Father Ted for Septics--laff riot!

[davec]

All the world's crazy but me and thee, and thee's a little queer...

A couple of work projects got put on hold, so I'm scrambling to make use of the spare time before I go down to the new farm in a couple of weeks.

Father Ted is a UK Channel Four TV series, based on the demented doings of a group of Catholic priests banished to crappy little Craggy Island for various reasons. I found it in the PBS/BBC section of my local video store. I'm quite positive it never appeared on PBS anywhere, due to moderately unNeoCalvinist language. BTW, the island no longer has a west side--it 'fell off in a storm'. It does have a very nice field, though--or, well, at least a spot that doesn't have quite as many stones as the rest of the island.

Father Ted went to Las Vegas and came back without the money that was to have sent a poor sick child to Lourdes. He is the long-suffering lynchpin of the group, trying to hold onto both the reins of the Parochial House and his own sanity. Sad to say, the actor who played him, Dermot Morgan, died while at a party celebrating the final episode of the show.

Old retired Father Jack is demented, obviously due to consumption of alcohol and whatever else is handy. SepticTone wasn't joking--he actually does appear in one episode passed out with a bottle of Castrol motor oil in his hand! In another, Father Ted discovers an empty bottle of Toilet Duck (:!:) by the chair. "Oh, no! Not Toilet Duck! Ya know what that does to ya!!" It obviously has him tripping. He mostly sleeps, and waking him is a risky proposition. He is likely to curse or throw things, including you. He says little, and much of what he does say is cursing. "What do you say to a nice cup of tea, Father?" "Feck off, cup!!" He refuses tea or doesn't hear when it's offered, but offer booze and his hearing's just fine, as is his mood. It must have been damn fun to play him.

Young Father Dougal was struck by lightning several times, and is jovial, vivacious, and generally less in touch with reality than Father Jack. He was banished to Craggy for the unspecified 'Blackrock Incident'. Father Ted treats him like the troublesome pet he is.

Mrs. Doyle is the obsessive housekeeper. When she wants you to have tea or a nip, you will have tea or a nip. She does not take no for an answer. Mad as she is, she actually sees everyone else's madness and serenely accepts it. She's a case study in irony.

Craggy Island's inhabitants are an endearing lot, with a married couple that are constantly on the verge of murdering one another but turn sweet as pie when anybody else is around, and a man in an 'I shot JR' tee shirt who actually does shoot things now and then.

The show is well done, full of great little sketches based on absurd people, ridiculous events, and bizarre twists of logic. It's written and performed by Irish and folk of Irish descent, but if I were Irish, I'd be insulted. Hey, wait a minute... my mother's side of the family is Irish... oh, but Protestant. Right then--never mind.

Definitely recommended viewing!

[SepticTone]

A nice review, dave. Thanks.

Its surreality of mindset reminds me of a US sitcom we used to get over here. Family man, no, something like that, with a surreal dysfunctional but perfectly-visioned & loveable US family; mainly played out in one living room, on a sofa much like Father Ted. I used to like that: wife hated it.

Try sourcing "The Royle Family". I bet you didn't get that over there. It's always a British Christmas favourite, in fact they've just done a Christmas special which'll get mega viewing figures in two or 3 days, I'll warrant.

[Kate]

ST, was it animated? It may be "Family Guy" you're thinking of - although I don't actually watch it.

How many episodes of this were there, Dave? I really like British shows - but I don't understand the idea that a successful show can have a dozen episodes.

[SepticTone]

Thanks Kate, but I've seen Family Guy cartoon series, & it's not that: it'll come to me sometime what the real name of it was, but the family in were a moronic dad, an amazingly dense wife, a slutty stupid teenage daughter & a smartass teen son. Most of the action was centred on their big sofa in the lounge, & the surreal characterisations of the family members was definitely not standard US-style fare.

Anyway.

We have another new Royle Family Christmas special upcoming for Christmas Day I believe, which will have Major viewing figures, no doubt. Here is a resume of what The series is all about:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theroylefamily/

The shows contain far too much 'earthy' language, farting, bodily functions references & keenly observed obcure Northern English themes & accents for it ever to be aired on US TV, but it's as much a must-see show as The Queen's Christmas message to the nation

Incidentally, my mother & father-in-law, like millions of other Brits, won't leave their house to come to ours for their Christmas Dinner until they've watched The Queen's Christmas speech, broadcast every Christmas Day precisely at 3.00 pm every year, in perfect silence & reverence. They have to watch it at their's because we usually talk over it here, & that shows disrespect. It's a bit like the US State of the Union Speech, except the same Head of State's been delivering it for the last 50 years or so. It's incredibly boring.

[cbrzychcy]

That could be about a million shows, ST, but the one name that springs to my mind is Married with Children.

[davec]

Father Ted ran for 25 episodes in three series (British 'season') from '95 to '98.

I'll look for the Royle Family. I'm pretty sure I've seen it in the Beeb section of my local vidshop.

I'm pretty sure you're talking about Married With Children, ST. Father and mother are Al and Peg. Peg is tall, ridiculously buxom, and dresses and does her hair like trailer tr--oh, I mean an Aluminum American. The boy's name is Bud. The girl is played by Christina Applegate who has gone on to do a lot of other comedy work, mostly in films. I don't watch enough TV to know if the others ever did much after that. Certainly not as much as Applegate.

BTW, American homes have 'living rooms', not 'lounges'. I guess the rest of the house consists of Dying Rooms. Go figure American logic.

[SepticTone]

Yes, you're right, both of you, Thanks! Married with Children.

I liked it, wife couldn't see the point of it: I mainly liked the idiotic expression on Al's face, plus it was different from most slick & witty US sitcoms, like 'Friends', where everybody's clever. I like sitcoms like Father Ted, where everybody's stupid.

We don't call the living room a 'lounge' round here either: I was trying to be posh. Posh people have lounges, working class Northerners have living rooms, or 'front rooms', the back room being a kind of small kitchen/dining room, particularly in small terraced houses like we have round here by the thousands.

Royle Family: We have a new hour-long special of this series scheduled for peak-time on BBC1 Christmas Day: it'll get the highest rating figures after the Queen's Christmas Broadcast, which is likely to be a 15 minute salute to our, & US & UN troops out there in Afghanistan, fighting & dying to keep the medieval cowardly islamic terrorists away from messing with our respective countries. So I'll for once agree with what she'll be saying.

Oh, I forgot about the real Royle Family: Starring Caroline Aherne ( who used to be married to Geoff Hook, the bassist with New Order, & a friend of mine from my Manchester days ) and Ricky Tomlinson, highly regarded here in the UK as a National Treasure as an actor: a staunch lifelong & hardworking Socialist, who, paradoxically, helped Tony Blair & his pretend-socialist party into power in 1997.

[Kate]

Ah, see, I watch so little television, due to (a) having been in college for the last four years, and (b) having the only television in the house in the living room for most of my life, thereby ensuring that I don't often get to see anything other than precisely what I wanted, since I found it online or begged really hard. So I know of very few TV shows other than the ones I've watched.

[SepticTone]

I only watch television selectively, too, Kate. Studying's far more important.

BTW.

The last David Tennant 'Doctor Who ' 2-hour special, " The End of Time", was shown here split into 2 parts, one on Christmas Day, the finale on New Years Day. It was very poignant, & had 11 million viewers crying into their glasses of mulled wine ( me amongst them: the wife remained unmoved).

You can steal it off the internet if you try hard enough & use torrents.

BTW2.

Tennant AND Sir Patrick Stewart starred in a new BBC production of 'Hamlet', by the RSC on Boxing Day here. It was great.

Plus, it's being aired in the US on PBS channels in April 2010:

http://tennantnews.blogspot.com/2010/01 ... april.html

Worth watching.

[cbrzychcy]

...Plus, it's being aired in the US on PBS channels in April 2010...

:glee: So happy about this!

I was a wreck at the end of the Dr Who special. Was a bit early for mulled wine when I watched so I was just crying into the blanket I was wrapped up in.