The legend of Monty Python’s Flying Circus had its American beginning on KERA/Dallas as part of one seemingly uneventful Sunday evening 50 years ago.
Read more
Like the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, this never gets old. Since 2010, Halloween has been about two bits of small screen greatness that should be considered ‘must see TV’. The annual Simpsons Halloween Special and the 2010 ‘newcomer’ on the block which came from the brilliant mind palaces of Reece Shearsmith (League of Gentlemen, The […]
Read more
Graham Chapman, one of the original founding members of the comedy troupe, Monty Python, passed away 35 years ago, Friday on October 4, 1989 at age 48. Thankfully, the comedy world was all the greater as Chapman ultimately turned down a career as a doctor to be a comedian.
Read more
For long-time readers of Tellyspotting, many have come to know that I’m not the biggest fan of remakes, reboots or sequels. While there are certainly cases that directly counter my feelings (All Creatures Great and Small, Poldark, Upstairs Downstairs), the streets are littered with failed American remakes of highly successful British comedies and there are […]
Read more
Prunella Scales, best known for her brilliant portrayal of Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, turned 92 years young Friday (22 June). Her 7-decade career began in 1951 where she worked as the assistant stage manager at the Bristol Old Vic. Her career big break came with the early 1960s sitcom Marriage Lines starring opposite Richard Briers (Good […]
Read more
Harold Snoad, long-time sitcom producer and director for the BBC passed away 2 June at the age of 88. Best known for Keeping Up Appearances, it was Snoad who cast Dame Patricia Routledge in the lead role, explaining: “I wanted the character of Hyacinth to be a sort of stately galleon. I didn’t want somebody lightweight, […]
Read more
“A towel, [The Guide] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Not only does it have great practical value, a towel has immense psychological value” – Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Today, H2G2 fans are marking the 23rd anniversary since the all-too-early passing of creator/writer, Douglas […]
Read more
Today, William Shakespeare would have been a mere 460 years old. While his true birthdate remains a mystery (he was baptized on April 26, 1564), it is generally celebrated on April 23, the same day England’s patron saint is celebrated with a laundry list of ‘happenings’, St. George’s Day. It was a mere 408 years ago […]
Read more
Four thought to be lost episodes of The Complete and Utter History of the British Isles, created in 1969 by soon-to-be Pythoners Michael Palin and Terry Jones, have been found by the ITV Archive team as part of a huge project to fully identify every archive asset ITV holds, “The series had been sitting in the ITV vaults […]
Read more
Red Nose Day has to be the single most brilliant example known to man and/or woman of how an entire country demonstrates the ability to create brilliant content and rally around a charitable cause. To label Red Nose Day in the UK as a cultural phenomenon is doing it an injustice. It’s an institution. The entire country gets […]
Read more