Talk:The Mary Whitehouse Experience

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Sketches

It's got a good beat!

Its ages since I watched the show, but wasn't there a sketch with someone dressed up as Lynn Foulds Wood making statements like "This marshmallow could be a potential deathtrap"?

I don't think it was a sketch, but part of a monologue that (possibly) Rob Newman did. I fondly remember during a stand-up bit between Steve and Hugh they raised the subject of old toys found in the attic and how people tend to go daft when they find them. Steve continues talking about the subject as Hugh is transfixed by a Teddy Bear which has been sat on a plinth. Eventually after several soppy outbreaks of "It's tedd-y-y-y!", Steve presses a plunger and the Teddy Bear mercilessly explodes into a cloud of feathers. A mortified Hugh turns to Steve and shouts "YOU BASTARD!!!". Classic. ~~ Peteb16 19:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hugh Dennis played Lynn Foulds Wood. The sketch played on Lynn's parts in (I think) that Esther Ransten show where in that show she'd talk about consumer issues. As far as I can remember this section became its own programme about consumer issues... might have been Watchdog? Anyway the sketch definitely revolved around Foulds Wood (Dennis) making an example of an incredibly un-dangerous household object (e.g. potted plant) and proclaiming it to be a "potential deathtrap". This was a huge source of playground comedy, almost as much as the hallowed "that's you that is". Cpc464 20:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History Today

If someone can find a definitive source, it might be worthwhile adding to the article that David Baddiel has admitted at least once that the idea for 'History Today' was actually taken from an (effectively identical) joke invented by his older brother Ivor. 212.69.225.18 14:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The theme music that introduces and closes History Today is an extract from the 3rd movement (Menuet) from Haydn's string quartet in D major ("The Lark") op. 64 no. 5. However I don't have a source to substantiate this. Lonegroover (talk) 10:33, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Structure of television show

It's been a long time since I saw it, but I remember the show seemed to cram all the comedy characters mentioned in the article into the second series; the first series was mostly unrelated sketches, without History Today or the Milky Milky man etc. Was there a reason for this, and if so what was it, or am I misremembering? One thing the article fails to capture - which might be impossible nowadays without an online stash of NMEs - is the whole "comedy is the new rock'n'roll" phenomenon whereby this and subsequence generations of British comedians became genuinely cool, like rock stars. It would also be interesting to know if it was the first modern comedy sketch show broadcast on the pop-music-orientated Radio One rather than Radio Four. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 21:30, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Repeats

I've amended the utterly spurious claim that the series was never repeated. The first series had three re-edited repeats in 1991, and the second series was repeated in 1992. Nick Cooper (talk) 13:01, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rights issues and repeats?

I've stuck a {{clarify}} tag on this bit:

However, rights issues forbade further transmissions, although there are very occasional one-off airings in the Saturday morning Comedy Controller slot.

That reads like "rights issues meant it couldn't be repeated, except when it was". A bit more detail is needed as to why those Comedy Controller repeats were allowed but not full series. Loganberry (Talk) 19:48, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Broadcast dates

Do we have a list of broadcast dates of the Radio and TV shows? Danceswithzerglings (talk) 02:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Partial list of the radio shows here Danceswithzerglings (talk) 02:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removed BLP violation

This page claimed, with no evidence, that Rob Newman lost his virginity to a sexually abusive teacher.

The radio show had a skit with Rob Newman as the guest on This Is Your Life, where the host lists nothing but terrible events in Rob's life, including getting cancer and being deflowered by his teacher. The skit gave the teacher the same name as a real teacher at David Baddiel's school.

This article claimed this was "widely believed to be true" and provided no sources for that. There's no evidence either Baddiel or Newman were abused by the teacher. The only true part is that teacher was convicted of sexual abuse.

You could conceivably write that the show made reference to the convicted teacher, but even then, it would be undue prominence to include a paragraph about one gag in one episode of multi-year topical comedy show. If the teacher's abuse (of neither Baddiel nor Newman) is notable, either he should have his own article, or be mentioned in the article for the school he worked for. 213.31.88.123 (talk) 14:09, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]