NEVER THE TWAIN  (80s)

ITV

Sitcom starring Windsor Davies and Donald Sinden, who were rival antique dealers (and were antique themselves by this time!)  What a great premise for a sitcom - antiques!  Think of the humour you can have from old things!!??  Badly needed the comic genius that is Don Estelle, but still managed to raise a faint trace of a smile occasionally.

NOT THE NINE O'CLOCK NEWS  (1979-82)

BBC

They liked to think they were the 80s answer to MONTY PYTHON. I like to think that ... they liked to think they were the 80s answer to MONTY PYTHON! No dead parrots, but plenty of dead hedgehogs, no Lumberjack Song, but the Ayatollah Song, and no Terry Jones dressed up as a woman, but Pamela Stephenson (a real woman!) Which is much better in my opinion, if not exactly as funny!.

This was the launch programme for Rowan Atkinson, Griff and Mel (Rhys Jones and Smith) and Pamela Stephenson, who would take the slightest opportunity to show off her tits and impersonate Janet Street Porter (yes, long before Ant and Dec did it! - not show off their tits,.. er, impersonate Janet)

Rowan would later go on to be MR BEAN, Griff and Mel, ALAS SMITH AND JONES, and Pammie would go on to marry Billy Connolly, become a psychologist, and no doubt show off her tits at every given opportunity. (Do you know where she practices? Wouldn’t mind going there on the off chance that she might whip ‘em out!)

Pamela Stephenson would later feature on STRICTLY COME DANCING, thus awakening all those adolescent feelings again and now I really need to lie on your couch, Pammie!

(The team - not the Monty Python of the 80s!)

("American Express? That’ll do nicely. And would you like me to take this opportunity to show off my tits again?")

‘Here boy, here boy, round those sheep up, go on boy, round ‘em!’

Farmers get their dogs to round up sheep.  Oh yes, this programme didn’t run, lIke, forever, cos it was dull!  Oh, no!  Still, better than if the farmers shagged the sheep, that would be really dull.  Cos those farmers don’t go much (ask Betsy the Sheep!)

Hughie Greene (who wasn't - green, I mean!) meant it most sincerely, folks!  And we think the clappometer was worked by a bloke round the back, who would move it back and forth, and give the highest clap reading (by that we don't mean a nasty venereal infection reading - we mean the applause reading) to the acts he liked. The guy obviously had bad taste!

Remember it was your votes that counted in this talent-less contest (so who where you and why did you vote for such crap?!) It's your fault for Bonnie Langford after all! A classic of television and we mean that most sincerely folks, honest!

The Chair's favourite Opportunity Knockers ... 

Peters and Lee

Singing duo. He was blind; she was blonde.

Pam Ayres

Who wished she'd looked after her teeth and that she didn't sound so much like Benny Hill.

Little-known Pam ditty that was cut from the show ... 

I was on a programme

Called Opportunity Knocks

Surrounded by blokes

With very big cocks

Not one of them nobbed me

Though one of them robbed me

But at least I got to be on the box

Freddy (Parrot Face) Davies

Made a sort of raspberry sound every so often when he spoke, he wore a hat too. Bloody hilarious! King of comedy!

The Muscle Man

Twitched his muscles to music. I can do that with my nob to Sandie Shaw's Puppet on a String!

Bobby Crush

Pianist extraordinaire. Hands going like the clappers and a cheery smile to camera!

Little and large

One was little, one was large (do you see what they've done there?) Eddie large would take the piss out of "supersonic" Sid something rotten and did a mean Deputy Dawg impression (these jokes lasted them until well into the 80s!)

Bonnie Langford

Last but definitely least, our Bonnie. A British institution and anyone who liked her belonged in one. The most irritating brat ever to grace the TV screen, with lovely curly hair and a cute smile (eurgh!)