photos from the lost world of british light entertainment

https://i.imgur.com/FkLi58I.png

https://images.static.press.net/v2/image/preview/29591a57e5409eca219e30a78e96a35c/2.23807974.jpg?1

Actor Stephen Lewis from On the Buses is lifted by the Dymo Dollies (l-r) Daphne Hodge, Liz Donnelly, Elaine Norton and Lesley Brown, outside the Royal Albert Hall. They helped launch a treasure trail in which teams from the National Association of Youth Clubs raced around London.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYEhB1HXkAAgj1_.jpg:smallhttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYEhB1HXkAAgj1_.jpg:small

https://i.imgur.com/DKJ1D8j.png

https://www.regisautographs.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Scan-112-e1567945800772.jpeg

larry grayson looking like he was really into throbbing gristle

https://historichamilton.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/ted-rodgers-cadzow-street-1985.jpg

Ted Rogers at the re-opening ceremony of a branch of the Cavendish Woodhouse furnishing shop chain in Hamilton, 1985.

larry grayson looking like he was really into throbbing gristle

Awesome, love Larry + TG.

The GENeration Game.

this thread rules

https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/08/benny_hill-300x300.jpg

https://televisionheaven.co.uk/assets/sez_les_004-1584277477.jpg

https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/wm-preview-1500/160596b/925c5a86/wedding-of-les-dawson-and-tracey-roper-at-lytham-st-annes-britain-jul-1989-shutterstock-editorial-160596b.jpg

https://i2-prod.southportvisiter.co.uk/incoming/article10580879.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200c/LESDENNIS.jpg

https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/wm-preview-1500/5894146a/d2c07b4e/the-end-of-television-programme-opportunity-knocks-presenter-hughie-green-with-some-of-the-stars-who-gained-success-on-the-tv-talent-show-peters-lee-tony-holland-neil-martin-bernie-flint-duane-family-millican-nesbitt-freddie-parrot-face-shutterstock-editorial-5894146a.jpg

https://televisionheaven.co.uk/assets/look_mike_yarwood_003.jpg

the forensically bad impressionist

"Millican & Nesbitt are a British vocal duo, comprising Alan Millican and Tom Nesbitt." What, they're still alive!?!?! GTF!

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1wYixwjlvOw/WQRIdX39exI/AAAAAAAACW4/d54wjJKekHM3dtv-nPrqPejlZJqe6xkNgCLcB/s1600/XXX-328689.jpg

https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/wm-preview-1500/9131195a/e0ac7d56/ventriloquist-roger-de-courcey-right-and-nookie-bear-winners-of-the-tv-talent-show-new-faces-box-762-805061711-a-jpg-shutterstock-editorial-9131195a.jpg

xp
big collars ... big cohonies! They remind of a time when park bench alcoholics still dressed in suits!

I was going through an interesting google image search wormhole related to this thread that led me to pics of Jayne Mansfield hanging out in the Batley Frontier club.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/616JM5ZNiuL._AC_.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/0C-BIccykzQUYaYed4BSzZUfZK4RC6Dj1BvGQZXlSCRvFxOL3i8KB1If619MA999aJPYtGaIHLEP28szJsktMg1ohndz2-zVB5Mf2xZvi88b1d1QEQ

https://archivetvmusings.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/paul-84-03.jpg

Paul Daniels Christmas special where he attempts to teach Robert Maxwell the art of making a million quid disappear, such hubris from the novice.

https://img.discogs.com/-N1n_KMdGJS6905sdfDV_P_gMYc=/fit-in/600x624/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5676311-1399644403-7077.jpeg.jpg

it's comforting that some of these guys are still around, and embracing new technology

you can get a personalised video message from Freddie "Parrot-Face" Davies for £30 on Cameo : https://www.cameo.com/funnybones?qid=1623712897

The Bachelors have been doing performances via Zoom during lockdown

https://i.imgur.com/wAtXnfp.jpg

The Bachelors' website has a huge archive of photos of them with pretty much every light-entertainment person you can think of http://www.thebachelors.co.uk/index.htm

http://www.tvcream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/1980.jpg

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/A1WGAX/jimmy-clitheroe-and-danny-ross-A1WGAX.jpg

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/english-comedian-jimmy-clitheroe-dressed-as-a-school-boy-balancing-on-picture-id481560067?s=2048x2048

https://worstmoviesevermade.com/wp-content/media/2014/07/wheeltappers-shunters_crop.jpg

the search results for 'the clitheroe kid' on getty images features a picture of Ian Brady halfway through https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/the-clitheroe-kid

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discogs.com%2FJimmy-Edwards-Jimmy-Edwards-At-The-Top-Of-The-Pubs%2Frelease%2F5726720&psig=AOvVaw0SQ_1zrGTLAAVByoYyX7SH&ust=1623831503086000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCJjKtfGZmfECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

https://img.discogs.com/s6df7OgLhOIsMYcBptuFWrVOBPg=/fit-in/600x586/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5726720-1432645463-8038.jpeg.jpg

I'm guessing that's not the Joe Henderson who recorded for Blue Note - but I wish it was!

That Batchelors site is amazing mix of period detail, such as


People queued around the block in London to see 'The Bachelors Show' causing Traffic Jams in Victoria. the Bachelors did a 4 Month Season at The Victoria Theatre in London when 'The Black and White Minstral Show' was taken off due to a Labour Government ruling that the price of an existing product could not be increased.

Was trying to work out when they last had a hit record… 67/68?

Leapy Lee looks like a hoot.

lol was about to post Joe Henderson eh?

relevant twitter account

The divine Diana Dors, 'Please Sir's Carol Hawkins and Liz Gebhardt, and Olive from 'On The Buses'. pic.twitter.com/OTmZW91Gn4

— Who's Lionel With Today? (@WhoLionel) September 14, 2018

A Freddie Mercury impersonator,Kerry Katona, Brain May/Jim Baines off Crossroads and Big Heather from Eastenders. pic.twitter.com/ArKYjr5iJR

— Who's Lionel With Today? (@WhoLionel) February 17, 2019

Remembering the laughs with Prince Philip and Dickie Davies! pic.twitter.com/qPe7yrXbJe

— Who's Lionel With Today? (@WhoLionel) April 9, 2021

Yes, Lionel Blair is still alive.

dickie davies, too

Maybe one for the 'Horrible 70s stars of BBC light entertainment album titles like I've Got My Own Album To Do' thread?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71h-Z7GmU7L._AC_SX425_.jpg

Brain May

Dear Danny, Pet, Lennie Bennett...

https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/webimg/QVNIMTE3MjQyNjIz.jpg?width=640

the best thread

Misread that as 'remembering the laughs with Philip K Dick'.

it's comforting that some of these guys are still around

A case in point...

https://img.discogs.com/z0niBEpvmWlN4ZGOm0F3rCVf3A0=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-8848330-1516000229-2131.jpeg.jpg

72 of his greatest hits? Are we sure that's enough?

Apparently the Joe Henderson on that album is this guy.

Pretty sure I posted one of his albums on the WRONG DUDE thread.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/65scBdC3SDA/sddefault.jpg

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/images-a.jpimedia.uk/imagefetch/http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/webimage/Prestige.Item.1.88975723!image/image.jpg?crop=982:524,smart&width=990

going slightly offtopic here, a global megastar like Louis Armstrong at the Batley Variety Club seems like an unusual event considering the town is in such decay now. The flash wideboy owner of the club offered Dean Martin the small fortune at the time of £45 000 to play there as well and his agent responded he wouldn't get out of bed for a piss for that pittance!

There's a 2021 release by DJ Herzbeat feat. Roger Whittaker on Spotify. I made it through 35sec, so you don't have to.

What if I really want to?

I like Roger Whittaker.

Oh, go on then. Don't say I didn't warn you.

xp (I like a bit of Roger too!)

https://i.ibb.co/J3crbMR/Capture.jpg

dick emery on a chopper

https://i.ibb.co/kX9Bhsx/Capture2.jpg

jon pertwee looking well balearic

https://motorbikewriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/geomil.gif

^ from george and mildred - someone needs to do a study on the role of the sidecar in british comedy

https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/79/590x/secondary/2173515.jpg

https://i2-prod.chroniclelive.co.uk/incoming/article13936984.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/DMR_NEC_040717rodney_01.jpg

love some old football grounds action

St James's Park looks so small!

https://theskystrikers.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/baw3tyscyaegyxv.jpg

(think that's the 'Young Generation' btw in supporting role.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/896x504/p01lz1hw.jpg

I like Roger Whittaker.

― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Tuesday, June 15, 2021 4:45 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

durham town is a bit of a tune

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/412/cpsprodpb/182C/production/_87588160_000238783-1.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/zr3CQ4x/Capture.jpg
^ bernie winters training with bournemouth

https://i.ibb.co/mJjR5fp/Capture3.jpg
^ bernie winters training with chester city

https://i.ibb.co/VLszyDP/Capture5.jpg
^ bernie winters leading out the tv all-stars team in a fundraiser for the families of the victims of the aberfan disaster, 1966

he's an arsenal fan btw

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C85rf5NW0AEsMvn.jpg

bernie winters, tommy steele, ronnie corbett... my mum might be able to tell you who the rest of them are

ronnie wandering around like he's lost his glasses

I spot Jess Conrad, Pete Murray and Alfie Bass.

... and Mike Winters, of course.

Pete Murray still alive! 95!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dUDpeCP4XQ

Miss Anglia 1980, hosted by Fred Dinage and Christine Webber. I know this is a video rather than a photograph but everything about it is amazing, particularly Christine's facts about the contestants ("Cheryl Mayhew, our number 8, is a Northampton girl. She’s 19 and works as a sales representative. She likes rugmaking, playing the guitar and banger racing. And Cheryl is qualified as a croupier"). it's particularly effective with the playback speed set at 0.25

Fred Dinenage is still alive, retired from TV at the end of last year. I don't know what he was doing presenting an Anglia TV show as he was on Southern/TVS/Meridian.

Maybe one for the 'Horrible 70s stars of BBC light entertainment album titles like I've Got My Own Album To Do' thread?

Definitely - that Stilgoe & Skellern album is called 'By The Wey' because the theatre in Guildford where it was recorded is by the River Wey. Yeah, try not to lose too many ribs from chuckling at that one.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XFITZY3mfHk/maxresdefault.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EmKCLju7gto/hqdefault.jpg

A wonderfully random collection of celebs (Rod Hull and Emu, Scorpio, Roy Castle, Ronnie Corbett, Faith Brown, Henry Cooper, Michael Fish) were out and about during a British Turkey Christmas Charity event in 1991. pic.twitter.com/1rGYRQHzp0

— Archivetvmusings (@archivetvmus71) December 3, 2019

pictures that look like they could have been created by a DALL-E prompt:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EK2mF_sWsAEwReS?format=jpg&name=medium

(the proper version and not the basic free one obviously, because otherwise they'd all have Francis Bacon faces)

rod hull looking like he has two fake arms

If you click through, the first reply to that tweet says "Jesus. Apart from Michael Fish, the rest are all dead", however I've checked and Scorpio from Gladiators is alive, well and due to appear at St Albans Comic-Con next month. Faith Brown is also still with us.

http://www.tvcream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/1980.jpg

Although it's a reference to For Your Eyes Only, with Janet Brown as Margaret Thatcher, this was apparently set up to advertise the fact that The Man with the Golden Gun was first shown on UK TV on Christmas Day, 1980. What a bleak, bleak world it was back then. Given the era, the film probably had something like twelve million viewers, or something. This was back when the Argos catalogue had topless women in the sunbed section. I used to like looking at the women in bikinis wearing those muscle training pad things. And then many years later Kink.com appeared and I realised I would never be lonely.

What was the BBC's big film on Christmas Day, 1980? The premieres of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which came out in 1954, and Airport '75, which was the one where a light aircraft crashes into an airliner and Charlton Heston has to rescue everybody.

The BBC was also in the process of showing Battle of the Planets, which for many people my age would have been the first exposure to the popular Anime look, and also panties and gender ambiguity. "Princess is in great danger from Zoltar when she loses her special G-Force shoe", apparently. The episode was of course "Museum of Mystery", although in the United States it probably had a different name because the whole thing was hacked together from a different cartoon:
https://www.battleoftheplanets.info/ep74.html

That was how the establishment eased us into the first year of Margaret Thatcher's reign. The sex, the perversity, fucking in the streets, the wanton cruelty, the lust, the tight skirts - that came later.

https://ibb.co/Dp6nPDk
https://ibb.co/5RMv2ct

Ha whoops

https://ibb.co/Dp6nPDk
https://ibb.co/5RMv2ct

This was back when women were alien space creatures that didn't exist. They were the other. It's disappointing that Jimmy Saville's answer to the question of "What I Want in a Wife" wasn't more creepy. People will probably laugh at us in thirty years.

Sidney Shipton is a man after my own heart. "She should be reasonably attractive and intelligent, but not more intelligent than me". I can get behind that. He seems to have been one of those quasi-celebrities who might have been familiar to people who read the newspapers in 1975, but not otherwise.

When they asked Ian McKellen what he looked for in a wife I'm curious as to whether McKellen made a pact with the interviewer to go along with the charade, or whether he went along because he felt he had to.

Oh, this was covered on this very website in 2017. It's from Cosmopolitan:
What I Want In A Wife article from Cosmopolitan (April 1972) - least vile man on this list?

There was a third panel:
https://emmapeelpants.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/wife3.jpg

Sheila Ravenscroft was indeed shorter than John Peel.

The Rod Hull and friends shoot couldn’t have been 91 as UK Gladiators only started in 92

(Really important correction)

When they asked Ian McKellen what he looked for in a wife I'm curious as to whether McKellen made a pact with the interviewer to go along with the charade, or whether he went along because he felt he had to.

"she doesn't exist" is barely going along with the charade, though.

The Rod Hull and friends shoot couldn’t have been 91 as UK Gladiators only started in 92

(Really important correction)

― Master of Treacle, Friday, 24 June 2022 23:00 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

looks like the Rod Hull/Scorpio Turkey photoshoot is from 1 December 1992, the other pictures with Faith Brown, Ronnie Corbett etc are a different photoshoot from 20 November 1991

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-rod-hull-and-emu-seen-here-atttacking-gladiator-scorpio-during-british-82136624.html

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-rod-hull-and-emu-seen-here-attacking-ronnie-corbett-as-left-to-right-82137706.html

If only Immanuel Velikovsky was still alive. He would come up with a theory that the 1991 British Turkey Christmas photoshoot was actually the same photoshoot as the 1992 British Turkey Christmas photoshoot, and that our current dating of UK Gladiators was incorrect. And that the year 1990 did not happen. And that Not with a Bang and Lazarus and Dingwall were in fact the same television programme.

Mr Pastry Pop A Part Target Game

https://i.imgur.com/ZANPHRc.jpg

You could hold up an old style barbers with that replica shooter there...

I don't know how anyone could bring themselves to point a gun at Mr Pastry's poor hapless face

https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/gavin-campbell-gives-cleo-rocos-a-wheelie-wobble-test-in-london-at-a-photocall-for-the-television-programme-thats-life-2775949a

https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/preview/2775949a/daef6fea/Shutterstock_2775949a.jpg

a lost world for real

that's life

Before I saw the link text I was wracking my brain trying to remember who Gavin Campbell was

Plainly a very talented man.

the lost world of British light entertainment still lives on via Jess Conard's twitter account

https://i.imgur.com/jHMIy10.png

Was going to say he's missed out "Diddy" David Hamilton but maybe "Diddy" David Hamilton doesn't have a twitter account.

don't think David's 1974 book David Hamilton's Beauty Tips for Women has been posted yet

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/K4sAAOSwECRg-UZT/s-l400.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/UZQAAOSw0c1g-UZV/s-l400.jpg

Errrrrr.....

Jimmy Tarbuck remembering people he's outlived

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/Khr4ovwoSGiOh_TxnCjSnA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD02NzU-/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-08/f2cf5ec0-3ddc-11ee-8ff7-c894c83eada2

https://assets-jpcust.jwpsrv.com/thumbnails/8qplhim8-720.jpg

https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/jimmy-85f3.png?quality=90&strip=all&zoom=1&resize=480%2C262

https://assets-jpcust.jwpsrv.com/thumbnails/m7sj7bl7-720.jpg

https://videos.metro.co.uk/pix/met/2017/09/12/13/4431314E00000578-0-image-a-8_1505221125693.jpg

but maybe "Diddy" David Hamilton doesn't have a twitter account.

imagine him signing up for twitter this week and getting all excited when he looks at the trending topics and then disappointed when he clicks through

I had totally forgotten that Des O'Connor had died

There are many other David Hamiltons out there, including the main indie DJ in Southampton in the 90s and an extremely dodgy photographer.

amazing that a 70s Radio 1 DJ is neither the dodgiest David Hamilton nor the dodgiest Diddy

OTM

i could swear Tarby died at least a decade ago

He's about to go on tour.

Misread that as he’s about to go in an hour!

Seems the right thread for this.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/article/2024/may/04/i-killed-a-man-gyles-brandreth-says-rod-hulls-death-was-his-fault

"he wanted to watch the football, but his Sky aerial wasn’t transmitting properly."

tbf it was actually Rupert Murdoch who was indirectly responsible for Rod Hull's death, it was one of his employees who did a shoddy Sky installation and that's why the fucker died!

the one time I had Sky, the installation was abysmal. The dish was hanging off my wall because it had been fixed to the rendered insulation rather than to the house bricks. When a sky employee arrived he said he can't fix the problem because Sky don't supply him with long enough coaching screws to fix to the brick. He said if you just pop down to B+Q and get some 100mm coaching screws then I will come back today and fix it. I said ffs please tell me this is some kind of fucking joke, no he was completely serious.

Speaking to John Cleese on the latest episode of his Rosebud podcast, Brandreth said: “I killed a man. It was Rod Hull, the emu man.”

Imagining Brandreth saying this like Robert Shaw delivering the "Mr Hooper, that's the USS Indianapolis" line in Jaws

> his Sky aerial wasn’t transmitting properly.

transmitting?

(we have the same problem at home. then my dad goes outside and scares the jackdaws away and that fixes it)

ghastly thread

Gyles Brandreth didn’t kill Rod Hull – I did, claims ex-Countess

Brandreth has always looked to me like a mf with some dark secrets, even seeing him as a kid on TVAM.

Lord Longford head hunted him for research imo p0rn when he was only 22.

https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/fyi/284/gyles-brandreth-talks-porn/

"So, Cliff Richard and I, the Bishop, the Archbishop, and the Rabbi all gathered at a room at London University. Lord Longford welcomed us, and then he distributed filthy magazines and we sat there, the Bishop, the Archbishop, the Rabbi, me, Cliff Richard in a circle with Lord Longford, flicking through these disgusting magazines going, 'Oh, no, oh' no!' (...) anyway, God, this went on for several months."

extremely interesting (I'll never believe that CF is clean, i'm afraid)

er CR

Seems like you should take anything Gyles Brandreth says with handfuls of salt.

the last thing you want while you're examining porn is a handful of salt

I've got a faint memory of Harry Enfield doing a parody of Brandreth or his type, wearing a knitted jumper with I AM A GIT on the front using the catchphrase "how mildly whimsical". At least it reminded me of him. Can't remember where I saw it.

https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2022/242/146165381_ce20efbb-3995-4274-8da1-fe6738c6f40c.jpeg

Pere Lachaise?

that is one fucked up gravestone!

Yeah, no Cuddles

Also "upto" all one word.

Cuddles banned because he hates that duck

That was his fourth wife btw. Regardless of his material I always thought Keith Harris was a really good ventriloquist.

will Bob Carolgees have a gravestone that refers to Spit The Dog as a real life character that has also passed away by default? Maybe just me, but I find this shit very weird.

probably a bad example there, not really one of the ventriloquist community

I like the implication that Orville has been buried with Harris, like the servant of an Egyptian Pharaoh, in order to attend to him in the afterlife (or possibly the other way round)

I imagine Cough the Cat will not appear on any Bob Carolgees headstone.

tbf Orville was over 200 years old in duck years

Amusingly this is that grave's second appearence on this thread!

Upon the death of Keith Harris Orville regenerated into a new, secret form, and is currently engaged in the process of transmuting his latest human servant. Nasty!

From age nine Harris appeared on his father Norman's knee as a "dummy" in his ventriloquist act.[6][7]

Other way round but...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzlvFRYYSLU

I've got a faint memory of Harry Enfield doing a parody of Brandreth or his type, wearing a knitted jumper with I AM A GIT on the front using the catchphrase "how mildly whimsical". At least it reminded me of him. Can't remember where I saw it.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JrGvBcxo2oQ/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC4AOKAgwIABABGF4gRShyMA8=&rs=AOn4CLCw2V8cDkXlG5Nxw_hqUmxcogxItg

"A reminder that the BBC One ident for Christmas 1993 literally has to be seen to be believed."

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:jjkzilhmaloqzp4yutbovcrb/post/3lbuademx5s2e

that feels like the end of an era in lots of ways - the final series of the The Paul Daniels Magic Show would go out spring-summer 1994 (it was followed by Paul Daniels's Secrets, but that went out in a weekday slot rather than Saturday and only lasted one series), last Bruce Forsythe hosted series of the Generation Game was also 1994. The Little and Large show had already finished up in 1991.

Heh, this one came up on my YT feed today and I had to double check it wasn't a parody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8kAVYxmw0

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: with Brucie four shows from the end of his Generation Game tenure, games involve Royal Navy members with plastic logs, Christmas cracker building and a Moulin Rouge finale judged by the epitome of Parisian class, Su Pollard. https://t.co/Eg1uPDGiO5

— Why Don't YouTube? (@whydontyoutube) December 3, 2024

On this day 30 years ago, the Playstation was released. pic.twitter.com/dOmIqyTw7g

— Web Design Museum (@WebDesignMuseum) December 3, 2024

these tweets appeared on my feed just a minute apart, bizarre to think think the Playstation and Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game briefly co-existed, gives me the same kind of feeling as remembering that Harriet Tubman was alive at the same time as both Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan.

My recollection is that Bruce Forsyth had a second wind at around that time. Bruce Forsyth and Bob Monkhouse. In the 1980s and early 1990s they were bywords for old-fashioned overly-slick naffness, but at some point in the Britpop years the collective culture decided that there was still a place for them. Paul Daniels never had the same level of rehabilitation for whatever reason. Noel Edmunds likewise, although he was of a younger generation. Although he did have a comeback with Deal.

Or was it a few years later? Wikipedia suggests that Forsyth's appearance on Have I Got News For You in 2003 brought him back to public attention, but I remember that Monkhouse guest-presented a few episodes of The Big Breakfast in the mid-late 1990s and was pretty good.

I suppose if you were very young Forsyth and Monkhouse might have come across as a post-postmodern parody of Vic Reeves. It probably helped that they didn't have the kind of old-school 1970s creepiness of other light entertainment stars from the past, such as Jimmy Savile, who was also still around at the time.

The reason it didn't happen for Paul Daniels is he was an outspoken bitter unpleasant cunt. Bruce on the Generation Game 30 years ago must've been a tawdry lolstslalgia callback, he'd left years before and Larry Grayson was hosting in the 80s at the latest

... I was going to say followed by Jim Davidson, lest we forget, but he came after Brucie's 2nd stint in charge.

also it's weird that i don't remember Bruce ever getting much creepy pushback even tho he had a history of marrying women at least a generation (no pun intended) younger than him

also thanks Tom i think my trauma brain bits have erased Jim Davidson from that show

Yeah given Bruce Forsyth was presenting Strictly till 2014 and The Generation Game has been on as recently as 2018 (with Mel and Sue! Missed that), the PlayStation thing doesn't strike me as that odd

I remember, sometime in the late 90s, seeing Paul Daniels doing tricks to an audience of two people at Brent Cross, standing on a bench outside where Athena used to be. Sad!

I can’t recall a period where BBC wasn’t full of self referential oldies or club comedians, or at least the spirit of the those types. I guess the most gruesome period was actually when the younger hosts were in primetime slots - Davidson on Big Break and GG, and Noel on Noel’s House Party. It felt inescapable - any Saturday night where you didn’t get invited out felt doubly depressing as a result. I mean, it was so bad even Chris Evans (!) felt like a breath of fresh air

Also God Tenko reunion looks like the dullest show ever made