Sketch show featuring an all-woman cast (except for the blokes), led by Sally Phillips, Doon MacKichan and Fiona Allen. Succeeded in getting an obscure euphemism for female masturbation into the Radio Times.

Producer Victoria Pile committed all the sins going: field-removed video, audience laughter obscuring half the dialogue, hand-held camerawork from the ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Still Popular’ school...not to mention a sketch style highly derivative of the current trend for ‘ambient comedy’ exemplified by Big Train, Blue Jam and Armstrong & Miller. But the series left a surprisingly good taste in the mouth.

Admittedly, the writing often verged on the lazy. All comedy shows need ‘filler’ for the sake of balance, but Smack The Pony arguably had a little too much - the often whimsical shows lacking the momentum necessary to carry some of the more shameless padding. But the good stuff was very good. In particular, it showcased Phillips’ under-rated versatility and accent-range, seldom seen or appreciated by the male mediabores who insist on ogling her...and something rarely displayed anyway, in the samey, straight-woman characters she tends to get given in floundering sitcoms. (She’s a trained clown, you know.)

It also featured a proper, high-production music parody each week, spoofing in turn The Corrs, Republica, Kenickie, All Saints, B*witched and Steps. This is something normally eschewed by those with a phobia of mixing comedy and music (or ‘Cunts’, as they’re known scientifically), despite the fact that - as with all music parodies - said spoofs were far superior to anything the pilloried bands themselves could ever come up with.

The final remark got a huge laugh from the audience. The viewers at home, on the other hand, may have been taken aback slightly, for the show was transmitted only a few hours after such a nail bomb had gone off in Soho; at the time of transmission, the final death toll had yet to be established. After the programme went out, the following announcement was read out (rather unfairly over a solitary picture of Allen):

It’s questionable whether this last statement was true, or whether Channel 4 were simply covering up negligence on their part. We are incredulous that they would knowingly permit the transmission of such a badly-timed sketch simply on the basis that there wasn’t time to cut it; normal procedure in these circumstances is usually to cancel the show altogether and replace it with Whose Line Is It Anyway. (Co-incidentally, the same-week repeat of this show was dropped...on this occasion, only because it was a bank holiday. It was not re-scheduled.)

Other problems were evident at Channel 4 that night - the start of the show (until 2’18) was transmitted in a 4:3 ratio rather than widescreen, giving the first few sketches that ‘funfair mirror’ look.

We have a theory that this seventh show may have been the original Smack The Pony pilot (albeit touched up with a new lick of post-production paint). Reasons:

We’re fairly sure that Smack The Pony was originally publicised as a six-part series.

The closing song (‘Big Roof’ by Napkin, a fey girlie indie band reclining in a Super-8 concrete paradise) appears to be another Kenickie parody, albeit a more generic one. This low-key pastiche seemed odd coming after the Steps parody in Show 6, which had an overtly end-of-series feel to it.

The show contains a sketch about a shelf stacker who stocks an entire supermarket with Toilet Duck, and another item about two policemen who help alleviate the divulging of tragic news by painting their faces to resemble cute animals. Both these pieces seemed the most obviously redolent of Blue Jam lite, and it is possible that they were early sketches recorded before Smack The Pony had established its own identity. Also, these two sketches were the only ones mentioned in pre-series plugs (or Time Out articles, by any other name), and it is possible that a version of the pilot was issued as a preview tape before the content of the other shows had been finalised.

The ‘Painted faces’ sketch features a reference to ‘Spanky The Weasel’, one of the original mooted titles for the show (and Phillips’ favourite).

It would be customery here to include a screengrab of the kiss. However, since the above revelation is much more exciting than sex could ever be, we've decided just to write said session-date in really big letters instead:

A cold shower all round, we feel...

All shows broadcast 9:30pm (Fridays), Channel 4. First 6 shows given same-week repeats on Mondays at various times around 11:35pm. Repeated again, 5 January - 16 February 2000, on Wednesdays at around 10pm.

(1): Bad swimmer; Marriage proposal; Barking woman**; Healer; Tour guide (Falls off cliff); Kidnap appeal; Video dates - Long arms/Airhead; Singing to radio; Window cleaner (Kitten)**

(2): Ice skaters; Glass stuck to chin; Flashframe (Naked man); Burping dentists; Video date - I’ve never come/Miss Ireland; Bus driver; People who look Irish; Camera shop; Video dates - Crying woman; The Cornflowers - ‘Dressage’; Lipstick

(1): Photocopying tits; Sexually-frustrated woman (Friend’s dress); Colliding ramblers; Squabbling surgeons; Dancing husbands 1; Psychiatrist (Falling in love); Bride in supermarket; Riverdancing office-workers; Swimming bride; Nervous vet; Cat companion

(2): Dancing husbands 2; Unwanted friend; Sexually-frustrated woman (Parking); Video dates - Blackburn girls/Navel officers living in hair/Pixelated woman; Heating repair man; Check up (Squeamish doctor); Flashframe (Horse); Video dates - Bride; Diagnosed deaf; Luminatrix - ‘(Love Is A Big) Crash’; Dancing husbands 2

(1): I thought you were someone else; Photocopying tits and arse; Vitamins; Woman with house full of paintings of herself naked; Biology practical; Research; Lesbian snog; Flashframe (Naked man/Lighting cigarette); Wandsworth - The Brighter Borough

(2): Non-gay man at party; Noisy workmen; Video dates - Smoker/Italian couple/Jailbird; All Those In Favour; Collapsing joggers; Who’s stolen my nipples?; Put something in; Naked man gets off bus; I thought she was someone else (Machine gun); Kinkee - ‘Colours’; Self defence

(1): Office worker on window ledge; Flashframe (Boxers); Estate agent (Yellow tits in living room); Holiday postcard; Girlie Fighter 3; Reprimanding chef (Silly voices); Musical tits; Survey (‘Do you like me best?’); Hypnotist; Girlie Driver

(2): Technical support; Demotivated scientist (Cake); Naked man (Woman faints); Catch me (Beach); Video dates - Psychotic woman/Woman needing dentist/Anal sex; Jury service; Video dates - Blackburn girls again; Catch me (Restaurant); Hairdresser (Hitler)**; She She - ‘Voulez Vous Bumper Ma Poubelle’; Borrowing boyfriend

(1): Wine carton**; Naked ice-skater; Plastic surgeon (Metal spike); Woman in lift (‘I’ve been shopping); Lipstick smears; Insomniac (One man band); Stalker; Nuns - Aren’t they lovely?; Athlete with engine; Dangerous Cow

(2): Bull 1; Naked man comes out of lift; Bus drivers (conversation); Musical autopsy; Bull 2; Smoke alarm; Video dates - Lazy woman obsessed with hygiene/Short woman; Bull 3; Chemists (Guessing ages); Video dates - Mother/Bullfighter; Karizzma - ‘Round ‘n’ Around ‘n’ Around’; Tentative office-worker

(1): Punching busker; Irish pub; Pot plant; Factory (Dressed as monkeys); Nurses - They work really hard; Jacuzzi women (Fire cracker); Bloke as a best mate; Pulling on a cow’s tits; Quacking computer 1; Easy Like Sunday Morning

(2): Easy Like Sunday Morning (Contd); Quacking computer 2; Video dates - Tapered feet/Moving tits/Tourette’s syndrome; Ice cream seller (Drowning); Jacuzzi woman - Sparrow; Back bottom; Nurse speaking in tongues; Italian lesson; Jacuzzi women - Urine ice cubes; Heavenly Wind - ‘One Heart’; Can I kiss you?

Show 7 [23’54; Broadcast 30 April 1999]*

(1): Making a move; Flashframe - Naked statues; Supermarket filled with Toilet Duck; Before and after beauticians; Self-help book; Interviewing footballer; Farting in bath; Hostages 1; Job interview (Are you lovely?); Ad - Perfect woman

(2): Police officers (Painted faces); Flashframe - Falling out of telephone box; Hostages 2; Video dates - Witch/Man; Antipodean flatshare; Video dates - Shouting own name during sex/Independent film maker; Hostages 3; Deodorant demo; Fatty Cows; Rambler falls off cliff (Naked man); Napkin - ‘Big Roof’; Hostages 3

First 2’18 of programme not transmitted in widescreen. Apology followed transmission concerning ‘Ad - Perfect woman’ sketch and its insensitivity regarding bomb blast in Soho; sketch would been edited out if the explosion had occurred earlier, making the show run at 22’53. Due to a bank holiday, this was the only show not to receive a Monday repeat.

** Sketches used on trailers (also re-used to trail 2000 repeats).

Sally Phillips - Relax, fellas, she's married…