Hi, and welcome to another of my cartoons. This is one is a little bit different. I’ve decided to lighten the mood a little bit, and so it’s a bit of a break from satirising the Tory party and its monstrous denizens. This time it’s a mock movie poster for a ‘Carry On’ film of the Beeb’s The Apprentice. It’s because I noticed a certain physical similarity between Alan Sugar and Nick Hewer with Sid James and Kenneth Williams. And I have to say I’d rather watch Joan Sims than Tory shill Karen Brady.
So here it is. The slogan reads ‘There’s no decorum in the boardroom of Alan Nookie PLC’. I’ve also written a number of fake quotes for it like those that appear on movie posters. They are
‘Good rollicking fun’ – The Sun
‘Sheer sexist filth’ – Everyone born after 1980
‘Waugh! Waugh!’ – the late Side James.
I don’t think you could revive the ‘Carry On’ films today, as society has moved on so much from their heyday in the ’60s and ’70s’. The last film, Carry On Columbus, released in 1992 during 50th celebrations of Columbus’ discovery of America, was a flop despite having a cast that included Maureen Lipman, Julian Clary and Alexei Sayle. However, some of that style of humour would still be acceptable. Some of the visual gags in the Austin Powers movies, for example, owe something to the Carry On films and I can’t see some of the other gags causing offence, either. Like the cry of Kenneth Williams’ Julius Caesar in Carry On Cleo as he’s assassinated ‘Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!’ And then there’s that sequence in Carry On Screaming when Harry H. Corbet’s detective and his sidekick, played by Peter Butterworth, try working out on blackboard what the clues mean.
‘Right – is it fair play, or foul?’ asks Corbet.
‘Oh, foul, Inspector’. Corbet writes ‘foul’ on the blackboard.
‘Right, what makes us think it was foul?’
‘The footprints.’
‘Feet, right’. He writes ‘Feet’ on the board. ‘Anything else?’
‘The smell, Inspector’.
‘The smell!’ He write ‘smell on the blackboard.
‘What else?’
‘They saw something, something horrible’.
‘Something horrible’, he writes this on the board.
Corbet stands back. He asks, ‘And so, looking at the board, what have we got?’
Butterworth reads out ‘Foul feet smell something horrible’.
Okay, it’s schoolboy humour, but I still find it funny. And unlike the attitudes in the movies to sex and women, which are very ’70s, that kind of humour and punning could still be included in movies today without causing offence. Possibly also the double entendres. Julian Clary and others have said that they enjoyed the camp humour of radio shows like Round the Horne, which are similar to those of the Carry On films in that regard. This would require far more care, though.
Anyway, I hope this gives you a laugh. And don’t let the Tories give you nightmares.
Tags: 'Carry On Cleo', 'Carry On Columbus', 'Carry On Screaming', 'Round the Horne', Alan Sugar, Alexei Sayle, Carry On Films, Cartoons, Christopher Columbus, Conservatives, Harry H. Corbet, Joan Sims, Julian Clary, Karen Brady, Kenneth Williams, Maureen Lipman, Nick Hewer, Peter Butterworth, Sexism, Sid James, The Apprentice, The Sun, Women
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
March 14, 2020 at 7:00 pm |
That’s funny 😁 , though to be honest I can’t bear to watch The Apprentice, give me a Carry On film instead any day. I have fond memories of the first time I saw Carry On Camping at a cinema in Rhyl as a kid, must have been late 60s or early 70s, we were on holiday and when the weather turned bad (giant hail stones!) we ran for cover into the pictures. Everyone fell asleep except for me and my dad – mother, sister, aunt, uncle, all snoring! I still enjoy watching it to this day, as corny and sexist as it is. Carry On at Your Convenience is another favourite, even though the Leftwing Shop Steward (whatsisname? ‘Marty Hopkirk’) is made to be the villain of the piece, but I just like Bernard Bresslaw on his Triumph Bonneville – it’s so of it’s time it’s like a piece of social history now.
March 14, 2020 at 7:07 pm |
Kenneth Cope was the Shop Steward, I couldn’t think of his name.
March 14, 2020 at 8:19 pm |
I still have fond memories of the ‘Carry On’ films, though my favourites are the historical adventures – ‘Carry On Cleo’, ‘Carry On Jack’ and ‘Carry On – Don’t Lose Your Head’. I like ‘Carry On Screaming’, although it really frightened me as a child. I think it’s supposed to be a parody of Hammer, but someone once remarked that it’s actually more frightening than some of their movies. Oh yes, and ‘Carry On Cowboy’. They are social documents, as they do reflect the times in which they were made.There’s a right-wing bias in some of them, definitely, but by and large they were just innocent fun, and certainly nowhere near as malign as some of the epics that emerged in the ’70s.