The Two Ronnies: C/D

With great material, they were great. Search: that Frost Report sketch with them and John Cleese. Did they also do "I'm not a sexist/racist/chiropodist"?

Destroy: Ronnie Corbett in a chair while the audience prays for death.

Sketch: The guy who can't hear properly and the guy with the moustache who mumbles. Cue 'hilarious' double entendres. How I laughed.

Not.

"He's pedding."
"What, he's riding a bike?"
"No, he's pushing."
"The bike broke down, did it?"
...
"The Big E"
"The Big E?"
"'Eroin."

i) 'Fork Handles' and Corbett's routines are only technically funny rather than actually LOL funny, in my humble opinion.

ii) Clarence was rubbish

the Mastermind sketch is the best thing they ever did. they seemed to blaze the trail with humour based on conversational interplay, mis-respresentation and that 'the very image!' style imitated by so many since, avoiding slapstick and farce for the most part in the bargain.

I don't get the reference.

Search: Learn swedish ("F U N E X")
Destroy: Corbetts monologues can be a bit rub, yeh.

Also, Pro-Celebrity Golf.

"Who is the current Arch Bishop of Canterbury?"
"He is a fat man who tells blue jokes"

it's funny on it's own terms because of the image it evokes which is all i was getting at (based on personal reference to obscure poem describing a range of surreal situations), but the Two Ronnies score bonus points for creating a whole sketch out of a plethora of these, plus arranging it so that the further they progress the more ridiculous or 'risque' the images are.

xpost - I knew the PRBOOLT would be referenced. To me, it's the epitome of what I didn't like about them; it was gentle in a 'not funny' way. Partly because I'd never heard anyone use the term raspberry.

The worst thing, and the thing that really is annoying me, is that they have no idea how to finish a sketch. Stuff goes on, is funny, then just ends. With no punchline. I can't think of a famous enough example, but watching the BBC1 show makes it totally obvious.

Phantom Raspberry Blower was written by Spike Milligan. It was rubbish in terms of jokes, but the way it was done (shaky cameras, obviously-wrong doubles for split-screen shots, that kind of thing) was really good. Not LOL funny, but giggle-able.

· And finally, the public are warned to be on the lookout for Joseph Gomez, a Spaniard, last heard of living in Tooting, whose mother was a nun in Barcelona. A one-time flautist with a symphony orchestra, he is wanted for looting in Haifa, where he worked on a farm. The police urge people to look out for a Haifa-looting fluting Tooting son of a nun from Barcelona, part-time ploughboy Joe.

laughing? no? check yr fckin pulse.

T/S: Ronnie Barker's almost understated silliness vs Kenneth Williams' exaggerated silliness

(I'm not for a second saying that Kenneth Williams wasn't a talented fellow - it just seems like a slab of sour grapes to me. Did Williams's super-sucessfull shows have writing as good as The Two Ronnies?)

(and his characters in Hancock's Half Hour are, 9 times out of 10, his character in the Carry On films, only not quite so well rounded)

I used to watch the phantom raspberry blower at my gran's, too. I think I thought it was great.

hahaha!!

*in* july?

No it wasn't.

http://www2.prestel.co.uk/cello/swedish.htm

- Ronnie Corbett
- The name Timothy (as opposed to Tim)
- The Two Ronnies

a lot of old-skool crafts went into many sketches and routines (inc.teh armchair monologues of course): but we ("we") have a much more complicated attitude today to the virtue or otherwise of "old-skool craft"

(viz ronnie corbett is an infinitely better technician than alexei sayle, say: sayle is potentially funnier - genuinely more imaginative and wild-style - but so locked into a lazy DIY approach to delivery, as if to say "insert timing here")

i wd probably say (as kneejerk provocation if nothing else) that 2R = funnier that NtNoCN on the best day of the latter's life

(at least the two ronnies weren't fkn smith&jones)

but this might not stand up to genuine research, not that i will ever do this research

*lies back down on floor and re-opens big book abt keirkegaard*

He was quite taken with Kevin Keegan, but then who isn't?

Maybe they just took the best 2 minutes of his work but it seemed quite insanely manic and 'out there'.

And Barry Cryer was one of the writers there too, all comedy goes back to him. Seven degrees of Barry Cryer.

I like the craftsmanship, all right. I like to see old comedians working with Language, not with mere obscenity as I think many now do.

And I like little Corbett in his large chair - the manner, the chuckles at his own digressions. Skill with warmth.

Kneejerk provocation? NtNoCN was NEVER ever remotely funny! It was rubbish! I kind of remember the 2 ronnies being very funny, but I can hardly remember a single sketch. Aha, I just remembered those semi-silent movie things they did - "futtock's end" and "the picnic" (?) the scene in "futtock's end" where the hungover people are trying to eat a meal and all the food is hideous made me laugh a lot as a nipper.

However, I also listened to a Spike Milligan documentary featuring a lot of very disciplined and very funny letters to the BBC, etc, so perhaps his lack of structure was a considered aesthetic choice, not the result of inability.

In any case, I'm glad his stuff is like it is, Raspberry Blower included.

I remembered this from 1st time, two things...

1) Laughed and thought "This is the first time I've lauged at the 2rons for ages" as opposed to "slightly amusing/entertaining"

2) Didn't Barker look like he may have been swearing while Corbett was obviously going "Beeeep"?

Still lolled at these guys on the Xmas repeats, although they did seemingly invent the "not funny needless song to fill the penultimate sketch slot" technique later perfect by Smack the Pony, The Real McCoy and a few other mediocre shows.

Nah man, the Morris Dancers one where the chorus was a repeat of the last line of the verse so that you got hilarious lines like "So doff/So doff/So doff/So doff/So doff your cap etc." made pre-teen me laugh more than anything on the show.

Watching some of these just now, sooooo many Irish jokes.

... and jokes about British Rail.

I sometimes wonder if people under 30, 35 even know the old thick Paddy stereotype. Probably not. Good fucking riddance.

Ditto the mean Scotsman jokes.

I remember watching some repeats from series one, and nothing was funny.

Not offensive, not stereotypical, not sexist (well, not much). Just, nothing.

And yet, it was a huge hit at the time.

Watching some of these just now, sooooo many Irish jokes.

Used against you like Irish jokes on the BBC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhWFl5mwYSM

A joke about punk rock and a joke about Rod McKuen in the opening sequence of this episode.