Anthony John Hancock was an English comedian and actor.
A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.
Eric Sykes was an English radio, stage, television and film writer, comedian, actor, and director whose performing career spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers, John Antrobus, and Johnny Speight. Sykes first came to prominence through his many radio credits as a writer and actor in the 1950s, most notably through his collaboration on The Goon Show scripts. He became a TV star in his own right in the early 1960s when he appeared with Hattie Jacques in several popular BBC comedy television series.
Paul James Martin, known under the stage name Paul Merton, is an English writer, actor, comedian and radio and television presenter.
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em is a British sitcom broadcast on BBC1, created and written by Raymond Allen and starring Michael Crawford and Michele Dotrice. It was first broadcast in 1973 and ran for two series, including two Christmas specials in 1974 and 1975. After a three-year absence, the programme returned for a third series in 1978 and again in 2016 for a one-off special. The series regularly garnered 25 million viewers and was broadcast in 60 countries.
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business in 26a Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC in black and white from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974 in colour. The lead roles were played by Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett. The theme tune, "Old Ned", was composed by Ron Grainer. The series was voted 15th in a 2004 poll by the BBC to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was remade in the United States as Sanford and Son, in Sweden as Albert & Herbert, in the Netherlands as Stiefbeen en zoon, in Portugal as Camilo & Filho, and in South Africa as Snetherswaite and Son. Two film adaptations of the series were released in cinemas, Steptoe and Son (1972) and Steptoe and Son Ride Again (1973).
Ray Galton OBE and Alan Simpson OBE were English comedy scriptwriters whose partnership lasted over 50 years. They met in 1948 whilst recuperating from tuberculosis at the Milford Sanatorium, near Godalming in Surrey. They are best known for their work with comedian Tony Hancock on radio and television between 1954 and 1961 and their long-running television situation comedy, Steptoe and Son, eight series of which were aired between 1962 and 1974.
Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy series, broadcast from 1954 to 1961 and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sidney James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. The final television series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone.
Comedy Playhouse is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 128 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Meet the Wife, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, Up Pompeii!, Not in Front of the Children, Me Mammy, That's Your Funeral, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served? and particularly Last of the Summer Wine, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010. In all, 27 sitcoms started from a pilot in the Comedy Playhouse strand.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which aired between 5 January and 9 February 1981 on BBC Two in the United Kingdom. The adaptation follows the original radio series in 1978 and 1980, the first novel and double LP, in 1979, and the stage shows, in 1979 and 1980, making it the fifth iteration of the guide.
Citizen James is a BBC sitcom that ran for three series between 24 November 1960 and 23 November 1962. The show featured comedian and actor Sid James and Sydney Tafler with Bill Kerr and Liz Fraser appearing in early episodes. It was initially written by the comedy writing team of Galton and Simpson, who based the characters very much on the "Sidney Balmoral James" and "Bill Kerr, the dim-witted Australian" roles that they had played in Hancock's Half Hour.
Jeffrey Holland is a British actor who is well known for roles in television sitcoms, playing comic Spike Dixon at the Maplin's holiday camp in Hi-de-Hi!, as well as BBC Radio comedy, including Week Ending. He also played leading roles in the sitcoms You Rang, M'Lord? and Oh, Doctor Beeching!.
The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins is a 1971 British sketch comedy film directed and produced by Graham Stark. Its title is a conflation of The Magnificent Seven and the seven deadly sins. It comprises a sequence of seven sketches, each representing a sin and written by an array of British comedy-writing talent, including Graham Chapman, Spike Milligan, Barry Cryer and Galton and Simpson. The sketches are linked by animation sequences overseen by Bob Godfrey's animation studio. The music score is by British jazz musician Roy Budd, cinematography by Harvey Harrison and editing by Rod Nelson-Keys and Roy Piper. It was produced by Tigon Pictures and distributed in the U.K. by Tigon Film Distributors Ltd.
Alan Francis Simpson was an English scriptwriter, best known for the Galton and Simpson comedy writing partnership with Ray Galton. Together they devised and wrote the BBC sitcom Hancock's Half Hour (1954–1961), the first two series of Comedy Playhouse (1961–1963), and Steptoe and Son (1962–1974).
The third season of the American animated television series The Simpsons originally aired on the Fox network between September 19, 1991, and August 27, 1992. The showrunners for the third production season were Al Jean and Mike Reiss who executive produced 22 episodes for the season, while two other episodes were produced by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, and Sam Simon, with it being produced by Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox Television. An additional episode, "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?", aired on August 27, 1992, after the official end of the third season and is included on the Season 3 DVD set. Season three won six Primetime Emmy Awards for "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance" and also received a nomination for "Outstanding Animated Program" for the episode "Radio Bart". The complete season was released on DVD in Region 1 on August 26, 2003, Region 2 on October 6, 2003, and in Region 4 on October 22, 2003.
Executive Stress is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1986 to 1988. Produced by Thames Television, it first aired on 20 October 1986. After three series, the last episode aired on 27 December 1988.
Benidorm is a British sitcom written and created by Derren Litten and produced by Tiger Aspect for ITV that aired for ten series from 1 February 2007 until 2 May 2018. The series features an ensemble cast of holiday makers and staff at the Solana all-inclusive hotel in Benidorm, Spain over the course of a week each year.
The 64th Writers Guild of America Awards honored the best film, television, and videogame writers of 2011. Winners were announced on February 19, 2012.
"The Radio Ham" is an episode from the comedy series Hancock, the final BBC series featuring British comedian Tony Hancock. First transmitted on 9 June 1961, the show was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and was produced by Duncan Wood. The title is a retronym.
The Kit Curran Radio Show is a British sitcom created and initially written by Andy Hamilton, and screened on ITV in 1984. A second series in 1986 was co-written with Guy Jenkin, the title reduced to simply Kit Curran.
