‘Most of it wiped. Hmm.’ - Dudley Moore, 1990.
1.
In November 1990, the BBC released a video compilation from Not Only But Also, entitled The Best Of What’s Left Of Not Only But Also. This title referred to the fact that most of the series had been wiped by twatcretin scumbastards at the BBC due to their misguided belief in videotape as a ‘reusable resource’. Peter Cook had learned in advance that this wiping was on the cards, and had begged the BBC to at least furnish him with copies before the vandalism took place (if only so that his 85 year old mother could see them again before she died). The BBC refused this reasonable request, even after Cook had offered to cover all administration costs and pay for replacement tapes.
Only after the BBC realised the value of the material did they edit the extant footage into six 30-minute compilations. These were eventually broadcast, to tie in with the video release, from 6/11/90 - 9/12/90.
Of the six episodes from the first series (9/1/65 - 3/4/65), only the first three programmes survive (the first episode being the pilot), plus mute film inserts from the fourth show.* At that time, the BBC had a policy of wiping all pre-recorded programmes after transmission, and this material (like many other shows of the period) only survives at all because it was illegally bootlegged - in this case by BBC producer Joe McGrath. (These were ‘telerecordings’, a crude process which involved pointing a 16mm camera at a television screen during the broadcast itself.) By the time of the second series (15/1/66 - 26/2/66), the BBC agreed only to retain the first and last shows from any given series - a gormless policy suggested by BBC cunt Bob Galbrieth (who, to be fair, was under pressure from above to restrict the number of shows being retained), arguing that this was a way of retaining the ‘flavour’ of a series. The Christmas Special (26/12/66) was kept, but matters relapsed again for the third series (18/2/70 - 13/5/70), from which all programmes were wiped, with only a few filmed inserts remaining. Thus, all their studio work in colour has been destroyed.
In summary, then, a mere six full episodes of Not Only But Also still exist out of the 22 transmitted, only three of which were officially kept by the BBC.
[NOTE (1): One of the few people at the BBC who gave a fuck about the shows being destroyed was producer Harry Thompson, who illegally made copies of the surviving material in the early 1980s (while plundering the archives for a Children In Need comedy compilation) to pass onto Cook and Moore. He confesses to breaking one of the film spools while copying the material, saying it ‘still bears a nasty repair’. The only material from these bootlegs not included on the 1990 video was a 'Good Vs Evil' cricket match, and…another sketch, the premise of which eludes us for the moment. Sorry.]
[NOTE (2): The scripts from the first series were also destroyed by the BBC. Fortunately, this was not the case with the second and third series.]
[*NOTE (3): Many early Hancock’s Half Hour episodes (the first four series) are preserved this way. Ironically, their picture quality is actually superior to the later episodes, which were taped on a primitive form of videotape.]
[NOTE (4): The Christmas special featuring John Lennon as a doorman to a public toilet (26/12/66) was billed as part of UK Arena’s 1998 Christmas line-up; however, it failed to materialise and the 1990 compilations were shown instead. Reasons remain unknown, but no doubt Yoko had a fucking hand in it somewhere. A clip from the sketch was, however, shown in the Heroes Of Comedy documentary on Peter Cook (January 1998), presumably just to make Ronnie Wood smirk a bit.]
[NOTE (5): The video was re-issued in 1999 as part of the BBC’s ‘Comedy Greats’ series, and this sadly omitted Cook and Moore’s self-penned sleevenotes in favour of a typically bland blurb. The inclusion of The Beatles song ‘I’m A Loser’ in one filmed sketch (which had slipped through the PRS net on its original release) was now absent, presumably because some middle-management dullard at Apple Corps had caused a tantrum. The offending track was replaced by a bland guitar riff, over which Cook’s narration remains; it is not entirely clear how this feat was achieved. They must have used some technology.]
[NOTE (6): The BBC has evidently not learnt from its mistakes and continues to have tedious policies regarding the preservation of archive material, refusing to recognise the importance of archiving modern programmes and dismissing them as ‘recent history’ not worthy of attention. The fact that Not Only But Also was itself once dismissed for these exact reasons doesn’t cross their mind. For the record., the BBC has also destroyed the second series of Dad’s Army, a fair few Steptoe & Sons, hundreds of episodes of Dixon Of Dock Green and the 1969 moon landing. A handful of priceless Bach cantatas were also recently discovered in a BBC skip.]
[NOTE (7): All Doctor Who episodes still survive, as do the rushes. It’s just that you have to go back in time in a Tardis to get them.]
