Doug Naylor has shared the sad news on Twitter that John Pomphrey, Red Dwarf's original lighting director, has passed away.

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Video DwarfCast #2 - TOS Trailer Revisited featured image

Cast your mind back to the year 2000. Series VIII is only a year old, the inevitable Red Dwarf Movie is just around the corner, and an increasing number of people now have the ability to connect their computers to their phone lines, in order to receive midi approximations of popular songs, animated "under construction" signs and slow-to-load-but-very-exciting Macromedia Flash graphics. The conditions were just right for reddwarf.co.uk to begin its two-decade-long voyage of weekly updates, bringing us such features as Doug Naylor's regular blog, updates on the new GNP series Weird City and of course the animated remake of Asso: Spanish Detective.

Or at least that was the future promised by the interactive trailer that was published ahead of TOS's big relaunch of November 2000. With the current state of the official site, coupled with the fact that Flash itself has now passed on, we assumed that this small slice of Dwarf history had been consigned to the burning bin fire of lost media. But thankfully, during the process of building our unofficial archive, we uncovered the dusty swf file. You can access it here (providing you have a Flash emulator), or if you prefer to consume your important historical documents with a side order of sarcastic nerds making snide comments, here's your guided tour:

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DwarfCast 166 - Re-Disc-overy: Series IV featured image
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"Ribs and Pipes and Penises (oh my!)"

Our voyage of re-disc-overy continues, as we tackle a most unusual release; the one that was out in the US before the UK, and that Young Cappsy managed to review before Young Ian for once. We rake over this bitterness as well as embarking on not one, not two, but three commentaries, forgoing the tradition of focusing on one big extra in favour of covering a handful of little bitty ones, the regular features that would otherwise be glossed over. Once again, we ensure that every single aspect of the release is discussed, and along the way we re-evaluate Hattie Hayridge's return to the role of Holly, try to get to the bottom of why the cast commentaries are so difficult to get through, and attempt to comprehensively solve the issues of both war and racism.

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Just a quick one to bring you a bit of news that for the majority of the last two decades we’d leave to TOS and/or @RedDwarfHQ to cover, but now that Red Dwarf‘s sole official news outlet is apparently Doug’s Twitter feed, here’s something he’s unlikely to report on. The British Film Institute are having a season on time travel, and they’ve got the old Quarantine Commentaries team of Rob Grant, Paul Jackson and Ed Bye back together for a screening of Backwards followed by a Q&A. Robert Llewellyn is joining the gang too, and it’s a double bill with an episode of Timewasters. The event takes place on Sunday 5th November (so remember remember that date), and tickets go on sale in… ooh, just under an hour and a half.

The state of The Official Site and why we've created reddwarf.info featured image

On 25 February 2021 it was announced that reddwarf.co.uk would be moving hosting providers and this would involve "a short break in service". Four months later it returned, with the revelation that after 22 years the traditional weekly updates would be stopping. Also mentioned was that "it turns out that rebuilding a site that can comfortably re-house over two decades' worth of content was actually a much bigger job than we thought it would be" and "At the time of writing, we're still seeing a few 404 errors when it comes to some sections".

Well, it turns out that was a bit of an understatement as it doesn't take long for anyone trying to use the site after the migration to notice that large amounts of content, images and even whole sections are either entirely gone or unnavigable through normal means. It's all well and good saying that everything is pretty much back online, but what good is a 22 year archive of news updates when the archive navigation is entirely non-functional?

Well, to cut to the chase before I go on more after the jump, here at Ganymede & Titan we've come to the conclusion that this isn't getting fixed any time soon and so we've taken matters into our own hands. Using a cunning combination of the Wayback Machine, content that is still accessible on reddwarf.co.uk itself, and a great deal of finagling we've put together a totally fresh, and working, archive of The Official Site. Presenting...

reddwarf.info

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DwarfCast 165 - Father of Dwarf: Son of Cliché at 40 featured image
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"Doctor Fitzwilliam: Village Rectologist"

At 6:30pm on Tuesday 23rd August 1983, unsuspecting Radio 4 listeners were ambushed by the very first episode of a seminal new sketch show. Featuring a hugely talented cast, performing the work of two writers who were on the fast track to greatness, it was notable not only for its inherent quality, but for what it would eventually spawn. The programme was, of course, Son of Cliché, without which this podcast would not exist. So in a break from the usual format, we present our fortieth anniversary tribute in the form of a documentary, showcasing some highlights from the series, analysing what made it so great, and of course focusing on the moments that had the biggest influence on Red Dwarf. Think it was just Dave Hollins: Space Cadet that Rob and Doug drew upon? Think again.

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Hot on the tails of Red Dwarf returning to its mother channel’s bosom via iPlayer, today’s weekly release of the television schedules sees the news that The End is to be repeated on BBC Two at 10pm on Friday 25th August. It’s not yet clear whether this is a one-off, or the start of a full repeat run of at least the first series – BBC Two has been giving classic comedies both of these treatments recently. We’ll find out this time next week whether Future Echoes will follow. Either way, it’s nice to see the show getting this treatment in its 35th anniversary year. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we get a full 1994-style run though, including the Dave era?

Thanks to cwickham for drawing our attention to this. He’s going to have to update his BBC broadcast guide now.

DwarfCast 164 - The Smegazine Rack - Issue #9 featured image
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"The Manly Adventures of Buff Squidward"

Rejoice, for our journey through the Smegazine archives continues with quite possibly the best issue yet. The first ever Duane Dibbley comeback! Tonnes of dirt on Red Dwarf USA! Loads of exciting news, some of which actually ended up happening! Some tedious prose pieces to keep us all grounded! Plus, we think we've uncovered the first published work of an acclaimed comics writer and Red Dwarf fan. All this and more, in far too much detail even by our standards.

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As discussed in our recent Channel Hopping article, there was a brief period in early 1997 when Craig Charles had three different programmes on air, across three different channels, every Friday night. I'd assume we're all familiar with BBC2's Red Dwarf VII, while Channel 4's Captain Butler is still inexplicably available in full on demand. But what of the other, much more obscure offering, late night ITV's Funky Bunker? Usually starting so late at night it would conclude in the early hours of the following morning, it was a chat show/variety show hybrid in the short-lived genre of post-pub television, ie disposal entertainment, designed to be consumed exclusively whilst drunkenly picking through a kebab, to fill the silence and distract from the growing sense of existential dread.

But was it any good? Well, here's a random full episode on YouTube (no way of knowing the date, for some reason I can't find any comprehensive episode guides online), so let's see what the show's got to offer. Brace yourself.

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