Anyone ever listen to what was BBC7?
If the "classic comedy" is anything to go by, people must have been desperate for something to laugh at, way back when.
Even The Goon Show hasn't aged well.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 3 Sep 2013, 13:17, 11 replies)

Yes, this.
I was listening to Round The Horn the other day. It struck me that I had to try and listen to it within the culture of the day, as generally it was absolutely awful.

Of course there are stand-out bits, but generally awful.

Mind, that's not to say that some of the stuff that gets onto Radio Bore is good - some of it is downright depressing when you consider that it was actively commissioned and people paid actual money for writing/producing/generally bringing it into existence.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 3 Sep 2013, 13:38, closed)

I used to love Round The Horne,
until my dad got hold of a tape that was all Syd Rumpo, and then I wanted to tear my ears off.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 3 Sep 2013, 13:43, closed)

My personal theory about The Goon Show et. al. :
The Goon show started in 1951, when the memory was still fresh of the world crazily tearing itself apart in WW2 - ending with 2 nuclear explosions, *actual use of atomic weapons*. It took 18 months to demobilise all the armed forces. The full horrors of the Final Solution had been exposed through a full year of war crimes trials.The infrastructure of the UK had been pounded through bombing, overuse, and under-maintentance, which would take years to put right. It would be a rare person not somehow touched by loss. Petrol Rationing had only *just* ended on 26 May 1950. Even after all they had endured, peace was not certain; the seeds were being sown for the Cold War and the threat of Nuclear War. The need for the Berlin airlift a few years earlier had shown how quickly alliances could turn sour.

So, even several years after VE day, hardships are still felt. Put bluntly, yes people needed something, *anything*, to laugh at; where else can you go after madness but surrealism?

Comments welcome.

edit: correction. Some forms of Rationing in fact continued until 1954.
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Tue 3 Sep 2013, 16:12, closed)

Fake and gay.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 3 Sep 2013, 16:24, closed)

This does nothing to explain Ted Ray.
Nor The Navy Lark
And just how fearful of Armageddon must one be to think that ventriloquism will work on the radio?
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 3 Sep 2013, 17:28, closed)

Shows with a military theme like the Navy Lark were still topical as nearly every adult male had done military service in the war
and lots of women too, so people'd get all the jokes.

The main joke in Round The Horne was the campness at a time when homosexuality was still illegal. Hard to grasp now how naughty and subversive that was.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Tue 3 Sep 2013, 19:14, closed)

I'm quite capable of grasping the subversiveness of Julian & Sandy, but you're not answering the most pressing question of all:
WHY WAS THERE A RADIO SERIES BASED AROUND A VENTRILOQUIST'S ACT?
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 3 Sep 2013, 22:07, closed)

maybe the dummy gave good head on the casting couch

(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 9:45, closed)

Nothing disturbing about that image.

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 10:17, closed)

to a bomb happy bbc executive
who had been blown up at Casino
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Thu 5 Sep 2013, 14:18, closed)

My dad was a mussive Goons fan
he's in a home with dementia and you can't get much sense out of him these days but I often play him a Goons episode on my phone when I visit and he really connects with it, laughing, tapping his feet to the music bits.(dementia effects the short term parts of the brain not the old memories so he can understand & remember the show but can't articulate that fact.

I laugh less than him but I think I still LOL a few times per episode some more than others.
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Wed 4 Sep 2013, 14:59, closed)