Retro TV

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Did anyone watch the extremely manic Q SERIES with Spike Milligan in the 70s/very early 80s?

It was even more free-form than Monty Pythons' Flying Circus, although it's blantantly non-PC outlook has ensured it's never been released from the BBC vaults.

I recently got a hold of grey-market versions of Q6, Q7 and Q8 from the mid-late 70s, which are derived from home VCR recordings from the time----still pretty watchable, however and I'm just grateful I can savour this anarchy again, all this time later.

Absolutely insane low-budget BBC material, that took no prisoners

RECCOMENDED *****

[philcom55]

I remember the series and, while I thought it was too self-indulgent and patchy to compete with Monty Python, I was really impressed by Spike's view that - as long as you didn't consistently discriminate against one group in particular - nothing should be off limits. I can even remember him making a joke about Zyklon B!

What's more, I was even more impressed by the fact that the BBC were prepared to broadcast such things - something that would be utterly unthinkably now!

- Phil Rushton

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

One of the best gags was a nude 'Mrs Whitehouse' passing a note to a seated, disinterested Spike, I thought, Phil!

Yes some of it is very self-indulgent and obviously a great laugh for the participants, I personally quite rate it though. Q5 was scrubbed in it's entirity, apparantly......

[Raven]

Q5 was scrubbed in it's entirity, apparantly......

A few exist as black and white telerecordings (two are on YouTube, as 'Q5 - 2 Unknown Episodes'), and I think one colour edition survives.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Thanks, Raven! I'll definitely check that one out tonight------

Remarkably, a very early BBC kids' series the TELEGOONS with Spike and co. supplying the vocals to stylized puppet versions of the Goons, exists in it's entirety, as it was captured on 35 mm film [a rare luxury for an early BBC TV kids' show]. Wonder if this one is available on dvd?

[Raven]

Remarkably, a very early BBC kids' series the TELEGOONS with Spike and co. supplying the vocals to stylized puppet versions of the Goons, exists in it's entirety, as it was captured on 35 mm film [a rare luxury for an early BBC TV kids' show]. Wonder if this one is available on dvd?

No, it never has been.

[philcom55]

One 'Q' sketch which sticks in my mind featured a hungry dalek asking 'what's for tea?' as it burst into somebody's dining room!

I remember the Tellygoons as well (not to mention the spinoff strip that appeared in TV Comic) - though I vaguely recall that it was a bit of a flop at the time, in spite of the BBC launching it with a great deal of publicity. Even so, one would've thought a DVD would sell well to Goons fans today.

Incidentally, has anyone been watching Count Arthur Strong on TV? I can't help wishing that Film Fun was still around as it seems to me that Arthur would have fitted in quite nicely alongside the likes of Tony Hancock and Bruce Forsyth (not to mention Radio Fun's Arthur Askey!).

= Phil Rushton

[paw broon]

We've been watching Count Arthur and listening to his Radio Show from the start. We saw him a few years ago at the Edinburgh Festival - hilarious, fall off your seat stuff.
So, I suppose he'd fit in nicely in a revived Radio Fun as well.
The bang-a-gong-to-hide toilet-noises idea was ridiculously funny.

[stevezodiac]

I have every episode of the Telegoons on dvd - bought from one of those dealers in "home made" dvds at the comic fair. The Q series was officially released on VHS - I still have my copy. Only about six episodes on it though including Pakistani Dalek. Spike had a radio series called Milligna in the early seventies - I have some on reel to reel tape.

Re non pc stuff - the bbc doesn't seem to be aware of references to poofs in recent Likely Lads repeats together with a rather disturbing scene with Terry admitting to having fantasies about schoolgirls with Bob adding "Yes i seem to look forward to Top Of The Form more than Top Of The Pops nowadays."

[Raven]

The Q series was officially released on VHS - I still have my copy. Only about six episodes on it though including Pakistani Dalek.

There was just a 'Best of Q' VHS, a compilation - no complete episodes - of about 90 minutes long, which I recall having a lot of, I think, Q6 clips on it (the dalek thing is from Q6, isn't it?) Fairly poor stuff, I thought, apart from a few minutes or so.

[stevezodiac]

Yes you're right - it was the best of Q. Extremely self indulgent. Spike given a free rein based on his rep much like Patrick McGoohan with The Prisoner. Q was sexist more than anything with a Benny Hill-esque attitude to women.

[Raven]

Yes you're right - it was the best of Q. Extremely self indulgent. Spike given a free rein based on his rep much like Patrick McGoohan with The Prisoner. Q was sexist more than anything with a Benny Hill-esque attitude to women.

You got quite a few bare-breasted women turning up, didn't you? I recall Milligan blaming his co-writer Neil Shand for those, though I don't recall them turning up in any of Shand's other work (like The Little and Large Show!). The racial stuff could seem a bit relentless at times, too.

The Q shows were extremely hit and miss - lots of corny and self-indulgent stuff that misfires, then, from time to time, something really inspired. Watching a few on YouTube, some of the later series seem a bit better.

The racial material won't necessarily stop it ever coming out. After all, Curry and Chips is on DVD (surely one of the low points of Milligan's, Sykes's and Johnny Speight's output).

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Q had a really ramshackle appeal I thought, guys: I can understand it turning people off, with it's ad-libbing-like ambience, schoolboy sniggering, and buxom wenches and other impurities.

But if Spike put out racist material against the Irish [for example] he was an Irishman himself, so he poked fun at Humanity, including his own roots.....one of the best filmed sketches was 'Irishmen going to the Moon' , done in a mock-30s documentary style. This had Irishmen in the Labour Exchange fleeing the building as a JOB was announced---this ranked as fine as any other comedy from that period, I thought. If it had been Scots [I'm Scottish], I would still have laughed as loudly.

Later material became downright wierd, [Daleks put Granny in the curry after exterminating her] but there was a crude exuberance I still find endearing.

John Cleese admitted that Milligan beat Python to the punch, by abandoning sketches midway through on Q5 or some similar show of his that predated Python, although Monty gets the credit for making this 'ground-breaking'.

Steve Zodiac: what's the quality like on the Telegoons dvd you have? I'm intruiged it was shot on proper film, like the Saint or the Avengers.

[Raven]

John Cleese admitted that Milligan beat Python to the punch, by abandoning sketches midway through on Q5 or some similar show of his that predated Python, although Monty gets the credit for making this 'ground-breaking'.

I've always found that a bit odd as, looking at Q5, it seemed very quick-fire, rapid moving stuff (with a Rowan and Martin's Laugh In apparent influence and feel in places), and doesn't really do the punchline-dropping, one sketch flowing into another Python feel, though it is quite random and ramshackle.

I've noticed that when TV shows show clips of Milligan to prove how he did it first, they always tend to be post-Python clips, ie Q6 and onwards!

But if Spike put out racist material against the Irish [for example] he was an Irishman himself, so he poked fun at Humanity, including his own roots.....

Really, though, ISPYSHHHGUY, Milligan was born in India and only got an Irish passport when he couldn't get British citizenship.

That Irish stuff isn't "racist", it's just the lazy stock stereotyping of the day that seems a bit groan-worthy now, but a lot of comedians did some of the stock stereotypes back then, including Python and The Goodies (both did the Scottish stereotypes).

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Yes that's right, Spike was born in India, Raven, although he considered himself Irish in later years.....''I told you I was ill' is written in Gaelic on his headstone, after the spoilsport local Council vetoed the English language version.

Maybe his Indian birth explains his 'Irish Pakistani' character in Curry and Chips, which I think only lasted 6 episodes---I've a very vague memory of this first time around.

THE GOODIES record on race relations is mixed, from outrageous racial slapstick [a black guy sticks to the black portions of a zebra crossing, a white guy the white ones]to out-and-out ridicule of Apartheid in South Africa, which took up an entire episode in 1975.