Dirty Feed

[John Hoare]

HELLO HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE YOU ARE GREAT.

For anyone interested, it’s my blog’s fifth anniversary today, so I’ve written a little piece including my favourite posts over the years:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/01/dirty-feed-the-first-five-years/

For anyone not interested, I’ve heard about this really great Red Dwarf site, you should check it out:

http://www.ganymede.tv/

[John Hoare]

Update on Dirty Feed, about Comedy Central and Twitter:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/01/comedycentraluk/

Admittedly, not quite as shit as @RedDwarfHQ, which is possibly the most stupid thing to have ever happened with anything ever.

[Jonsmad]

Read the article on the smashie and nicey end of era VHS. Brilliant stuff only had that on broadcast home taped never knew there was another edit. Nice one.

[MANI506]

Thank you to you and all at Team G & T. I love the enthusiasm and I’ve been inspired to rediscover or discover many classic comedys after reading the articles. I forgot how great End Of An Era is (she’ s not dead yet). Last years Story of the Twos is amazing as well. Any news on further Dwarf Casts? I am looking forward to the next one which reportedly covers one of the shit episodes.

[John Hoare]

Thank you all!

G&T will update soon – I believe we have at least one Dwarfcast in the can. We’re all a bit busy with other stuff at the moment, but two more High & Low pieces are next on the agenda too.

[Ben Kirkham]

How dare you have lives of your own! I expect you all to spend every living hour obeying the whims of your fanbase, endlessly typing into a computer. But you all choose to have families, friends, lives, even jobs. Where are your priorities?

[John Hoare]

New Dirty Feed post – why TV channels go wrong, and why it’s nothing to do with “automation”:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/01/on-automation/

[John Hoare]

Just remembered I never linked to my latest article here, about what John Cleese dislikes about Fawlty Towers:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/02/11-things-wrong-with-fawlty-towers/

(Weirdly, this got retweeted and linked to by quite a lot of people, and is probably the most-read article ever on Dirty Feed. Apparently, my best work is stuff where I just crib a load of quotes off John Cleese and have my own contribution be as minimal as possible.)

[John Hoare]

A little piece I’ve written about radio jingles:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/03/jingle-history-101/

[ori-STUDFARM]

You planning any more podcasts? I enjoyed those…

[John Hoare]

You planning any more podcasts? I enjoyed those…

Hooray! Thanks.

I definitely have podcasts planned – I just want to make sure I can commit to a run of them rather than just shoving out the odd one with no proper releaser schedule to it. Hopefully this year, but I’ve said that since 2013…

[John Hoare]

Dirty Feed celebrates April Fools’ Day… with a BBC Micro version of Mornington Crescent:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/04/acorn-fools-day/

[ori-STUDFARM]

I definitely have podcasts planned – I just want to make sure I can commit to a run of them rather than just shoving out the odd one with no proper releaser schedule to it. Hopefully this year, but I’ve said that since 2013…

2013? That long ago since the last couple….Jeez! They reminded me quite a bit of some that TV Cream have produced in the past. Their series of election podcasts or top moments from 50 years of Coronation Street (It was where I first learned about the pubs toilet leading into Dierdre and Kens back room!

Make sure you let us know if and when you do release more…

[John Hoare]

DIRTY FEED IN ACTUALLY UPDATING AGAIN SHOCKER.

You may enjoy this interview I did with a current BBC continuity announcer about what he loves about radio:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/06/duncan-newmarch-the-jingles-i-grew-up-with/

Or you may not, in which case FUCK OFF.

[John Hoare]

The Crystal Maze and “modern audiences”:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/07/the-crystal-maze-modern-audiences/

[pfm]

The funny thing about that is most people who contributed are probably old farts like us who watched the original shows, not really a ‘modern audience’…

This makes me think of the grand statements people make saying ‘no-one wants to watch TV any more’ it’s total bullshit for those whose brains work exclusively in clickbait headlines.

[John Hoare]

24 Hours in Channel 5 TX:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/08/24-hours-in-channel-5-tx/

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

John, is there any way that the whole process of putting a channel on-air could be streamlined?

It still all seems so manually driven. Pushing the right buttons and pulling the right levers, dialling in fades and doing count-ins and manually going to VT and all that.

Is there not a way to set up scripts so that it removes the need to oversee the little details and as a result, not only push programmes onto the air with microsecond precision but remove the element of human error when, for example, cutting to adverts and in and out of live broadcasts?

And if not, why not?

[John Hoare]

To be honest, what can be sensibly automated is already automated. I mean, pre-recorded programmes run automatically from the playlist with no intervention from the op, unless changes need to be made – and make it to air accurately to the frame.

But anything live will require human intervention. Rarely will live programmes go to an ad break at a planned time to the *second* – timings drift all the time during live production. There’s no way to automatically take the ad break during a situation like that – someone has to take the decision to push the button, whoever that person is. A computer can’t decide that.

Technically you *could* have an automated voice giving counts etc – and I have heard such things in production galleries before. In practice, for TX, it’s not worth it. There still has to be someone there to deal with problems – if either TX or the production has a breakdown. Or hell, if the production ask for extra time – there has to be someone in the seat who speaks for the *channel*, and takes that decision, rather than letting production teams run riot.

Again, when you talk about “manually going to VT” – I mean, there’s no was to automate an entirely manual process like that. The whole thing when you’re in an emergency situation is that it needs human input to take decisions and make things work.

A *lot* of what we do in TX is checking to pick up errors – again, most of this just isn’t something which can be automated. There’s no way a computer can tell that someone has put, say, the end of Part 1 of a programme in the wrong place, or that the audio description doesn’t match what is on screen. It needs a human eye or ear to notice, and then human input to correct.

Short version: there’s a *lot* more automation in this job than there used to be. But removing the human element any more would be a very bad idea. You’d end up with a lot more stuff like this – the very opposite of what you’re intending!

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

I was going to reply with more questions as the art and methods of television broadcasting genuinely interest me. Then I had a glance over your Twitter and saw a picture of Cleo Rocos.

One thing lead to the other, now I have two dozen photos of Cleo Rocos saved onto my hard drive.

Cleo Rocos.

What a fucking honey.

[John Hoare]

New Dirty Feed article, about One Foot in the Grave and edits. A heartland piece for Dirty Feed if ever I wrote one.

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/10/one-foot-in-the-grave-hearts-of-darkness/

[John Hoare]

And after YEARS of wondering, I finally have an answer to the question posed in the previous article!

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/10/hearts-of-darkness-the-thrilling-conclusion/

[clem]

Well done, John.

[Stephen R. Fletcher]

Just read the articles. Really fascinating stuff, John!

[John Hoare]

Cheers clem and Stephen!

More to come soon. Working on a piece about Fast Show edits at the moment.

[John Hoare]

Working on a piece about Fast Show edits at the moment.

Well, that took longer than I expected:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/11/the-fast-show-series-2-dvd-edits/

[Pete Part Three]

Fascinating. I can still pick out the sketches that weren’t in the original 1996 airing of The Christmas Special. Unfortunately, my recording is long since disposed of.

[John Hoare]

Ah, I didn’t realise the DVD version of the Christmas ep was extended compared to broadcast! So much of this stuff to dig up…

What I *do* know is that the DVD version of You Ain’t Seen These, Right? is far longer than broadcast – by about 20 mins or so. Plan to do something on that at some point, too. (I do actually still have my VHS off-air of Fast Show Night.)

[MANI506]

I f
Did have 1995 repeat and original series 2 on VHS but lost them when I bought the DVD. From memory (and I pretty much memorised series 2) 2015 repeat = original broadcast.

[si]

I’ve got Fast Show Night, too. I’ve got loads of old tapes, I’m sure there must be some original Fast Shows amongst them. Stuff like that, I tended to record the lot and give the vid a special sleeve.
When I get this sling off in a few weeks, I’ll have a proper scrounge through my boxroom.

[John Hoare]

Lovely, thanks Si!

[John Hoare]

From memory (and I pretty much memorised series 2) 2015 repeat = original broadcast.

Yeah, I put my disclaimer more as a health warning really. I’m not convinced there are any editorial changes. But you never know…

[John Hoare]

The differences between the original 2005 live broadcast of The Quatermass Experiment, and its DVD release:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/12/the-quatermass-experiment-experiment/

[MANI506]

Looking forward to this Labour of love! Thank you for all the great reads.

[John Hoare]

Looking forward to this Labour of love! Thank you for all the great reads.

Thank you! I hope reading it didn’t cause a severe brain haemorrhage.

I’ve now updated the piece at the end with further commentary on the breaking news straps. It is rather hardcore, though. And not in a fun way.

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2015/12/the-quatermass-experiment-experiment/

[John Hoare]

Best of Dirty Feed 2015:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2016/01/dirty-feed-best-of-2015/

[John Hoare]

A dissection of the Men Behaving Badly episode ‘Stag Night’, comparing its script with the finished episode:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2016/02/men-behaving-badly-stag-night/

[MANI506]

Even though I think MBB peaked at series 4, I have massive nostalgia for this episode because it was broadcast just after my first DJ!

[si]

I’ve got Fast Show Night, too. I’ve got loads of old tapes, I’m sure there must be some original Fast Shows amongst them. Stuff like that, I tended to record the lot and give the vid a special sleeve.
When I get this sling off in a few weeks, I’ll have a proper scrounge through my boxroom.

Sling off, started scrounging. Only looked in one box, but I’ve found a tape high has half of s2 and s3 on, which will be repeats because the tape’s designed the same as my Fast Show Night tape. I’ve found a Christmas 2000 video, which has the original transmissions of The Last Fast Show Ever parts one, two and three spread through it, in between Big Brother s1 highlights and It’s A Wonderful Life.

[Taiwan Tony]

John. What’s your favourite Simon Nye sitcom? Also open to others, obvs-iously.

[International Debris]

Does ‘How Do You Want Me?’ count as a sitcom? If so, that’s the correct answer. Then MBB.

[si]

I loved How Do You want Me.

[Taiwan Tony]

Excellent choice. Mark Heap! I prefer Is It Legal? but recognise I’m probably in the minority…

[Pete Part Three]

Men Behaving Badly Series 3-5 is tops.

I also have a soft spot for Emma Pierson in Beast. Oh, hang on; that’s not soft.

[John Hoare]

John. What’s your favourite Simon Nye sitcom? Also open to others, obvs-iously.

I feel I can’t answer this properly, as I haven’t actually seen How Do You Want Me?

I will say that I love Is It Legal?, and think it’s hugely underrated.

[Jonathan Capps]

Oh, hang on; that’s not soft.

Hardware.

[International Debris]

I actually do have a soft spot for Hardware.

[John Hoare]

I actually quite liked Hardware as well. Possibly worth a Dirty Feed article, actually..

In the meantime – the differences between the original pilot recording of Fawlty Towers, and its final broadcast:

http://www.dirtyfeed.org/2016/03/fawlty-towers-a-touch-of-class/

[Taiwan Tony]

Interesting stuff. I’d noticed differences in hair continuity before – but only John Cleese’s hair when he walks inside the hotel to outside. (Location shoots obviously didn’t account for how bedraggled he looked after hitting his guests with a stick and falling through the bar etc.)
Outside the hotel he looks like he’s in the army, with a sensible brylcreemed short back and sides, and inside the hotel he looks like Reggie Watts.
Don’t you just love that bit in the pilot when he appeals to the policeman “Just one.”

PS. I also read your other FT post. I was really surprised to read that the Twitchin/fainting joke has been misunderstood. He says “Tw-” and sees the twitch! Then Twitchin says “it’s Twy-chin, actually.” This has rocked me to my very core.

Any plans to do a Clement and LeFrenais Dirty Feed in the future? Or a Rik and Ade?

[John Hoare]

PS. I also read your other FT post. I was really surprised to read that the Twitchin/fainting joke has been misunderstood. He says “Tw-” and sees the twitch! Then Twitchin says “it’s Twy-chin, actually.” This has rocked me to my very core.

You’re not the only person to say this – quite a few have:

@MhairiMcF There are dunces out there who thought Basil fainted because he *couldn't remember* Twitchen's name? Where's my facepalm.gif?

— Carole Bayer Leverkusen (@fnord_focus) February 15, 2015

On the other hand, I’ve talked to plenty of people misinterpret it the same way I did – and Cleese has obviously met far too many. I can *definitely* see how it was intended now – there’s a close-up of the twitch, for fuck’s sake! – but I think Fawlty forgetting his own name earlier sets some people down the wrong road.

Any plans to do a Clement and LeFrenais Dirty Feed in the future? Or a Rik and Ade?

No plans at the moment for any Clement/La Frenais stuff – but I would like to write something properly about Filthy, Rich & Catflap. We’ll see. I try and go for things nobody else has written, if only because if a proper writer tackles a subject, they’ll do it far better than me!

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