MOVIE NEWS! News Posted by John Hoare on 16th September 2005, 20:40 FUCKING WOW: The future of Red Dwarf A Red Dwarf film has been produced, starring all of the original cast and due for release in 2003. I’ve clearly just not been paying attention.
Smeg was used as an all-round profanity on the show. It comes from smegma, a term for something rather unpleasant which won’t be defined here! No. It. Doesn’t. Lister has a photo of his dad, but he later says he was abandoned in a pub as a baby; Rimmer doesn’t seem to know who Marilyn Monroe is, yet has pictures of her in his locker. Lister has a photo of his ADOPTIVE dad. The same ADOPTIVE dad who he tried to read the football scores down the toilet to. And Rimmer does know who Marilyn Monroe is, he recognises her in BTL. Okay, he gets her name wrong, but her name isn’t on the pictures, is it? I mean, come on. UKTV are showing Dwarf all the bleeding time. You’d think they’d notice stuff like that…
“No. It. Doesn’t.” So what exactly did Rob Grant say about this in the Top Ten Sci-Fi? And if didn’t come from “smegma” then where did it come from?
I mean, come on. UKTV are showing Dwarf all the bleeding time. You’d think they’d notice stuff like that… This is the same UKTV who show the same censored version of Timeslides (and other eps) regardless of whether it’s past the watershed or not. I’ve long grown past expecting them to care about their output and the integrity of the programmes. A shame really, as when they put the effort in (some of their trailers, for instance), they can be really good.
*sigh* This is why I’m in the process of compiling an OD FAQ, to answer questions like this that get asked all the time. Since Andrew’s probably fed up of answering it, I’ll use his own words, I’m sure he won’t mind, it’s in a good cause… There have been several threads devoted to this topic. There’s probably one around at the moment – it gets asked about twice a week… The official version is that Rob and Doug were looking for words that sounded like swearing, but weren’t – just as Porridge utilised ‘naff’. They came up with various words that fit the vowel-consonant rhythm and style, smeg was just one. Others include gimp, goit and gimboid. Smeg, of course, was the most-used, working as it does to replace a variety of words – the F-word andthe S-word in particular. (‘Smeg off’, ‘Smeg head’.) The derivation of smeg in general use comes from, yes, the nasty ‘smegma’. But the writers have always said that this was not part of their thinking ? they were just looking for a little-used word. (And, technically, it isn’t a recognised word – you won’t find it outside of a slang dictionary; and it isn’t an abbreviation, either.) Apparently, also unknown to them, it was a popular expletive in the 70s and early 80s among Liverpool dockers. Someone once said it also translates interestingly from other languages – in Greek it may mean ‘clean’.
I was going to post this as an item, but it fits just as well in here, I suppose: “It is interesting to know as well, that the BBC have given the red dwarf makers permission to include the Daleks in the Red Dwarf movie soon to be released” Hmm.
“*sigh* This is why I’m in the process of compiling an OD FAQ, to answer questions like this that get asked all the time.” Will you answer my question about the Top Ten Sci-Fi?
Will you answer my question about the Top Ten Sci-Fi? Rob Grant mentions the definition of smegma. He doesn’t say this is where he and Doug got the word smeg from, though. He was probably just answering a question put to him about smegma from the interviewer/producer.
>> I was going to post this as an item, but it fits just as well in here, I suppose: “It is interesting to know as well, that the BBC have given the red dwarf makers permission to include the Daleks in the Red Dwarf movie soon to be released” Hmm. So do we know which episode this supposedly is? Sorry about the shitness of this post, I don’t know how to quote and I am ashamed.
Well, did anyone see the cool Dwarf section on 40 Years of F*** on BBC3? I was surprised at how long they went on about Dwarf (the producer was probably a fan). It featured Mr. Craig Charles of Coronation Street talking about how Rob and Doug came up with words instead of using language, he mentioned that goit was instead of the ‘c’ word, and it showed the clip they always show of Craig and Robert crawling off stage when they get asked what smeg means. I know someone who ate some bell cheese on a sandwich as a bet (it wasn’t me, I’m not that mentally deranged, and it wasn’t my product either…). God, I need some new shoes.
> I know someone who ate some bell cheese on a sandwich as a bet (it wasn’t me, I’m not that mentally deranged, and it wasn’t my product either…). Methinks the monkey doth protest too much.
