>An extraordinary load of drivel, reflecting none of the ham-fisted earnestness of the series and letting Trevor Horn and Jeff Beck twat on for an eternity. Has anyone else heard it? The sheer gall of the tedious cover versions?I need a long lie down.
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The TV series was pretty awful from what I remember, tho' I try not to.
I'm going to be obvious here and mention the Spinal Tap ST, which duth rock! Shame the same can't be said about Break Like The Wind, which is a shame cos all the interview tracks on the singles were pretty funny.

But then Tap did go on to advertise IBM.

Weren't the talent behind Tap going to do a similar thing about Folk Rock?

While I know nothing of this LP, I also know scarcely anything about the actual TV series. I saw it all at the time, though I was about 13, I only remember a few fragments now. It seemed to be a a very hap-hazard affair with many unrelated sub-programmes stuck together, as if it was subject to channel surfing a myriad of weird and cheesy shows on some American cable service. Who were the people behind it, what are they doing now, and more importantly, how did they manage to get to make this TV series, what was their track record? The budget seemed like it must have been quite hefty, how come the BBC were talked into making it, and I can't imagine how much of an anti-climax it was, as I remember the show was quite tedious, though packed with ideas. Lee and Herring also joke about how stupid it was on Fist of Fun series one.

Wasn't it Peter Davidson from the Comic Strip, which is prob why I'm so hard on it. I think yr right, there was a few other shows done at the same time, but my memory's not what it used to be (actually it is: Shite).

The GMD's made it on to TOTPs, but the song was shit.

>Weren't the talent behind Tap going to do a similar thing about Folk Rock?

They can be seen performing as a folk rock combo (can't recall the name just now) on the concert video "The Return of Spinal Tap". It's well worth getting to see such gems as Nigel's pet passport scheme and Inventing Shed, and Derek working with his dad as a telephone hygienist. It came out about two years ago, and should still be available.

>>Weren't the talent behind Tap going to do a similar thing about Folk Rock?
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>They can be seen performing as a folk rock combo (can't recall the name just now) on the concert video "The Return of Spinal Tap". It's well worth getting to see such gems as Nigel's pet passport scheme and Inventing Shed, and Derek working with his dad as a telephone hygienist. It came out about two years ago, and should still be available.
>

You're the best, I didn't know a concert video exsisted, mainly cos I was disappointed with recent Tap stuff (well BLTW).

I think the folk band are called simply the Folk Men or something.

The rerelease of This Is annoyed me cos I don't own a DVD player. I think I saw a video of it with bonus stuff, but if I did I've never seen it before.

Actually I a lazy slag I still haven't seen best of breed, I just want that to happen naturally cos I know I'll sit there wanting it to be like This Is.

Did you see Tap on the F. Mercury tribute "We were going to play our full 3hr set, but decided to cut it down to one song... we felt Freddie would have wanted it that way"

>While I know nothing of this LP, I also know scarcely anything about the actual TV series.

7 episodes, early 1995, but delayed from broadcast in Autumn 1994.

>It seemed to be a a very hap-hazard affair with many unrelated sub-programmes stuck together, as if it was subject to channel surfing a myriad of weird and cheesy shows on some American cable service.

That was the general idea, yes.

>Who were the people behind it, what are they doing now, and more importantly, how did they manage to get to make this TV series, what was their track record?

Peter Richardson had a very long track record thanks to 12 years behind The Comic Strip and had got used to making high budget, filmic comedies for C4 and then BBC. He was still warmish property at this point. He realised that the Strip team had less time for working with him due to individual successes, so Peter R groomed a new cast in the last two series for BBC2 (91-93). These included Gary Beadle, phil Cornwell and Doon MacKichan. They formed part of the main GMD cast.

At the same time Richardson had been leaning heavily towards arty films for the Comic Strip strand, rather than out-and-out funny ones. Nothing wrong with that per se, but the show was starting to seem a little pious and it is my guess that he wanted to do a sketch show to bring himself back into the mainstream, something he later succeeded in doing via 'Stella Street'.

>The budget seemed like it must have been quite hefty, how come the BBC were talked into making it, and I can't imagine how much of an anti-climax it was, as I remember the show was quite tedious, though packed with ideas. Lee and Herring also joke about how stupid it was on Fist of Fun series one.

The L&H joke was more about how redundant it was, particularly the crates sequence at the end of series one. It had just finished airing as far as I remember and the BBC had pushed it a hell of a lot to begin with. It possibly had the longest build up for a comedy show in terms of pre-transmission promotion. Within the first week of broadcast they had a single for release, the launch of a spin-off comic and an album with some pretty respectable names on it. The cast performed on Top Of The Pops and I recall that the first episode was preceded by the announcer quoting the theme song and confidently claiming that "you'll all be singing it tomorrow". Very sad.

On reflection, and having dug out a couple of shows, the main fault was the body of the show that was based around the band. It relied on Scooby Doo style adventuring and crushingly unfunny jokes. Only Phil Cornwell managed to save it with some mildly amusing impersonations, clearly as a forerunner to 'Stella' as per some of his Comic Strip appearances (eg. The Crying Game).

The basic idea of zapping across TV stations was sound enough, particularly for the time when satellite and cable still had some novelty, and the breadth of styles covered in the sketches was pretty impressive, hence the huge budget for a million different set ups. The only problem was that the heavy rehearsal time evolved from Comic Strip led to some incredibly stilted end results. 'Betty's Mad Dash' has loads of ideas in it but the cast seem a little too calculated for its intended amateurism. I think only Colin Corleone, the Godfather/council estate sketches, which I hated at the time, hold up today. They benefit from a well-rounded set up and the performances are wonderful.

But, as it stands, the show disappeared without a trace. The comic was withdrawn after one issue, the album and single died a death and the video release which came out ahead of transmission has hibernated in bargain buckets for seven years now. The show had its merits, and certainly doesn't deserve the howling hysteria provoked by its mere mention today. I would hazard a guess that Richardson floundered without his then departing executive producer Michael White and was totally unsuited to sketch shows.

Ok, thanks a lot for clearing that up Bent, so it turns out I have heard of most of the people responsible for it, I just didn't know of them at the time and forgot any of the faces from the show. I do remember a lot from the show, but just random snatches of things, remember Betty's Mad Dash, Colin Corleone, and the Tour Bus thing which were continued each week. I remember it also had cheesy American spoof chat shows and adverts. I think the show had the right intention and was designed to be so over the top it would be funny, but as you said with the tales of the comics and singles, they obviously took themselves a bit too seriously, a bit like Coogan's Tony Ferrino venture. And for the kind of money that must have been spent on that show, it's amazing it ever got off the drawing board, seemingly this may be a landmark referred to now when any comedy hot property tries to get a show on the BBC, don't give them barely any money or you'll end up like the Glam Metal Detectives.

>You're the best, I didn't know a concert video exsisted, mainly cos I was disappointed with recent Tap stuff (well BLTW).

In that case, Lizard Scum, you should make every effort to track down a copy. Although it's based around an actual concert, which blurs the fact/fiction boundary a bit too much for my taste, and does get a little tedious, there's loads on it worth seeing. Including, the band revisiting the Squatney slum where they grew up; what all the bit-part players in Tap have been up to since the film (DiBergi directed a remake of "Kramer vs Kramer" called "Kramer vs Kramer vs Godzilla") and a superb extended Nigel guitar solo.
Plus the aforementioned Tufnell inventions material will split your sides in twain.

And - if you're a Tap nut - don't get mad, get a DVD player. They're only about £120 for a cheap one.

DVD was made for Christopher Guest. Improvised comedy means loads of deleted scenes, hilarious on-the-spot commentaries and so on.

The Tap 2 disc set is awesome, but Best in Show has some great extras in the package too. The cut scene where Guest shows you the shed in which he keeps his beach ball collection is of the funniest things I've seen this year.

I saw some of the stuff one the web site and it does look good, the bit with the Limo driver singing Sinatra was great. But I hate new technology, actually thats a lie I hate spending money.

BTW How good is Best of Breed?

Best In Show is terrific.

Not as broad as Spinal Tap, but, very gentle, character comedy.

It reminded me of a slightly edgier, American version of the sort of socio-observational humour practiced by Victoria Wood / Alan Bennett / Peter Kaye.

And, as ever, the performances are immaculate. If you're looking for the roots of all that new "realistic" (Big Train, Blue Jam) comedy acting, Christopher Guest and friends have a lot to answer for.

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>And, as ever, the performances are immaculate. If you're looking for the roots of all that new "realistic" (Big Train, Blue Jam) comedy acting, Christopher Guest and friends have a lot to answer for.

I want to know about the start of Tap. It did start on Sat Nite Live didn't it?

If so does any one know if any footage of it still exsist?

>>And, as ever, the performances are immaculate. If you're looking for the roots of all that new "realistic" (Big Train, Blue Jam) comedy acting, Christopher Guest and friends have a lot to answer for.
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>I want to know about the start of Tap. It did start on Sat Nite Live didn't it?
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>If so does any one know if any footage of it still exsist?

Yes - included on the Laserdisc release in 1994.

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>Yes - included on the Laserdisc release in 1994.
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Fucking Laserdisc! Well cheers, another bit of equipment I'm not going to buy.

Know if any stuff is on the net, sorry but I'm a cheap bastard, but I've got the ST on Vinyl! It's a version with pics of bands like Mammoth on the inner bit.