The YouTube Files – The Kids In The Hall.

The Kids In The Hall (CBC, 1988-1995)

Following on from Four On The Floor (that I reviewed recently), this is another Canadian comedy sketch show that launched in the 80s and was later shown in this country, although this one was longer-running, and became more popular. I do remember that this was shown rather late at night on Channel 4 throughout the 90s, and this really did attract a cult following. I decided to have a look for some editions on YouTube.

As well as being the name of the show, The Kids In The Hall was also the name of the comedy quintet who formed in the mid-80s. They wrote and performed their sketches, and they soon put together a group of rather outrageous characters that were energetically performed. They even played all of the female roles in sketches, and their surreal style soon won them comparisons with the style of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

This means that it didn’t take long for this to start becoming popular with viewers. Among the regular characters was someone who liked to imagine crushing people’s heads between his fingers. Well it’s funnier than that sounds. There were lots of others, and the studio audience who seemed to be having a good time often joined in too. And of course, there were lots of jokes about ice hockey, seriously, what’s that all about.

And well, if you were watching TV in this country in the mid-90s at around 2am for whatever reason and you were in need of a laugh, there was a good chance that you would come across this show, and you would definitely enjoy the experience. There were over 100 editions of The Kids In The Hall in five series, which did rather well in America too, to the point that some of the cast also contributed to Saturday Night Live.

The TV version was brought to an end in 1995, and there was a film in 1996, but they insisted that was it. I’m sure that in more recent years one of them was in the sitcom Superstore, that is often shown on ITV2. And 25 years on from the end, the corpse started to twitch, and they decided to do it all over again for one of those shiny new streaming service things. Jokes about big half-human chicken things are still really great I’m sure.

The YouTube Files – Tracey Takes On…

Tracey Takes On… (HBO, 1996-1999)

Tracey Ullman is someone who appeared in a lot of successful comedy shows in the early/mid-80s, including A Kick Up The Eighties, Three Of A Kind, and Girls On Top (I haven’t got round to looking back at her pop music career yet, but I plan to do that soon as well). In the mid-80s, she went off to America to further her career, and she became one of the few British-born talents to have succeeded in this difficult market.

Although when her late-80s sketch show for Fox was shown in this country, viewers didn’t really get too excited about all of this (and they edited The Simpsons shorts out!). But she continued to work Stateside though. In 1993, she appeared in a one-off special for cable channel HBO called Tracey Takes On… New York. This did well enough for there to be a full series that was based on this idea, which launched in 1996.

Every edition would “take on” a different subject, so it could be agents, dating, hype, sport, and so on. And Tracey would play a wide variety of characters expressing what their views on this subject were. And I really do mean a wide variety. She played characters who were young and old, even female and male, and they were all given an individual personality. She really was the woman of many faces and voices.

And because this was shown on the less-regulated HBO channel, there was the opportunity to go a little further with the ideas, and it was even possible to include some jokes and everything. And among the writers were Clement and La Frenais, the British double-act who have been behind several successful sitcoms over the years, including Porridge, and this just added that extra level of class to what was already an impressive show.

There were 47 editions of Tracey Takes On… in three series. This was first shown in the UK in 1998 on Channel 5, who took the chance to show some imported comedy in a primetime slot. But, as with a lot of shows, they ended up neglecting this, moving the later editions to a post-midnight slot. Again, though this won plenty of awards, British viewers didn’t really take to this. But she would eventually return to this country for more success.

The YouTube Files – Inside Victor Lewis-Smith.

Inside Victor Lewis-Smith (BBC2, 1993)

The late Victor Lewis-Smith was a TV critic in the Evening Standard for many years, and as I have said before, I used to read his column sometimes. He became known for making bad taste jokes, he often used to imply that he had somehow been a critic for 147 years, and he came across as increasingly frustrated by what he felt were falling standards, and the inability to use the medium of television to its full potential, especially in comedy shows.

But he also wrote and appeared in a few comedy shows of his own (including Up Your Arts, that I reviewed a while ago). I am reminded of the episode of Family Guy where Brian has written a sitcom, and his family and friends eagerly gather to watch the first episode, and he wonders why the cast of Two And A Half Men are also there, and he is simply told “well you’re always saying our show sucks, let’s see yours”. And all of the editions are on YouTube.

It was clear that Inside Victor Lewis-Smith was going to be something rather different, and although this did feature some sketches, it is almost impossible to place this into any category. Curiously, Victor never really wanted to appear much on TV himself, insisting that his wrinkled visage was for too grotesque to ever be contained within the magic rectangle (he said that he was once told “I’ve seen better hair on a coconut”).

And maybe he proved the old saying that he had a great face for radio. But they managed to get round this by having him lying in bed, with the whole of his body in bandages, in a rather strange hospital. We end up witnessing some of the odd things that are happening in his not very conscious mind, usually expressed by some unusual TV clips taken from the archive (that should probably have been left there).

Also featuring was a taxi driver who was going through Victor’s body, who had plenty of opinions to share with anyone who would listen. And also among the cast was Roger Lloyd-Pack, playing a similarly heartless doctor like he was in sitcom Health And Efficiency around the same time. It would be fair to say that all of this wasn’t going to be to everybody’s taste, and BBC2 definitely took a gamble by giving this a six-part series.

Taboos were stretched, conventions were ignored, and millions of people complained to the BBC (probably). Some wondered if Victor would always like TV to be like this, and maybe watching all of those bad shows really does end up warping your mind permanently. A few years on from this, he returned with Channel 4’s TV Offal, which if anything was an even more outrageous look at the more curious moments in TV history.

Update: Since I did this piece, I have found out that Inside Victor Lewis-Smith had a repeat run on BBC2 on Saturday nights in 1995, but in a pre-9pm slot, and edited down to 20 minutes from 30. Why would this be? There are lots of reasons. Maybe some of the scenes were too rude to be shown before 9pm. Maybe they only had the rights to show some of the archive clips once. Maybe scenes had to be removed because of “legal stuff” (oh how he liked to wind people up there). Or maybe BBC2 took the first show they found and randomly removed scenes simply to fill an awkward 20-minute slot, who knows.

The YouTube Files – Jennifer Slept Here.

Jennifer Slept Here (NBC, 1983-1984)

Recently I was taking another look at the magazine that I have about classic American sitcoms. There are also a few pages about what are supposedly great sitcoms that didn’t make it, lasting for only one series. I already reviewed Double Trouble, and I planned to review some more, but there’s not much point really, because a lot of them weren’t shown in this country, and maybe some of them are better left off in the past.

American television has to fill a lot of hours, and some of the ideas for sitcoms over the years have been truly ridiculous. There have been ones about talking robots, talking aliens, talking dogs, talking babies, talking ventriloquist dummies, even talking cars, nothing seems to be too absurd to try out. I have decided to pick out one more for now that seemed to have a curious idea, and all of the episodes are on YouTube.

Jennifer Slept Here is a sitcom that starred Ann Jillian, someone who I am not too familiar with, but it seems that her acting career goes back to the early-60s, she has distinctive light blonde hair, and she is best-known for appearing in the early-80s sitcom It’s A Living among other things. Sometimes people say when they see someone looking shocked “you look like you’ve seen a ghost”. Well… the cast in this show really did!

Jillian played Jennifer Farrell, an attractive actress whose career was doing rather well, until in 1978 she suffered something of a setback when she fell under an ice cream van, that’s a shame. In the present, the Elliot family move into the house where Jennifer used to live (as an aside, I can’t take the opening theme seriously, because it begins “hello… it’s me!“, which reminds me of a hit song from more recent years).

Jennifer’s ghostly presence soon makes herself known. However, usually only the teenage son Joey can see and hear her, and he asks her for advice on dating girls and the like. His parents and younger sister Marilyn cannot interact with her, and they often wonder why he is acting so strangely. But on rare occasions, all of the family can see her, and in the best sitcom tradition, they all soon become best buddies or something.

And because Jennifer was a ghost, she could appear out of nowhere, walk through walls, and other things, meaning that there had to be some visual effects to achieve this. Critics weren’t that impressed though, and in the ruthless world of American TV, this was moved around the schedule, there was a four-month gap between episodes eight and nine, after 13 episodes, Jennifer Slept Here came to a quiet end.

I wonder if ITV or Channel 4 would’ve ever been interested in importing this, maybe it wasn’t much of a loss to British viewers, whose tastes are usually a little less sappy than Americans. I suppose the closest British equivalent to this is So Haunt Me. In the late-80s, Jillian returned to TV comedy in the sitcom, er, Ann Jillian, which if anything suffered an even worse fate than this one, also vanishing after one unsuccessful series.

The YouTube Files – Four On The Floor.

Four On The Floor (CBC, 1986)

This is another 80s comedy show that I don’t remember watching at the time, but once again, the description sounded interesting enough to me to want to find out more, and all of the editions are on YouTube. There haven’t been too many Canadian comedy shows imported to this country over the years, but this was one of them. One critic said that this was “hilariously funny”, well let’s hope so.

Four On The Floor really was a crazy, fast-moving sketch show that was written and performed by Paul, Rick, Dan, and Peter, a quartet who styled themselves as The Frantics. Some of the ideas featured were rather strange, and there were some songs as well (they did have a musical side, and they released the album “Boot To The Head”). There also seemed to be a lot of sketches about ice hockey.

Isn’t that the national sport of Canada? This could be why. One positive was that there were rather odd bumper things between the sketches featuring the heads of the cast members floating around for no particular reason, I always like that. There weren’t too many recurring characters or catchphrases, but someone who did turn up a lot was the rather unlikely superhero Mr Canoehead.

This was someone who, er, had a canoe on his head, but this didn’t stop him from always coming to the rescue. There were 13 editions of Four On The Floor in one series. Channel 4 clearly hoped that this would be a ratings winner, as when this was first shown in this country in 1988, about two years after this was shown in Canada, this was in the coveted Friday 9pm slot, where imported comedy usually featured.

But unfortunately it would seem that their style didn’t really click with most British viewers, because some of the later editions were shown in 1989 in the not-so coveted slot of around 1:30am. However, this did pave the way for another Canadian comedy group with a similar style to come through with their show The Kids In The Hall, which is better-known and longer-running, and I plan to review this one soon too.

The YouTube Files – A Kick Up The Eighties.

A Kick Up The Eighties (BBC2, 1981-1984)

This is another early-80s topical sketch show, that earned several comparisons to the huge hit Not The Nine O’Clock News. This could be considered to be the first part in a trilogy of sketch shows that were produced by BBC Scotland in the 80s, the others being Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee and Naked Video. Again, a cast of quality talent was assembled, and lots (and lots) of writers contributed too.

There were a few familiar names that were mixed in with some up-and-coming talent. These included Tracey Ullman, who had recently appeared in the first series of Three Of A Kind, and little did she know at this point about her later successful career as a singer, as well as breaking America with her style of comedy. There was also Richard Stilgoe, who took the opportunity to offer some of his satirical opinions.

He didn’t take the opportunity to turn some people’s names into unusual anagrams, or perform songs at the piano about portakabins though, maybe there was a chance missed there. But there was also the hapless investigative journalist Kevin Turvey who appeared in self-contained sketches, who was actually Rik Mayall all along, and these early TV appearances helped to establish his name on the alternative comedy scene.

This also led to a one-off special that I have already reviewed. After a gap of over two years, the second and final series featured some changes. Stilgoe departed (probably to go off and concentrate on writing successful West End musicals), and in came Robbie Coltrane, who had recently appeared in the ITV sketch show Alfresco, and he also showed off his bold style that would lead to a long TV career for him as well.

There were ten editions in two series of A Kick Up The Eighties, which could consider itself to have been well and truly kicked. You would never have thought that there were so many jokes to make about the pop stars and politicians of the time. There were also two compilation specials. Firstly in the 80s was A Kick Up The Bells, and this was followed in the 90s by A Kick Up The Archives. I don’t think there has been a DVD release.

The YouTube Files – What’s Up Doc Australia.

What’s Up Doc (Nine, 1993-1999)

This is a rather curious one. This blog has been going for almost a decade now, and when I take a look at the statistics of the most-viewed TV pieces over that time, there’s a chance that they reveal the shows that people really do vaguely remember, and want to find out more about. So here’s a tip for you if you do a podcast (and there’s a chance that you do, as about 89% of the British population have one nowadays).

It might be a good idea to do an edition talking about (or even interviewing someone who was involved with) shows including My Wonderful Life, The Nelly Nut Show, Ox Tales, and Terror Towers. Another one of my pieces that has done well (unless it’s been spammed silly, but I hope it really has been lots of people taking a look) is my review of CITV Saturday Morning show What’s Up Doc that was shown in the mid-90s.

It seems that there is still a lot of fondness for this show all these years on, which showed cartoons from the Warner Brothers archive, including Taz-Mania and Batman, while various famous characters including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck featured in the studio. But this is best remembered for the rather unusual bunch of characters who also featured in various sketches (and I am not including host Pat Sharp among them).

When I was having a fiddle on YouTube recently, I was surprised to discover that there had also been a version of this shown on TV in Australia. I have been interested in finding out more about how Australian TV works, including what channels there are, and what a typical day’s schedule would be. I wondered if they ever had a Saturday Morning strand for younger viewers, and it seems that they did throughout the 90s.

It seems that this was based on the British version, because the opening sequence was just about the same, and again, various Warner Brothers characters were scattered around the studio. This was originally shown in the Saturday Morning slot. Hosts included Danielle Fairclough, Catriona Rowntree, and Kate Fischer. There weren’t any strange characters who smelt of cheese or naughty puppet wolves hanging around though.

This seems to be a less crazy version of the format, but there was still the chance for plenty of celebrity guests and pop groups to take part, and lots of great cartoons were shown. There was also the chance for viewers to take part in competitions and win prizes (they might not look that much now, but there was a time when if there was a chance to win something like a PlayStation, this would get a huge response).

In 1996, this moved to a weekday afternoon slot, and continued until the end of 1999, when this was finally replaced by a new show. It’s weird to think that this version of What’s Up Doc carried on for almost five years after the British version had ended. I almost feel rather jealous really. But I hope that the viewers down under enjoyed what they saw as much as the viewers in this country.

The YouTube Files – That Dreem Teem Thing.

That Dreem Teem Thing (PlayUK, 2001)

UK Play (or PlayUK) was one of my favourite channels of the OnDigital/ITV Digital era. Indeed, one of the reasons that I decided to launch this blog (almost a decade ago now, how is that possible?) was so that I could share some of my memories of watching this channel, because their shows interested me so such I felt that they deserved to be better known. Yet oddly, I don’t remember watching this one at the time.

If I did, I’m sure that I would’ve enjoyed this. I have already done a piece on The Dreem Teem as part of my pop music series. They were the trio who were among the leading figures on the UK Garage scene, remixing lots of big hits, and also having their own show on BBC Radio 1. I thought that the scene was rather enjoyable at the time, and being in my mid-teens, I was about the right age for this as well.

It was said that UK Garage singles sold the majority of copies in London, to the point that this genre could’ve been called London Garage. And it is odd to think that DJ Spoony, one of the members of The Dreem Teem, is now a regular host on BBC Radio 2. This genre reached its peak almost 25 years ago now, so even he and his songs could be considered to be golden oldies more relevant to a Radio 2 audience, how times change.

But because of their popularity in the early-2000s, like many other BBC Radio 1 hosts of the time, they were given their own show on PlayUK. The description for this was “a blend of chaotic comedy and UK garage music from their flat in Bethnal Green”. Now wait a minute… this is where I live in London! Not again! So did they really all live together and work on their remixes possibly a street or two away from where I am?

Well I wouldn’t know for sure of course, but that just goes to show that this genre really was London-centric. In That Dreem Teem Thing, DJ Spoony, Mikee B, and Timmi Magic invited all the major players on the UK Garage scene round to their house (on the 39th floor maybe), for a song and a laugh. Among those appearing on their sofa were The Artful Dodger and Mis-Teeq. It’s nice of them to take the time to come over here.

There were only eight 15-minute editions of That Dreem Teem Thing in one series (they were probably all shown at about 2am). They seem to have been uploaded to YouTube by Timmi Magic himself. They haven’t attracted much interest though which is unfortunate, but I had to have a look, partly to see if there was anywhere that I recognised, and because this does capture an exciting genre at the peak of its popularity.

The YouTube Files – Full Frontal.

Full Frontal (Seven, 1993-1997)/Totally Full Frontal (Ten, 1998-1999)

This is yet another Australian comedy sketch show, following on in the style of others that I’ve reviewed recently, including The Comedy Company and Fast Forward. Again, I found some editions on YouTube. None of the cast from those shows were regulars in this one (although they did make some guest appearances). Full Frontal was another example of what makes people giggle down under (because something must do).

The cast changed rather a lot over the years, although some of the names stood out to me. They include Eric Bana, who went on to have a lot of success in films. There was also Shaun Micallef. Now I haven’t ever seen it myself, but I do know that he went on to have a sketch show on his own that was briefly shown in this country on the Paramount Comedy Channel in the early-2000s, and this gained a cult following.

And there was Kitty Flanagan, who was among the cast of the second series of ITV1’s The Sketch Show (not that they ever bothered to show every edition), and anybody who has worked alongside Lee Mack and Tim Vine definitely gets my approval. And I’m sure that Julia Morris worked in this country for a while as well, she appeared in some comedy shows, and I think that she even hosted a few editions of Liquid News.

Looking back now about three decades on, I imagine that Full Frontal is a good indication of what was happening in the world in the mid-90s. There was the usual mix of strange characters and parodies, including adverts, game shows, and pop music. Unlike The Comedy Company, none of them went on to have a hit single though. And of course there was a news parody as well, with Australian National Nightly Network News.

This did prove though that there’s more to Australian TV than Home And Away! 13 half-hour editions were shown in this country in 1996 on Channel 4 as part of the Late Licence strand, where various comedy double-acts introduced shows that aimed to keep viewers entertained during the weekend late nights and into the early mornings (this was where Big Girl’s Blouse was shown as well, usually at around 3am).

There was then some channel hopping, when this moved in 1998 from Seven to Ten, and was renamed Totally Full Frontal. This featured the usual mix, although again there were even more cast changes, and the ideas were beginning to run out of legs by this point, but overall this had been a success with viewers. There were a whopping 144 hour-long editions in total, and all of these have been released on DVD in Australia.

The YouTube Files – The Last Resort.

The Last Resort (Channel 4, 1987-1988)

There were a lot of shows on Channel 4 in the 80s, that it could be said were rather of minority appeal. This was an attempt at doing something that was a little more mainstream (well by their standards at least). Viewers have often gone on about wanting to have a British equivalent of a David Letterman-style chat show (or Johnny Carson as it would’ve more likely been back in those days). Maybe this was an attempt.

The Last Resort was a chat and variety show that was shown live late on Friday nights going into Saturday mornings, this was often the final show scheduled before closedown for the night, and anything could happen. The host was London-born Jonathan Ross, who at the launch was just about unknown. He had made a few minor TV appearances, and worked behind the scenes on a few shows, but this was his first role as host.

TV Times introduced him to viewers by describing his style as “risqué, yes, but never crude” (oh really??). But if he was an unknown at the start, by the end of the run, he would be a hot name, thanks to his quick-talking style and sharp wit, and he held his own in the company of some star names (I’m sure that Bobby Davro did an impression of him on his ITV sketch show, where this was renamed The Last Wesort somewhat inevitably).

Also featuring was John Benson, who had been the voiceover on Sale Of The Century, and an announcer on Anglia, and he added a little showbiz to the proceedings. There was also a regular band in the studio. As well as the celebrity guests and music, there would also be variety (often magicians at the more extreme end of the scale), and comedy. Often appearing was Rowland Rivron as Dr Scrote who did some bizarre stunts.

The word soon spread, and this ended up becoming something of a success. Ross was soon hosting other shows for Channel 4, including some on filmmaking, one area of his knowledge. He later hosted One Hour With Jonathan Ross, which had a similar idea, but extended to an hour, and in a more high-profile timeslot. This then led to Tonight With Jonathan Ross, which consisted of three half-hour evening editions a week.

This was the same as what Terry Wogan was doing on BBC1 at the time, and indeed Ross sat in for him on one occasion, showing how popular he was now in this area. In the late-90s, Channel 4 showed some highlights from The Last Resort, proving how innovative this show was. Ross has hosted further chat and variety shows on BBC1 and ITV1 (and he still does to this day), but this was where it all began for him.