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We've had some good threads on Bolton Nuts about favourite situation comedies, favourite lines and so on. When thinking about how to respond in these threads, it occurred to me just how many unspeakably bad sit-coms were made in the 1980s.
The 1980s gave us Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder, Bread. Yes Minister, The Young Ones, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Hi-De-Hi! But for every original, innovative and enduring series like this, there seemed to be ten that were a load of old guff.
The 1980s were the last decade in which nearly all of us only had access to only four relevision channels, so anything that was on BBC1 or ITV during prime time had no place to hide.
I give you largehat's guide to lamentable situation comedies of the 1980s.
Never The Twain - 1981-91
The opening credits were quite interesting, in which the faces of the main characters merged into opposing toby jugs, but what followed was a real snoozefest starring Windsor Davies and Donald Sinden as rival antique dealers in Thatcher's Britain. They squeezed eleven series out of this horrible, horrible premise.
How many times could Smallbridge and Peel get one over on the other over some fine piece of object d'art spotted gathering dust on the mantelpiece during a house clearance? 67 times over 11 years. They made a series every bloody year for 11 bloody years, but this was no vintage period.
Watching - 1987-1993
You lot have got me all wrong. I am not a cold hearted man. I'm not against romance and love stories taking centre stage and fully accept they can be a vehicle for comedy. Just ask Natasha. Her inbox is full of pictures of my flaccid knob. But ITV punished us on Sundays in the late 80s by broadcasting Watching, starring Emma Wray as a common as dirt Scouse loudmouth and Paul Bown as her dopey moped-riding suitor.
These characters were called Brenda and Malcolm. Our cross to bear was watching these two go on one doomed date after another, waiting for Malcolm to commit some heinously unfunny faux pas such as holding a door open in an unwelcome act of traditional chivalry. If you can imagine a younger version of Kat Slater, that was Brenda. She wore loud dresses, a permanent scowl and big earrings. Yes please ITV, 7 series of this tosh, with end of season cliffhangers such as 'will Malcolm disappoint his domineering mother by getting home at 10.05pm?' and 'will Brenda let him hold her hand at Chester Zoo?'
Perhaps taking her inspiration from Dennis Waterman in 'Minder', Emma Wray sang the theme song "What do I see in him?" herself, and it was spectacularly bad. Bless her heart, she couldn't sing, but like most Scouse birds, she was game.
Me & My Girl - 1984-88
Picture the scene.
A middle aged widower spends a lovely sunny afternoon on the beach with his teen-aged daughter. Still measuring their collective loss from the recent death of Mrs Harrop, Mr Harrop and Samantha, united in grief, bond by flying a kite and building sand castles. What we have here is a big shit sandwich, dear, and we're both going to have to take a bite. This invitation extended to the viewing public.
This was the disgustingly heart-warming opening sequence of Me & My Girl, starring Richard O'Sullivan as an impossible-to-punch ad exec (whose office was unrealistically relaxed, it was just him and Tim Brooke-Taylor, who played the guy who invented the golden-ticket-finding computer in Willy Wonka) and Joanne Ridley as his daughter. You can keep the spade; just pass me the bucket. Quick.
Naturally, storylines revolved around Simon's attempts at finding a new girlfriend and his conflicting affections for these girlfriends and Samantha, his sweet, perfect daughter, who, if I may be permitted to lower the tone, I secretly thought he possibly wanted to bone. She was quite fit in a 1980s way. I don't remember the series lasting until Samantha got to legal and respectable boning age.
I think I might have turned out to be a normal and well adjusted person if I hadn't been exposed to this liberally sugar-coated pap at an early age.
Dear John - 1986-87
On the off chance you want to hunt down old episodes of Dear John, I've saved you many hours of abject despair by posted a picture of the DVD cover above. If you look at it, it provides everything you need to know about the premise of this show. You may thank me now.
In a low point for John Sullivan's career, he wrote a situation comedy about a mackintosh wearing drip who comes home from his dead-end office job one day to find a letter from his terminally bored wife telling him she's been being screwed vigorously by his treacherous mate and so naturally, he has to move out. She is having the house and kid and he hasn't got the gumption to do anything other than pack up his y-fronts and crossword book and seek out new lodgings. Naturally, he only gets to see the kid on Sundays when everything in their hometown is closed. He spends his weekday evening lamenting the misfortune of losing both his wife and his best mate in one fell swoop and systematically searching the lonely hearts column in the local rag, looking for a new victim to be subject to the irresistable charm and sophistication of this dynamic specimen of manhood.
Ralph Bates, who played the titular John, died prematurely, bringing the show to an abrupt end. I can't say I'm sorry. It's not that Dear John was desperately unfunny, but it gave too many women ideas.
Sorry! - 1982-88
Ronnie Corbett cashed in on his 'A' list status by signing up for this pedestrian and unoriginal affair - once again set in an alien bourgeois alternate reality. A 41 year old librarian still living at home. A domineering mother who connives to keep him within suckling distance of her breast. Are you noticing a recurring theme in these shows? Yes, that's right, the 80s were a decade rampant in male emasculation in popular culture.
Our hero Timothy just can't strike out for himself because mother Phyllis keeps his cock in a jar on her bedside table. On the opposite bedside table rests Timothy's henpecked father Sidney's cock.
Can you imagine anyone ever making a sitcom about a domineering older man who won't let his daughter leave home and manipulates her so she stays at home and does as he says? Of course not, that would be terribly sexist.
The legacy of this series is the catchphrase "Lanuage, Timothy!" which rang out around the Lumsden household if Corbett's lexis strayed beyond Readers' Digest levels of acceptability. It was an 80s buzzword everywhere from Tunbridge Wells to Chipping Sodbury. More fool you if you didn't use it while it was in fashion.
Did you watch any of these sitcoms? Am I doing them a dis-service? What gash sitcoms have I missed?
The 1980s gave us Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder, Bread. Yes Minister, The Young Ones, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Hi-De-Hi! But for every original, innovative and enduring series like this, there seemed to be ten that were a load of old guff.
The 1980s were the last decade in which nearly all of us only had access to only four relevision channels, so anything that was on BBC1 or ITV during prime time had no place to hide.
I give you largehat's guide to lamentable situation comedies of the 1980s.
Never The Twain - 1981-91
The opening credits were quite interesting, in which the faces of the main characters merged into opposing toby jugs, but what followed was a real snoozefest starring Windsor Davies and Donald Sinden as rival antique dealers in Thatcher's Britain. They squeezed eleven series out of this horrible, horrible premise.
How many times could Smallbridge and Peel get one over on the other over some fine piece of object d'art spotted gathering dust on the mantelpiece during a house clearance? 67 times over 11 years. They made a series every bloody year for 11 bloody years, but this was no vintage period.
Watching - 1987-1993
You lot have got me all wrong. I am not a cold hearted man. I'm not against romance and love stories taking centre stage and fully accept they can be a vehicle for comedy. Just ask Natasha. Her inbox is full of pictures of my flaccid knob. But ITV punished us on Sundays in the late 80s by broadcasting Watching, starring Emma Wray as a common as dirt Scouse loudmouth and Paul Bown as her dopey moped-riding suitor.
These characters were called Brenda and Malcolm. Our cross to bear was watching these two go on one doomed date after another, waiting for Malcolm to commit some heinously unfunny faux pas such as holding a door open in an unwelcome act of traditional chivalry. If you can imagine a younger version of Kat Slater, that was Brenda. She wore loud dresses, a permanent scowl and big earrings. Yes please ITV, 7 series of this tosh, with end of season cliffhangers such as 'will Malcolm disappoint his domineering mother by getting home at 10.05pm?' and 'will Brenda let him hold her hand at Chester Zoo?'
Perhaps taking her inspiration from Dennis Waterman in 'Minder', Emma Wray sang the theme song "What do I see in him?" herself, and it was spectacularly bad. Bless her heart, she couldn't sing, but like most Scouse birds, she was game.
Me & My Girl - 1984-88
Picture the scene.
A middle aged widower spends a lovely sunny afternoon on the beach with his teen-aged daughter. Still measuring their collective loss from the recent death of Mrs Harrop, Mr Harrop and Samantha, united in grief, bond by flying a kite and building sand castles. What we have here is a big shit sandwich, dear, and we're both going to have to take a bite. This invitation extended to the viewing public.
This was the disgustingly heart-warming opening sequence of Me & My Girl, starring Richard O'Sullivan as an impossible-to-punch ad exec (whose office was unrealistically relaxed, it was just him and Tim Brooke-Taylor, who played the guy who invented the golden-ticket-finding computer in Willy Wonka) and Joanne Ridley as his daughter. You can keep the spade; just pass me the bucket. Quick.
Naturally, storylines revolved around Simon's attempts at finding a new girlfriend and his conflicting affections for these girlfriends and Samantha, his sweet, perfect daughter, who, if I may be permitted to lower the tone, I secretly thought he possibly wanted to bone. She was quite fit in a 1980s way. I don't remember the series lasting until Samantha got to legal and respectable boning age.
I think I might have turned out to be a normal and well adjusted person if I hadn't been exposed to this liberally sugar-coated pap at an early age.
Dear John - 1986-87
On the off chance you want to hunt down old episodes of Dear John, I've saved you many hours of abject despair by posted a picture of the DVD cover above. If you look at it, it provides everything you need to know about the premise of this show. You may thank me now.
In a low point for John Sullivan's career, he wrote a situation comedy about a mackintosh wearing drip who comes home from his dead-end office job one day to find a letter from his terminally bored wife telling him she's been being screwed vigorously by his treacherous mate and so naturally, he has to move out. She is having the house and kid and he hasn't got the gumption to do anything other than pack up his y-fronts and crossword book and seek out new lodgings. Naturally, he only gets to see the kid on Sundays when everything in their hometown is closed. He spends his weekday evening lamenting the misfortune of losing both his wife and his best mate in one fell swoop and systematically searching the lonely hearts column in the local rag, looking for a new victim to be subject to the irresistable charm and sophistication of this dynamic specimen of manhood.
Ralph Bates, who played the titular John, died prematurely, bringing the show to an abrupt end. I can't say I'm sorry. It's not that Dear John was desperately unfunny, but it gave too many women ideas.
Sorry! - 1982-88
Ronnie Corbett cashed in on his 'A' list status by signing up for this pedestrian and unoriginal affair - once again set in an alien bourgeois alternate reality. A 41 year old librarian still living at home. A domineering mother who connives to keep him within suckling distance of her breast. Are you noticing a recurring theme in these shows? Yes, that's right, the 80s were a decade rampant in male emasculation in popular culture.
Our hero Timothy just can't strike out for himself because mother Phyllis keeps his cock in a jar on her bedside table. On the opposite bedside table rests Timothy's henpecked father Sidney's cock.
Can you imagine anyone ever making a sitcom about a domineering older man who won't let his daughter leave home and manipulates her so she stays at home and does as he says? Of course not, that would be terribly sexist.
The legacy of this series is the catchphrase "Lanuage, Timothy!" which rang out around the Lumsden household if Corbett's lexis strayed beyond Readers' Digest levels of acceptability. It was an 80s buzzword everywhere from Tunbridge Wells to Chipping Sodbury. More fool you if you didn't use it while it was in fashion.
Did you watch any of these sitcoms? Am I doing them a dis-service? What gash sitcoms have I missed?
