So many opinions on Reeves & Mortimer, all of them completely wrong. Original Channel 4 series all but forgotten now (except by Fielding & Barratt who own the whole lot on pre-recorded videos, apart from the New Year Special which they taped off of Paramount but haven’t got round to watching it yet).
1.
When the first series was repeated in a teatime slot, the audience singalongs of ‘Spin, spin, spin the wheel of justice, see how fast the bastard turns’ had the word ‘bastard’ reversed.
2.
An episode from the second series featured Bob Mortimer’s ‘Graham Lister’ being hit very hard in the face by a swinging over-sized diamond. The rushes reveal that Mortimer fluffs his lines at the point when this painful-looking stunt occurs:
LISTER ...so might I present: ‘My Helmet Has Held High Office In Leeds’. In the past it has been...with...dor...oh...fuck...
(Turns towards Vic Reeves, grinning. Huge swinging diamond hits him squarely in the chest and face and he is knocked over. He lies, apparently in pain. His wig comes off. Reeves doesn’t offer to help but instead goes and sits behind his big desk.)
The broadcast version of the item cuts away to a long shot of the fluffed line and swinging diamond and a new line dubbed over (which Mortimer changes to ‘My helmet has been very heavily buffed’!). The rest of Reeves’ planned script picks up just after the point where Mortimer fell and, again, a cutaway disguises this (though the floor manager scurrying away, script in hand, does give it away somewhat).
It’s not known whether an attempt was made to retake the stunt though we would doubt it as it looked fucking painful the first time.
[NOTE (1): The out-take was shown as part of It’ll Be Alright On The Night 7 (2/1/93). The picture quality was far inferior to usual broadcast quality, suggesting that the off-line masters have been wiped, and this tape belonged to a private collection. The Guardian’s Media Guide 1995 (1994) states that the Chameleon Film Library holds ‘out-takes from Channel 4’, but since the show was an independent production by Channel X, it’s more likely to belong to a member of staff - or to Reeves and Mortimer themselves. We have it on good authority that Danny Baker owns some Reeves and Mortimer rushes.]
3.
The second series of Shooting Stars (27/9/96 - 27/12/96) had a Sunday lunchtime repeat on BBC2. For this, certain words were bleeped, but the censoring policy seemed typically inconsistent. ‘Penis’, for example, was deemed unsuitable, but they didn’t seem troubled by the phrase ‘Two inches below minge base’.]
4
. The following section from the ‘Food & Drink’ parody in the first Smell Of Reeves & Mortimer episode (21/9/93) was cut from the otherwise unexpurgated BBC video. It follows the sequence where Derek and Chester sample the week’s boozes and occurs after Reeves’ line ‘...prised out of machine at pier end’:
JILLY GOOLDEN(REBECCA FRONT) Thank you, Derek. Yes, the first gas we tried was lighter fuel. (Sniffs canister) Mmm, something of everything there - apples rotting in an old school desk, a dartboard on fire near a toothpick farm, a newt on holiday in Tangiers. What did you think, Oz?
OZ CLARKE (BOB MORTIMER) I love you.
GOOLDEN The next gas we tried was marsh gas. (Pricks a piece of marshland and infuses aroma) Mmm...meee-owwww, Oz, that’s...clouds and poodles’ balls, the very lightest of hair dropped from a pensioner following a curly perm. What did you think, Oz?
Oz has turned into an owl; Goolden rubs her eyes and looks again. It was an optical illusion:
OZI love you.
Goolden stares at the camera and faints backwards
The reasons for this cut are not known, least of all by Front herself who confirmed that the removal was not contractual (she appears intact in the ‘Antiques Roadshow’ parody in Show 2). The only likely explanation is that the video was mistakenly mastered from an alternate, Goolden-less test-edit
). It’s also worth noting that the sequence starts with a non-sequitur: Goolden thanks Derek, even though he has not handed over to her. There is also an out-of-place audience laugh as the scene changes.
[NOTE: If anything spoils the BBC shows it's the far-too-obvious editing of material, cutting scenes down from what was obviously a sprawling performance in need of a script-edit. This gave an unwanted air of artificial fakery to the shows, making them sound a lot less cosy than was comfortable to watch. Big Night Out was a purely studio-based show, the only pre-recorded items being the inserts of Vic and Bob's 'Norwegian counterparts' in Series 2. The Smell Of… was the exact opposite. Sometimes it worked okay but generally it was a tad forced. There. We said it. Similar situation to Kenny Everett's move to the BBC in the early eighties really.]
[NOTE (2): 'Sheep' has sent us the following observations:
'The discussion on the site about Vic Reeves shows being heavily edited - couldn't agree more. But, the authors seem to have overlooked the BBC released videos of the first series of 'Smell of Reeves and Mortimer', which have around 10 minutes of extra material put back into each show. Watching the original TV broadcast version after seeing the video makes it apparent that they were desperate to trim it down for timing reasons. Maybe the show was originally made for a 40 minute timeslot? There's bits been shaved off all over the place. An obvious timing edit ocurrs at the beginning of the Antiques Roadshow spoof, where a clock is hit with a spatula to start it. On the TV, the segment starts with it being hit, on the video, the clock stops and starts several times. Mere seconds have been shaved off here!
UK Play are still showing the original 30 minute version too, which looks very clumsy.
The mention of the cut in the video version of the show is interesting though. The piece that's been cut (Jilly Goolden smelling gasses) always struck me as being cut in order to get the certificate 15 (or was it PG?) on the video release. You don't want to show someone attempting to sniff lighter gas on a video that can be bought and watched by impressionable youngsters. I couldn't think of any other reason for cutting it.
Once you've seen the video release of that series, and compared it to the broadcast version, you'll be convinced that it's due to being made for a longer timeslot. Some of the edits are painful, and seem desperately done to shave seconds off wherever possible. If it's over recorded to make a tighter show, then surely just drop a sketch here and there to leave in the best material, not clumsily edit a sentence out here or a caption there.
I was gutted when I saw the editied down episodes of The Young Ones a few years back, and I agree with you, Jon Plowman's defence seemed poor and trying to justify the BBC's policy. Curiously, UK Gold seemingly show the original edits.. although I thought the other day that a few bits were edited out, but couldn't be certain. It definately *wasn't* the recent BBC re-edit though.
Sheep'
(Thank you, Sheep)]
