And as for that Mozart chap…

“one of the biggest, most beloved acts in music history”

Hardly slumming it - the Beatles had a record deal and were widely acknowledged to be the best band in Liverpool at the time. He didn’t leave Rory Storm and the Hurricanes to slum it.

John Barnes will recreate his rap any time any place, even if it means risking missing his stop on the tube

Worth it.

You need the DVD in your life with the deleted scenes, plus the in-character commentary track.  It’s the only DVD I own where I feel that the extras significantly enhance the movie.

I meant more his features in life. Trevor was clearly designed to be his equivalent, and then you find out that he was a closeted good guy.
This may all be connected to the contrast in episode counts between UK and US sitcoms.  Unsympathetic characters seem to work better in smaller doses.

Nigel Tufnell will tell you how much of a difference going one higher is.

Sorry - that’s a hard no. The US version is an 8/10 show but the original is a 9.  Although I like Thorfinn’s obsession with Danes.

Ian Ogilvy’s greatest performance.  Towards the end he is head hunted by Eton to become their school bully - Ogilvy himself went to school at Eton.

Let’s not get carried away now! I suspect it’s more a matter of taste, but for me Ghosts US is one of the better UK to US translations, but the original is still the best (and was wrapped up beautifully in the Christmas episode).

“I was 4 miles from Graybridge when I was caught by the school leopard.”

It occasionally hits those heights - particularly in Tomkinson’s School Days.

Didn’t Idle shaft Neil Innes over Spamalot as well?

And the best bit was that he thought at the time it had gone well.

To be fair as well, we only remember the good stuff from the 60s. There was plenty of trash. And as Jerry Lee Lewis once said “Thank God for the Beatles. They swept away all the Bobbies” (Vee, Vinton, Darin etc.)

Very different thing in the download era.

43, but your point stands.

I don’t think many Brits really understand the impact of this broadcast. The number of great American musicians who date their decision to follow their chosen career to this one TV show is staggering. If you have some time, have a flick through these quotes.

Here in the UK years ago we had an “entertainer” called Rod Hull who had a large puppet emu (called, imaginatively, Emu) that would attack people.  This was often very irritating for fellow guests in chat shows, for example.  On one occasion a visibly irritated Billy Connolly told Hull that he would break “his neck,…