The Defunct Brands of Red Dwarf Features Posted by Ian Symes on 28th June 2025, 14:35 Red Dwarf's attitude towards real world references has fluctuated over the years. In the early days, Rob and Doug were keen to invent their own futuristic pop culture - Mugs Murphy, rastabilly skank, the London Jets - intertwined with more contemporary references to the likes of Kevin Keegan, Felicity Kendal and Ishtar. Generally speaking, the focus then shifted to historical figures, or those whose fame is international and timeless, your Wilma Flintstones, your Jane Austens, and of course, the all time number one. However, when it comes to brands and companies, the writers have never had any qualms with keeping the references relevant to the viewers at home. Other than the likes of the Jupiter Mining Corporation itself, Divadroid, Crapola, Leopard Lager and, much later, M-Corp, you're far more likely to hear about Pot Noodles, Shake 'n' Vac, FIFA, Brylcreem and Chicken (Mc)Nuggets than any invented equivalent. It's much more conducive to good comedy to give the audience a reference they're familiar with, plus Rob and Doug were never averse to leaning back on their observational comedy standards for a quick laugh. But Red Dwarf is thirty seven years old, and the world moves fast. What may have felt like enduring brands in the 80s and 90s - and even the 2010s - aren't necessarily going to have lasted to the modern day. And so we're going to take a look at every product or company name that's mentioned in dialogue throughout the 74 episodes, which has since fallen by the wayside. We'll note all the examples we could find, give a brief history, and outline its demise. Read more →
No sir, all thirteen! News Posted by Ian Symes on 19th June 2025, 16:44 With thanks to Dave for drawing our attention to this in our forum, a very interesting new release has appeared on the website of online retailer Zavvi. Hot on the heels of 2019’s Series I-VIII Bluray comes… the Series I-XIII Bluray! Yes, Series XIII… let the debate about how to number the various productions of the Dave era continue into a third glorious decade. We’re always wary about fully trusting the details listed by retailers this far in advance of a release, as plans can change, and even those that don’t change may have been misinterpreted at some stage. However, in the absence of any kind of official online presence for Red Dwarf, we’re very intrigued by the list of what’s included. As well as uniting the BBC and Dave eras of the show in a commercial release for the first time ever, we’re promised that Just The Smegs will be there too, which is great news. It felt like the one thing that was really lacking from the previous collection. No word on Beat The Geek, though. The small print specifies that there’ll be a whopping 32 discs, which indicates we’re getting the full extras package from the previous boxset and the individual releases. Two discs apiece for Series I-VI and BTE-XII makes 20, three each for VII and VIII brings us to 26, then single discs for Just The Smegs and The Promised Land equals 28. That leaves four discs remaining, which suggests The Bodysnatcher Collection may well be included in full this time, with the Re-Mastered episodes and all. We’d assume that the episodes themselves will be the remasters (with a small r) from the 2019 boxset, and that the old extras will be presented on clones of the original DVDs, as before. I’m also going to guess that there’ll be no new extras to speak off, but I’ll be more than happy to be proven wrong. Release is scheduled for 6th October, so we’re looking forward to learning more – and seeing the new artwork – between now and then. And we’ve got just under four months to learn to speak fluent Emglish.
