Charlie Williams = dead

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Groundbreaking comedian/friend of racists/Tarby golf partner/former Doncaster Rovers player Charlie Williams is no longer breathing, aged something in his mid 70s.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 3 September 2006 10:44 (nineteen years ago)

Doesn't he get an RIP? (I can't say I recognise him at all)

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Sunday, 3 September 2006 11:50 (nineteen years ago)

Was he the black guy who made jokes about how rubbish black people are?

― chap who would dare to start Raaatpackin (chap), Sunday, 3 September 2006 15:51 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 3 September 2006 16:00 (nineteen years ago)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5309634.stm

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=3591&&&edition=1&ttl=20060903182823

I don't recognise his picture on the bbc site either.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Sunday, 3 September 2006 16:29 (nineteen years ago)

"This man did more to bridge the cultural gap than anyone else I know.

Mike Kelley, Derbyshire"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 3 September 2006 16:45 (nineteen years ago)

"It was so sunny I thought I'd been deported".

― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Sunday, 3 September 2006 19:01 (nineteen years ago)

RIP the Dave Chapelle of the 70s.

― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Sunday, 3 September 2006 19:05 (nineteen years ago)

Now stop right there!

He was a victim of the mood of the seventies, i.e. to be a working clubs comedian and black, you had to do 'anti' black jokes. Naturally it would have been uncomfortable to do the stuff Manning was doing, but he wasn't in the arena where he could take-on the mindset of the time.

I remember seeing a young black comedian (name escapes me for a moment) doing the same sort of stuff, but when Lenny Henry and the other 'alternative' comedians changed things, he was able to at least be himself without apologising all the time, by the time he became reasonably famous. (.. nope. Along the same lines as Brian Conley, etc..)

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 September 2006 07:29 (nineteen years ago)

My mum and dad said he was very funny. They were surprised I couldn't remember him at all.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 4 September 2006 07:50 (nineteen years ago)

He did the Golden Shot for a while.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 September 2006 07:54 (nineteen years ago)

There goes the neighbourhood

― Dave B (daveb), Monday, 4 September 2006 07:57 (nineteen years ago)

A year, in fact (xpost).

As the Times obit put it, it is likely to be some years before such issues can be "soberly assessed."

Strange how the likes of Charlie Williams and Joss White could prosper in parallel to Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby the other side of the pond at exactly the same time.

CW's stock response to hecklers: "Shut it, or I'll move in next door to you."

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 4 September 2006 07:58 (nineteen years ago)

Gary W1lm0t?

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Monday, 4 September 2006 08:09 (nineteen years ago)

That's the feller. (nearly said bunny, as per Lard. Thought better of it)

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 September 2006 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

"Soberly Assessed" heck, if they can't do it now, when can they?

I saw last night some "X rated" rundown of TV moments, and during the 'racism of the seventies' bit they showed "Curry and Chips" the terribly wrong Milligan sitcom that made "Love thy neighbour" an exercise in Race relations (which it was for a bit until they ran out of ideas and just returned to 'comedy' 'sambo' lines ad infinitum)

.. without mentioning that the outcry against it got it removed after episode 2? or thereabouts.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 September 2006 08:26 (nineteen years ago)

He also had to do "chinky" and "paki" jokes as well. I suppose it's not my right to take exception to him belittling his own race but I certainly feel right in thinking that perhaps if he had to spout bigoted garbage about others to succeed then maybe he shouldn't have bothered.

― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Monday, 4 September 2006 10:40 (nineteen years ago)

I've never even heard of the guy.

CW's stock response to hecklers: "Shut it, or I'll move in next door to you."

There's a certain hardassedness about that that's (slighty) admirable, I must admit.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 4 September 2006 10:44 (nineteen years ago)

I like those kind of remarks, they're funny and are making fun of the heckler rather than himself. He was definitely a funny guy, just find some of his stuff a bit iffy having not lived through the 70s myself a lot of it seems pretty outrageous.

― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Monday, 4 September 2006 10:45 (nineteen years ago)

At the moment I'm reading Ian Hunter's Diary Of A Rock 'N' Roll Star and I realise why it's never been reprinted. "Gorgeous spade chicks"??????

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:04 (nineteen years ago)

The term "spade" appears in a fair bit of early '70's uk u/g discourse? I saw it a bit in the old copies of "zigzag" I had, for example, and other music papers/underground press. "this spade cat came and offed all my gear" being a phrase I remember particularly from an issue of ZZ. I guess people thought they were being hip in using it, and that it was ok, but it's fucking horrible and pathetic and cringeworthy whenever you see it now.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:13 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I've also been recently rereading the Charles Shaar Murray anthology, and though there's some superb writing in there, the early stuff really is marred by the same kind of tendency.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:16 (nineteen years ago)

For fucks sake - it was the 70's - give the guy a bit of leeway. There really is no point judging what he said as if he said it TODAY. CW was one of the first black prof footballers and I have read that he suffered a lot of abuse from crowds and fellow players. To be a footballer and then to make it onto national telly in those days might well explain the slant of some of his humour. Not excusing it, just rationalising.

He wasn't funny, but he was OK on the Golden Shot. Better than Norman Vaughan anyway. RIP Charlie.

― Dr.C (Dr.C), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:21 (nineteen years ago)

There's one Top 40 hit I've never knowingly heard - Norman Vaughan's 1962 #34 smash "Swinging In The Rain." I don't think I want to, either.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:25 (nineteen years ago)

But I did enjoy the very funny ads Charlie Williams did for Eden Vale Strawberry Fool in the early '70s, with Clinton Ford, George Chisholm and Eli Woods (ask your grandparents).

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:25 (nineteen years ago)

Full of his trademark "oop!" noises. And "Swinging" was his other catchphrase.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:26 (nineteen years ago)

And his "Yorkshire Bitter" ads w/ Flat cap and t' whippet.

Which were never shown in the Yorkshire TV Region.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:26 (nineteen years ago)

He appeared on Pob, too!

http://www.empiremonkey.com/photos/pob_red_close150.jpg

― C J (C J), Monday, 4 September 2006 11:27 (nineteen years ago)

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