Eighties TV Season: The Kenny Everett Television Show - Series 1 Episode 4

By -


Continuing a series of posts on 1980s TV shows which haven't appeared here before.

Surely Kenny Everett needs no introduction? Legendary, legendary, genius comedy star, who tragically died in 1995 of AIDS-related diseases. If you don't know who he is this is yet another occasion when your life will be dramatically improved by closing this blog and going and watching some of his stuff on YouTube - the Heroes of Comedy selection is a good start.

His career moved between TV and radio and between mutliple broadcasters, his moves usually prompted by getting sacked. You can tell why I like him so much, can't you? I'm sure he was a total nightmare to manage, but you can't expect a genius to be a good little presenter. 

Everett fell out with Thames Television over his previous show The Kenny Everett Video Show (nothing he did was bad, exactly, but the Television Show is the better of the two) and the BBC offered him a contract, having fired him previously over the complete havoc he caused with the Musicians' Union. Needless to say this wound up Thames, who took him to court to try to stop him taking his own characters with him. This failed. How shall I put this... Bab, if you hire Kenny Everett you will have trouble. He did, however develop the characters somewhat, and the two shows follow a similar sketch-based format. It's fast-moving, totally unsubtle and absolutely hysterical. Big names seem to be appearing heavily in this series of posts and one of the other noteable things about this show is the way the celebs queued up to appear on it. 

I have chosen a series one episode to focus on and will try to describe what's happening, because I'm not capable of an extended intellectual analysis of this show, which would be difficult with the tears running down my face. I said that the stars queued up to appear and the guests stars on this one alone are: Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin, Frank Carson, Mike Moran, John Wells, Billy Connolly, Sheils Steafel, Joanna Lumley, Richard Johnson, and Toni Basil singing Mickey. This show is like the eighties distilled into a testtube all ready to be mainlined. 

The show begins with Everett as a doctor fondling a patient's breasts, and we see that the back of his white coat has 'Acme Breast Fondling' on it.

Then we come to the introduction proper where of course Everett has to make fun of the BBC and comments that it is the station which brought you 'All You Need to Know About Pins'.

The show makes full use of the TV technology of the time and so two Kennys come on at once and one of them introduces us to Yoga Can be Fun. The next sketch is with the characteristic Everett character Gizzard Puke (a punk who replaced the earlier character Sid Snot. He tells an extended story about a jeweller being burgled by an elephant and the police asking the jeweller what sort of ears it had and whether it was an African or Indian elephant. How should I know, says the jeweller, it had a stocking over its head. Sid Snot makes an appearance as well.

I won't go into every sketch because they do move very quickly. But I like the one where the vicar is presiding over a ventriloquist's funeral. We see the ventriloquist's coffin and another smaller one next to it, and the smaller one keeps talking and banging to be let out.

Everett interviews Shirley Williams, an SDP politician (he was well known for being a faithful Conservative, which is the only criticism of him possible). The only problem is that woman he's talking to isn't Shirley Williams at all, it's a young and attractive woman. We then see her personal beauticians come in with chisels to transform her into her public image.

One of my favourite Everett characters is blond bombshell Cupid Stunt, and in this episode she talks about her new film called When Diana Dors Roamed the Earth and of course all her clothes get torn off as they always do. But it's all in the best possible taste.

Another recurring motif of the show is making fun of game shows, and here it's Anything for a Laugh. These parts always appear to use real volunteers from the audience (they don't - it's all part of the artifice). Here he chooses a married couple who will do literally anything for a laugh. They guess things about each other and of course end up at each other's throats. The wife hasn't been playing bridge on Wednesdays, she's having an affair, and the husband has been going to a massage parlour on Friday nights when the wife thinks he's playing darts.

One of the most interesting bits is a sketch featuring a cashpoint card, and Everett explains how it works. Can you imagine? Such old technology. Personally, I still miss Switch.

I won't go on: you have to watch this show and there isn't any sensible criticism. The show isn't commercially available so I have no hesitation in commenting that home recordings are all over the internet in the usual places. Meanwhile, let's give the final word to Cupid Stunt:


Proud to be a member of the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati and the anti-growth coalition. wesayenough.co.uk - tactical.vote - https://www.gov.uk/how-to-vote/photo-id-youll-need

This blog is mirrored at culttvblog.blogspot.com and culttvblog.substack.com (where you can still subscribe by email if you want). There is an index to posts on the Substack version at https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/index-to-posts

If you want to support me and this blog, you can buy me a coffee or a box set at ko-fi.com/culttvblog