First viewed : 2 June 1986
I remember seeing this at the "Cardboard House ". That was a house in Headingley occupied by four friends of mine from the first year at the hall of residence. I had wanted to go with them but it wasn't to be ; now I lived very close to them and was often round in those last weeks. The "Cardboard " epithet was pejorative ; one of the occupants , a Geordie guy called Andy, had acquired the nickname "Cardboard Man" i.e. thin and "stiff" ( the ultimate insult ) during that first year , after protesting at the drunken rampage of a gang of morons when everyone else was keeping their heads down , and it followed him into the shared house .
On Monday 2.6.86 . I was watching World Cup Grandstand there and when it finished at 9pm we switched over to The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Unfortunately for Naked Video . it was the classic episode where Jimmy announces his secret army so the show which followed it had its work cut out to keep us laughing.
We gave Naked Video a fair chance but were soon picking holes in it. Naked Video derived from a BBC Scotland radio show Naked Radio that had been running since 1981 with an emphasis on topical satire. When it came to TV, Gregor Fisher and Elaine C Smith crossed over but were balanced out by the English Helen Lederer and Welsh John Sparkes so the show was less overtly Scottish in nature.
It came across as a pale imitation of Not The Nine O Clock News . I remember us ( a group of either Alliance or soft Tory supporters ) protesting at how many of the sketches had an anti-nuclear theme.
I should mention that the show did launch three notable comic creations in Rab C Nesbitt and The Baldy Man ( both Fisher ) and Welsh nerd Shadwell ( Sparkes ). It ran for five seasons, finishing in 1991.
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