Whack-O!

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Whack-O!
Whacko title screen.png
The title sequence emulated a chalk blackboard, with caricatures of Jimmy Edwards interposed with credits, often with letters the wrong way around.
Genre Sitcom
Created by Frank Muir
Denis Norden
Starring
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes60
Production
Running time30 minutes
Original release
Network BBC1
Release4 October 1956 (1956-10-04) –
26 February 1972 (1972-02-26)

Whack-O! is a British sitcom TV series starring Jimmy Edwards. It was written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden.

Contents

The series (in black and white) ran on the BBC from 1956 to 1960 and (in colour) from 1971 to 1972. Edwards took the part of Professor James Edwards, M.A., the drunken, gambling, devious, cane-swishing headmaster who tyrannised staff and children at Chiselbury public school (described in the opening titles as "for the sons of Gentlefolk"). The Edwards character bore more than a passing resemblance to Sergeant Bilko as he tried to swindle the children out of their pocket money to finance his many schemes. [1]

The first six episodes were subtitled "Six of the Best". In 1959 a film was made based on the show, called Bottoms Up! . The series was revived in colour with updated scripts in 1971–72, retitled Whacko!. In all, it ran for a total of 60 episodes, with 47 of black-and-white and 13 colour, of 30 minutes each. There were three special shorts. There was also a radio version with Vera Lynn starring as herself in the second episode. Many of these radio episodes were recovered by a BBC archivist from a listener's collection of tapes in 2012.[ citation needed ]

The front of the historic house of Great Fosters near Egham in Surrey was used in the opening title sequence of the TV comedy series, behind the name of the fictional Chiselbury School. [2]

Cast

Surviving episodes

Most of the show's episodes are missing, presumed lost. Six of the original black-and-white episodes are known to exist today. [5]

Only 6 episodes of the B/W version exist in the BBC TV archives, with 3 (out of the 6 remaining B&W episodes) having been rediscovered in December 2016.

Details of radio adaptation

BBC Radio adapted the TV scripts into 45 thirty-minute shows, mostly with the original cast, of which 42 recordings survive. There were three series which originally ran on the BBC Light Programme from 23 May 1961 until 22 July 1963. They have been repeated on BBC Radio Extra since 2015 and the last airing was in 2020.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "BBC comedy: Whack-O!". Archived from the original on 16 June 2009. Retrieved 8 October 2025.
  2. ↑ "Whack-O! Opening titles, BBC TV" . Retrieved 28 July 2008.
  3. ↑ "Whacko! - BBC One London - 19 February 1972 - BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  4. 1 2 "Whack-O! (TV Series 1956–1972)" . Retrieved 20 September 2018– via imdb.com.
  5. ↑ "Whack-O!", Kaleidoscope website
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