We Have Ways of Making You Laugh | |
---|---|
Genre | Comedy |
Directed by | Bill Turner |
Presented by | Frank Muir |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
No. of episodes | 12 (all unaired) |
Production | |
Producer | Humphrey Barclay |
Production company | London Weekend Television |
Original release | |
Network | ITV |
Release | 2 August 1968 |
We Have Ways of Making You Laugh is a comedic television series produced by Humphrey Barclay and directed by Bill Turner for London Weekend Television. [1] Frank Muir hosted the show. [2] It featured Kenneth Cope, [1] Eric Idle and Katherine Whitehorn, with music and writing by Benny Green. The theme music was composed by Don Partridge and played in his 'one-man-band' style. Dick Vosburgh prepared material spoofing Jimmy Young for the show. Terry Gilliam created animations using cut-outs, a technique he later used in Monty Python's Flying Circus . [3] The series was live. Its debut broadcast was scheduled for 2 August 1968. Although the cast performed, only the first 15 seconds of the first show were transmitted, due to an industrial action [2] (other, prerecorded programming was unaffected by the labour dispute). [4] There are no known recordings of its 12 episodes. [5]
Do Not Adjust Your Set (DNAYS) is a British television series produced originally by Rediffusion, London, then, by the fledgling Thames Television for British commercial television channel ITV from 26 December 1967 to 14 May 1969. The show took its name from the message that was displayed when there was a problem with transmission or technical difficulties.
Graham Chapman was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the surreal comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel and the lead role in two Python films, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Life of Brian (1979).
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and presenter. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s, he cofounded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus. Along with his Python costars Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Graham Chapman, Cleese starred in Monty Python films, which include Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), and The Meaning of Life (1983).
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Monty Python were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus, which aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their work then developed into a larger collection that included live shows, films, albums, books, and musicals; their influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music. Their sketch show has been called "an important moment in the evolution of television comedy".
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Eric Idle is an English actor, comedian, songwriter, musician, screenwriter and playwright. He was a member of the British comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band the Rutles. Idle studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and joined Cambridge University Footlights. He reached stardom when he co-created and acted in the sketch series Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974) and the films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983) with John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and Graham Chapman.
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Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, also known simply as The Meaning of Life, is a 1983 British musical sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python troupe, directed by Terry Jones. The Meaning of Life was the last feature film to star all six Python members before the death of Graham Chapman in 1989.
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Rutland Weekend Television (RWT) was a television sketch show written by Eric Idle with music by Neil Innes. Two series were broadcast on BBC2, the first consisting of six episodes in 1975, and the second series of seven episodes in 1976. A Christmas special was broadcast on Boxing Day 1975.
The Frost Report is a satirical television show hosted by David Frost. It introduced John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett to television, and launched the careers of other writers and performers. It premiered on BBC1 on 10 March 1966 and ended on 12 December 1967, with a total of 26 regular episodes over the course of 2 series and 2 specials as well.
Richard Kennedy Vosburgh was an American-born Grammy and Tony-nominated comedy writer and lyricist, working chiefly in Britain.
Monty Python's Flying Circus is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, who became known collectively as "Monty Python", or the "Pythons". The first episode was recorded at the BBC on 7 September 1969 and premiered on 5 October on BBC1, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV. A feature film adaptation of several sketches, And Now for Something Completely Different, was released in 1971.
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We Have Ways of Making You Laugh with Frank Muir, Kenneth Cope, Dick Vosburgh. Prod Humphrey Barclay. Dir Bill Turner. London Weekend
The launch night, on Friday 2 August 1968, was to kick off with We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh, a live comedy show hosted by Muir himself [...] nobody transmitted the first We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh. Ongoing industrial action [...] meant that screens went blank after only fifteen seconds. The performers were allowed to remain oblivious and carry on [...]
[...] Humphrey went to London Weekend Television, [...] and he dragged me along with Eric Idle. There was a group [...] consisting of Benny Green, who was a jazzman and a good writer; Katherine Whitehorn, [...] [and] Dick Vosburgh, who was a great comedy writer. [...] Vosburgh had spent three months taping [...] Jimmy Young's radio show. [...] I suggested that I do an animated film. [...] the only way to work on that budget in that amount of time was to do cut-outs [...] So when it came later to doing Python [...] I didn't have the patience to draw [...] I just started cutting out the things I liked [...]
So far, we gradually learned, the strike was not continuous, but selective. Recorded programmes were still getting on the air, but live programmes like We Have Ways of Making You Laugh were not.