535 The Kenny Everett Television Show

First  viewed  : 25  February  1982

Kenny  Everett  returned  to  the  BBC  after  falling  out  with  Thames  TV  over  the  scheduling  of The  Kenny  Everett  Video  Show.  He'd  already  started  broadcasting  on  Radio  One  again  but   his  new  TV  vehicle  began  early  in  1982  just  after  Top  of  the  Pops  on  a  Thursday. Fearing that  Thames  would  hold  copyright  on  his  previous  comic  characters  Kenny  introduced  a number  of  new  ones  for  this  series  most  famously  Cupid  Stunt  the  infinitely  vulgar  film  star  based  on  Bette  Midler  talking  to  a  cardboard  Michael  Parkinson

I  saw  the  first  show  and  a  fair  few  others  but  it  never  quite  grabbed  me  in  the  same  way  as  the  ITV  version. Kenny  had  lost  a  little  of  that  manic  energy  and  seemed  more  of  a  skilful  comic  actor   than  a  genuinely  anarchic  force ( obviously,  his  appearance  at  a Conservative  party  election  rally  the  following  year  greatly  accelerated  this  process ) . The  characters  quickly  became  bogged  down  by  their  catchphrases  and  fitting  them  all  in  meant  the  show  started  to  look  formulaic  in  the  same  way  as  The  Two  Ronnies.  The  scripts  also  came  to  rely  too  much  on  innuendo . I  remember  watching  one  episode  at  my  hall  of  residence  and  my  best  mate  there  contemptuously  remarking  "They  should  re-name  it  "The  Kenny  Everett  Gay  Show ".

However  there  was  at  least  one  reason  for  the  heterosexual  community  to  watch,  in  in  the  form  of  Brazilian -born  actress  Cleo  Rocos  who , always  revealingly  clad, acted  as  a  comic  foil  to  Ken  in  many  of  the  sketches. Her  first  appearance  was  a  very  funny  sketch  where  she  was  a  politician  being  interviewed  and  described  the  SDP  as  offering  " a  middle  course"  while  the  camera  zoomed  in   inexorably  towards  her  ample  cleavage.

There  was  usually  a  musical  guest  and  the  first  show  had  Bill  Wyman  being  predictably  wooden  in  a  misfiring  sketch  about  Ken  mistaking  him  for  Jagger. Bill  then  got  to  perform  his  dreary  new  single  A  New  Fashion   which  contains  the  unfortunate  line  "Gimmee, gimmee  gimmee  some  good  old  fashioned  melody "  to  which  my  sister  instantly ( and  accurately  )  retorted "Well  this  hasn't  got  any !"

The  series  ended  in  1988, Kenny  and  Cleo  moving  on  to  a  one  series-only  quiz  show  Brainstorm  after  which  he  mainly  went  back  to  commercial  radio  before  his  death  from  AIDS  in  1995. He  was  only  50  but  his  time  had   gone  past,  a  trailblazer  already   superseded  by  the  likes  of  Chris  Evans. Rocas  has  manfully  tried  to  keep  her  career  afloat  since, a  fairly  disastrous  appearance  on  Celebrity  Big  Brother   proving  conclusively  that  she  wasn't  funny  in  her  own  right. Dirk  Benedict  also  skewered  her  fading   credentials  as  a  sex  symbol  by  disparaging  her  "middle-aged  cleavage"  and  reporting  her  for  sexual  harassment.  Her  latest  venture  is  as  a  tequila  distiller.