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

Quite a few series that start on Radio , get onto TV, then disappear. Lee & Herring's Fist of Fun was one, and I think that it's problem is that it carried on the running jokes from the radio, instantly alienating everyone except, well, me. Harry Hill seems to have disappeared as well.

Of course, there are certain series that are all the better for having run for one series. Jam, for instance, or The Day Today.

I've heard whisperings of a possible second series of Jam...there was about 4 seasons of it when it was on Radio One. You're right about Day Today tho...2 Series might have stretched it a bit, but Chris Morris can do anything he flaming well likes!

Fist of Fun was a bit short-lived. I think it might have made two series but I can't quite remember. It worked a wee bit better on radio. Simon Quinlank was funnier on radio ("a flask of weak lemon drink!").

>Short lived and certainly not missed...does anyone recall the Paul >Daniels vehicle "Wizbit"?

If you pop over to the TV Cream website (Themes section) you can download part of the theme tune, complete with Paul Daniels' "rapping".

I still miss My So Called Life that had about half a season ages ago, and was on Channel 4 - with Claire Danes
anyone else remember it, or am I the only one who was in the right age bracket?

Oh, I remember it well enough.

Killed by a combination of danes' prima donna attitude (Go girl, that Mod Squad movie was a *great* career choice...), and network sponsors pulling support in light of the shows consitent positive depiction of teenage homosexuals and drug users.
Very sad, actually, because when it was good, it was very very good.

Having read back through my posts I said that "My Family" should never have been aired on account of it being total (ponders a while for a suitable, yet not offensive word) sh**e.

What I meant was that "All About Me" with Jasper Carrot was complete and utter

"My Family", with Robert Lyndsay and Zoë Wannamaker[sp], was very, very funny.

Just though I would add that this late in the proceedings.

Liam <- annoyed cos he's been hotdesking without a roaming profile and couldn't remember his password for h2g2.

My So-Called Life was cack.

I've thought of another:

"Paris", it was a single-series sitcom broadcast on Channel 4 in (I think) 1994. It starred Alexei Sayle as a "bohemian" artist living in Paris in the 1920s. The sets were deliberately fake-looking, giving the show a theatre-play like look. Windsor Davis starred in the funniest episode I remember and delivered the brilliant line to Sayle "You, Sir, are a homosexualist!" Of course, the Davis character turned out to be a "homosexualist"

It wasn't particularly good, unfortunately, but did show some promise. I found out later that it was written by the guys who wrote the brilliant "Father Ted".

Yes! I remember that!
"I hear he's a real man's man."
"He's a *ladies'* man! A man's man is an entirely different kettle of perversion."

One for you, EV.
Dan and Nick, the Wildebeest Years.
7 programmes in 1998 - Radio 4.

Full of groan making puns, wicked parodies, double and triple meanings and recurrant gags, most of the voices were done by Dan and Nick. I found it the funniest thing!

The BBC won't release them on tape or CD but you can download some sketches here:
http://www.danfreedman.co.uk/shame.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/death/making/drwhoodledoo.shtml

*distant whirr of brain cogs being spurred into action*
Was there ever a second series of "Ectoplasm" on R4?

I'd like to add my voice to the clamour for a complete DVD release of Nightingales!

"Oblong? Why?"
"I've always liked that name."



H.

There was some dreadful thing with Andrew Sachs (aka Manuel from Fawlty Towers) playing a restaurant owner. I forget the name of the series, but it ran in about 1993. I'm pretty sure it was pulled before the series had finished.

The campaign for a DVD video release of "Nightingales" has now reached the C4 message boards. Add your name to the thread at..

http://www.channel4.co.uk/forums/c4_forumframeset.cfm?forum=reach4

Tell your friends!


Best wishes

Otto

The Alan Davies Show - a radio show that ran about 4-5 years ago for 6 episodes. Was desperatly funny, but they never did anymore.

How long did the New Statesman with Rik Mayell as Alan B'stard run for?

There were at least three series of The New Statesman, maybe four. Still running on Granada Plus or some similar channel I believe.

Nightingales: the best, the weirdest, the most surreal. Yes, it went for two series. It was repeated once or twice but only on C4 at times when only security guards would be watching. This was when C4 knew what 'target audience' meant.

Transcript of what I have just dropped on the C4 web-site. I'm too lazy to re-edit it for this conversation.

"Having spent many years trying to find this on video and failing I spent many hours searching for the production company to ask what has happened to it. Alomo Productions made it who are owned by Pearson Television. Their reply to what has happened to a) any repeats and b) DVD releases (actually video release - this was a fair few years ago!) was this: Alomo send a list of their programmes to both TV companies and companies which release DVD's. Those companies then decide which programmes they want to buy/release. Now, the questions are: Is Alomo Productions still putting Nightingales on their lists? Whose lists are they putting them on to? And how do we influence them? So, unfortunately all this thread will do is highlight the fact that people still want Nightingales. Once seen never forgotten...Oblong - I like that name."

The only Nightingale's web-site I knew of was a guy in Australia - it got out there. It has now disappeared as it was part of his companies website. Looks like an opening for a new website idea.

One show that I remember was a puppet show made with stop motion plastacine called Dick Spanner. It was a detective show made in the late 80s by Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds fame. It was a highly interesting concept, about a robot detective in the style of Bogart style. However, it ran for TWO episodes.

Dick Spanner was the motherf***in' BOMB!!!!!!