The first post-Not The Nine O’Clock News vehicle for Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones (1984-88), pre-dating the weaker, bleaker BBC1 eponymous series (1989-Present). Most NTNOCN writers remained, as did most of the amusement.
1.
On the 1993 compilation video of the series, the famous ‘Police Vs Press’ sketch (from the first series, 31/1/84 - 6/3/84) has suffered at the hands of PRS problems. Announcing that ‘a cassette has come into our possession’, a policeman (Smith) originally turned on a cassette player only to hear the loud strains of Wham!’s ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’. In the video version, a bland cover of the song (a vaguely George Michael-esque vocal, reminiscent of an old ‘Top Of The Pops’ LP) was over-dubbed in its place, and some laughter was subtly added from another part of the soundtrack. The compilers of the spin-off album (Alas Smith And Jones, 1984) took the easy route and cut this sequence from the sketch altogether.NOTE: The same PRS-friendly Wham! song was playing on Joey’s car radio in the second-ever episode of Bread (8/5/86), an episode which - quite deservedly - didn’t make it onto BBC video. Actually, they’d have been further problems if it had done, since a road sweeper is also heard to whistle The Beatles’ ‘When I’m Sixty Four’ in the following show. And since we’re fucked if we’re going to devote an entire Edit News section to what the Radio Times described as ‘a comedy series about a group of loveable rogues’ (or what Nick Hancock described as ‘a comedy series about a group of relatively well-off Scousers defrauding the DHSS’), we’ll tell you now that the current BBC1 daytime repeats have had their swearing obscured: initially by bleeps, then by gaps of silence. The line ‘You’re a cunning bastard, Freddie Boswell’ (Series 1, Show 4) was an obvious example, as were some exclamatory arses and Jack’s reference to an alsation licking his bollocks. Other, more low-key references to Billy being ‘pissed off’ were left intact. The sitcom was transmitted in a post-watershed slot for its first two series, which accounts for these troubles. Oddly, however, the Ceefax subtitles remained uncensored, allowing deaf viewers (or, in our case, people curious about the lyrics to the theme tune) to happily corrupt themselves.
2.
During the second series (31/10/85 - 5/12/85), there was a sketch about sailors on a ship suffering from scurvy. The original ending, involving the cast singing ‘Yes We Have No Bananas’, was cut because the team felt it went on too long. Many sketches in this series were designed so that they could be cut off at a sub-punchline and still retain an acceptable ‘shape’. (>KYTV, Point 1.)