Quote:
|
Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney
As for the shows being complete, as far as I know, the Region 1 A&E sets are mostly complete: the adcaps (title cards, etc. that played in/out from commercial breaks) are snipped out. Also, in another thread here (or on DVD Talk), there is some discussion over whether or not one episode had some suggestive footage (I think it had to do with a lingering camera angle on one of the Hill's Angels' crotches in a dance number, maybe the one in the disco) snipped out of it. Whether that was from using a later "rebroadcast" edit, or whether this footage was some sort of outtake that somehow crept into the US half-hour syndication package, I'm not sure anyone has a definitive answer for.
|
It's possible it was from a rebroadcast edit. I should note that on A&E's Set 6, in the "Testament Television" sketch of March 12, 1986, they most likely used a "rebroadcast edit" of that, as a discussion about casting Liberace in an upcoming Biblical soap opera was cut out as on that set, and they (likely meaning Thames/Fremantle) covered that up by futzing around with the camera shot at the edit point (meaning using a different camera angle than, but from the same take as, the unedited version). I bring this up because in the 1990's when Comedy Central aired the episode, they ran the complete sketch,
with the Liberace reference. I suspect the reason it'd been cut may've had something to do with the pianist's 1987 death.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney
The Region 2-PAL sets from Network (so far) are completely unedited, as they do include the adcaps. Some of them even include the studio countdown clocks at the beginning of the episode. Let us hope that Network have the rights to the Down Under special. It would be a shame for this not to be available anywhere in the world, especially when whole sections of it have been seen in syndication and on VHS (I have the old HBO "Best of" VHS that had a lengthy skit on it. Was surprised by the female nudity in it. Actual nudity wasn't very common on Hill's UK show: mostly just stockings and suspenders...
|
I can name some of the actors on that
Down Under show . . . Max Phipps, Barry Otto, Ron Shand, Jim Clifford, Victoria Quilter, Lorna Lesley, Nat Nixon, Maurice Murphy . . . not too sure of any of the others, though.
In that "Cut out the middleman" sketch, Mr. Otto played 'Big Daddy's' son, and Ms. Lesley was the girl who sat on his lap at the time of his heart attack (rather ironic in hindsight, given that was what Mr. Hill ultimately died of).
Other
Down Under sketches, for anyone who asks, besides that and the "Benny Kelly, Son of Ned Kelly" sketch with the nudity in question, there was:
- A sketch which Hill had done from time to time in the past, about two stable boys (him and Mr. Otto) tending to Lady Godiva's horse on the day of her ride through Coventry
- A vagabond who has a dream of being "transformed" by two ladies, and then when he "falls off the bed," he crashes back into reality
- "Archie's Angels," his first of two
Charlie's Angels parodies (I know Mr. Hill played the Farrah Fawcett character and Mr. Otto was Jaclyn Smith's - who played the Kate Jackson character?); I actually prefer that one to his gender-reverse "Charlene's Angels" from 1980
- An opening musical number with the linchpin being "Les Girls"
- An ending runoff chase filmed in and around Collaroy Beach (at least parts of "Archie's Angels" and "Benny Kelly" were filmed at the Smoky Dawson ranch outside of Sydney)
Plus some bits I've read about in books and on the Web, but never seen:
- Benny standing in front of the Sydney Opera House where the "studio" bits were taped, in a gag reminiscent of what he later did in his
World Tour: New York special in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza
- Benny as Chow Mein, interviewed by Max Phipps
