Am I A Fucking Idiot?

[Smeg4Brains]

I just stumbled on this picture from PropStore London of the JMC Post Pod:

And I thought “What the fuck is this? The post pod doesn’t look like a Royal Mail Postbox!”. So I went back to look at Better Than Life and….

…it’s a smegging Royal Mail Postbox.

Which is why the topic of this post is “Am I A Fucking Idiot?” – am I the only person whose never noticed this?

Topic

[Dave]

I didn’t notice it the first time I saw it, for sure – it’s not a hugely obvious sight gag in the way that it’s shot. But I did notice it at some point on rewatching.

[Jenuall]

33 years? About average for second class joke observation. ;)

I definitely didn’t spot this until the DVD’s came out which I’m putting down to the crap quality of VHS making the already difficult shot harder to make out!

[Dave]

I wonder what the “PI” in place of the “ER” is a reference to? Some kind of in-joke gag presumably.

[Warbodog]

It’s something I temporarily knew at one point long ago (probably read about it and checked), but then I forgot and it was back to a generic pod again.

Especially since that shot’s reused as a generic pod for Hudzen’s arrival, but shorter since they don’t want the visual gag that time.

[Spaceworm Jim]

Oh wow, I never noticed this. It’s a similar gag to the Holly’s backup disc, isn’t it? Only much more subtle.

[clem]

I’d definitely seen it a lot of times before I realised what it was.

It’s a similar gag to the Holly’s backup disc, isn’t it? Only much more subtle.

It strikes me as exactly the sort of thing people would say was too silly if they did it these days.

[GlenTokyo]

I wonder what the “PI” in place of the “ER” is a reference to? Some kind of in-joke gag presumably.

HRH Peter wRagg I assume.

(It says P wR)

[GlenTokyo]

[Dave]

Ah yes, that’s much clearer, thanks. Makes sense.

[Warbodog]

It strikes me as exactly the sort of thing people would say was too silly if they did it these days

It’s similar artistic licence to the Justice World scales and Simulant buffalo skull ship, and it’s believable in-universe as something sentimental and commemorative the Space Post Office might do.

But I might just be saying that because it doesn’t pause for audience laughter en route.

[clem]

Granted, but I think there’s a happy medium between doing that, and designing and making a funny model and then shooting it in such a way that a fan could watch the show countless times over the years without clocking it.

[GlenTokyo]

One of my all time favourite Red Dwarf gags is a similar “real world made slightly ridiculous/blink and you’ll miss it” one, the landing bay doors having Hyper-Chubb locks.

The post pod seems lit to take the edge off to me though, usually model shots have nice side on lighting but this one is top down/edge lit, so maybe they thought it was a little on the nose.

[Jenuall]

On the nose stuff can work, but this is pushing at the boundaries of it for me and I agree that it was probably a conscious decision not to make it more obvious.

The backup disk blows way past those boundaries for me, precisely because too big a deal is made out of it. The initial reveal got quite a chuckle out of me in all honesty but it wears thin very quickly.

Ironically I really quite like the cat flap visual gag and even the cat fleet formation joke as well, despite the fact that arguably those are just as stupid/ridiculous!

[GlenTokyo]

On the nose stuff can work, but this is pushing at the boundaries of it for me and I agree that it was probably a conscious decision not to make it more obvious.

The backup disk blows way past those boundaries for me, precisely because too big a deal is made out of it. The initial reveal got quite a chuckle out of me in all honesty but it wears thin very quickly.
Ironically I really quite like the cat flap visual gag and even the cat fleet formation joke as well, despite the fact that arguably those are just as stupid/ridiculous!

The cat stuff is a groaner gag, but the Cats in Red Dwarf have canonically done some catty stuff, so it somewhat tracks that they’d have some catty adornments to remember where they came from as they left the Dwarf.

The floppy disc irritates me, it’s too stupid and I think there could’ve been a funny retro/nostalgia reveal without straying outside the universe of Red Dwarf so much.

I know I’m on a hiding to nothing at this point though wanting Red Dwarf to pay attention to its own universe haha

[Jenuall]

On the nose stuff can work, but this is pushing at the boundaries of it for me and I agree that it was probably a conscious decision not to make it more obvious.

The backup disk blows way past those boundaries for me, precisely because too big a deal is made out of it. The initial reveal got quite a chuckle out of me in all honesty but it wears thin very quickly.
Ironically I really quite like the cat flap visual gag and even the cat fleet formation joke as well, despite the fact that arguably those are just as stupid/ridiculous!
The cat stuff is a groaner gag, but the Cats in Red Dwarf have canonically done some catty stuff, so it somewhat tracks that they’d have some catty adornments to remember where they came from as they left the Dwarf.
The floppy disc irritates me, it’s too stupid and I think there could’ve been a funny retro/nostalgia reveal without straying outside the universe of Red Dwarf so much.
I know I’m on a hiding to nothing at this point though wanting Red Dwarf to pay attention to its own universe haha

Oh yeah definitely, we’re way past the point of in universe consistency being a thing, lets face it the show was retconning and contradicting itself within about a year of existing!

[Flap Jack]

The floppy disk gag in The Promised Land is great.

I don’t have anything else to add, I just saw you guys ganging up on it and felt bad.

[GlenTokyo]

I can’t recall a floppy disk ever appearing in Red Dwarf up to that point*, not a 3.5″ one anyway, Hollister had some 5¼” ones in his office I think, but Red Dwarf is almost entirely magnetic tape based apart from the odd CD.

Given that people under a certain age don’t know what a floppy disk is but know if means “save” thanks to videogames and stuff, you have to wonder if anything else that made more sense in universe would have even got a reaction from a lot of the audience.

Like if Holly was stored on a load of compact cassettes in a stripy PVC covered cassette storage case from the 80s, you’d have to be about 35 to laugh at it.

*I may have missed one in X, XI, XII as I’m less well versed in those.

[loadoftottnumb]

Ah I never noticed that either, nice spot.

I think one reason they didn’t make it obvious is it wasn’t meant so much as a gag, as another poster said, you could see it having that design.

[International Debris]

Never spotted it before, so that’s a nice bit of trivia to discover at this point. Even then, it doesn’t bother me as it’s in and done in a couple of seconds. The floppy disk gag is fucking horrible, though, just LOOK WE’RE BEING LOLRANDOM crap. Honestly, if they’d had Holly on a normal 3.5″ floppy it would have been a lot funnier because that would actually work – such a huge intelligence on a tiny disk, feeding into his senility, great. A giant floppy disk, though? I still don’t understand it, and it’s such a blatant set piece with a real smugness about the entire thing… ugh, no, worst part of The Promised Land for me, proper VIII vibe to it.

[Ridley]

Don’t you want to see the floppy disk comedy?

[Dave]

I’m not sure what G&T hated more, The Promised Land’s floppy disk or Timewave’s floppy titties.

[Jenuall]

Now that would be an interesting poll: “Most hated moment within Dwarf”!

Along with Floppy disks and titties I’d argue that the Dibley family would be a contender, as would the dancing blue midget.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I don’t think the post pod being a literal post box is much of an issue considering even now, let alone on a 14″CRT in glorious 480p, you’d never make it out to be an actual post box.  The intention was probably that it was a pod that sort of resembled a post box in shape, so they just created a small post box minature to use for that effect.

Th floppy disk gag is ridiculous yet hilairous and I love it for just being incredibly over the top and silly.

Most hated moments are going to come from series 8 aren’t they.  Dibley Family, Blue Midget Dance, an overly long Captain’s Office scene with Holister explaining dinosaur diarrhea with a double whammy of “see you in 10 mins”.

[Dave]

THE END

THE SMEG IT IS

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

The absolute confidence of a man who then planned to leave TV behind and make a movie before he even had any money!

 

Going from Only the Good … “the smeg it is” into BTE “9 years later” with no explanation is quite funny in its irony.

[Flap Jack]

Honestly, if they’d had Holly on a normal 3.5″ floppy it would have been a lot funnier because that would actually work – such a huge intelligence on a tiny disk, feeding into his senility, great. A giant floppy disk, though? I still don’t understand it, and it’s such a blatant set piece with a real smugness about the entire thing… ugh, no, worst part of The Promised Land for me, proper VIII vibe to it.

… wait, you really don’t understand it?

I suppose that Holly’s backup being on a completely normal 3.5″ floppy would have been a valid alternate version of the gag, but making the disk absurdly massive elevates the joke from “look how inexplicably basic and old fashioned the tech behind Red Dwarf/Holly is” (which would mostly just be a repeat of the Bodyswap gag anyways) to a joke about how historical projections of far future technology often went with “current technology, but more or bigger” and how this is revealed as patently silly given just a couple decades worth of hindsight.

I guess they do milk it a bit too much, and I’m not saying Big Floppy Disk is the new “it does mean changing the bulb” or anything, but I can’t approve it being labelled as the worst thing in the episode. Not when that uncomfortable sex change conversation is still fresh in the memory.

[Jenuall]

Whiney “You’re lying!” has to go on the Worst Moments list as well, still gives me shivers just thinking about it

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Whiney “You’re lying!” has to go on the Worst Moments list as well, still gives me shivers just thinking about it

That is probably the most offensive thing about series vii, other than there’s large stretches where it’s not funny.

[International Debris]

I actually hate it more in Only the Good, because it’s a totally different type of lie and thus isn’t even part of the same joke and was clearly only brought back because Doug thought fans were clamouring for more.

[GlenTokyo]

Cat’s titty tyrade is offensive to me as a human, the giant floppy disc is only offensive to me as a Red Dwarf fan, it’s a perfectly adequate joke for a naff low budget comedy, I just expect better, so the tits have it out of those two.

[Author]

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