Father Ted Night – new documentaries!

[Rad]

New Years Day

Unintelligent Design

Saturday 01 January
9:05pm – 9:35pm
Channel 4

Father Ted creators Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews talk about their sources of inspiration for the show. As well as popular programmes including Fawlty Towers, Only Fools & Horses, Seinfeld and The Simpsons, the duo were influenced by events in real life and discuss the stand-ups, priests, politicians and Irish beauty pageants that have shaped their comedy world. Part of Father Ted Night.

Small, Far Away – The World of Father Ted

Saturday 01 January
10:05pm – 11:15pm
Channel 4

Documentary following Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, who created Father Ted, as they embark on a road trip across Ireland in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the comedy’s birth. They revisit some of the key locations from the series, and reflect on how producer Geoffrey Perkins suggested turning a one-off mock documentary into a sitcom. With contributions by Ardal O’Hanlon, Frank Kelly, Graham Norton and more. Part of Father Ted Night.

This sounds great.

Topic

[Jonsmad]

Nice one.

[Seb Patrick]

Assuming they get clearance for showing Simpsons clips, I guarantee that the AA/pub/ambulance bit in “The Mainland” will be shown back-to-back with Homer getting the “free shrimp” from the Kwik-E-Mart. GUARANTEE.

Very, very looking forward to this. Peep Show night looks fun, too, but this will be ace on toast. Shame it’s not till New Year’s, though, as I’d like to have combined it with my annual tradition of watching “A Christmassy Ted” on the 24th.

[Danodin]

Watching it now lol. How does it NEVER get old???

[Ben Paddon]

“A Christmassy Ted” is actually my least-favourite episode of the show, being honest with you. It’s too long.

[Danny Stephenson]

“A Christmassy Ted” is actually my least-favourite episode of the show, being honest with you. It’s too long.

It’s not my least favourite, but I know where you’re coming from.

Judging by Graham Linehwan’s commentary, it’s not his favourite either.

[Carlito]

It’s probably the most over-played episode. I believe I’m correct in saying it’s been repeated on Channel 4 or E4 at Christmas every single year bar one since it first aired in 1996. Maybe somebody else can correct me on that if I’m wrong.

Therefore it’s by far the episode of Ted I’ve seen the most. And therefore the least surprising and the one I laugh at least, because I’ve seen it all too many times.

On initial airing, I too found it too long but thought the first 30 minutes comprised some of the best Ted I’d seen, so I wouldn’t say its the worst Ted episode for me; just the most familiar.

[Seb Patrick]

Tish pshaw. People only seem to slag off the Christmas one nowadays because, by slagging it off themselves, Linehan and Mathews have made it acceptable to do so.

People aren’t always right about their own programmes, though. Christmassy Ted is brilliant. Is 45-odd minutes of TV really too long? Okay, so it is basically just two episodes glued together, but it’s Father Ted we’re talking about – I don’t think you could ever have too much of it. And while the first half’s got loads of stuff that people remember, the second half is still packed with brilliant material as well (Dougal and the matador stuff, “the director’s cut of Jurassic Park… with extra dinosaurs!”, “But you were already a priest! Why did you steal the other priest’s clothes?”, the “scary fillum”…)

So bah humbug to you all, it’s bloody great, even if the writers don’t think so.

[Danodin]

If you take the first half as a single episode then it’s definitely one of the best (I’d say it might be…the second best :P). I don’t know about anyone else but it gives me a real thrill every time I watch it. There’s just something about the pace, the cast on fire, the audience going obviously crazy for it, the buzz of it being Christmas that it seems to capture better than most specials like this, despite how mad everything is (or maybe because of this??).

Even though the second half has some brilliant moments e.g. Mrs Doyle priest naming, ‘look at you lying there like a big eejit’, it really does feel like the whole thing is getting a bit lost. You can understand Linehan despairing over it. You’ve got to laugh at the obviousness of ‘oh we’ve just won an award, let’s write about Ted winning an award!’ Though they are way too critical over what’s still sitcom at its most essential.

[Ben Paddon]

I just think it drags a bit, is all.

[Rad]

Christmassy Ted is brilliant. In my opinion, the worst episode of Ted is the very first one.

[Carlito]

It always seems unnecessarily negative to select a ‘worst’ episode of a show you love, especially when you’d rather watch that ‘worst’ episode over most things currently on the box… but for me I think my least favourite Ted episode – if I decided to sit down and analyze it, which I won’t – would probably come from series 1. It doesn’t start firing on all cylinders until series 2 methinks.

[Ian Symes]

Rock A Hula Ted is the worst episode, for one specific Scottish reason.

[hummingbird]

I don’t think there’s one episode of Ted that I could describe as ‘worst’.
Least brilliant, perhaps.

[Tarka Dal]

Pope Part II? You know with the CGI Christ.

[Danodin]

I don’t really get on with ‘Night of the Nearly Dead’ (despite Eoin McLove) or ‘Going To America’ (the last episode). The sheep episode’s pretty dodgy too, but the fact remains that even the worst episodes have several big laughs (‘fuckin’ell’.

I wonder whether they would have been able to resist coming back for a special at some point down the line if Dermot had still been alive. It still defies belief that he died the day after they finished series 3. Only 46 too… Because Ted is repeated so frequently and feels so timeless it’s easy to forget that he’s not around. Still, he’ll live on forever as the second best priest in the country!

[Carlito]

Who’s the best? Father Peter Perfect, the perfect priest?

[Nick R]

Christmassy Ted is brilliant. In my opinion, the worst episode of Ted is the very first one.

I could never call the first episode the worst, when it features the Dreams/Reality diagram.

Assuming they get clearance for showing Simpsons clips, I guarantee that the AA/pub/ambulance bit in “The Mainland” will be shown back-to-back with Homer getting the “free shrimp” from the Kwik-E-Mart. GUARANTEE.

… and on the subject of Simpsons comparisons, having just re-watched said Diagram scene, I’d forgotten how similar “it’s got the body of a spider… but it’s actually a baby!” is to Chief Wiggum’s legendary esquilax: “A horse with the head of a rabbit… and the body of a rabbit!”

(That’s the second time “Lisa’s Wedding” has come to mind recently… I couldn’t watch the Christmas Dr Who without thinking of this!)

[Ian Symes]

Both of which came after Roger Mann’s “it had the head of a sheep. And the body… of a sheep. But, it was the body of a different sheep!”

[Danodin]

So, ‘Kicking Bishop Brennan Up The Arse’ is their favourite episode! Not bad, though surely it must have been a close-run thing with ‘Tentacles of Doom’…

All I have in my mind during that episode is how they changed the house doorbell sound to a generic ‘ding dong’ to make the laugh work, otherwise it would have sounded too similar to the alarm clock ringing. Also, one of my favourite lines in Ted, ‘Father Jessop, whhat are you doing in Father Hackett’s underpants hamper?’

[Seb Patrick]

Okay, so they didn’t show the clip I suggested in order to illustrate Simpsons similarity (and I’m guessing Simpsons clips were too prohibitively expensive to show). But they DID show A clip to illustrate it – perhaps a better example, really. Greatest cutaway gag of all time?

[Seb Patrick]

Also, I hadn’t realised just how similar the rabbits episode was to Fawlty Towers until they showed those two clips back to back. Even the layouts of the two upstairs hallway sets were similar!

[Danny Stephenson]

Also, I hadn’t realised just how similar the rabbits episode was to Fawlty Towers until they showed those two clips back to back. Even the layouts of the two upstairs hallway sets were similar!

I’ve always noticed the ‘unnecessary stairs’ in Fawlty Towers, and when I heard it was an influence for Ted it can’t be a coincidence that they have the ‘unnecessary stairs’ on the Ted set as well…

[Danodin]

> perhaps a better example, really. Greatest cutaway gag of all time?

Yeah, I’d say so, though, as far as the whole Lineverse (Lineharium?) goes, I’d say the cut to Moss probably beats all. Though it’s not the same kind of cutaway gag, I know.

> it can’t be a coincidence that they have the ‘unnecessary stairs’ on the Ted set as well…

I remember Linehan saying in the commentary that they were nicked from, er, heavily inspired by Fawlty Towers.

I particularly loved the nod to Geoffrey Perkins in the doco. If it weren’t for him we would never have had Father Ted, at least not in this form. A true hero of comedy that man.

[Author]

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