Comedy Connections

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Comedy Connections
Comedy Connections (title card).jpg
Narrated by Julia Sawalha
Doon Mackichan
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes47
Production
Executive producersMike Bolland (Series 1-2)
Gary Chippington (Series 3)
Alan Tyler (Series 4-)
Toby Stevens (Director)
Running time30 minutes
(series 1 to 3)
40 minutes
(series 4 to 6)
Original release
Network BBC One
Release9 June 2003 (2003-06-09) 
8 November 2008 (2008-11-08)

Comedy Connections is a BBC One documentary series produced by BBC Scotland that aired from 2003 to 2008. The show looked at the stories behind the production of some of Britain's comedy television programmes, showing how they tied in with the production of other comedy shows (hence "connections"). The show featured interviews with some of the cast and crew of the subject programme, as well as footage from the series.

Contents

Comedy Connections mostly documented BBC comedies and sitcoms, although two programmes have been from ITV (three counting Men Behaving Badly which moved from ITV to the BBC after two series) and two from Channel 4.

The first series consists of six episodes while the rest of the series consist of eight episodes each. The first two series were narrated by Julia Sawalha and the rest of the series by Doon Mackichan.

Series summary

SeriesEpisodesAir Date
Series 1 69 June – 14 July 2003
Series 2 821 June – 30 August 2004
Series 3 821 February – 11 April 2005
Series 4 86 March – 8 May 2006
Series 5 812 January – 2 March 2007
Series 6 818 July – 4 September 2008

Episodes

The first two series were narrated by Julia Sawalha and the third series onwards by Doon Mackichan.

Series 1 (2003)

Overall #Ep #TitleAirdateNotes
11 Porridge 9 June 2003
22 The Good Life 16 June 2003
33 Are You Being Served? 23 June 2003
44 Men Behaving Badly 30 June 2003
55 Butterflies 7 July 2003
66 Only Fools and Horses 14 July 2003

Series 2 (2004)

Overall #Ep #TitleAir dateNotes
71 The Goodies 21 June 2004
82 Birds of a Feather 28 June 2004
93 Father Ted 12 July 2004Featured as a special feature on the DVD box-set.
104 The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin 18 July 2004Featured as a special feature on the DVD box-set.
115 Keeping Up Appearances 26 July 2004Featured as a special feature on the US Collectors Edition DVD box-set, Australian Life lessons from Onslow DVD and Full Bouquet DVD box-set Australian releases.
126 The Young Ones 2 August 2004
137 Hi-de-Hi! 9 August 2004
148 Red Dwarf 30 August 2004This episode was the last to be narrated by Julia Sawalha and was included as a special feature on the Red Dwarf Series 8 DVD.

Series 3 (2005)

Overall #Ep #TitleAirdateNotes
151 Monty Python's Flying Circus 21 February 2005 Doon Mackichan becomes narrator from this episode
162 Spitting Image 28 February 2005
173 Three of a Kind 7 March 2005
184 Harry Enfield's Television Programme 14 March 2005
195 Goodness Gracious Me 21 March 2005
206 Not the Nine O'Clock News 28 March 2005
217 A Bit of Fry & Laurie 4 April 2005
228 The Two Ronnies 11 April 2005

Series 4 (2006)

Overall #Ep #TitleAirdateNotes
231 The Fast Show 6 March 2006Featured as a special feature on the DVD box-set.
242 dinnerladies 13 March 2006
253 Drop the Dead Donkey 20 March 2006
264 Shooting Stars 3 April 2006
275 To the Manor Born 10 April 2006
286 'Allo 'Allo! 24 April 2006
297 That Was the Week That Was 1 May 2006
308 Ever Decreasing Circles 8 May 2006

Series 5 (2007)

Overall #Ep #TitleAirdateNotes
311 One Foot in the Grave 12 January 2007
322 Bread 19 January 2007
333 It Ain't Half Hot Mum 26 January 2007
344 The New Statesman 2 February 2007
355 Don't Wait Up 9 February 2007
366 The Office 16 February 2007Featured as a special feature on the 10th Anniversary DVD box-set.
377 Just Good Friends 23 February 2007
388 Alas Smith and Jones 2 March 2007

Series 6 (2008)

Overall #Ep #TitleAirdateNotes
391 Till Death Us Do Part 18 July 2008
402 Yes Minister/Yes, Prime Minister 25 July 2008
413 The Liver Birds 1 August 2008
424 Ripping Yarns 8 August 2008
435 Rab C. Nesbitt 15 August 2008
446 Sorry! 22 August 2008
457 Dad's Army 29 August 2008
468 Little Britain 4 September 2008

Special

Overall #TitleAirdateNotes
47 Geoffrey Perkins 8 November 2008The only special episode based on a person

Spin-offs based on other TV generations

In 2005, the BBC broadcast Drama Connections , which used the same format, looked at the history of popular British television dramas. However, only one series was made and shown.

In 2007, the BBC broadcast Movie Connections , focusing on popular British films. A second series was broadcast in early 2009.

In 2010, ITV aired a similar programme called "Drama Trails", narrated by James Nesbitt.

Other show based on the Comedy Connections format

In 2008, ITV launched their own documentary series under the title Comedy Classics mostly documenting ITV's sitcoms and comedies.

Series 1 (2008)