Wednesday 18 February 2015

94 Michael Bentine Time / Michael Bentine's Potty Time


First  watched  : 1972

At the  risk  of  being  executed  for  treason  in  the  next  reign  I've  never  seen  anything  very  appealing  in  the  Goons  that  would  warrant  further investigation  though  that  might  be  over-influenced  by  that  unctuous  bullfrog,  Harry  Secombe's  inescapable  presence  in  their  ranks. I  did  like  this  though; perhaps  Michael  got  out  before  becoming  too  tainted  with  their  cloying  silliness.

The  Potty  puppets  were  a  little  similar  to  the  Diddymen  although  the  tone  of  the  programme  was  sharply  different,  Michael  and  Doddy  having  little  in  common  as   comedians. The  Potties  generally  performed  comic  re-creations  of  historical  events  scripted  by  Michael  who  also  did  the  voices  ( which  did  owe  something  to  the  Goons )  and  designed  the  look  for  the  puppets  though  as  he  interacted  with  them  on  screen  they  were  operated  from  below  by  others.

Strangely  it  didn't  take  in  its  Friday  teatime  slot  on  BBC1  so  the  following  year  switched  to  ITV  where, slightly  re-titled  it  ran  for  the  rest  of  the  decade.

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