I think the Jack Dee thing is completely awful and unfunny, and his Hugh Dennis bit where he tries to badly rip off Max Headroom is very sickening as well. As for the Bob Martin show co-written by Bob Mills, ive only seen two episodes but it looked like a crap rip off of the Larry Sanders show. Though i do think Bob Mills is excellent on In Bed With Medinner, amazing show, though i dont know why ITV put it on at like 4 in the morning on the blue moon when it is on TV. So simple, he just puts on tapes of other programs and takes the piss out of them, class.. I think a guide about that show would be good for this site, as I recall there have been many edits to episodes, certainly I have seen bits edited out and 2 different episodes spliced together...? Perhaps someone featured complained after the original broadcast..? Anyway I don't know how funny Bob Mills is in other things.. i know he does Radio as well but I've seen many episodes of the 3 series of In Bed With Medinner and most of the time their bloody hilarious, I especially remember the episode with the big fat british Sumo Wrestlers and the one with the awful psychic who looked like Chris Barrie in drag. Class show.

>I think the Jack Dee thing is completely awful and unfunny, and his Hugh Dennis bit where he tries to badly rip off Max Headroom is very sickening as well.

I still think Dee's Duke Of York stand-up show from about '92 is one of the best of modern times - the craft fair bit is class - but I've yet to see him do a TV series which does him justice.

As for the Bob Martin show co-written by Bob Mills, ive only seen two episodes but it looked like a crap rip off of the Larry Sanders show.

Hmmm. It's by no means great, but quite a risk for ITV - some of the references must really go over the Heartbeat audience's heads. I'd love to have been able to rate it, as I do think Mills is genuinely underrated.

Though i do think Bob Mills is excellent on In Bed With Medinner, amazing show, though i dont know why ITV put it on at like 4 in the morning on the blue moon when it is on TV. So simple, he just puts on tapes of other programs and takes the piss out of them, class.. I think a guide about that show would be good for this site, as I recall there have been many edits to episodes, certainly I have seen bits edited out and 2 different episodes spliced together...? Perhaps someone featured complained after the original broadcast..? Anyway I don't know how funny Bob Mills is in other things.. i know he does Radio as well

He used to do a Sunday night show on BBC GLR (RIP) in London - very funny, opened the phone lines to droll cab drivers, had the odd interesting guest. He also did a couple of series of daytime quiz show Win Lose Or Draw about five years ago, and he bravely attempted (but failed) to subvert the chat show with Channel 4's The Show in about 1997. I still think he's a naturally funny bloke, and hope he finds his niche - he deserves to.

but I've seen many episodes of the 3 series of In Bed With Medinner and most of the time their bloody hilarious, I especially remember the episode with the big fat british Sumo Wrestlers and the one with the awful psychic who looked like Chris Barrie in drag. Class show.

When I've caught it/remembered to tape it, it's always been terrific. Not sure exactly how many episodes there are (I think it was two series of 13 shows - the first series was 60 mins each show, the second just a half hour), but I heard him say on GLR one night (when a listener asked) that apparently each show cost LWT just two grand to make - which he claimed was a record for a comedy show. Anybody know of anything cheaper?

I only saw the first Jack Dee thing. It was so bad I couldn't be bothered with any more. It felt like he'd written hardly any of the material, only occasionally did a typical Jack Dee gag shine through. It also felt like he knew his material was rubbish and couldn't be bothered to put any effort into the delivery. But that's just what I think.

Jack Dee's Happy Hour is pretty bad, but whatever possessed him to have that Jed Cake character on it? He's so unfunny, it makes me want to piss blood.

I'm a big fan of Bob Mills, especially Still IBWMD. It now seems to have got a regular slot of 1:30am Tuesdays, at least on Anglia.

Jack Dee isn't that bad. And the show's got some pretty good writers like Rich Hall comedy King.

The section where he answered viewers video questions was very funny. There's just something about Dee's dryness that invokes quality into even poor material.

But I agree that Jed Cake is abysmal. I guess he is Jack's new BBC replacement for the adverts he had on ITV.

IBWMD has rocketed downhill in terms of quality over its three series, which is a shame, because when it's good, it's fantastic. (Although clearly no-one's ever thought to take Bob aside and point out that the "that's Cher's hairdryer, she came round for tea last week" schtick really isn't funny.)

The first series ('Prisoner') was easily the best because it lasted a full hour, not just 30 minutes. As a result Bob had time to go into material in detail, let jokes grow, and generally achieve the relaxed feeling of having a few mates round and showing them some stuff that will make them laugh. There was even time for a band each week (I distinctly remember Gary Numan, for a start). Then the show got chopped to half an hour and he started having to rush it, but a lot of it was still very good. The third ('Avengers') series, however, is extremely ropey in comparison - although it can still be kind of engaging, it's nothing to what it was, and it's also becoming clear that he's running out of tapes to take the piss out of. What's happened to all that unbroadcast police footage he used to have?

If you haven't seen the original series I'm not sure what to suggest, to be honest, as Paramount only show the half-hour programmes, and ITV aren't likely to run it again. But it's not nearly as funny as it used to be. And policemen are getting younger, and I don't understand these newfangled postcodes, etc etc...

Wow, I had a vauge memory of catching an episode of the first series but I got into it in series 2. Because it hasn't been repeated I thought I must have imagined it had a band in it, so thanks for enlightening me on that!

It is a real class show that deserves to be seen by more people. Yeah, it's gone down a little in the last series but still it's generated so many classic moments - the pitiful attempt at British sumos, the Danny Baker narrated film about village gangs organising fights, the hillbilly who went to visit the Roseanne set, the incredibly dodgy titles to that LWT kids show and tons more.

Lazy, maybe, but if it's this funny who cares?