Spitting Image: Nick George - The Man Who Gave Us Nouvelle Cuisine Du DHSS

It's always a pleasure to get e-mails up here at '80s Actual Towers. We don't get many, but we treasure those we do get.

Recently, we had a corker from Nick George, regarding our post on Spitting Image, must-watch TV for us in the mid-to-late 1980s (let's face it, its "more peas, dear?" subject matter in the 1990s didn't really have the same appeal).

Nick wrote:

Hi,

Way back in 1984 I was working as a very junior art director at an ad agency in London. I did an ad for Lego, it was photographed by a guy who had worked with Fluck and Law.

The photographer and I got on well. He introduced me to John Lloyd, the Spitting Image producer.

They were putting a book together.

I contributed a bunch of ideas, one of them got into the book though I didn't write the text I did title it:

Nouvelle Cuisine Du DHSS.

Over thirty years later it was pleasing to find a scan of that page on your blog. So, thanks, I don't have that book any more.

Trivia: the photographer also shot the model of Prince Andrew for the Spitting Image book.

The pic, attached, caused the book publishers, Faber and Faber, to lose their royal warrant.

London, eh.

Best regards,

Nick

And here we have it - Prince Andrew, in all his latex glory! '80s humour still floats my boat, although many "sensitive" 21st Century souls I know flinch at it. But then they also have an attack of the vapours and write outraged letters on Digital Spy if somebody so much as drags on an e-cigarette in their vicinity (whilst quite happily gumming up the atmosphere by undertaking walking or bussing distance "jaunts" in their broom brooms).

It's our considered opinion that the prissy 21st Century needs to do a bit of manning and womaning up.

The shape of things (then) to come - 31st December, 1983 - a preview of Spitting Image. And isn't that Mr President (gasp!). God bless America!

Anyway, back to subject. We wrote to Nick George to ask if he'd mind us publishing his email, and received a reply containing another goodie - the Lego Arthur Scargill pic at the bottom of this post.

Many thanks to Nick. His second e-mail, which also contains a link to a Spitting Image site, is included below.

Hello Andrew, glad you appreciated my memories. Please, publish the contents of my mail to you, I have no problem with that.

The photographer was John Lawrence-Jones. He had shot a Lego trade ad for me. Attached here, it shows Arthur Scargill, at the height of the contentious miners strike.

More background on Spitting Image here: http://www.we-heart.com/2014/03/31/spitting-image-from-start-to-finish/ 

Includes the infamous Randy Andy pic.

John also shot the Luck and Flaw Treasure Island book, a couple of years prior.

Really like your site. keep at it.

all best

cheers now.

Nick

Thanks again to Nick.

Rik Mayall

He really was one of the pioneers of the 1980s alternative comedy scene. The young Mayall and Ade Edmundson started performing at the Comedy Store in mid-1980. Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson joined at the same time. They all went on to found the Comic Strip in October '80, with Comedy Store compere Alexei Sayle. An advertisement for female performers was answered by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. When Channel 4 debuted in November 1982, the Comic Strip team hit the TV screens, and in the run-up to the launch of Channel 4 the BBC was prompted to start preparing something alternative itself - The Young Ones.

Magical times.

RIP, Rik.

Alternative Comedy: The Young Ones

Tucked away in the TV pages of the Sun, 31/10/1981, was some interesting news about telly comedy. TV writer Charles Catchpole traced off-beat telly comedy back to Monty Python, which had begun in 1969. And of course that was inspired by The Goon Show, which had first aired in the 1950s. In the early 1980s "alternative comedy", anarchic, left-wing, proto-PC and generally a breath of fresh air, blasted onto our TV screens...

Jimmy Gilbert, head of light entertainment, has commissioned a try-out show for a possible series to be called "The Young Ones".

It promises to be one of the boldest ideas ever tried on telly. It will mix situation comedy, revue humour, fantasy and rock music.

The idea for "The Young Ones" was born out of the success of three off-beat shows - "Boom Boom Out Go The Lights", "Three Of A Kind", and "A Kick Up The Eighties".

It will star Rik Mayall, 23, alias Kevin Turvey of "A Kick Up The Eighties", as a down-at-heel student, sharing a flat with three friends.

Other parts will be played by three of the most promising of Britain's young comedians - Ade Edmundson, Nigel Planer and Alexei Sayle.

Edmundson is Rik Mayall's partner in an act called 20th Century Coyote. Planer is half of a double act known as The Outer Limits.

Rik Mayall, who is co-writing the show, says: "We will try to get permission to use Cliff Richard's song "The Young Ones" as the title music.

"But if we can't, we'll get a really dud group to record a crummy new version."
-
From the Daily Mirror, 9/11/1982:

A new comedy team hits the screen tonight. But be warned... this will be no innocent comedy romp.

It involves four outrageous characters living together as squatters in a derelict house.

They're a pretty shocking mob and their behaviour - and their language - is likely to upset older viewers.

But it's the younger TV audience they're aiming for with "The Young Ones" (BBC2, 9pm).

Rik Mayall, Ade Edmundson and Nigel Planer, who all worked at London's notorious Comic Strip club, team up with actor Chris Ryan to make the foursome.

Alexei Sayle, another of the Comic Strip's star comedians, plays their dodgy East European landlord.

Some BBC bosses were worried about the show at first, saying the comedy was crude and too near the knuckle.

Producer Paul Jackson says: "We were taking a big chance. When the first script was submitted, no one was quite sure if it would work."

But I think it's the most exciting new comedy we've done for years."

Rik Mayall, who devised and helped write the scripts, says:

"We had to cut certain words from sketches because they were considered too naughty by the BBC.

"We are not trying to push censorship back. But when you use swear words in normal life, and then you're not allowed to use them on TV, it's difficult to understand."

Spitting Image

Peter Fluck and Roger Law met at the Cambridge School of Art many moons ago. As time went on, the pair began producing "sculpted caricatures" for outlets such as the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

The venture was not very profitable, but then, in 1981, Fluck and Law produced caricatures of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer for the Not The Nine O'Clock News spoof book Not The Royal Wedding.

Infamy beckoned!

From the Sunday Mirror, June 28, 1981.

"We are not amused!" said the general public, unused to such "disgusting" disrespect.

I am amazed that these sadistic caricatures of Prince Charles and Lady Diana were allowed to appear in the Sunday Mirror.

Not only were they in atrociously bad taste but they were intensely cruel as well, since the Royal couple are unable to retaliate.

I have a sense of humour, but I wouldn't put this new book in my toilet.

I found the feature quite disgusting, especially the models by Fluck and Law. Would they want models of themselves to look like this? Nor do I agree that the Not The Nine O'Clock people are the BBC's top comedy team.

I think the BBC's "top comedy team" should be mentally examined.

1981 was also the year that Martin Lambie-Nairn invited Fluck and Law to lunch. A graphic designer at London Weekend Television, Lambie-Nairn thought a political TV programme which used puppets or animation would be a good investment. He offered to front Fluck and Law the capital for a pilot episode...

Some right Royal egg cups... from the Daily Mirror's Peter Tory column, June 11, 1982:

Making sport of Prince Charles' ears is enormous fun. But members of the Royal Family who come across these items on their friends' mantlepieces might be slightly alarmed by the figure in the middle.

What would happen if the mite, depicted here by Cambridge artists Peter Fluck and Roger Law, really turned out to look so gruesome? The poor thing would probably have to spend its days locked away in a dungeon at Glamis Castle.

Daily Mirror, December 31, 1983. Looking forward to 1984 - and the debut of Spitting Image. Said Jon Blair, producer: "We hope to have a Royal spot every week, with the Queen and Margaret Thatcher discussing world affairs.

"We scan the papers every day to keep our list of characters up to date."

From the Daily Mirror, June 16, 1984.

The Queen is not amused, but Prince Phillip jokes "This is me, not one of those puppets!"

Spitting Image was incredibly anarchic by the standards of the 1980s - blood thirsty, brutal satire of a kind never seen before. It left audiences gasping with outrage - or delight. In a show filled with highlights in its heyday, Steve Nallon's voice of Mrs Thatcher still stands out in my mind. 1985 saw the publication of The Appallingly Disrespectful Spitting Image Book. On the cover, Norman Tebbit was getting a real eyeful...

Inside, Mrs Thatcher was getting to grips with the unemployment situation...

... and Nouvelle Cuisine for the disadvantaged was covered, courtesy of Tom King, Employment Minister - amongst many other delights.

The "Nouvelle Cuisine" concept had been around for a little while (although we commoners had never heard of it), and in the desperate-to-be-posh mid-80s, fancy restaurants up and down the land saw the chance to make a killing - serving up hardly anything for exorbitant prices.

The Spitting Image book puts it best:

Nouvelle cuisine is a posh and expensive way of not having very much to eat.

A rip off, pure and simple, if you ask me.

Some politicians and celebrities claimed to enjoy the "fame" of being selected to be caricatured on Spitting Image. Michael Heseltine offered to buy his puppet for £2,500 - and eventually upped his offer to £7,500. "To whom shall I may the cheque payable?" he asked.

"The Labour Party," came the reply.

Exit Mr Heseltine - in something of a strop.

Alexei Sayle: 'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? And Toshiba: 'Ullo Tosh, Gotta Toshiba?

Alternative comedian Alexei Sayle gave us novelty chart hit 'Ullo John! Gotta A New Motor? in 1984. Apparently originally released in 1982, the song bombed - Mr S. was simply not famous enough, it seemed. But, re-released a year or so later, it was a different story.

It sounded bloomin' awful and I loved it to bits.

Mr Sayle also had an album released in 1984 - The Fish People Tapes, based on a series called Alexei Sayle And The Fish People, broadcast on London-based Capital Radio in 1981. Both the radio series and record apparently featured a few digs at the Government.

Good job, eh?

One of the tracks included - That's Milton Springsteen - was a parody of the Jam's early 1980s song That's Entertainment.

'Ullo John was included on the album and was soon tweaked for a fondly remembered 1985 TV ad - "Hello Tosh Gotta Toshiba?"... or should that be "'Ullo Tosh..."?

Ian Dury provided the main voice over for the ad...

"'Ullo - ullo - ullo Tosh gotta Toshiba?

'Ullo Tosh gotta Toshiba?"

"That's an FST."

"RIGHT!!"

"That's an FST."

"RIGHT!!"

"It's the flattest squarest tube.
It's the flattest squarest tube."

And what did the flattest squarest tube give you? A flatter screen and sharper picture. It was a good development.

Return to the mid-1980s with the 'Ullo John! video and the Toshiba ad below...

Chris Sievey - Frank Sidebottom

Frank Sidebottom relaxes in 1985.

1985 again - Frank's Firm Favorites. - the EP!

Chris Sievey, the genius behind Frank Sidebottom, the man with the big papier-mâché head who first delighted us in the mid-1980s, has died.

A very sad piece of news.

I've found myself remembering how I first saw Frank...

My mate Pete and I were watching our favourite Saturday morning telly show Number 73.

We were not amongst the "target audience", both being over twenty at the time, but that didn't matter.

And suddenly, there amongst the regular cast, was Frank.

Pete and I looked at each other.

"Daft!" we said.

But within half-an-hour or so we were both laughing at Frank.

Pete turned to look at me: "What are you laughing at?!"

"I dunno!" I replied. "What are YOU laughing at?!"

Neither of us knew, but for some reason we WERE laughing at Frank's antics - and we continued to laugh in the years that followed.

Frank was, to use a very popular mildly derogatory word of the early 1980s, a wally. He was squeaky-voiced and child-like and his idea of entertainment was what most people considered naff.

But the naffness, given a Sievey-inspired tweak, was also highly amusing.

Remember "Little Frank", the ventriloquist's dummy Frank sometimes carried? Little Frank was, of course, a perfect, miniature replica of Frank.

A wally Frank may have been, but he was also an innocent. This upped his likeability rating no end.

He lived at home in Timperley with his mother, and related heart warming tales of his home life to his audiences - like the time he took the lawn mower apart, tried to reassemble it, but ended up with lots of left-over pieces of lawn mower workings. He attempted to flush them down the toilet to hide what he'd been up to from his mother.

Frank's quirky comedy is not considered to be alternative by most modern day people, but I think it kind of was. If you know what I mean.

Before finding fame as Frank, Chris Sievey had been a member of The Freshies pop group. They notably scored a hit (No 54 in February 1981!) with a ditty initially entitled I'm In Love With The Girl On The Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk.

Virgin Records requested that they should be left out of it, so the song was then retitled I'm In Love With The Girl On A Certain Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk.

The initial idea for the (then unnamed) man with the papier-mache head was that he would be a fan of The Freshies, and he made his debut in 1981 on a promotional video for the song Wrap Up The Rockets (AKA Rockets).

The Freshies were cultie, but not that well known, so most people didn't see the papier-mache head man in 1981. The band split up in 1982.

In 1984, the launch of a game called The Biz, designed for the ZX Spectrum by Chris Sievey, saw the fully-developed Frank Sidebottom feature on a 12-inch promotional record, which came free with the game. This was intended to be a one-off gimmick.

But Frank was soon a star of telly and radio - and the children's comic Oink!

Chris Sievey died on 21 June 2010.

He was 54.

Channel 4

The notion of a second commercial TV channel had been around for at least a couple of decades. Finally, the Broadcasting Act 1980 set the wheels in motion to make that notion a reality.

Looking tremendously cutting edge, Channel Four debuted on 2 November 1982 and it was a huge national event. We only had three telly channels back then, and BBC 2 was rarely watched in households round my way - we thought its content was far too highbrow about 99.9% of the time.

We feared Channel Four might be the same, but "gave it a go" anyway...

When I saw the colourful shapes whirling across the screen, I yelped: "Oh no - not another Rubik's puzzle!" I was just getting over being defeated by the Cube and bitten by the Snake...

Thankfully, the shapes simply assembled themselves as Channel Four's logo. I breathed a sigh of relief - although I still thought that it had strong Rubikian (?!) influences!

The logo was designed in 1982 by the Robinson Lambie-Nairn company.

Appraised of the facts about the new channel-to-be, Lambie-Nairn decided to play on the fact that Channel 4 would be buying all its programmes in, so would be a kind of patchwork.

The idea they came up with was to try and illustrate the various elements which would make up Channel 4 coming together.

With the logo created, Lambie Nairn used a computer to animate the outlines of the blocks to the final freeze. The movements were then hand coloured and shot, but it didn't work - what was lacking was shadow and lighting.

Lambie-Nairn went to Bo Gehring Aviation in Los Angeles, USA. The company specialised in computer animation and Lambie-Nairn ordered differing sequences of the same basic symbol to be made entirely on computer. At that time, nobody provided that service in the UK.

The result, of course, was the familiar Channel 4 logo seen on the opening night and for years afterwards - a very cutting edge design and animating technique in 1982.

But would Channel 4 be a cutting edge TV station?

From the Daily Mirror, 4/9/1982.

Will ITV's Channel Four be a big turn-off?

You will soon be able to switch on to a brand new TV channel.

ITV's Channel Four goes on the air early in November.

But whether viewers will like what they see is another matter. The new channel is aiming to be experimental in content with a large output of educational and minority programmes.

In fact more like BBC-2 than ITV.

And in some quarters of the ITV companies fears are growing that this could be the recipe for a ratings disaster. For a start there'll be hardly any sport. What little there is will come mainly from America - basketball and grid-iron football, for instance.

Then each weekday night at the peak viewing time of seven, the channel plans an hour-long news programme.

Here's a run-down of what you will (or may not want to) be watching when Channel 4 flickers into life on Tuesday, November 2 at 4.45 pm.

COMEDY: From Australia, Paul Hogan. Top comedian Down Under and highly thought of by Channel 4 bosses who have bought twenty-six of his shows.

"The Optimist", a silent comedy starring up-and-coming English actor Enn Reitel and filmed in Hollywood.

And Peter Bowles stars in "The Irish RM", a six-parter based on the classic comedy stories of an Irish magistrate and set in the 1890s.

SOAP OPERA: "Brookside", an up-market "Coronation Street" set on an estate where most people own their own homes.

LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT: The Brazilian-made "Fantastico", reputedly one of the world's most spectacular song and dance shows, will run for twenty weeks at least.

NOSTALGIA: Hit American series of the Sixties such as "I Love Lucy", "The Munsters" and "Get Smart".

BLOCKBUSTER: "Nicholas Nickleby". The hit stage production of the Charles Dickens classic by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

FILMS: The silent version of "Napoleon", with a music track added, runs for six hours. Otherwise you'll be seeing golden oldies such as the 1930s gangster film "Scarface"; Eddie Cantor movies including "Whoopee".

Midnight movies on Friday and Saturday nights will run up to 2am, with a hint there will be some X-rated films.

DRAMA: Two plays ready for screening have down beat themes. "The Disappearance of Harry" stars Annette Crosbie as the wife of a man who leaves for work one morning and never returns. "Angel" is the story of a young saxophone player facing violence and death.

Channel 4's chief executive, Jeremy Isaacs, says: "it will be responsive to its audience's changing needs, lively, concerned, useful - and fun."

The target figure is a nightly audience of five million.

Will Channel 4 ever manage to attract that many viewers? Wait and see.

And so we waited. And we saw.

On 2 November 1982, after a welcome from presenter Paul Coia and a look at goodies to come, we settled back for the first of Channel Four's programmes - and it was "anyone for anagrams?" with Countdown.

You can see Richard Whiteley above and Carol Vorderman below as they appeared in the very first show.

Early Channel 4 was short of adverts, due to an industrial dispute: should actors appearing in ads on channels like TV-am (which was due to start in February 1983) and Channel 4, both envisaged as attracting lower audiences than the main ITV regional channels, be paid less? It took some time to sort that one out, so, in the early days of Channel 4, we got to know pictures with captions like "Brookside follows shortly" very well indeed!

The "Sun", January 20, 1983: TV critic Margaret Forwood comments on the lack of adverts and adds a few of her thoughts on Channel Four in general...


From the "Sun", February 2, 1982. Actually the provisional title for this show, which turned out to be "Brookside", was "Meadowcroft", not "Meadowcraft" and the creator was Phil Redmond not Redmund! Still, "Coronation Street" producer Bill Podmore's confident attitude is worth noting: "I enjoy competition... especially when we are going to win."

I remember watching the very first episode of Brookside and loving the electronic theme tune. But I wasn't too sure about the characters or setting. Would it take off? It all seemed a bit too real...

We couldn't have guessed on the first night, but with its gritty plots and set of real houses, Brookside would drag soap away from the cosy story lines, tight perms and brightly lit studio sets of Crossroads and Coronation Street, both fixtures on ITV since the 1960s, into the 1980s.

The characters - the moved-up-in the world Grant family, moved-down-in the world Collins family, and young urban professionals Roger and Heather Huntington, were uncompromisingly non-cosy. The language used in the early episodes was considered a little too real and had to be toned-down, but early Brookside, thought by many to be far too subversive to be a soap opera, was great. Well, OK, maybe this anti-Thatcher dog was a bit too darned shaggy. As a poor, working class geezer, I don't recall real life in the 1980s being anywhere near as grim as in Brookside, but for those of us who detested Thatcher at the time it was sheer bloody brilliance.

Gordon Collins, played by Mark Burgess, was the first regular gay character in English TV soaps; Tracy Corkhill (Justine Kerrigan) got into trouble with telephone chatlines, parents, teachers, you name it; Annabelle Collins (Doreen Sloane) faced a move down in status from the leafy Wirral to rough and tumble Brookside; but for working class mum Sheila Grant, played by Sue Johnston, the Close marked a move up in the world from a grotty council estate.

I believe that Brookside was, at least partly, responsible for some new (to most of us) slang words over the next few years. Before the 1980s, I recall nobody in my area calling Christmas "Chrimbo" and electricity "'leccy", but, post November 1982, both gradually seeped into usage.

They seemed to originate from Brookside "Scouse speak".

Sainsbury's, of course, became "Sainsboe's"!

Brookside was soon more commonly known as "Brookie", and Coronation Street became "Corrie", which, again, I don't recall before the 1980s. Soaps simply weren't trendy enough before the 80s to bother with zippy abbreviations. Brookside influenced other soaps and helped to blast away soap's fuddy-duddy image - making it respectable for youngsters to tune in.

But I digress. Back to what I viewed on that first night on Channel Four...

I remember being depressed by the opening night film - Walter - about a man with "learning disabilities" (the modern day PC phrase - not in use round my way, nor I believe anywhere else, in 1982!) who was subjected to various horrible experiences after his mother died.

Five Go Mad In Dorset was a Comic Strip Presents production, and a merciless mickey take of the Enid Blyton Famous Five books.

The show had a "surprise guest star" - Ronald Allen, David Hunter of Crossroads fame - appearing as Uncle Quentin. Dear Uncle told the children: "I'm a screaming homosexual, you little prigs!"

It was difficult not to see Ronald Allen as his Crossroads character, I don't think I'd ever seen the actor appearing in any other show before, and to hear "David Hunter" coming out with those words left me absolutely breathless with laughter.

At the end of my first taste of Channel Four programmes, I decided that it was different. Definitely different. And worth another look...

See a 1988 article on Channel Four favourite Treasure Hunt here.
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LOADSAMONEY!

Here's rising young alternative comedian Harry Enfield in 1988. In the picture above he's in character live on stage as one of his most popular creations - Loadsamoney!

Loadsa, waving his wonga: "What's that?"

Audience: "Loadsamoney!"

Loadsa: "What?"

Audience: "Loadsamoney!"

Loadsa: "No, it's loadsa FU**ING money - I ain't on telly now! Loadsa fu**ing money! Loadsa fu**ing money!

"Shut your mouths and look at my wad and worship it up! This is the wickedest wad in the world, it is the wad of wads and it is all fresh MONEY, 'cos one thing I cannot bear is a stale wad. My money's gotta be brand new or it can FU**K off !

"How come I've got so much money again? 'Cos I'm a plasterer, 'en I? And plasterers are great. Roofers? Scum! Scaffolders? Coarse and ignorant peasants..."
Etc, etc, etc.

The Sun, 16 September, 1988. Cor! Harry lands a sponsorship deal with Holstein Pils for his stage show, worth £50,000. DOSH! DOSH! DOSH!

What was it with socially aware lefty comedians? We saw 'em all in the 1980s, these startling new alternative comedians, slagging off the Thatcher creature, railing against capitalism, and stuffing the wads of cash they earned from it in their high interest accounts quicker than you could blink. Here, Sun columnist Fiona Macdonald Hull sticks the boot into Harry Enfield: "How I loathe Yuppies!" But don't be too harsh. It was the same with the Peace and Love hippie trippie crowd on the pop scene in the 1960s. Do as we say - not as we do! And it's the same with the ultra priggish celebs of today. Shame! Whatever happened to the days of true idealism? Of people backing their words with their actions? And when exactly WERE those days?!

The Sun, October 21, 1988: £500,000 on the way!

Another of Enfield's popular creations:

Note: very broken English - no typing errors here - written as spoken:

"Hallo everybody peeps! Good evening and welc! My name is Stavros in case you don't know all red 'cos you blinkin' thick, and I'm got a little kebab house in Greece. Bethnal Greece, East Londos..."