SOTCAA

GOOFS AND GAFFS AND BLOOPERS AND OUT-TAKES 9 Now, if you're one of those people who think a gaff is a pub owned by an unsubtle Avalon character then this next section is for you. So to take us into our next commercial break, we thought we'd treat you to some of the out-takes from this book - those rather unfortunate calamities christened by Grand Dame Cock-up as "things that didn't work out."

We hope you enjoy laughing at them as much as we did. Cheers.

There's an old saying in showbusiness: 'Never work with children, animals or Steve Berry'. And it's with this in mind that we present the first of our calamitous catastrophes in the form of this wry blooper from our TV Cream parody:

TV MUFF STUFF:
News reaches us of an obscure kids' show from 1976 called MR MOLESWORTH STICKS IT UP. Starring the legendary Fred 'TERK' Harris and an ultra-young Nigel 'CATFLAP' Planer, this was set on some kind of weather satellite orbiting the earth and featured a load of camp robots called the Mugwumps who...
...sorry loves, I've dried. Can we go again?

And here's a risible catastrophic cock-up from the Hen & Chicken strip. Keep your eye on the door in this scene:

Working with HTML is a tricky business at the best of times, as was the case when we didn't check the picture URL before this live broadcast of our parody of the latest LP releases...

BORING
Arse
(Ennui 639ZZZZZZ)
The stunning debut album from Stockport's finest - featuring... Ah, I'm sorry about this. That's our mistake, obviously. 'Boring' is actually the new LP by Arse and not by several characters from an obscure yoghurt advert. I'm sure, when the lead singer, Paul Dullson, finds out about this he's going to be rather cross. I'm Michael Alexander St John you know. From off of Chris Morris...

Which brings us the catagory known in the trade as 'I Really Think We Ought To Discuss That One Before Putting It On-line I Mean After All We Could Get Into Some Sort Of Legal Shit You Know We Don't Want A Replay Of The Savile Fiasco Do We'. Here are a few ideas we came up with for the book which, in hindsight, we're rather relieved we never used:

Firstly, this frame from The Ricky Gervais Story was deleted when it was pointed out (quite correctly) that we'd forgotten to draw any seating in the picture.:

The Office - very funny for those who apreciate office humour. Twats, basically.

And on the subject of things which seemed like a bad idea, a certain Christopher Morris must have thought all his dreams had come true when his not particularly much good Brass Eye Special circumvented critical reaction and went straight for the tedious controversy. So here's an out-take from our 'Funny Side Of Christopher Morris' piece (episode 12):

We started writing this book in 1987. Since then the world has known many changes - the Fall of Communism, the Ousting of Thatcher, the Dukes of Stratosphere to name but three. Sadly, in the time it takes to bring comedy from our brains to your visual display units much tends to fall by the wayside for reasons of lack of topicality, bad timing or, in the case of the out-take below, due of tragic circumstances:

CHRISTMAS SKETCH #12:NOEL EDMONDS UP THE TOP OF THE TWIN TOWERS

Noel Edmonds nestles inside his jumper, frothing slightly. People are manning charity phones behind him. We can just make out Bernard Cribbins, John Craven and Helen Atkinson-Wood

NOEL:
Hello, welcome to Noel's Big Christmas Gifts, and a very merry Christmas to all you... what's that noise? Oh dear God - look out of the window.

CRAVEN:
Jesus Christ!

CRIBBINS
It's heading straight for us!!!

ATKINSON-WOOD
No!

Mr Blobby crashes through the window and knocks over a polystyrene cup.

BLOBBY
Blobby blobby blobby blobby!

NOEL:
Gumph!

Cut to Sara and Michael Payne practically fucking over the body of their daughter in front of Daily Mirror photographers.

In fact the above out-take is particularly interesting as we'd originally conceived it as an hilarious comedy 'Ooh, don't go there' out-take for this section. Then we changed our minds and decided it was too obvious a joke anyway and deleted it, thereby making it perfectly eligable as an out-take. So...we put it back in. Good, eh?

So there you have it - the waste-products of this book, a fascinating insight into what happens behind the scenes and an excuse for us to make slightly off-colour jokes without fear of recourse. Don't get all that in the fucking Framley Examiner do you? No.

And so, to round it all off nicely, here's a selection of rejected cover artwork:

Does anybody else find these covers arrogant and not a little sinister?

So, Mike. Tell me about Wacky 2000, this project of yours.

Well I...oh, that's torn it hasn't it. I think I've got a trowel somewhere...