429: A Choice of Viewing on Television

ABC. 10.30 P.M. (1)
NOT TONIGHT, CLYDE
Two FBI agents decide to move in together. Edgar has a headache and Clyde burns the roast.
Edgar: Paul Lynde. Clyde: Charles Nelson Reilly

SARKY AND BITCH (2)
Amalgamated Megalomaniacs in association with B.E.N.T. Television presents the week-by-week story of those tough-talking, go-getting bum-kissing boys on the Nancy-Squad: It’s “Sarky and Bitch!” Starring Michael Double-Glazing and David Arsehole as Lieutenants Sarky and Bitch. This week’s story: “Cum in San Francisco”. Sorry, “Come In, San Francisco!”

TUESDAY RTV2 9.30 (3)
Andy Warhol's GARBAGE
Trevor and Kevin, two gay garage attendants near Doncaster, learn that they have been refused admission into the WRAC. 'Heady' Bob ,a transvestite AA man, who is saving up to have the Operation and join the RAC, stops by to tell them his tests at the Special Clinic are positive. They spend the afternoon in desultory conversation, ringing up the Speaking Clock.
"Superb. Masterful. Yummy." The Lancet
Rating: Odd

SATURDAY RTV2 3.00
BLOOD ON CAMP ISLAND (Frog-Rank)
Close male friendship between chaps and Japs in raw tale of eye-scratching and savage bitchery. By the director who made “Horseguards in Love”.
Rating: Gayish

SUNDAY RTVI 8.30
CAMPARET
Liza Minelli ("the toast of kings, the delight of queens") plays Christopher Isherwood, a character created by W. H. Auden. Also starring Joel Gay as the naughty man in the funny make-up. Set in the bitchy days of Berlin in the early thirties, this is a treat for everybody in their early thirties.
Rating: Fab

LITTLE HOMO ON THE PRAIRIE (4)
Little Homo is kidnapped by a band of Cherokee Indians. Homo seduces the Cherokee chief and they plan a marriage. But the nuptials are spoiled by Little Homo’s dad, who steals the boy back. In the ensuing action, Dad falls in love with Chief as well. Little Homo: Tatum O’Neal. Dad: Roman Gabriel. Chief: Merv Griffin.

RECTUMA
Japanese-made sci-fi epic about an atomic mutation, a gigantic walking rectum the size of the World Trade Center who gases and besmirches the country before being subdued by an army of homosexuals.

MEIN CAMP (5)
Ken Russell's story of how Hitler's homosexual love affair with Rommel loses him the war. Rommel is played by Rudolph Nureyev, and Montgomery by Peter Pears

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A round-up of gay-related gags from various TV guide parodies

(1) National Lampoon, February 1978
Edgar and Clyde at the FBI are of course J. Edgar Hoover and his close associate Clyde Tolson, and this plays off the long-standing rumours about the actual nature of their relationship, recently raised in 1978’s “The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover. Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly are two rather camp American light entertainment actors

(2) “The Outer Limits” (written and performed by Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson), at The Comedy Store, 1979
“The Outer Limits” was the “Firesign Theatre”-inspired duo instrumental in the creation of alternative comedy, “The Comic Strip Presents” and “The Young Ones”. The bit above is actually the intro to a parody of close cop duo “Starsky and Hutch” (if you hadn’t guessed). For all that alternative comedy was about not indulging in the prejudices of old-fashioned comedy, this skit uses an awful lot of the milder slurs at the expense of the sensitive masculinity of the leads. The rest of it is just a parody of the shortcomings of Starsky and Hutch: the show’s senseless hyperkineticism, the character’s enthusiastic stupidity and emphatic stating of just how disgusted they are by crime to show how sensitive and intelligent they genuinely are. (Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans may remember Shooty and Bang-Bang). The characters are just played as stereotypical brash Americans, but without any apparent gay mannerisms or camping it up.

(3) “The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book”, Eric Idle, 1976
A parody of Andy Warhol films, long renowned for their gay subject matter, here transferred to the banality of Enlish life rather than New York bohemia. Then a parody inspired by a rearrangement of the title of classic British WWII POW film “Camp on Blood Island” with some jokes about bitchy gays, Ken Russell films ("Women in Love"'s naked male wrestling), and the long-standing rumours about the sexual availability of the Horseguards.

(4) “This Week’s TV Programs”, by Gerald Sussman, with Danny Abelson, Tony Hendra, and Ted Mann - National Lampoon, December 1978
A parody at the expense of “Little House on the Prairie”. Tatum O’Neal was actually a girl, but the Macauley Culkin child star of the day. Merv Griffin was an American talk show host about whom there long-standing (how many times have I written that now?) gay rumours.

(5) "After Star Wars, What?”, Barry Took - Punch, 4 January 1978
A throwaway gag from a whole selection of silly future movies. Not much done with the idea of gay Nazis, and instead says more about perceptions of Ken Russell's pictures during the 1970s. Took demonstrates the same paucity of possible names who would be recognised as gay. Really, I mean, Peter Pears.

60 - Julian and Sandy, 1965-1968

Written by Marty Feldman and Barry Took.
Performed by Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick


(l-r: Hugh Paddick, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Horne, Betty Marsden and Douglas Smith)



In my last post about Marty Feldman, I wrote that was the only time he’d played gay. What I totally overlooked, is that Feldman was responsible for writing two of the most famous British gay characters ever. With his writing partner Barry Took, Feldman was responsible for all the scripts on the radio comedy series “Round the Horne”. The series consisted of broad puns, unusual innuendoes and double-entendres, and weirdly comic scenarios, with the actors’ extravagant characterisations and catchphrases all orbiting around the imperturbably stolid host, Kenneth Horne. The show ran for four seasons, on Sunday afternoons, from 1965 to 1968, and won audiences of up to 15 million people. Aside from parodies and running comedy serials within the show, there were a wide range of regular characters. The two most famous are Julian (performed by Hugh Paddick) and Sandy (performed by Kenneth Williams) who appeared in almost every episode. Besides being two camp gay men on radio for a mass audience, the sketches introduced an unwitting British public to the gay slang Polari.

The daring in the appearance of these sketches was that previously there had been an outright ban on gay characters on comedy radio shows. In 1949 the “Green Book” set BBC policy for variety writers and producers. One of its commandments was that there was “an absolute ban upon jokes about effeminacy in men”. This is a mild code, since no gay man could be really masculine, but it meant that not even the horrid word homosexual had to be used in banning them. And so any obvious representations of gay men in comedy were forbidden. Any humorous jokes about gay men had to be sufficiently ingenious that it would escape the notice of some BBC official or other.

Aside from the actors' vigorous performances, the sketches stood out for their use of strange words with apparently hidden meanings. The audiences were not to know that these words were in fact Polari. Bona, butch, eke, lallies, dolly, omi-polone, were thrown about with abandon. But as the sketches were a regular feature, repetition of Polari words and phrases meant the audience gradually grew to decipher them, even if they remained ignorant of their gay origin. The writers and performers however were not. Feldman had worked in travelling sideshows and in the theatre, so was aware of the various slangs. Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams were gay, and therefore were already fluent in Polari. Indeed, Williams would often drop into the tones of Sandy to liven up a quiz show appearance or an interview.

The sketches usually involved Horne visiting some new commercial venture - Bona Books, Bona Pets, Bona Drag, Bona Law, etc. As Horne entered, Julian (Hugh Paddick) would say "Ooh hello! I'm Julian and this is my friend Sandy!" Sandy (Williams) then often following with “Why Mr Horne, how bona to vada your dolly old eke”. The pair were bright and chirpy, offering a torrent of polari and barely concealed innuendo to the bemused Horne’s questions. The importance of the urbane Horne cannot be overlooked, since he effectively represented the public and therefore made the outrageous pair palatable for popular radio.

The characters were originally conceived as two ageing old out of work actors, but the producer thought the characters were too sad and suggested making them younger "chorus boy" types. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore would also explore the comedy inherent in out-of-work gay actors having to get by as domestics for hire in their show “Behind the Fridge”.

Instead of being posh, nancy-boys, the two were gossipy queens, slightly bitchy, speaking in a camp East End demotic laced with Polari. At this late date they are old stereotypes but at the time they were fresh and new, the first of thir kind to be seen by the British public. How many at the time knew the characters were gay, and how many though they were just odd funny men, is a question that may now be unanswerable. The audience of the time would appear to have loved the two characters. They were not held up to ridicule or made the butt of cheap homophobic jokes. The exuberance of the performances was funny itself without the audience necessarily being in on secret gay codes.

In a 1975 radio show, Kenneth Williams said he had started to use homosexual humour on the Kenneth Horne shows, his aim had been to disarm prejudiced heterosexuals who were scared of homosexuals. By bringing humour to the matter he hoped people would begin to show more tolerance. But he attacked those who with limp wrists and a few crude double entendres made cheap laughs and ridiculed homosexuals in the process. (Reported in “Gay News”)

While gay men had been big fans of Julian and Sandy in the 60s and early 70s, the change in gay self- identity meant that the two characters were strongly repudiated in the mid 70s, lumped in with the likes of Larry Grayson and Mr Humphries perpetuating unflattering stereotypes. Gay Lib and its struggle for positive images of gay men meant that reissues of old Julian and Sandy sketches on LPs received hostile reviews in “Gay News”. The Round the Horne Society was refused affiliation with the C.H.E (Campaign for Homosexual Equality) because its celebration of comic poofs was embarrassing to the cause.

This website has transcripts of some of the "Julian and Sandy" sketches

Here is a good place to find out more about Polari

59 - Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Tyalor: "Funny He Never married"

From “It’s Marty”, 1968 BBC comedy series.
Again, the BBC has deleted almost all archive recordings of this series. A compilation soundtrack record, “Marty”, was released at the time and this is one of the sketches on the LP, and was also a separate single release. Unfortunatley, I don't know the writer.
[transcript from http://www.churchofvirus.org/bbs/Printpage.php?board=63;threadid=36732]

Voice 1 is Tim Brooke Taylor. Voice 2 is Marty Feldman. Both doing old man voices

1. It was a good funeral ...
2. Yes, we give him a good send off ...
1. Yes ...
2. No man could want more ...
1. No, no ...
2. He was a good man, George. We won't see his like again.
1. Salt of the earth, was George. Yes he was ...
(pause)
2. Funny he never married.
1. Yes. ... who?
2. George.
1. Ah yes ...
2. I mean, it's not that he never had his chances (chortling)
2. Oh, when he was young ... a man like that ... could have had any he'd chosen. Good looking enough.
1. Yes, yes he was ... almost too good looking.
2. Almost too good looking. Them big blue eyes. Them dimples ... yes, and that school girl complexion of his ... could have had any girl he chose.
1. ...any girl he chose
2. ... man like that. Funny he never married.
1. Yes, funny that.
2. Still, still ... he had his compensations.
1. Yes I suppose he did.
2. Other interests. Scouting ...
1. He was very keen on scouting, wasn't he.
2. ... scouting. Even in his later years, he'd only have to see a troop of scouts go by and his eyes would light up.
1. Nostalgia ... I suppose.
2. I suppose, yes ...
(pause)
2. Funny he never married.
1. Yes, funny that, yes.
2. He was a funny chap in many ways, when you think about it.
1. He was quite, yes ...
2. The way he walked.
1. Ah yes ...
2. That was funny.
1. With his hips ...
2. And his voice ...
1. High pitched sort of voice.
2. Oh, almost to the point of falsetto, yes ... Oh that was funny, yes. He was funny, yes ... But kind, kind ...
1. Oh, he was very kind, yes.
2. Kind, kind, kind ... Almost too kind. He let his-self be taken advantage of ... I never knew him turn a stranger away from his door. There was always a bed in his house for any waif or stray ...
1. Yes, yes ...
2. Or soldier ...
1. Yes ...
2. Or sailor.
1. Especially sailors.
2. He liked sailors.
1. Never, never knew him turn a sailor away.
2. Never a sailor, no. Quite often they didn't even have to come to him.
1. Yes ...
2. No, he'd go out looking for them, he would. Never spared himself
1. No, no ...
2. Funny he never married. Man like that.
1. He'd have made a good husband.
2. Oh he would, oh, oh ...
1. A very good husband ...
2. A very good husband, there's no gainsaying that. He could cook...
1. He could sew ...
2. He could knit ...
1. Yes, yes ... He could arrange flowers.
2. Oh, oh his house, his house ... It was like a new pin ...
1. Like a shiny new pin.
2. New pin, new pin ...
1. Yes, yes it was ...
(pause)
2. Funny he never married. He was a happy man.
1. Yes, yes he was.
2. He was a happy man.
1. He was, he was ...
2. Yes, Yes. Never happier than when he was dressing up.
1. Theatrical streak, I suppose.
2. I suppose ...
1. Yes ...
2. How he loved that mother of pearl handbag.
1. Almost broke his heart, it did, when he left it on the bus.
2. He loved dressing up, yes.
1. Yes ...
2. All in all it's, er ... funny he never married.
1. Funny - You never married

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A wonderfully blithe bit of gossip, recounting all the stereotypes about the confirmed bachelor. That the stereotypes are already well known is the joke, since the audience pick up on all the signifiers which the characters in the sketch miss. By this time the British public had been acquainted with the radio goings-on of Julian and Sandy on "Round the Horne". The fondness for scouts and sailors is one cliche that often gets exhumed, particularly in the case of East End gangster Ronnie Kray.

The manic pop-eyed Feldman rarely played gay in anyway.
Tim Brooke-Taylor, however, often did during this period.


(publicity photo, camping it up, left to right: David Hatch, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, and John Cleese)

Brooke-Taylor was one of the cast on “I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again” an energetic radio gagfest from the late 60s, featuring his fellow “Goodies”-to-be, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden, and a young John Cleese. The performers on ISIRTA had ready characterisations and Brook-Taylor would occasionally slip into a simpering camp voice for a throwaway gag. In 1969, he performed in the rent-a-face Euro-comedy “Twelve to One” as Willie Rushton’s gay husband. Besides being Sharon Tate’s last film, “Twelve to One” also featured Orson Welles. Either just before or after this film, Orson Welles made series of comic sketches about London, which Brooke-Taylor performed in. One of the sketches featured Welles in a gentleman’s outfitters with Brooke-Taylor as a camp shop assistant.