Be prepared to split your sides with laughter. It's The Comedians from 1975

[editor]

Blimey. it was a different world back then.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Why have you resurrected this monster? You're not Victor Frankenstein and sometimes things are better left buried

 

[editor]

Actually, I'm liking the Liverpudlian fellow.

 

[editor]

Why have you resurrected this monster? You're not Victor Frankenstein and sometimes things are better left buried

For educational purposes.

 

[colacubes]

You been looking for Gladys clips? That's the only reason I can forgive you for this utter wrongness

 

[kittyP]

Jeepers

 

[editor]

The band do a great version of 'My Old Man' half way through!

The jokes aren't as dodgy as feared either (although the stuff about 'the Irish' grates). It's quite entertaining in a retro kind of way - and I've had a couple more laughs than watching some new 'comedy' series.

Mind you, I wouldn't fancy watching much more.

 

[pogofish]

The Comedians was about the most unfunny show on TV even back then.

 

[skyscraper101]

They all love to laugh at their own incredibly lame jokes.

 

[editor]

The orange joke was quite good.

 

[ska invita]

This was on a BBC4 documentary about the history of Filth recently I think...I seem to remember hearing that it ran for 12 seasons...

 

[skyscraper101]

Carson "It's the way I tell them" loved a bit of own trumpet blowing eh. Shame he wasn't actually funny.

 

[marty21]

it was a major peak-time show

 

[blossie33]

I can't say I ever remember watching it but I was out most evenings in the 70's.
Just watched the start of it and I recognise some of the faces - was the black guy Charlie Williams?

 

[editor]

I can't say I ever remember watching it but I was out most evenings in the 70's.
Just watched the start of it and I recognise some of the faces - was the black guy Charlie Williams?

Yep. Interesting guy:

Charles Adolphus WilliamsMBE (23 December 1927—2 September 2006) was a mixed-raceEnglishprofessional footballer (one of the first black players in British football after the Second World War[1]), and later became Britain's first well-known black stand-up comedian.


After leaving school aged 14, Williams worked at Upton Colliery during the Second World War, a reserved occupation. He played football for the colliery team, before turning professional, and signing for Doncaster Rovers in 1948, aged 19. A centre-half, he played for the first team in 1950, but then remained in the reserves until 1955, when he became an established first team player for four years.

He played 171 times for Rovers in total, but scored only one goal, in a second division game away to Barnsley on 24 March 1956. In his own words, "I was never a fancy player, but I could stop them buggers that were."

He ended his career with Skegness Town in the Midland League.

You have to understand that was perfect for the time that he appeared. It was a brilliant thing, this black Yorkshireman who played football with Doncaster Rovers, who'd had the wartime experience of white Yorkshire people, who talked like them, who thought like them, but who just happened to be black.

And when he came along it was astounding to hear this bloke talking like "Eh up, flower, eh. Hey, have you ever been to supermarket where they have the broken biscuits?". I think it was a huge culture shock for people. And Charlie exploited this to the full.
—Lenny Henry in Windrush - The Irresistible Rise of Multiracial Britain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Williams_(comedian)

 

[colacubes]

The band do a great version of 'My Old Man' half way through!

Sousaphone solo

 

[editor]

Sousaphone solo

Want one.

 

[ska invita]

can this be moved in to the right forum now? [/pfish]