Green Green Grass

[thomasaevans]

John Sullivan… Is It REALLY the same John Sullivan who wrote ‘Fools n Horses’?

Seriously now, every episode gets worse. Im so appalled by it.

That and Emmerdale.

This is why I dont watch TV anymore. I probably watch about…. an hour a week.

Topic

[Paul Muller]

Yeah, it’s excruciating.

I don’t watch much TV either, but only because our aerial is broken and the landlord won’t cough up for a new one, the COMPLETE BASTARD.

[mick]

>This is why I dont watch TV anymore.

If all you watched was ‘Green Green Grass’ and ‘Emmerdale’ you dont fucking deserve to watch TV anymore.

[thomasaevans]

lol…those are the programs my parents watch. So when I pop over for the annual visit, they’re always on. That ok Mick? :D

[penny]

Green Green is a good anime though…ok totally unrelated but I only read the grass later.

[mick]

>That ok Mick?

No, no it’s not, I demand you kill your parents immediately.

[thomasaevans]

Mick I did It again. Thank god it finished tonight.

[thomasaevans]

BTW I only just realised Kryten/Talkie Toaster is in Green Green Grass. What a smeg head.

[Andrew]

David Ross is a Legend. (Yes, capital ‘L’!)

Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to see Alan Bleasedale’s G.B.H. immediately.

In fact watch it anyway. It’s on DVD. And it’s fucking amazing.

[Seb Patrick]

Superlative.

[pfm]

> This is why I dont watch TV anymore. I probably watch about?. an hour a week.

Oh, so you’re a Heartbeat man!

> Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to see Alan Bleasedale?s G.B.H. immediately.

Look, we don’t even deserve television of that quality anymore.

[thomasaevans]

> Oh, so you?re a Heartbeat man!

Someone explain this… Is Heartbeat Sci-fi?

Its been running for… what 16 years? They’ve had a Christmas Special nearly every year yet it’s STILL set in the 60’s.

PLEASE explain!!!

[Andrew]

M*A*S*H ran for longer than the Korean war…

[thomasaevans]

But was’nt mash a comedy? Comedy I can buy. But a drama???

[thomasaevans]

BTW I aint seen mash for YEARS… so i cant exactly remember WHAT It was.

[Danny Stephenson]

The Catherine Tate show is STILL being repeated on Dave, but it’s shit.

Just goes to show, that some things can’t be explained…

[Jonathan Capps]

Its been running for? what 16 years? They?ve had a Christmas Special nearly every year yet it?s STILL set in the 60?s.

PLEASE explain!!!

It was set in the 50s to begin with. I think it’s moving forward in relation to how long it’s been showing.

[John Hoare]

FWIW, Wikipedia says:

When the programme began, it was set in 1964. The setting then moved on, approximately in “real time”, until it reached early 1969, where ? apart from the Christmas episodes ? it has now remained for some years. However, the show’s chronology has been seen to be quite flexible: the inhabitants of Ashfordly and Aidensfield have certainly celebrated more than four Christmases between 1965 and 1969.

The 1998 episode “Heartbeat: Changing Places”, which follows Sgt. Rowan as a Mountie, opens with the caption “1968”. This is sometimes said to be the only explicit time reference in the series, though one 2004 episode was specifically set on 6 February 1969, the date being deliberately displayed clearly in an extreme close-up of “today’s newspaper”. Whenever a car or motorcycle’s tax disc is shown on screen, it is always valid until 31 December 1969.

[Jonathan Capps]

Fuck, it started off in the 60s? Well, there you go. Sorry.

[John Hoare]

Prink.

[Seb Patrick]

Let’s face it, any show that isn’t sci-fi or a soap doesn’t really have to care about continuity, as it won’t have obsessive enough “fans” to care. I mean, given the age of Heartbeat’s target audience, do you think many of them remember what happened in it last week, let alone last year? It’s the same reason Roy Clarke can get away with doing the same storyline/jokes every week for the last twenty years.

It’s like… there’s a constant gag about Midsomer Murders, and how it’s been running for so long that surely the village would have run out of people to get murdered – and that no-one would want to live there anyway. But someone at work pointed out to me that with that show, you’re not really meant to assume that all the stories follow on from one-another – instead, each murder should be treated as only one of a couple that have ever happened, rather than fifty-odd. If it were sci-fi, we’d probably put that down to parallel universes, or something. But the point is, most other long-running shows don’t conform to the rules that we’re used to expecting from sitcoms, sci-fi or soap.

[Tanya Jones]

Heartbeat is a show for people who want to be nostalgic about the Sixties. Frankly, I’m amazed they’ve even bothered moving on in time. And Last of the Summer Wine doesn’t have to be set in any particular time period for the jokes, really; as Seb says, it’s not like they’ve actually changed from episode to episode. Although Harold and Marina look even sillier with advancing age. What makes me sad about LOTSW is that it wastes Peter Sallis’ talent; he was absolutely awesome in The New Statesman as the retired hangman and pub landlord. Oh well, the series pays Roy Clarke’s pension, so I guess he can’t be bothered to raise his game.

[John Hoare]

LOTSW really is diabolical. From the repeats I’ve seen, it pretty much always has been – but it’s even worse now it’s forgotten it’s supposed to be a sitcom, not a “comedy” “drama”.

It upsets me that he’s still churning out that bilge, when Roy Clarke is responsible for stuff like Open All Hours and – yes – Keeping Up Appearances. I suppose a lot of great people end their days producing stuff that’s nowhere near as good as their heyday – but LOTSW is so bad, and it’s so exceptionally lazy to keep making it, that it seems far worse than most.

[Phil]

I went on somewhat of a blind date with a girl while I was in college. I say somewhat because I’d met her, but only in passing, and sat in the same room as her and such…but we’d never actually spoken.

Anyway, a friend of mine also happened to know her, and somehow convinced me to take her out one night. He said she loved literature, and jazz, and British comedy…so, naturally, I figured there’d be some common ground…enough, at least, to justify the date.

While we were out I asked her what British comedies she enjoyed. She said that Last of the Summer Wine was her all-time favorite show.

I never called her again.

[Dave]

Discovered on the Bathtubs & Flatcaps forum:

“I went on somewhat of a blind date with a boy while I was in college. I say somewhat because I?d met him, but only in passing, and sat in the same room as him and such?but we?d never actually spoken.

Anyway, a friend of mine also happened to know him, and somehow convinced him to take me out one night. He told her I loved literature, and jazz, and British comedy?so, naturally, he figured there?d be some common ground?enough, at least, to justify the date.

While we were out I asked him what British comedies he enjoyed. He said that Red Dwarf was his all-time favorite show.

I never called him again.”

[mick]

This is probably a really bad time to mention that I like Heartbeat :-/

[Jonathan Capps]

> This is probably a really bad time to mention that I like Heartbeat :-/

I was going to admit to this, but I thought my stand against AvP bashing was more than enough for one week. When Heartbeat first started my child self utterly loved it, and I still have a great fondness for it. It’s not something I actively watch (although if I stumble across it, I will) but it makes me immensely happy that it’s still going.

Actually, an amusing Heartbeat related story: I have a friend my age who was working as a bus driver one summer. He was given the job of ferrying cast and crew members to the Heartbeat set somewhere in the Dales. When he first arrived, he was confused to see men running towards him waving their arms and shouting. Apparently he and his brand new mini bus had just driven right into a shot and somewhat fucked the 60s feel. I want to see those rushes.

[Danny Stephenson]

> When Heartbeat first started my child self utterly loved it, and I still have a great fondness for it. It?s not something I actively watch (although if I stumble across it, I will) but it makes me immensely happy that it?s still going.

Ditto.

> Apparently he and his brand new mini bus had just driven right into a shot and somewhat fucked the 60s feel. I want to see those rushes.

HA! Awesome.

Chances are it will have been Goathland, where they film Heartbeat, most of the shops don’t change their signs. it’s like Hadfield. I really, really want to go to Hadfield. Fancy a day trip Capps?

[Ian Symes]

You really should have organised that before August, when my missus lived a stones throw away from Vasey town centre. Every time I visited her there, I noticed another location. You know how Les McQueen has a really tacky, horrible painting of a sunrise on his front door? That’s real.

[Danny Stephenson]

Aye the League said it looked like that saturday morning programme, number something or other.

I WANNA GO!!!

[Tanya Jones]

Oh, I wasn’t saying there’s anything wrong with liking Heartbeat! It’s got Bill Maynard in it, for heaven’s sake :) It’s there for a specific purpose, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

[mick]

>It?s there for a specific purpose.

Wanking over Tricia Penrose?

[pfm]

> It?s there for a specific purpose

Like a commode.

[Author]

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