TV series they're trying to forget

[WhiteCrow]

Thought it might be fun to have a thread dedicated to those TV series you can barely remember and sometimes at night think might just be a bad dream.

To start - KINVIG



http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/ar..._7774040.shtml

A very bizarre program about a man who runs an electrical shop who gets transported to an alien world after drinking some kind of bizarre chemical, where he is recruited to be their agent on Earth. Well erm yes ... thankfully it was a comedy!

[Pip Madeley]

That looks like the best TV show ever.

(well there's a bird with boots, that's enough for me)

[Wayne]

I've never heard of it, but it looks right up Ralph's street.

[Pip Madeley]

I've never heard of it, but it looks right up Ralph's street.

@ Wayne

[Andrew Curnow]

I think my brother watched that when it was on - ITV, Sunday nights?

[Ralph]

I've never heard of it, but it looks right up Ralph's street.

I'm not on drugs thanks...

[Wayne]

Come off it Ralph, It looks like a cross between ST:TOS & Barbarella!

[Ralph]

Yeah...right

[Wayne]

I know i am.

[Anthony Williams]

7.39 from sendit.com!

Ant x

[Pip Madeley]

So, it's a sci-fi sitcom from Nigel Kneale with Patsy Rowlands...

[Andrew Curnow]

The words 'sitcom' and 'Nigel Kneale' somehow don't sound right together...

[Milky Tears]

I almost bought Kinvig last year, but the reviews put me off.

[Pip Madeley]

I had 10 on at Ladbrokes that you owned it.

[Jonno]

I had a pony on that he owned it but hadn't unsealed it yet!

[Pip Madeley]

I had a pony on that he owned it but hadn't unsealed it yet!

I'd keep quiet about that if I were you, the animal rights people might take offence.

[Paul Clement]

My friend Stev bought this and Beasts when they came out last year. We watched it and he said it wasn't too bad though not as good as Beasts. I prayed for it to end.

[WhiteCrow]

Okay some more I've managed to dig out (will post each as separate posts).

Come Back Mrs Noah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Back_Mrs_Noah




Come Back Mrs Noah was a short-lived British sitcom starring Mollie Sugden and Ian Lavender. It aired for a pilot and one series from 1977 to 1978. Come Back Mrs Noah was not a success, with some regarding it as one of the worst British sitcoms ever made

In 2050, a British housewife called Gertrude Noah won a cookery competition, and the prize was a tour of Britannia Seven, the UK's new Space Exploration Vehicle. In the pilot episode, the craft was accidentally sent blasting off into space with Mrs Noah and a small crew on it. The series then centred on efforts to bring Mrs Noah back down to Earth. The news bulletins on Earth, read by Gorden Kaye, provided what some say were the funniest lines in the programme, revealing countries like the USA and Germany had to turn to Britain, the most successful nation on Earth, for help.

[WhiteCrow]

Dead Ernest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Ernest

Dead Ernest was a 1980 UK TV sitcom set in heaven starring Andrew Sachs in the role of Ernest.

Ernest wins half a million pounds on the football pools. Unfortunately he is killed by a stray champagne bottle cork striking him on the head. He subsequently ascends to heaven.

The notion of a sitcom set in the afterlife was an intriguing one, but despite the original idea, some promising comic setpieces (Ernest encounters Beethoven and Bach in one episode), Sachs' undoubted comedic abilities, and support from other seasoned comic actors such as Ken Jones, it was regarded as a disappointing effort, and only lasted for one season.

[WhiteCrow]

Finally I wonder if I've shaken out any old memories with this ...

Astronauts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/ar...99000162.shtml

Britain's first three astronauts - two male, one female - blast off into outer space to occupy a 'sky lab' for six months, taking with them a dog and the usual cages of white mice and other insects. Beadle, an antipathetic American, is the astronauts' contact at Mission Control.


Written by Garden and Oddie, two of The Goodies the comedy in Astronauts was rooted in the tensions that developed between the space travellers inside their claustrophobic two-room tin-can. As someone commented at the time, indeed, it seemed that only the dog was normal. (Said bitch, Bimbo, had hitherto appeared in The Goodies and so was comfortable with Garden and Oddie scripts.) While the writers had high hopes for their series, though, Astronauts made little impact - and not only in Britain either, but also in the USA, perhaps its more natural home. An American company, Elmar Productions, bought the adaptation rights to the series and persuaded CBS to network a pilot (on 11 August 1982), titled The Astronauts, but it failed to develop any further. Granville Van Dusen, Brianne Leary and Bruce Davison played the orbiting space explorers, McLean Stevenson (Henry Blake in M*A*S*H was cast as the Mission Control contact.

[Dave Tudor]

Kinvig was great - Prunella Gee stirred my loins, even though I was only 6 at the time!

I remember Dead Ernest (although I didn't remember what it was called) and Astronauts (oh, ITV produced some classics, didn't they?) but Come Back Mrs Noah was a bit before my time.

[Mike Saville]

Kinvig was excellent, if nothing else than because she was one of my first **** fantasies, and TVTimes even had a full colour A3 centrefold of her in... oh, what a bad boy I was.

[Dave Lewis]

Dead Ernest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Ernest

Dead Ernest was a 1980 UK TV sitcom set in heaven starring Andrew Sachs in the role of Ernest.

Ernest wins half a million pounds on the football pools. Unfortunately he is killed by a stray champagne bottle cork striking him on the head. He subsequently ascends to heaven.

The notion of a sitcom set in the afterlife was an intriguing one, but despite the original idea, some promising comic setpieces (Ernest encounters Beethoven and Bach in one episode), Sachs' undoubted comedic abilities, and support from other seasoned comic actors such as Ken Jones, it was regarded as a disappointing effort, and only lasted for one season.

Ernest R Soul remembers this sitcom, and did actually sue the makers of it, claiming they'd based it on his life and death. After his subsequent resurrection, his claims of plagiarism were laughed out of court, and he was referred to by the judge as a "sad w***er." The second best response he'd ever had from her Majesty's judicial system since he was called a "big c**k face" by a police spokesman after the notorious "I thought it was legal if the cow didn't press charges" case of 2004.

[Andrew Curnow]

I remember it too, but can I point out that the picture above is not me.

I seem to recall Andrew Sachs interviewed about the show several months before it aired, and it sounded excellent....

[Lord President]

Does anyone out there remember George Cole in Comrade Dad? I have vague memories of it being quite funny, but very few specifics.