355: Gay Cowboys - The Last Roundup

“At Last the 1948 Show”, 1967
Marty Feldman as 1st Cowboy
Tim Brooke Taylor as 2nd Cowboy

(Two typical cowboys ride on, with the sound of bullets in the distance. While Marty Feldman speaks, Tim Brooke-Taylor is chewing gum and listening with determined and mean expression)


1st Cowboy: C'mon! Posses on our tail! Let's hightail outta here. Iffen we quick, we can cut across dead man's belly over there, (points with gun to emphasise each destination) through cold corpse canyon, cross broken bone mountain, through gallow creek gorge, over there to slaughter rock


2nd Cowboy: (in sissy tones, bursting into big cheerful grin) No! Let’s go the pretty way!
(makes limp wrist gesture with hand holding gun. Then Cowboys ride off)

The heightened grimness of the listed locales of course sets it up for the sissy deflation by Tim Brooke-Taylor. By now Tim Brooke Taylor was regularly playing pansies on Tv and radio.

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“Cowboys Love Cowboys Best of All” by Sean Kelly and Peter Elbling

from “National Lampoon’s Disco Beaver” 1978
(Peter Elbling running around as a vampire is part of “Disco Beaver”’s running joke about Dragula, a gay vampire who converts his victim to homosexuality with a bite)

This wistful, rather sweet Country and Western song spins off the lonely situational homosexuality premise.
The last line alludes to Tom Robbins’ 1976 novel “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, and there was a spate of songs with same title from 1978-80)

Some cowboys they love rhinestones
Or whips, or guns, or ropes
Some cowboys love a drunken barroom brawl
But when it comes to sitting round the campfire on the prairie
That's when cowboys love cowboys best of all.

Yes, cowboys love cowboys
More than boots or beans or booze
And you all know that's the reason
Even cowgirls get the blues…

It employs none of the swishy, sissy, femme, or perverse stereotypes to be found in these parody gay cowboy songs:
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/05/115-goodies-cactus-in-my-y-fronts.html
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/05/116-ballad-of-ben-gay.html
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/05/117-big-bad-bruce.html

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National Lampoon June 1978
“The Preacher Boys’ First Roundup (or, The Preacher Boys Last Roundup) featuring The Appearance, for the First Time Ever in Polite Fiction, of the Honorable Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wilde, Esq., on His Famed Tour of the American West” by Ted Mann
Illustration by Bob Larkin



The appearance of Wilde in this parody of western fiction is actually very straight. Mann largely presents him as Wilde, the lecturer on interior decoration, who has charmed all the local cowboys – which was indeed the historical case. There’s nothing faggy about Mann’s set-up at all. The illustration by Bob Larkin is another matter. That strange overgrown Little Lord Fauntleroy has no correlation to the eminently caricaturable Wilde. Larkin does see fit to grace us with a whole row of very effetely waving cowboys.

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“South Park”, August 19, 1998
“Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls”
Written by Trey Parker, Matt Stone & Nancy Pimental

This is part of a larger satire on Hollywood. Earlier in the episode Cartman comprehensively denounces all independent films as being about “Gay cowboys eating pudding”
The others say this, is stupid, but when they go to see an independent film, lo it proves to be true that it is indeed about “Gay cowboys eating pudding” (and read your own innuendo into what “eating pudding” can mean).



Cowboy in Pink: Say, Tom. Do you have any pudding left?

TOM: (slightly fey) I ate all mine up, silly.

Cowboy in Pink: Well then, now what do we do?

Cowboy in Pink: Well, why don't we just explore our sexuality?

Tom: Oh good idea, lets.

(They throw their pudding bowls down, and grab each other)





The first cowboy is of course in pink – whether you want to read more into his facial hair is of course intentionally ambivalent. The second cowboy employs the word “silly”, which has effete/gay connotations in America, and is therefore regularly used by South Park’s stereotypes.
Being a cartoon means that they can get away with pretty much depicting a blowjob

Curiously, pretty much every gay cowboy joke I’ve found has been independent of any Village people allusions or inspiration. Which I suppose is a good thing.

230: Funny He Never Married #2 with extra Orson Welles

Dean Martin Show, 17 September 1970
written by Marty Feldman and Barry Took

Here’s an oddity. Orson Welles and Dom Deluise performing “Funny He Never Married” on the Dean Martin Show. I’m guessing this is from Welles’s appearance in 1970, since the sketch was originally performed by Marty Feldman in 1968. Tim Brooke-Taylor was the other original performer, and he had worked with Orson Welles in several projects in 1969, which is how I imagine Welles came to know the piece. It’s mostly the same sketch, but slightly more drawn out, since the two are playing it as fusty old clubmen, giving slightly more consideration to what they’re saying, rather than playing it as two old gossips. This has some additional business about scents and flowers not in the original.

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.