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

-------------------------------

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.

335: Five Go Mad in Dorset

“Five Go Mad in Dorset”
2 November 1982
Written by Peter Richardson and Peter Richens

Adrian Edmondson as Dick
Peter Richardson as Julian
Dawn French as George
Jennifer Saunders as Anne
Daniel Peacock as Toby
Ronald Allen as Uncle Quentin

English viewers can watch “Five Go Mad in Dorset at
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/comic-strip-presents/4od#2921994

American viewers can watch it on some sort of licensed Youtube deal at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_TiqoEw4sQ


“Five Go Mad in Dorset” is a parody of the long-running “Famous Five” detective stories for children by Enid Blyton. The books always featured the same four (upper-middle class) children, two boys and two girls, with their pet dog, who go camping or visiting some deserted spot, and in the process uncover some criminal plot, which they promptly feel compelled to put to rights.
“Five Go Mad in Dorset” isn’t just a parody of the shortcomings and reliance on formulae of the books, but also an assault on the political and social attitudes they embodied. The intrepid independent juvenile detectives of Enid Blyton’s childrens books are revealed to be greedy, sexist, racist, neo-fascists.

On holiday visiting their Aunty Fanny (fnarr-fnarr) the children are informed that their scientist uncle Quintin has been kidnapped yet again. The children resolve to rescue him. Eventually, after all the typical exploits, they discover yet another deserted castle where they are captured by henchmen and brought to the mysterious villain’s headquarters. In the villain’s chamber, they are surprised to encounter Toby a crass American schoolboy whom they had snubbed earlier on grounds of class and chauvinism. They ask if he’s alright.



Toby: (knowingly) It was a bit hair-raising at first. But now I’ve come to quite enjoy it

Dick: Spill the beans at once. There’s something very unnatural happening here, and that’s for sure.

(Someone comes in behind the children)

Uncle Quentin (dry, weary Noel Coward type tones): I think I can explain everything, children

The Famous Five turn around, and say as one: Uncle Quentin!

UQ: Do sit down children

Julian: What’s going on Uncle Quentin?

Dick: Yes we thought you’d been kidnapped

(children sit down as Uncle Quentin rests himself against mantelpiece)

UQ: That was all . . . part of my plan

Julian: What exactly do you mean, uncle?

UQ: Now you dreadful children have found out my little secret, I suppose I may as well “Spill the Beans”

Dick: You mean the kidnap was all a hoax? Whatever for?



UQ: For many years now, your Aunt Fanny and I have not had a proper marital relationship. She’s an unrelenting nymphomaniac. And I’m a screaming homosexual.

(Children all look quizzically at each other)

UQ: It seems pointless trying to explain it to you . . . you little prigs. So we concocted this story to save your aunt from any . . further embarrassment. Now it’s too late. Toby and I are fleeing the country tonight

(Toby cample exhales cigarette smoke through his nostrils as he winks at Uncle Quentin)

UQ: In a fishing boat

Julian (leaps up irate): Well you’re wrong about one thing Uncle Quentin. There is something we can still do. And that is call the police. Homosexuality is still against the law in this country, as well you know it.

UQ: Oh dear. I thought even you Julian might find a morsel of sympathy for your poor old uncle . . . for old times sake.



Dick (leaping up irate): It’s no good uncle Quentin. You’re a Queer, and that’s the end of it.

(Bells are heard, as Uncle Quentin looks pained)

Girls: Hoorah! The police!

(The police congratulate the Famous Five and usher Uncle Quentin and Toby into police car. As the car drives off Uncle Quentin casts his buttonhole out of the window)

Dick: Well, that was an adventure and a half!

George: Yes. Who would have thought That of UQ

Anne: Uurgh! I’m glad he’s safely locked up. I never liked him one bit anyway


Uncle Quentin is only a brief cameo, to top all the subversion of Blyton’s precious wholesome clichés. Having the villain turn out to be their uncle cuts through all the standard expectations of the “Famous Five” stories. Making him gay is the final twist. Quentin’s homosexuality isn’t laughable, it’s its appearance in a Blyton novel that supplies the shock of comedy. Any homosexual revelation is totally alien to Enid Blyton’s fictional world and that’s the real joke, the small-minded conformity of her nostalgic world. Quentin is a bit of a stereotype: the high class pervert, dry, louche refined and world-weary. However this sort of gay criminal mastermind does have some pedigree dating back to the more stylish thrillers and crime capers of the late 1960s. One or two reviewers have felt that the use of Quentin and his portrayal might be a bit homophobic. But it’s obvious that the episode is really satirising homophobia. The four children are so obnoxious in their conservative prejudices, that their contemptuous homophobia is laughable. So the mild stereotype of Uncle Quentin is used as the bait for more of their smug, self-congratulatory declarations about society.