Noel Edmonds and Mr Blobby: nightmare fuel
Jokes which don’t land, surprises which are deeply humiliating to all involved, rubbish ventriloquism with cheap puppets, hellish Saturday night quiz shows, the Brian Rogers Connection and Robin Askwith… Welcome to television in the UK, circa 78- 95. This, readers, was the not- so golden era of light entertainment, meeting at the strange intersection of Vaudeville and Teatime, when our expectations were less sophisticated and the small screen, extremely limited.
Add to this underwhelming concoction the taste of strawberry Nesquik, singed Findus Crispy Pancakes or a Vesta beef curry, and you’ve got Stuart Millard and his very specific time machine. He’s like a mobile DJ with a degree in Hauntology and he knows of what he speaks.
The Krankies:they’re married,you know.
Not for Millard, the cheeky chirruping of “Peter Kay remembering things” as Stewart Lee witheringly quipped; he’s the living antithesis of cheerful, bluff and northern. This is more a post-mortem of the dying era of the inexpensive brand of television that you only get glimpses of today, in our tech -savvy, more discerning world (McIntyre, Ant and Dec, anything on ITV in the morning). It’s the end of the end of the pier, a post-Thatcher landscape, one which was wheezing its last anyway. Millard knows it’s a mercy killing. It would have suffered to continue. As would we, to bear witness to anymore of it.
A Clockwork Orange for toddlers: Noseybonk.
His fixations are many: creepy children’s TV; Noel Edmonds and Mr Blobby, Little and Large, Cilla Black, Jeremy Beadle, The Two Ronnies, Andy Crane, Noseybonk. All present and correct, blighting our childhoods with casual racism, sexism, ill-advised sartorial choices and, in the latter, CPTSD -inducing sketches. It’s little wonder we grew up peculiar, in these pre-woke, lowest common denominator gag merchant days, when a particular strain of crude, cruel humour still dominated the schedules. It often made pantomime look like high art. We learned to lower our brows accordingly.
Michael Barrymore striking a pose
The recent political lurch to the right with Nigel Farage gaining in popularity makes me wonder sometimes if I haven’t in fact woken up in 1983 after all. Luckily, Millard is here with his wonderful wordplay and deadpan phrasing. He’ll hold our hands as the void approaches. And I for one am pathetically grateful. All hail Millard and his YouTube channel. Little elsewhere makes much sense anymore.
Hit The North 