrive to fall off, out of, and through everything. A stairlift develops a life-threatening mind of its own, a talking deer-head fails to understand its cues, and entire rooms seem to go missing.Worse the play has been running short in rehearsals, and the only solution they can find involves adjectives...
I haven't seen any of this series myself as it sounds ghastly, like the witless and annoying National Theatre of Brent that was inflicted on is a number of years ago. I don't suppose I'll tune in for this one either!