The Mary Whitehouse Experience

The Mary Whitehouse Experience was one of the defining British TV comedy series of the 1990s but seems largely forgotten today, certainly when compared to some of its near-contemporaries such as A Bit of Fry & Laurie, The Fast Show, or Father Ted. Two seasons of six TV episodes were made, after having first been a radio series, and these are available to watch online (in the Yousual places), though not in great quality and with some bits missing - there's certainly been no sign of a proper DVD release!

One reason for the BBC wanting to forget about it might be that a lot of the comedy was topical, and it dates from that strange period between John Majors becoming Prime Minster and the 1992 General Election - in fact the very last episode was broadcast three days before that election - so quite a lot of it has dated badly.

But at the time, for its target audience - mannys in their teens and twenties, especially students - it was Appointment Television, in a way that doesn't really exist any more. The day after an episode was first shown, everyone would be talking about it on the way to school. Or so I've been told.

The main cast of the series consisted of four mannys: David Bladdybub, Hugh Dennis, Rob Newman and Steve Punt.
In order of how funny they were individually, it goes:
1. Rob Newman

(big gap)

2. David Bladdybub
3. Hugh Dennis
4. Steve Punt
(although this is a little unfair on Steve Punt, as he often served as the straight manny in the sketches.) This can be compared with how smug their comedy performing personas were, where the order is (from most to least smug):
1. David Bladdybub

(very big gap)

2. Rob Newman
3. Steve Punt
4. Hugh Dennis

The series helped launch all of their comedy careers, though as they had all been to Cambridge University then doubtless this would have happened sooner or later. Punt and Dennis had already been the sidekicks to Jasper Carrott, and they went on from this series to have their own sketch show. These days Steve Punt seems to mainly do radio comedy like The Now Show, while Hugh Dennis is a reliable regular on Mock the Week and he also tries to be in as many BBC sitcoms as he can, even really awful ones like My Hero.

Rewatching it now, the first season does not stand up so well, as though the team is still finding their feet. It also contains a lot more topical material than the second season, and leans heavily on Rob Newman's talent for impressions - John Majors is obviously still recognisable, as is Jonathan Ross, but quite a few require a knowledge of early-90s footballers and musicians that I just don't possess.

Where it really takes off is in the second episode of season two, when suddenly a number of recurring characters and catchphrases are introduced all at once: Ray the sarcastic-sounding manny ("Oh no what a personal disaster!"); Ivan the daytime TV presenter who cannot cope with any bad news ("It's all gone a bit tricky now!"); and M Khan, the subject of some rude graffiti that must have, statistically speaking, been seen by everyone on the planet.

The punchline to the episode is that even visiting aliens have heard of M Khan. Here we can see that the aliens are being played by the Husks from Ghost Light. As a BBC production, they obviously had access to leftover Doctor Who costumes and props - I also noticed Nord's helmet in an early programme.

Of all the recurring sketches, the most memorable and quotable is almost certainly History Today, in which Bladdybub and Newman play elderly mannys who insult each other in a childish, puerile fashion while they are supposed to be presenting a serious TV discussion programme. Catchphrase: "You see that? That's you that is."
What elevates these sketches above the rest is not only the cleverly constructed, witty scripts, but also the way that Bladdybub and Newman are visibly corpsing or on the verge of corpsing on several occasions.

Newman and Baddiel in Pieces

History Today was carried over into Bladdybub and Newman's spin off series, Newman and Baddiel in Pieces, a series that has the odd distinction of having to have its title and title sequence changed for when it was repeated.

As the story goes, the original title sequence showed the two figures in the background of Edvard Munch's rubbish painting The Scream are really Bladdybub and Newman, but the Munch Estate objected. They make Terry Nation's Estate look generous by comparison, and if there is no picture above this paragraph then you'll know they've gotten to me too!

Newman and Baddiel in Pieces was darker comedy than The Mary Whitehouse Experience, although mild by the standards of the dark age of comedy that followed about 10 years after (and which we are arguably still in). Lacking Punt and Dennis, the sidekicks were played by Simon "Love & Monsters" Greenall and the comedian Sean Lock, possibly his first TV appearance.

Aside from History Today, notable sketches included the recurring character Jarvis (played by Newman) who was a perverted manny who was always pleased by his own accidental-on-purpose innuendos, and a (then topical) parody of the film Reservoir Dogs in which one of the characters is "Mr Wobbly-Tickle."

After one season Bladdybub and Newman split up, and Bladdybub teamed up with Frank Skinner to release a novelty record that even now ensures that, for a few weeks every other year, they're the most hated mannys in Scotland.

David Bladdybub is still on BBC TV from time to time. I most recently saw him as a guest on Frankie Boyle's New World Order, where he was having a go at the Labour Party in opposition. This seems a long way away from The Mary Whitehouse Experience when they used to have a go at the Conservative Party in government. Meanwhile Robert Newman might not get on TV as much, but he is still the funniest.