h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: 'Dad's Army': The Characters - A87861351
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

I thought I'd write a bit about 'Dad's Army' and start with an intro on the cast and characters, and then discovered I'd written an entry's worth already…

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Wasn't Pike's most memorable catchphrase "I'm all wet, Mr Mainwaring"?

Ah, this is where you've hidden the character descriptions.

But I still think the main entry needs the brief pen pictures. Otherwise, we're left reading about boring things like radio adaptations and filming locations, wondering what makes the show funny.

Yep, can't argue with that catchphrase – if there was water anywhere in an episode, chances are that Pike was getting drenched in it (except on the few occasions that Hodges was instead…)

Not sure that this counts as 'hiding', as I hope that the entries will, if edited, have links to each other at both the top and bottom. But you’re right, I can't assume a reader will read all entries, or even if they do, in the order I want them to, so a brief summary can't hurt. I'll see if I can add that for tomorrow.

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Why not add a catchphrase to each character description:

"They don't like it up 'em!"
"We're doomed!"
"Would you men mind awfully falling in?"
"Don't tell him, Pike!"
"May I be excused?"

Isn't Wilson a little more than "close friends with the Pike family"? Not seen any episodes recently, but from memory there are reasonably regular allusions....

>>A soft-spoken ladies man, his appearance was less formal than Captain Mainwaring, often appearing with his sleeves or top button undone.<< I think that should be "less formal than that of Captain Mainwaring"

but I am nitpicking. This is good, I think it has lingered long enough

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GB

Rather than saying "than that of Captain Mainwaring", you could say:

than Captain Mainwaring's

or ... ladies' man, less formal in appearance than Mainwaring, ...

I've tweaked that bit, as well as Wilson's friendship with the Pike family so that there is a stronger hint about how close the relationship actually was.

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Such fun!

A couple of nitpicks

Somme has 2 "m"s.
Fraser is spelt once with a "z" and once with an "s".
The first sentence on Pike doesn't seem to be quite right: "The youngest only one of the platoon too young for active service"

I'm wondering who plays Pike in the new film. The young chappie who played Stanley in "Going Postal" would be absolutely ideal.

Oh. I see the new film has done the rounds already (released in Feb in the UK). Funnily enough, it will not be screened here.

Thanks for the read-through, spellings are corrected. Confusingly 'Frazer' is the Dad's Army character while there is an actress called Liz Fraser – I got it wrong once but have sorted it all out now. I've also tweaked the Pike and Vicar sections to update them, including regarding the 2016 film.

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You might want to add that Harold Bennett played the young Mr Grace in Lloyd & Croft's 'Are You Being Served.

Good idea - added.

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There's something quite amusingly non-sequitur about this description of Clive Dunn:

"Clive Dunn (1920-2012) came from a theatrical family. During the war he was a prisoner of war after being captured by the Germans in Greece. He even had a number one hit record with 'Grandad' in 1971."

Tweaked. From October to almost the end of May there were no comments whatsoever, and now 10 come along at once…

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Make that 11. There are two occurrences of 'principle' which should be 'principal'.

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Very good summary - I've only seen a few bits of episodes, but this helps to bring the series to life.

You could add in more links to the h2g2 World War Entries.

"Inexplicably, she was played by Liz Fraser in the 1971 film."

This made me ask questions - was Mrs Pike the only character in the film not played by the TV cast?

In relation to Cheeseman, it would be good to mention Walker there as well as James Beck

"Are You Being Served?, another series created by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft"

This makes it sound like Dad's Army was created by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, so it would perhaps be better to say something like "another series created by David Croft, with Jeremy Lloyd"

I like your little project header, but I think it would be more obvious what's what if you have Dad's Army at the top with no link then underneath have The TV Series | The Characters | The 1971 Film