DwarfCast 169 – Christmas Wafflemen Special DwarfCasts Posted by Ian Symes on 23rd December 2023, 16:28 Subscribe to DwarfCasts: RSS • iTunes "If it wasn't shit, it would be perfect." We thought we ought to do something slightly out of the ordinary for our landmark 169th episode, so here's two specials in one - it's time for some Christmas Waffles. Once again our lovely listeners slash readers provided us with a veritable smorgasbord of tasty topics, which we gobbled up whilst writing fan-fiction about the ship's Secret Santa, sharing our ultimate Red Dwarf Christmas wishes, pondering the best box sets of all time, weighing up the current state of the fandom, and coming up with a really good idea for a Christmas special. Plus, like all great festive episodes, we end on a good old sing-song. We apologise for nothing. Read more →
G&TV: Big Break In Wonderland (27/12/1994) Quickies Posted by Ian Symes on 24th December 2021, 14:58 It's that special time of year again, and what could be more Christmassy than a snooker themed game show hosted by a racist? Yes, it's Big Break, a cracking Saturday night format with a banger of a theme tune (written by Mike Batt and performed by Captain Sensible), memorable catchphrases and engaging gameplay, but unfortunately difficult to enjoy these days if you're not a young 1990s child, blissfully ignorant of the many, many flaws of its presenter. Luckily, the 1994 celebrity special has a little something extra to hold the modern day Red Dwarf fan's interest - Craig "Cinzano Bianco" Charles. Annoyingly, the YouTube video has embedding disabled, but you can click on this attractive picture of Tweedledee, Tweedledum and Tweedletwat: Read more →
The G&T Christmas Message 2019 Features Posted by John Hoare on 25th December 2019, 15:00 Hang on, I'm writing the G&T Christmas Message for the first time in 13 years? I guess I'd better do some Christmas song references. So: I'm giving Santa a Pikachu this Christmas, I just can’t wait till I am sitting on the bog, and... erm, I got nothing. Moving swiftly on, then. The last 12 months have been rather surprising in that things have actually happened in the land of Dwarf this year, unlike the mildly disappointing 30th anniversary. Not fast, get there in the end, etc. The biggest news was obviously the Red Dwarf Special, from Danny tweeting a picture of the readthrough, followed a week later by its erm, the official announcement. It perhaps seems unfair to talk about the production of the show never running smoothly - it's not like there are fansites examining the minutiae of Still Open All Hours audience recordings - but there was a distinct air of familiarity when one of the two audience recordings was postponed until next year. Well it probably is déjà vu, it sounds like it. Luckily, the other recording went off fine - bar Norman Lovett having a cold - and 2020 will hopefully see the second recording rescheduled. If not, at least we can look forward to Chris Barrie shooting linking footage vaguely in-character in 13 years time. Read more →
G&TV Special: Smeg Ups Rough Cut Features Posted by Ian Symes on 8th December 2019, 16:14 Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas everyone. It was twenty-five years ago this very month that all our mums went out to buy the Smeg Ups tape for us to open on Christmas Day 1994. For Red Dwarf fans of a certain age, this seems to be an almost universal experience, especially the ones like us who are still obsessed with it now - the joy and laughter provided by seeing the cast off-guard and out of character cemented our love for the show, and imbued us with a fondness for and fascination with the behind-the-scenes process too. So what better way to pay tribute than to investigate the process of making the video itself? At some point during the compiling stage of production, a rough cut was dubbed on to VHS, before any grading, mixing or sound effects were added, and with big "LINK Goes Here" captions in lieu of Llew. This tape somehow made its way out of the edit suite and into the hands of fans, who made copies for their friends, who made copies for their friends, and so on until an extremely low quality version, suffering from multiple layers of analogue generation loss, became a relatively readily available open secret. Inevitably, you can now find it on YouTube. The full length tape is there as an unlisted video, and there's also a compilation of the most interesting bits: Read more →
The G&T Christmas Message 2018 Features Posted by Ian Symes on 25th December 2018, 15:00 It's 3pm on the 25th December, and that can only mean one thing - the whole family gathering around for that old Christmas tradition of reading the Ganymede & Titan round-up of what's happened in the world of Red Dwarf over the preceding twelve months. While 2018 was certainly a special year for the show in terms of its numerical significance, it was also the first year in four where no brand new episodes were either recorded, transmitted or both. As such, a quieter year for us, and so we're eschewing the month-by-month format to instead give an overview of the big news and events that occurred, and a festive selection box of some of our own least shit features that we posted when there were no big news and events to keep us occupied. Read more →
The G&T Review of the Year 2017 Features Posted by Ian Symes on 25th December 2017, 15:00 We're simply having the most wonderful Christmas time of the year, and since we've no place to go, why did we combine three separate Christmas songs into one though? The highlight of the festive season is, of course, G&T's now traditional look back on the Dwarfing year that was, and there was certainly plenty to keep us busy in 2017. Twelve months ago, there were only 67 episodes of Red Dwarf, one mobile game, and only one page worth of "ideas for episodes" in our forum. With only seven days to go until we enter the show's thirtieth anniversary year, let's pause to recap the twenty-ninth anniversary year. Read more →
The G&T Review of the Year 2016 Features Posted by Ian Symes on 25th December 2016, 14:55 We hope by now that you've hung up your stockings on the wall, your family has arrived, and that you've ascertained whether or not you have the room to spare inside. But before your granny proves herself to be a musical hypocrite, take a moment to look back on the past twelve months. It's been a strange one by all accounts. Brexit. Trump. A cull of beloved celebrities. The rise of the far right. Terror. Fear. Division. Prejudice. Aston Villa being relegated. Frankly, I'm not convinced we'll all survive the last seven days. Which is why we've chosen Christmas Day as the perfect time to focus on the positive, and look back on what has been a much better year in the world of Red Dwarf than it has been for anyone in the actual world. Six brand new episodes recorded. Another six brand new episodes aired. A mobile game. New merchandise. Live DwarfCasts. The dramatic increase in usage of the word "cloche". It's definitely been a busy one, so settle down for a comprehensive look back on everything that happened and how we covered it. Read more →
