Sunday, December 28, 2008
DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET
I'd say that my "favourite" (in other words, least bad) posts of 2008 were the Billy Joel post and the Bill Cotton post. Perhaps I should just write about blokes called Bill in future?
I wasn't aware of a Billy Joel documentary being shown over Christmas, but BBC2 gave over an evening to acknowledge the passing of Sir Bill Cotton.
We watched the documentary The Man Who Made Eric & Ernie.
As is usually the case nowadays, talking heads were drifted in to spout platitudes about Sir Bill.
In fact, there weren't any words from Bill Cotton himself. No old footage of him talking about his contribution to what's regarded as a golden age of TV, or indeed, his run ins with egotistical celebs (as mentioned in my post, hem hem).
Holy pause button, Batman! I should apologise to any Windsor Davies fans for obscuring the great man's face.
I wasn't aware of a Billy Joel documentary being shown over Christmas, but BBC2 gave over an evening to acknowledge the passing of Sir Bill Cotton.
We watched the documentary The Man Who Made Eric & Ernie.
As is usually the case nowadays, talking heads were drifted in to spout platitudes about Sir Bill.
In fact, there weren't any words from Bill Cotton himself. No old footage of him talking about his contribution to what's regarded as a golden age of TV, or indeed, his run ins with egotistical celebs (as mentioned in my post, hem hem).
Lining up to lavish praise on him were the likes of Michael Parkinson, Jimmy Perry and David Croft, Michael Grade, Eddie Braben and Ronnie Corbett (wearing a jacket with the sort of gilt buttons that only someone with Variety Club Of Great Britain and Water Rat connections could get away with).
Eddie Braben described Bill's "... wonderful smile ... his face was built for a smile. He'd got lovely chubby cheeks". I'm sure that all of the viewers shed a tear.
Bill's non-appearance gave him the aura of a friendly, avuncular ghost, presumably looking down from Heaven, remaining within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails ...
... or smiling with those lovely chubby cheeks.
We saw some TV clips that we'd seen a million times before. They were the right clips, but they weren't necessarily in the right order.
At least I was able to see Bob Swipe's point, made in a recent podcast, about the uncanny resemblance between Melvyn Hayes and Iggy Pop, which your correspondent has demonstrated here by the medium of crap photography and Sky Plus.
Holy pause button, Batman! I should apologise to any Windsor Davies fans for obscuring the great man's face.
Jimmy Perry and David Croft are starting to look very old indeed.
Ronnie Corbett's voice is getting deeper and deeper ...
... but not as deep as that of narrator Frances De La Tour, whose voice is now as woody, resonant and dark as an empty port barrel.
Michael Grade wasn't wearing any braces.
Soon, there will be nobody left from the Golden Age Of Television, and Simon Cowell will control all of our lives, whether we like it or not.
Blankety Blank.
Labels: Andre Previn, Billy Joel, Bob Swipe, Iggy Pop, James Joyce, Melvyn Hayes, Morecambe And Wise, Ronnie Corbett, Sir Bill Cotton
Friday, August 29, 2008
SONG FOR RUTH ELLIS
Sir Bill with Croft and Perry (left - bow tie by Moschino, monkey suit model's own)
In my absence there doesn't seem to have been much fuss made on the internet about the death of one of the behemoths of light entertainment - Sir Bill Cotton. So here is a rather late obituary.
Sir Bill used to be known as Billy Cotton Junior well into his fifties, which must have been a source of frustration, especially as he was the son of Billy Cotton who basically WAS the bits of the BBC that weren't Richard Dimbleby.
Billy Jr. MADE HIS OWN WAY THROUGH SHEER HARD GRAFT AND TALENT despite his famous dad (of "Wakey Wakey!" fame), rather like Peaches Geldorrrrrf, who has landed a job at a New York magazine because she has MADE HER OWN WAY THROUGH SHEER HARD GRAFT AND TALENT despite her famous dad Sir Lord King Emperor Pete Briquette (the short one) out of the Boomtown Rats. I hope the two met before he died: they would have had so much in common and Sir Bill could have imparted some valuable words of wisdom to Peaches before she left to conquer America.
Bill, born in 1928, was a BBC light entertainment producer in the 1950's and worked his way up to become Head Of Light Entertainment during what has turned out to be a golden era at the BBC. He presided over such shows as Bruce Forsyth Presents: The Boy Bruce And The Mighty Atom, Do Not Adjust Your Set, The Tim Brooke Taylor Experiment, That Sketch With John Cleese, Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker, Do You Want Me To Repeat That Again?, Bruce Forsyth Presents: War Of The Worlds and I Think Marty Feldman Is A Bit Overrated, Actually, Although That Thing Where He's Playing Golf On Top Of A Train Is Fairly Funny I Suppose.
Due to SHEER HARD GRAFT AND TALENT he eventually got The Big Job - as BBC Fat Controller.
He wasn't a man to mince his words, and had many a run in with top BBC celebrities. Of Terry Wogan he once said "don't be taken in by the easy Irish charm. That cunt insists that his wigs get ferried about in limos at the licence payer's expense. I mean, fuck me! The man's a freak of nature!" He claimed that Clive Dunn "went through the girls who danced with the Young Generation like a dose of salts, the cheeky bugger. He was always up the clap clinic."
The last comment seems a little hypocritical in light of the fact that Sir Bill once had an on/off fling with that voluptuous ginger piece from variety dance troupe the Television Toppers. She eventually left him after *finding happiness* with the creepy George Mitchell, uberlord of the Black And White Minstrels.
Sir Bill leaves a longstanding wife - Kate - and is actually vaguely related to dynamic and charismatic TV presenter Fearne Cotton, so I can't make a feeble joke about her having made her way in the cut throat entertainment industry through SHEER HARD GRAFT AND TALENT and not because her granddad is Sir Bill Cotton.
Tributes were paid by Bruce Forsyth, who claimed that Sir Bill was "the consumate professional, a great golfer, and a warm, passionate man. They broke the mould the day they made him, believe me." Ronnie Corbett described him as "a great golfer who was great fun on the golf course" and Danny La Rue said "I'm distraught ... a light has gone out in all our lives. Not since Arthur Askey died have I felt so bereft. Look up to the sky tonight and you'll be able to see Bill's star twinkling back at you. Not 'arf, mate!! Wotcha!!!"
Rest in pieces, big man.
Labels: BBC, Billy Cotton Band Show, Bruce Forsyth, money goes to money, nepotism, obituaries, Peaches Geldorrrrrf, Ronnie Corbett, sheer hard graft and talent, wakey wakey
