Fist of Fun – tape 1971

Here’s the first ever TV episode of Fist of Fun. Stewart Lee and Richard Herring were quite influential in mid-90s comedy – they wrote and performed in several Radio series, including the original incarnation of Fist of Fun, and also worked on On The Hour where (Richard Herring frequently claims) they created the original character of Alan Partridge. There’s a story I’ve heard that, when they asked for more money to work on the second series, and left when they didn’t get it, Armando Iannucci was so cross he cut all of their sketches out of the commercial compilations of On The Hour so they wouldn’t get any royalties.

Edit: My recollection of this story is faulty (or the version I read several years ago was garbled) and Richard Herring has kindly posted a full correction in the comments.

We wrote on both series and were writing the TV show too, but we wanted to own a % of rights to the character that we had created (which is fair enough and quite wise given the way that some of them took off) but we weren’t given the rights so we withdrew (very reluctantly in my case at least) from the TV series. Armando then had to edit our bits out of the CD release over a matter of about £50, but he felt strongly enough about the principle to spend a whole night doing that. It was a shame but we didn’t seriously fall out over it and are still friends. Only Patrick Marber seemed pleased.

In any event, they didn’t make the move to the TV version, The Day Today and their subsequent careers have been interesting.

But back to the programme. Fist of Fun was basically a comedy sketch show hung around a loose concept of being a grown-up version of Why Don’t You…? the programme the BBC used to put on in the mornings during the school holidays where a gang of children in a studio would demonstrate lots of hobbies and games that the watching audience could do instead of watching TV.

They flash a lot of captions up during the show, and I’ll try to catch some of them as they go by.

There are some regular sections and characters, one of the more memorable being Simon Quinlank, played by the actor Kevin Eldon. He’s the self-appointed king of hobbies and each week he describes a new hobby. This week it’s “Ringing up Norris McWhirter at 3am and asking him what the biggest leaf is.”

Rich goes computer dating, and Rebecca Front finds his perfect match: John Thompson

The programme used a lot of almost subliminal flash frames – here’s the first section. All these frames were two frames long.

                

Make of that what you will.

There’s a few Why Not?s

Also on the show is lifestyle guru Peter Baynham, now an Oscar nominated writer.

Something from the Gallery

The Celebration of Medioctiry featuring the films of Steve Guttenberg. I love the pointless detail, like that he dies early on in The Boys from Brazil.

There’s a couple of flash frames of a Naked Lee and Herring, as part of their bid to use subliminal advertising to establish themselves as the gods of a new world order. Warning: only click if you want to see a couple of young comedians naked.

There’s a stern warning about shoplifting

Peter Jones is the chancellor of the University of Life.

The programme finishes with the events diary.

BBC Genome: BBC Two England, 11 April 1995 21.00

Before the next episode there’s the end of The Oh So Beautiful Bugatti. A trailer for Homefront. And a trailer for Steptoe and Son.

Then, episode 2 of Fist of Fun. There’s a pro-active apology for a joke about Bill Oddie.

Here’s a young Al Murray

Spot Jim Davidson

Some pointless schoolboy revenge

 

Here’s Alistair McGowan auditioning as a priest.

Here’s some ideas for Pet Holidays

Sally Phillips plays a menstruating woman in one of Stewart’s parables.

And finally here’s this week’s events diary

BBC Genome: BBC Two England, 18 April 1995 21.00

Next it’s the third episode, and Stew shows us an old school photo.

Tony Parsons is the face on the Cornish Curmudgeon punchbag

Sue Perkins appears in a bit about imaginary friends, as does the gentleman behind her, who is actually technology writer Danny O’Brien, famous in the 90s for appearing on The Net, and creating the hip tech newsletter NTK.

And in the very next shot, when Stew is going to Ben Moor to ask hm about his imaginary friend

Friendships:

The mysterious Danny O’Brien again

There’s a nice money-saving tip before the events diary this week.

“This programme could look as ridiculous ten years in the future as the Glam Metal Detectives does now.”

BBC Genome: BBC Two England, 25 April 1995 21.00

Straight into the next episode, and the boys have a go at Somerset TV reviewer Chris Rundle for describing the show as “not at all funny” and basically do the 1995 equivalent of setting their twitter followers on him. I love the bit of BBC balance at the end.

They’re being inundated with letter and knickers.

And Richard’s dad looks like an aardvark apparently.

Use your organ donor card to annoy Patrick Marber

And there’s another dig at Patrick Marber a bit later.

Plus a Star Trek joke.

Gangs:

Peter introduces us to his friend Donny Oddlegs.

Curmudgeons:

Ronni Ancona and Alistair MacGowan are modern day vampires

This week’s events diary:

BBC Genome: BBC Two England, 2 May 1995 21.00

For the opening of the fifth show, Rich and Stew’s packing crates were left in the Grandstand studio.

An apology for David Attenborough

A cigarette Warning

And the Events Diary.

BBC Genome: BBC Two England, 9 May 1995 21.00

The last episode opens with And and Dec in the crates.

Whatever happened to them? Older viewers were helpfully informed.

An insight into Rich’s French Exchange partner.

A tip of the hat to late Wurzels frontman Adge Cutler

Rich wonders about his old friend Mike Cosgrave

And the girl who smelt of spam – played by Sally Phillips

And there’s no events diary this week.

And at the end of the show, Peter gets a limo home.

I love that they’ve got chicken lollies.

BBC Genome: BBC Two England, 16 May 1995 21.00

After the programme, there’s a trailer for Mrs Hartley and the Growth Centre.

And then the tape finishes. And if you’ve made it this far, I salute you. I think I’ve just blown half my storage allowance on WordPress with this one entry.