Hmmm... I'll go away and think...

There's ITV stuff too...

For starters: the original BBC play version of "Scum". And "Brimstone And Treacle" was shown once after years of having been banned, but I don't think that it's ever appeared in any way, shape or form since... Spike Milligan's "The Melting Pot" (which may never have been shown at all), the radio series "Eammon, Elder Brother Of Christ", episode six of series one of "Blue Jam"...

Oh and "Hardwicke House", the 1986-ish ITV sitcom starring Rik and Ade. If anyone knows where it's possible to get hold of ANY episodes of this, please let me know. A lot of people that I know, including me, would be very grateful.

Incidentally, the rumours about an episode of Mr Benn having been banned are false. All 13 are still shown regularly, and the storyline that was related to me by some friend of a friend who insisted that he knew best never actually existed.

I think that was it - 'Scum' was the other thing Bent mentioned.

"Hardwicke House" featured Roy Kinnear, not Rik & Ade, although some Comic Strip was involved in making it. It was just a shit ITV sitcom, set in a school, and one of the ITV stations dropped it mid run beacuse it got such lousy reviews.

I did see an episode, and, unless you're a fanatical fan of Kinnear, I can't imagine why you'd want any copies of it. It really was fucking awful.

I could have sworn it was dropped after a tabloid outcry... and that Rik and Ade were at least involved... but it could be my memory playing tricks (come on, I was YOUNG when it was on!!!)

Anyone

Rik and Ade did do a guest shot in one episode, but it was one of the ones that didn't get shown after the protests following the first episode. If I recall right, there was a publicity photo in the TV Times of them strangling dear Roy. Also, after that first episode, the TV critic of the Daily Mail thought it was "unfair" that there was a South African charcter called Van Der Git.

Was he the fascist teacher who was always reading a biography of Franco?

HH was naff but I can't believe it caused an outcry. Why were people so bothered by it? Apart from unrealism, lack of comedy, etc.

Did all of ITV drop it? I know that with "19th hole" (which deserves its own strand, wait a minute) only one station did, and that pissed off William G.Stewart, who gave a statement to R2R saying "They're enetitled to do it - but it's a stupid way to run a TV station". Something like that.

Can that still happen nowadays, ie. different bits of ITV dropping stuff?

I think it can still happen nowadays, but I'm fairly certain that only one episode of HH was ever shown by anyone anywhere.

The second one made Granada's rundown of that night's viewing, but did not make it to air.

That's definitely wrong, because I saw an episode (on Central), and it wasn't the first one. And it ran on for a few weeks more.

I _think_ Central made it, so they may have ahd the guts to stick with it.
As far as I know, the others didn't. And Granada definitely didn't.

A couple more were listed in the TV times (which in those days was impossible to change once it had been typset), but never materialised.

Just after I posted that, I remebered there's a great site that gives details of every TV comedy show ever (or at least every sitcom, I think). So I searched on "tv comedy", it came up as the first result, and I got the HH page:

www.phill.co.uk/comedy/house/index.html

- which reveals that the whole series was pulled after 2 episodes. Which is worse than I remember, so it must have been ep2 that I saw.

So there you go.

watching that "100 worst tv moments" thing on C4 the other day a sitcom came up "heil honey, I'm home" about hitler and eva brown living next door to a jewish couple in 1938.

according to the captions, 8 episodes were made, but only the first one was ever shown. it got pulled after complaints.

>For starters: the original BBC play version of "Scum".

Shown in 1991 out of respect to it's director. The introduction suggested that you better have a videotape ready - it won't be happening again. Apparently no sod had and anyone with a copy must damn well let me know.

>And "Brimstone And Treacle" was shown once after years of having been banned, but I don't think that it's ever appeared in any way, shape or form since...

1987 repeat on BBC2, as part of a Potter retrospective (which is also a bugger to find on video). It was shown in 1998, but they cut the final piece of music due to clearance problems. This may explain why the BBC Education release was withdrawn so quickly.

There are a few plays from the late 70's which fell foul. The other one is 'The Spongers' by Jim Allen, but that has had two belated screenings now (1993,1999). Fantastic play to boot, but this realism in drama really annoyed BBC bosses at the time - their criticism was that it looked too close to documentary and compacted real events into an unnaturally short of space of time (cf:SCUM). Which showed how much they understood drama.

Casualty - 'Boiling Point'(1993) was actually terrible, coming from series six when they first stretched the writers' abilities (26 a year) and the patience of the producer. It was postponed 'til 21:50 and was the last time that the show caused any kind of stir. Fantastic up until then, now dull as ditchwater.

An earlier episode on the IRA was never repeated, until UKG sneaked it out one Friday morning over elevenses. Probably by accident. A terrific episode, which shows the hospital's reaction to the bombing rather than showing the disaster itself. A fascinating change of focus.

Is that the one where the bomb goes off by mistake whilst it's being prepared, and one of the survivors is wearing the jacket belonging to his mate who got killed, and at the last moment they realise they've told the dead bloke's parents he's still alive? That one?

A lot of mainstream dramas have a 'lost' episode that gets conveniently left out of repeat runs, you'd be surprised - even the shows which get repeated to death. There's a supposedly racist episode of Columbo which was never shown in Britain, or apparently sold abroad, after complaints in the US, for example.

But are any of them really dodgy.

There was that wimbolden common episode of Bottom - not banned but, you know, fuuny coincidences.

There's the celebrated episode of 'Star Trek' where they visit a planet full of wacky Oirish leprechauns. It's never been shown in this country. Although, oddly, BBC are currently showing "The Fitz".

Wasn't there an inter-racial kiss in Star Trek that was bannd/Censored? Probably still is in some Southern American states.
Ooh, political

There's an episode of Star Trek TNG that's still banned in this country coz of a reference to the IRA.

I've seen Brimstone and Treacle floating around on video now and then. Is that a censored version of the original braodcast then?
Ditto Scum?

>I've seen Brimstone and Treacle floating around on video now and then. Is that a censored version of the original braodcast then?
>Ditto Scum?

'Brimstone' was never edited because the guy who banned it before transmission in 1977 (Alisdair Milne) only did so because they wanted to oust all "the commies" from the BBC. This is true! Such a paranoiac witchunt targetted Kenith Trodd (Potter's producer), the best director who ever lived (Alan Clarke - 'Scum', 'Made In Britain', 'The Firm', 'To Encourage The Others', 'Penda's Fen') and "the Bleasdale of the Seventies", Jim Allen who was responsible for 'The Spongers'.

'Scum' was screened in a Clarke season following his early death in 1991 (if anyone has any of these, mail me now!). It contained one edit, during the suicide sequence. The blood seeps through the blankets, but this was removed by producers who still thought "it was a bit too much". The BBC version is vastly better (I paid to see it at the BFI recently, still edited) and is distinguishable from the film by the inclusion of David Threlfall in the cast.

If anyone wants to know, the BBC have a room with a special key for such sensitive/embargoed material. 'Ghostwatch' now resides there too.

Finally, on the 'Casualty' issue, it has been a while since I watched that IRA episode. They certainly reworked the premise for a later episode, but then they've started to reuse old titles now so it does start to get confusing. In short, I can't remember which one it is that you refer to. The original IRA episode went out in 1989 (series 4).

>'Scum' was screened in a Clarke season following his early death in 1991 (if anyone has any of these, mail me now!).

Now you can:

[email protected]

Presumably Channel 4 have a similar room where they keep the Red Triangle films, uncut Brass Eye etc.

If so, I'm getting in there. That's all there is to it.

I could be wrong but I don't think they've ever repeated the final ep of "not the nine o' clock news" with THAT song in it..

& of course it was originally broadcast by accident..the behind the scenes people didn't realise...

Excuse my ignorance, but what song is this? I am just a young pup so do not know...

You can't mean the 2 Ronnies one. That went onto one of the albums.

More likely the 'Memory Kinda lingers' song?

Was shown on telly no'but two months or so since.

It was on the same album as well.

Indeed it was.

Yes.

But what WAS it?!

End of series song, ostensibly about how much the cast will all miss each other, only the repeated words "Kinda Lingers" are slurred Americanly into each other to form... an entirely different word. Certainly not a word an average prime-time BBC2 punter would have expected in 1982. All right, not the most stunning joke in the world, but easily eclipses Coogan's disastrous "Valley Of Our Souls"...