I've only seen season three and four on Paramount, so I guess so. Mind you, I miss it for sustained periods.

They do chop it senseless.

Am I right in thinking that the first series (early '89?) was never repeated on BBC2? I seem to remember the Xmas '87 'pilot' (which I recall as the funniest 35 minutes of TV I'd ever seen at the time) getting another showing sometime during 1988 (edited?), but that first proper batch of six shows were never aired again. Shame.

>Am I right in thinking that the first series (early '89?) was never repeated on BBC2?

Oh, to see the Ted Cunterblast sketch again....will we ever?

Re: Ted Cunterblast sketch.

"Sir, I am not only a librarian, I am also an Englishman... I like to think that I am an Englishman first and a librarian second..."

That was how it went.

My favourite was the "80 years old and never had oral sex" sketch.

>My favourite was the "80 years old and never had oral sex" sketch.

"... never seen a woman urinate."

Top class stuff, hardly a wasted moment if memory serves. I have 3, possibly 4, shows on tape somewhere... Funny that Fry was so stung by the criticism of the '95 BBC1 series; I actually felt that was a partial return to form after the lazy third series (in so far as it's possible to call anything involving a workaholic like Fry 'lazy'; I mean, the writing's fairly lame...).

The ones that stick in my mind are the ass sketch ("With respect, sir, quit jerking my ass around")and one with Hugh Laurie playing the piano and Stephen Fry banging on about theme park Britain "with family theme park urine and fun amenity vomit". And of course the businessmen in Uttoxeter. I wish I could remember more...

The only thing i remember (apart from the 'ass' sketch is the version of hey jude they did. sigh

Hell, I liked it all, even if the fourth series was a little below-par. And the Mr. Simnock sketch is inspired, Jon ("never watched a woman urinate"). Liked all the Mr. Dalliard stuff too. And as for the greetings card sketch ("Sorry to hear your teeth fell out in the Arndale Centre, all my love Horace." "My - that is specific, isn't it?")

Worth getting the BBC cassette of the show if it's still available - a fair bit of the first series turns up while we're waiting for the bastards to televise it all. And the original theme tune (the one with the whistling) is there too - joy!

>And as for the greetings card sketch ("Sorry to hear your teeth fell out in the Arndale Centre, all my love Horace." "My - that is specific, isn't it?")

Of course!!! "Ever so sorry to learn ya/ succumbed to another nasty hernia/ you shouldn't lift what you cannot carry/ all my love your granson Harry". Perfect.

Was it the pilot, or one of the first series, that had Laurie playing at the piano, singing nothing but "America...America..America...America...The States...The States...The States...The States...America...America..America...America...The States...The States...The States...The States.." until Fry walked on, gave a look of incomprehension to the audience, and walloped him? Genius...

But don't forget the "Great Escape" piss-take in the pilot show! Or Tideyman's Carpets! Or...etc.

>Was it the pilot, or one of the first series, that had Laurie playing at the piano, singing nothing but "America...America..America

A moment so fine it even made it onto 'Points of View' with Anne Robinson the following week... "Could you possibly show again the marvellous moment when..." Beats folks being reunited with their previously half-dead puppies on Animal Hospital.

"Estate agents. You can't live with them... you can't live *with* them. With their tinted spectacles and jangling keys, they roam the land causing perturbation and despair. If you try and kill them, you're put in prison; if you try to talk to them, you vomit. There's only one thing worse than an estate agent, but that at least can be lanced, drained and surgically dressed. Estate agents. Love them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them."

Oh, and the hopeless spies... "morning Tony... I must say, I like this folder..."

Best sketch show of the last 20 years, anyone?

I particularly love the "Howard's Way" pisstake, featuring John, Peter, Majorie and "the boy."

'America' was in show one or two of that supple first season. Seeing 'Ted Cunterblast' again provoked the most violent reaction from me in a while. Lovely.

The pilot went out on 26/12/87 and featured a brilliant 'Neighbours'-esque skit at the end. "You leave barbie out of this!"

I like season four too, even if they had the nerve to redo old material, quite possibly in order to recover material from the unrepeated BBC shows.

I remember Hugh Laurie saying on TFI that the sets were kept in storage. Mind you, that was five years ago.

The spies were great: 'you were so busy leaning out of the window that you neglected not to fall out of it?' 'Similar thoughts went through my mind, Tony, as I travelled towards the ground at ever gathering speed...'

And Hugh Laurie's greatest musical moment has to be 'Mystery'

'Estuary!
I live in a houseboat on an estuary.
Which is very handy for my work with the Thames Water Author-it-y'

Definitely best sketch show of the last ten years - I wish they'd do some more.

"Dead since 1973./You've been dead now...wait a minute, let me see.../
Fifteen years come next Jan-u-ary"

>I like season four too, even if they had the nerve to redo old material, quite possibly in order to recover material from the unrepeated BBC shows.

Did they really recycle old sketches? Or just the odd phrase here and there? Can't say I noticed... any examples to jog the memory?

Haven't seen them in a while but I remember being irritated by it at the time. The shoeshop/secret service skit had been done before.

Was that season four? God knows.

BTW, 'America' is from show 2 of season one. That much is clear.

"The states, the states, the states...."

'Hugh Laurie, whose real name is Hugh Laurie, is better known by his real name: Hugh Laurie.'

BTW what about 'Where is the Lid?' for another of Laurie's top musical moments?

sorry I fucked that up -

'Hugh Laurie, whose real name is Hugh Laurie, is better known by his stage name: Hugh Laurie.'

Boh.

Favourite blooper from season one, show 3 was reused in season four, show 2 - rewritten for a foreign news report as opposed to Open University. Effectively the same gag done more coarsely.

What's the point of all this "season" crap?

There's nothing more tragic than British people talking about the second "season" of Blake's 7, just because that's what all the yanks in the x-files newsgroups say.

They are called "series" in this country.

You remind me of the Fry and Laurie sketch from the second SERIES about how to deal with kids who come a-trick or treat'n.

<puts pedantic hat on>

No, I think 'Seasons' is correct. I don't think it's an Americanism, I've got a few UK episode guides to various sci-fi series printed in the early 80s and they refer to seasons. I think 'series' is the word for the whole lot of something eg: the series 'A Bit of Fry and Laurie' is split into four seasons

I might be wrong of course. Or I've just got too much time on my hands...

I didn't invent it! I'd blame Andrew Pixley but it's not even his fault.

I once saw an early Seventies book on the Goons which referred to each set of episodes as a season. The habit stuck. BBC archives have always done that too. As do most people. And SOTCAA. So, not just Americans.

Referring to them as 'series' is too confusing as Al suggested. It is only useful when describing a one-off 'serial', hence the BBC's 'Series and Serials' department.

I don't get any kick out of writing 'season 4, show 3' btw. It takes too long for a start. If anything I was trying to clear up earlier comments and queries by checking the videos. Boring, but it helps some of us sleep at night.

[Season/Series]

I guess it comes down to the different way such things are commissioned by TV networks here and in the States. Surely 'season' implies something 'seasonal' - which runs/ran every year for a lengthy period (which, I imagine, is the case the likes of "The Simpsons", "M*A*S*H", "Friends", etc); an ongoing thing with a block of 15 or more shows per run.

This doesn't really happen in the UK; series tend only to run for 6 weeks (unless we're referring specifically to the British summer, that seems too short to be referred to as a 'season') and appear fairly sporadically in the schedules (if "A Bit..." had been American, no doubt Stephen and Hugh would've been contracted to churn out a series every 12 months until cancellation - instead we get 4 short bursts of shows over a 6-year period [and still an outside chance that they'll do something like it again]).

So, I vote for 'series' in the absence of anything obviously more appropriate.

>
>I guess it comes down to the different way such things are commissioned

Now THERE'S Americanisation! You don't guess, you suppose. Now write it out 100 times.

I know this thread is supposed to be Fry and Laurie related - but to follow the digression... Why must we be so precious about American phrases creeping into our everyday language? Most 'Americanisms' ('gotten' for example) are just old English words anyway. God help us if we go down the French road and end up with a Government department keeping the language 'pure'. Would we be better off without 'Doh! and 'Woohoo!' for instance?

>>
>>I guess it comes down to the different way such things are commissioned
>
>Now THERE'S Americanisation! You don't guess, you suppose. Now write it out 100 times.

Whoops! It's a fair cop (or should that be 'copper'?) My excuse: I'm married to an American. Just be glad I didn't say 'wise-ass'. Or 'freakazoid'.

I only saw a little bit of the last series, but I'm sure they released the script book before the end of it, because I saw at least one sketch that I'd already read in W.H.Smiths.

The scripts were released, 3 Bits of Fry and Laurie the book was called.
Dunno if it was released before, during or after the series. I'll have to dig it out and
have a look.

MM

Come to think of it, that third script book definitely came out in time for Christmas 1994, whereas the final TV series didn't begin until February 95 (BBC1, Sunday nights, to sadly diminishing audiences). Which might explain why Jon found at least one sketch incredibly familiar.