Series One

Pearl

Pearl

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Staff member
I thought it would be a good idea to go through a series a day. The topic doesn't have to stop when a new one is started it can carry on so everyone gets their say on the series.

Seeing has its my brain storm I'll start.

Series one of cause gave us Of Funerals and Fish which in my opinion was probably the best one.
I think it laid out the characters well, we got to lean who was who quickly and it set the scene very well.

Spring Fever was another one I really liked as was The New Mobile Trio.
I would have loved to see Liz Smith as, not a regular but maybe a recurring character to antagonise Compo once a series or so.
 
Probably my favourite episode too Pearl. I love to see it in the TV guide and look forward to see it yet again. I 've gone on record before, lamenting the early demise of Michael Bates and wonder how he would have settled into the role long term. I think Blanmire would have become a much loved character and acquired the legendary status other characters attained.
 
I have just started to run through all the dvds again and I am now on series 5, so series 1 is still fresh in my mind. I too think The New Mobile Trio to be very funny. Also Hail Smiling Morn or Thereabouts. What I do find very noticeable is the fact that the episodes tend to improve as the series moves on.
 
happyjack said:
I have just started to run through all the dvds again and I am now on series 5, so series 1 is still fresh in my mind. I too think The New Mobile Trio to be very funny. Also Hail Smiling Morn or Thereabouts. What I do find very noticeable is the fact that the episodes tend to improve as the series moves on.
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I think the fact that they got better as the series when on is down to the confidence Roy Clarke must have felt after each passing episode and the fact he was able to sustain that level of writing is amazing.
 
onyx(John) said:
Probably my favourite episode too Pearl. I love to see it in the TV guide and look forward to see it yet again. I 've gone on record before, lamenting the early demise of Michael Bates and wonder how he would have settled into the role long term. I think Blanmire would have become a much loved character and acquired the legendary status other characters attained.
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I wonder that too but do you think it would have gotten so popular and carried on for so long if Foggy wasn't brought in and the broadcast time altered to an earlier time making it a more family friendly program?
 
Pearl said:
I wonder that too but do you think it would have gotten so popular and carried on for so long if Foggy wasn't brought in and the broadcast time altered to an earlier time making it a more family friendly program?
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I suppose we'll never know the answer to that one. First impressions in a new project like this would have been very important so maybe the die was already cast in the very early days. I could imagine back in those days, some people mourning the loss of Blanmire and thinking the show was never going to be as good with a replacement character.
 
Three good ones for me in Series 1. My favourite is Mobile trio, Short Back and Palais Glide comes second and Hail Smiling morn is up there too. I have never been too fond of Pate and Chips or Spring Fever but it wouldn't do for us all to be same. Funerals and Fish really set the scene as it were .:) :hungry:
 
onyx(John) said:
I suppose we'll never know the answer to that one. First impressions in a new project like this would have been very important so maybe the die was already cast in the very early days. I could imagine back in those days, some people mourning the loss of Blanmire and thinking the show was never going to be as good with a replacement character.
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I think it reached a wider audience when the time was changed, I think a lot of us remember watching it as a child, if it had remained the same with the odd naked poster I wouldn't have been allowed to watch it.
 
dick said:
Three good ones for me in Series 1. My favourite is Mobile trio, Short Back and Palais Glide comes second and Hail Smiling morn is up there too. I have never been too fond of Pate and Chips or Spring Fever but it wouldn't do for us all to be same. Funerals and Fish really set the scene as it were .:) :hungry:
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Three good episodes there Dick and you're right it wouldn't do to have us like to same :D
 
Series One is my favorite so far of all the ones I've seen (Series One through the most recent DVD release). It's hard to choose a favorite episode. I'd have to put all of them except for Spring Fever in first place with that one running a close second.

It took me quite a while to warm to Blamire, but now he's one of my favorite third men, tied for first place with Seymour. Despite how many times I've seen the Foggy episodes, he still annoys me.

Marianna
 
Of Funerals and Fish will always be my very favorite.
Love Cleggy and the Vicar smoking beside the church;
love the "tiddler."

Soon be starting the whole set again come first of the year.
Only a few Hobbos to go, then FOTSW. Then we begin
again with the original trio. Love it!
 
I enjoyed all of series 1 but I think my favourite is Changing Face of Rural Blamire, I wonder what we would make of them if they screened them for the first time from now onwards,great subject Pearl
 
maltrab said:
I enjoyed all of series 1 but I think my favourite is Changing Face of Rural Blamire, I wonder what we would make of them if they screened them for the first time from now onwards,great subject Pearl
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My first thought was that they'd seem dated, but on second thought, they're old enough by now to qualify as period pieces. They certainly couldn't be broadcast during family viewing time!

Marianna
 
CHANGING FACE Etcetera is of course Series Two of which my favourite would be FORKED LIGHTENING. They all seemed to have fun making that one!!

Memo to Pearl......Shall we need a new heading ?????
 
I love the pilot "Of Fish and Funerals" and watch it frequently. I always watch "Short Back and Palais Glide" at the same time. And I agree with Dick, Forked Lightning is worth watching again and again, and I do. Because the DVD has series one and two together, I really think of them all as series one.

I find it interesting to compare Compo in the beginning to later series - even just a little later. In the beginning they had his shoulders hunched over (through padding in his jacket I think) but it was so much, it almost looked like he had a hump on his back. Later they had him walking much more freely with only a slight hunch to his shoulders. They also made a big change in his teeth. I've often wondered how much of the change was Bill Owen's doings and how much was the Director/Producer. He was always a scruffy character, but made much more loveable and less repulsive as the series went on.
 
me2 said:
I find it interesting to compare Compo in the beginning to later series - even just a little later. In the beginning they had his shoulders hunched over (through padding in his jacket I think) but it was so much, it almost looked like he had a hump on his back. Later they had him walking much more freely with only a slight hunch to his shoulders. They also made a big change in his teeth. I've often wondered how much of the change was Bill Owen's doings and how much was the Director/Producer. He was always a scruffy character, but made much more loveable and less repulsive as the series went on.
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In Last of the Summer Wine: The Story of the World's Longest-Running Comedy Series, Andrew Vine describes Compo thus, "... he is an utter disgrace, uncouth, unshaven, unkempt, his trousers barely less horrifying than the unspeakable thing kept in a matchbox among the bits of string and pencil stubs that fill his pockets, a short, animated, skipping, perky, compost heap of a man ..."

When I read that I thought that it must have come from a very early episode. Bill Owen must have had an extra set of dentures with gaps that he wore as part of his Compo character. He was far too dapper to appear in public as himself looking like that. Alan Bell wrote in his book, From the Director's Chair, that one shooting season he shared a house with Owen, and that he had a habit of whistling between his teeth (after he had put his dentures in). So it would have been easy to swap between the good set and the ugly ones.

Marianna
 
In the first episodes, they talked about his peg teeth or wooden teeth. Presumably he had work done later. It is interesting though, in the 185 or so episodes that Bill Owen did, that he had different teeth missing in different episodes. I've never tracked them but I have noticed that it was not always the same teeth missing. I imagine they had different sets of dentures for him, but it's a little surprising that they didn't keep them consistent.
 
me2 said:
I imagine they had different sets of dentures for him, but it's a little surprising that they didn't keep them consistent.
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Especially when they spent so much of the relatively small production budget to have identical costumes made for him as each set wore out.

Marianna
 
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