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Here are some amusing TV Comedies:
The Two Ronnies’ “Four Candles” or “Fork Handles” Sketch, and in a similar vein The One Ronnie’s Blackberry Sketch (more of the Two Ronnies); the Dead Parrot sketch from the Monty Python team (John Cleese and Michael Palin) – see also their sketch, 
Spam, from which the e-mail word came; in 2007, the seven billionth can of Spam [the canned precooked meat product] was sold; also some modern stand-up comics like Bill Bailey (have you seen his DVD “Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra”?), Jo Brand and David Mitchell; some real classics like Morecambe and Wise, ’Allo, ’Allo and Reggie Perrin (Leonard Rossiter); then there’s Matt Lucas and David Walliams in Little Britain and Come Fly With Me, Last of the Summer Wine and finally Outnumbered.
Of the few TV advertisements I like is Aleksandr, founder of comparethemeerkat.com. Simples! and here are some real meerkats.
Some television comedy, including old stuff has been preserved for posterity on YouTube. Don’t miss this classic bit from “Only Fools and Horses” where Del Boy (David Jason) falls through the pub bar – one of the funniest moments on TV.
Of all the sketches performed by The Two Ronnies, just about everyone’s favourite sketch is “The Hardware Shop”, commonly called “Four Candles” or “Fork Handles”.
The “Four Candles” sketch, originally titled “The Hardware Shop” or “Annie Finkhouse” is a sketch from the BBC comedy The Two Ronnies. Written by Ronnie Barker under the pseudonym of Gerald Wiley, it was first broadcast on Saturday, 4th September 1976 on BBC1. Word play and homophones exhibit Barker’s fascination with the English language and is cleverly used to powerful comic effect in this sketch. A shopkeeper, played by Ronnie Corbett, in a hardware shop becomes increasingly frustrated by a customer, played by Barker, because he continuously misunderstands what he is requesting.
A script for the sketch in Ronnie Barker’s handwriting was discovered in 2006 and was sold at auction for £48,500 in December 2007.
The sketch was inspired by a real incident in a hardware shop in Hayes Middlesex, details of which were submitted by the shop owners as possible sketch material.
It’s on YouTube.
In a hardware shop. Ronnie Corbett is behind the counter, wearing a warehouse jacket. He has just finished serving a customer.
The request was for “bill-hooks”. The audience is intended to infer that the shopkeeper misread it as “bollocks” or “pillocks”.
Barker later rewrote the ending of the sketch, citing the reason as dissatisfaction with the obscurity and coarseness of the “bill-hooks” reference. He revealed in the last episode of The Two Ronnies Sketchbook in 2005 that, instead of another male shop assistant coming out and replacing Corbett, a large-bosomed lady would come out and say “Right then young man, what kind of knockers are you after?”
Fork – Threek – Took – Wunk
BBC 1 broadcast a one-off programme with Ronnie Corbett on Christmas Day 2010 to celebrate his 80th birthday. In one segment of the programme he appeared with Harry Enfield in a rather fruity Blackberry Sketch.
Enfield plays the part of the proprietor of a greengrocer’s shop, and Corbett a disgruntled customer.
This sketch reminds me of both the Monty Python Parrot Sketch and the Two Ronnies’ Four Candles/Fork Handles Sketch.
See it on the BBC iPlayer.
These two BBC television series were among my favourites from recent years.
The pictures below are from their TV programmes — or see the Little Britain and
Come Fly With Me web-sites.
All these characters were played by David Walliams and Matt Lucas.
‘Keeley’ and ‘Melody’, ‘Moses’, ‘Jackie’ and ‘Simon’, ‘Precious’, ‘Buster’ and ‘Mickey’, ‘Geoff’ and ‘Sue’
Last of the Summer Wine was an affectionate comedy about people in the autumn of their years. The series was the world’s longest-running sitcom, having clocked up over 30 series as well as several Christmas specials. It was never the same after Compo and Nora Batty left.
At the other end of the age range...
The kids were the best part – very talented. The oldest, Jake Brockman (played by Tyger Drew Honey) is growing up into a good-looking young man.
The trouble was that they were growing up so fast; any more series (none planned) and their antics would just seem puerile; that’s what went wrong with My Family – it went on too long. Fawlty Towers sensibly stopped before it got stale.
The Dead Parrot sketch is probably the most loved of all the team’s sketches. Here is one version of it; some other variants are given at the end of the sketch. (The background colour of the adjacent section is Norwegian Blue, of course!) Several versions are on YouTube.
In a pet shop. Michael Palin is the shop owner, and John Cleese (“Mr. Praline”) is the customer.
A customer enters the pet shop.
The Monty Python Live at Drury Lane album features a live version of the sketch, which is slightly different from the TV version. Praline’s rant about the deceased parrot includes “He fucking snuffed it!” Also, the sketch ends with the shopkeeper saying that he has a slug that does talk. Cleese, after a brief pause, says, “Right, I’ll have that one, then!” According to Michael Palin’s published diary, Palin changed his response in order to throw Cleese off.
On the Rhino Records’ compilation Dead Parrot Society, a live performance has Palin cracking up while Cleese declares “Pining for the fjords? What kind of talk is that?” The audience cheers this bit of breaking character, but Palin quickly composes himself and Cleese declares “Now, look! This is nothing to laugh at!” before proceeding with the sketch. This version is included in the book and CD set The Best British Stand-Up and Comedy Routines, along with a transcript of the sketch and the Four Yorkshiremen sketch.
In The Secret Policeman’s Biggest Ball, a benefit for Amnesty International, the sketch opens similarly, but ends very differently:
The 1976 Monty Python Live at City Center performance ended with the slug lines, followed by:
The version on the Final Rip-Off CD ends with the Shopkeeper replying “Yes” to the question “Does it [the slug] talk?”, to which the customer says “I’ll take it”.
At Graham Chapman’s memorial service, John Cleese began his eulogy by reciting lines from the sketch, stating that Graham Chapman was no more, that he had ceased to be, that he had expired and gone to meet his maker, and so on, finally calling him an ex-Chapman. Cleese went on to justify his eulogy by claiming that Chapman would never have forgiven him if he had not taken the opportunity to reference the sketch.
The Nostalgia Critic references this sketch in his review of The Room. In his review, after Johnny (played by Tommy Wiseau) commits suicide, The Critic is stunned that Lisa, Johnny’s fiancée, wonders if he is really dead, despite the obvious bullet hole in his mouth and the substantial amount of blood coming out of the wound. Before the Critic can erupt into an angry outburst, he calms down and recites, in a progressively angrier tone, the euphemisms from the sketch, also adding others like: his metabolic processes are now history, he’s off the twig, he’s kicked the bucket and he’s shuffled off the mortal coil.
Precedent:
A joke dated circa 400 CE, recently translated from Greek, shows similarities to the Parrot sketch. It was written by Hierocles and Philagrius and was included in a compilation of 265 jokes titled Philogelos: The Laugh Addict. In the Greek version, a man complains to a slave-merchant that his new slave has died. The slave-merchant replies, “When he was with me, he never did any such thing!”
Mark Twain’s humorous short story Nevada Funeral similarly has a character saying a series of euphemisms for death.
“As the Pythons prepared for possibly their last-ever live stage shows at the O2, [Guardian Online] asked leading cultural figures for their favourite moments from the influential comedy troupe”.
Enjoy these reminiscences of Monty Python in the Guardian Online, complete with several of their sketches and links to other Pythonalia.
Bill is the “bald man with long hair”. Find his latest thoughts from His Bunker (though his pen seems to have run dry recently)
Jo Brand’s autobiography Look Back in Hunger has “hilarious, engaging, razor-sharp wit and a gift for anecdote, ... revealing the experiences and incidents in her life that gave rise to her huge success as a comedian” according to the publicity
David Mitchell is married to Victoria Coren who hosts the BBC Four television quiz show Only Connect.
On the subject of British TV, there are the old classics like
Remember their teasing of André Previn?
(One of the better TV ads)
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“Ah! I see belows are some of my worker who lives in the Kalahari Desert. Please say ‘Hellos’ to them. Simples! And somes from Indonesia”
How on earth did these meerkats manage to get here from my Mammals Photo Gallery where they belong? Incredible burrowers!
Every working day, Reginald Iolanthe Perrin would leave his home at 12, Coleridge Close, Climthorpe, for his place of work at Sunshine Desserts. He would walk down Coleridge Close, turn right into Tennyson Avenue, left into Wordsworth Drive, then head for the station to catch the train to London’s Waterloo. Every working day, his train was late. On arrival at the office, Reggie would tell his secretary Joan Greengross the reason for his late arrival, such as
“Eleven minutes late, defective junction box, New Malden”, or
“Eleven minutes late, signal failure at Vauxhall”, or
“Eleven minutes late, seasonal manpower shortages, Clapham Junction”.
After his dramatic disappearance and reappearance, Reggie decided to open a shop called Grot, selling useless objects at inflated prices. “So much rubbish is sold these days under false pretences”, he told a customer, “that I decided to be honest about it.”
Below is a list of some Grot products described or seen in the various episodes.
And see the Leonard Rossiter web-site