Thanks to TV’s David Bodycombe for alerting me to a full episode of non-hit Les Dawson 1991 BBC1 quiz Fast Friends is up on Youtube.
Our favourite bit, obviously, is the 17 frames of our Les dancing in front of a green screen to make it look like he’s at the hip party. It’s so hilarously incongruous it’s the one thing I remember about the show above anything else (and round one).
So as someone who is outside the demographic now I wanted to create something to make Bother’s Bar more relevant to the youth. And what is more relevant to the youth than an animated GIF? “I cat have cheeeezburger” and the like. Anyway I’m proud to announce that the Dancing Dawson will, until we forget it exists a la The Jim Bowen Greatometer, accompany new shows I reckon are really good, like some sort of Crash Smash sort of award. It’s quite large, so I will hide it under a cut. I’ve also slowed it down so hopefully it won’t require an epilepsy warning.
Will the kids remember what a Crash Smash is, though?
Something that Brig might find fun: Gary Monaghan’s company, Mad Monk, has a couple of pages with videos of his shows – and, more interestingly, his rejected pilots. (It’s easy to find, but I’m not going to link to it as Brig’s spam trap gets fussy and I’m saving my permitted single link for something else.) I’m a wuss when it comes to Gary Monaghan’s humour and so have been approaching with extreme caution, but people with stronger stomachs might get more from it.
There’s a full episode of a Japanese show whose premise is neatly captured by its English title, Grab It Hold It Count It; one might draw comparisons to Jacques Antoine’s Conto Su Di Te / Je Compte Sur Toi, except that the 21st century Japanese show is probably less extreme than the late-’80s European original, so I’m sure there’s nothing more than an independent reinvention of a concept. The Japanese show is hosted, or at least overseen, by Demon Kakka, lead singer of millennialist heavy metal band Seikima-II, whose albums include the 1994 number-11 hit Ponk!!, recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios. And that’s the unbelievable truth.
What I would draw your attention to, though, is all that survives of the Friday Night Hero pilot, which was made for Channel 4 and lost out to the Friday Night Project. What remains is an endgame with a surprisingly good gag at the end that I didn’t see coming… though one that would probably only ever work once. Good times!
It was going to be a Your Sinclair Megagame, but Crash Smash was funnier.
What is Conto Su Di Te / Je Compte Sur Toi and why is it extreme? Google is not being especially helpful. Nor is my inability to speak.. that language.
I Count On You. Suspect it is not as extreme as Chris makes out, this is early nineties daytime after all. One pair of contestants, one must answer questions, the other must count cash, however with every wrong answer the counter is subject to a forfeit distraction. To win the money, the counter has have the EXACT amount.
As I recall, Les was parachuted into hosting the show at the last minute (replacing whoever it was who did the pilot). Could that be some Christopher Plummer-esque green screening over the original host, or just a really strange attempt at integration into preexisting footage? Great that you’ve found it by the way, if you ever forget the thing, I’ll do it
By which I mean use that GIF merciliessly -curse the lack of an edit button.