Ben Crompton - Part One: From Game of Thrones to Standout Sitcoms, and the Horror of Noseybonk

Good morning, good afternoon, Screen Rats.

Today's episode of Television Times is part one of a two-parter.

Our guest today is Ben Crompton.

Now, you know him from many things.

Of course, most of you will recognise him from his role in Game of Thrones, playing Eddison Tollett.

But Ben's also been in many other things like Doctor Who.

He was in a TV show called Ideal with Johnny Vegas, which was directed by Ben Wheatley, who then put Ben in some of his subsequent movies as well.

He's in the current spin-off TV show of the film The Full Monty.

He was in so many things.

He's been in Motherland, he played a postman, in Romas Ranganathan's show The Reluctant Landlord.

I mean, he's in everything.

And if that's not enough, Ben is also an accomplished stand-up comedian and can be seen performing regularly.

And he lives up here in Newcastle, where I live.

His wife, he met her at Northern Stage, which is somewhere my wife most recently worked.

Sort of a tiny connection there.

We'll talk about that a little bit.

But this chat was so easy.

He came over quite a long time ago.

It's about three months ago now.

And the reason for the delay was because basically had a load of guests that had shows on Edinburgh.

So I had to sort of get those ones out before Edinburgh.

Then I recorded some at Edinburgh and I wanted to put those out because, you know, it'll just sound a really, I don't want to be putting out an Edinburgh episode in December.

So I held on to this one.

And also it's a really good chat.

And that's why we're doing it over two parts, because it was a really long conversation.

Ben came around, I don't know, about half nine, 10 in the morning, stayed right out till lunchtime.

We chatted off Mike for about an hour after we finished as well.

We were just chatting, chatting, chatting.

He was so easy to talk to.

It felt like I was talking to a mate.

He was such a good guy to get around an interview.

It's so easy.

Brilliant.

We do start off by talking about cakes, but, you know, sit with it.

It develops into quite a normal, easy listen, I think, this one.

I'm not going to edit too much out of this.

I'm just going to leave it kind of as it is.

There's a bit of rim noise, a bit of echo.

Sorry for the misophonia, people.

We are drinking tea, coffee and eating madeleines at the beginning.

You know, just, you know, go with it.

I don't want to chop the fuck out of this one.

And you know, seeing as there are two parts to this interview, I'd like to just crack on and get on with it, you know?

But I mean, all I'll tell you is I'm feeling a bit tired lately and I've recently been to a hotel for two days just to relax.

That's what we do sometimes, mostly because it's nearly my birthday.

And every year it's the same thing.

What do you want?

Two days in a Premier and thank you very much.

Just to relax, go for some movies, have a bath.

Just basically cut myself off from the world and close the fucking door.

It's one I like the most.

I don't want to do it all the time, but when it happens, it really is nice.

And it's a great break and I recommend it to anybody, especially if you have kids and you can afford it.

If you can just go to a hotel, not an expensive one, just like a 30 quid one, just for a couple of nights and chill out.

You're fucking, it is like rejuvenation.

Trust me.

Right, so let's crack on.

Let's get into it.

Part one of Television Times Podcast featuring Ben Crompton.

It's Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben Crompton.

Welcome to Television Times.

A new podcast with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry, here on Television Times.

Nice brew.

Is that all right?

Yeah, it's much more easy looking.

Those are the...

They look like, what do you call them?

Madeleines.

Little French...

They've got little boats.

It looks like a little yellow submarine.

My missus likes them.

We try to keep it pro-EU in here, you know.

Oh, yeah.

My missus is Belgian.

So, you know, they have rambabas sometimes.

Oh, rambabas?

Hard to get though, now.

I remember.

It's funny you say that because my mum, she used to...

I used to live in Ireland and my mum worked in a cake shop when I was about 12 in Dublin.

Mm-hmm.

And she used to...

My mum is a bit of a crim.

And she used to send me in with a £20 note.

No, she sent me in with a £5 note and would give me change from a £20, that kind of stuff.

And she'd always give me rambabas to take home for my dad.

For the professors to never eat cake.

Right.

But if it's soaked in rum...

Is it actually alcoholic or is it all burnt out?

Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know if this is a different...

between, like, European, but the ones she has, which we've heard of in France, basically you get them in a jar and they're soaked in rum with little pastries.

In rum, they're quite alcoholic.

Very sweet.

Yeah, very sweet.

Kind of reminds me of the Indian sweet, gulab jamun.

I never know how to say it.

Friends of mine say gulab jamun, but I think it's gulab jamun.

I guess it's like a piece of sponge, a sort of shape of...

you know when you get those toys in a sort of elongated...

I guess like in a kinder egg, you open the kinder egg, you get the toy inside.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So imagine that shape, like a bullet almost.

Okay, yeah.

But cake, but pure sponge, soaked in sugar, comes in syrup, and they bring it to you after a very spicy meal in like the Punjab and stuff.

I don't know, I must have been doing something wrong during my meals, I've not got one.

I'm going to ask.

I was in the Punjab.

Well, I mean, they have them here.

Gulab jamun.

Gulab jamun, I will check that and turn to the pod.

It's like Indian equivalent to afterate mints.

I think it's more like a, what would it even be?

It's the sweetness of like a creme brulee or something.

Like really so sweet.

You know, have you ever had the Indian stuff?

It's too sweet.

The solid sweets that are made of like condensed milk.

Yeah, it's some stuff too much from time, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like a Brazilian coffee.

When I went to Brazil, I dropped like, I said, oh, just drop one into the coffee and I dropped two.

Double drop, don't double drop, mate.

It was fucking mental.

It was like a sugar rush.

Oh, I mean, my eyes went, you know when your eyes go funny?

Yeah, too much.

Exactly.

It's just already pointed out Blood Moon.

I haven't even, is this a good movie?

I don't know, this is terrible, because actually, like I said, my best mate Sean Dooley's in it, and he was up recently, he's just been doing Avera.

We all, they get around to everybody eventually, I think.

But yeah, so he did that, and actually, I was supposed to be up for it, but I couldn't do it.

I think Tony Law ended up doing it instead, but they shot it in England.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like a sort of, I mean, I'm assuming it's a sort of old school kind of like American Werewolf in London style of filming.

Yeah, I think it's a sort of Werewolf Western vibe and they've got a set, like a Western set somewhere in the home counters or something, so they could shoot that.

But you do, I mean, for sure, and you went, look, I'm playing an American cowboy who gets to fight a Werewolf.

So you do jobs for different reasons, don't you?

Because there is that, isn't there, at the moment?

There's a sort of like British Americana, that show called, is it called The End of the Fucking World?

Oh, yes.

It was all shot down in like...

That's right, yeah.

And it was all like, it looked like America, but it wasn't America.

It was like, shoot me next or something.

I was up for that.

And I'll tell you what else is interesting, that we've done.

Sex education, which I've not seen, but it's set in Wales, but the high school there, apparently, the bit I've seen is like, it's set in like an American high school with lockers and things, which isn't how it works here.

But apparently, that was an idea that it sells better around the world.

There are more schools around the world that are akin to the American high school, and so therefore it translates.

So you're making it for a global market then.

Although when you watch it, knowing what the schools are like in Britain, they're not like that.

Exactly.

So by the way, my five-year-old, he's got a little American school bus toy.

Oh yeah.

Which he plays with and he says he wants to go to school on the school bus.

I mean, school's just there.

Right.

I said, I don't think you do.

From what I've heard, it was an absolute horror show for kids who went to school on those things.

I love that.

I love American school buses and American taxis.

The yellow is a good choice, isn't it?

I love yellow.

But when I think of the American school bus, I think of Dirty Harry.

I think of South Park.

Oh, do you?

Of course, yeah.

Oh.

Dirty Harry, what happens in Dirty Harry?

Remind me.

There's the killer in it or something.

He hijacks a school bus and then he drives off and ends up driving off the edge of a, is it San Francisco Bridge or something?

Golden Gate Bridge, it's sort of wobbling.

And he's going, row, row, row, row, sing, fucking sing, row, row.

It's dark.

He's going to re-watch it.

Is that where they nicked Speed from then?

That's where, what?

Yeah, they might, yeah, maybe it is.

Just straight to Father Ted for me.

I know, who doesn't?

Who doesn't?

Who doesn't like Father Ted?

I've written some stuff down, only because obviously I have to do some research on you.

I'm gonna say straight up, and I wasn't gonna say it, but I'm gonna say it because I feel honesty is key.

I've never seen Game of Thrones and I apologize so much.

Do you know?

And I only know about two other people that haven't.

And I think I'm saving it for when I'm older.

I was on the road a lot and I didn't get to see it.

There's lots of you.

It's so funny because it's, I mean, I don't mind, I got paid anyway.

It's not through any kind of opinion.

It's so funny because when people do that, they say, I'm so sorry I've not seen it.

Oh, I know, I know.

It's like, I don't mind and I totally understand it.

There's loads of stuff I've not seen.

And awesome.

Well, you've probably not seen stuff you've been in, right?

That's what actors don't watch.

No, I do.

You do?

I do watch it because I go, and that's when I go, oh God, that's awful.

Can I get another job?

I'll do it better next time.

Some people don't watch it, but I do for that reason.

Most, I think.

To just go, well, yeah, I remember Gordon Jackson famously.

He never watched stuff.

But I do watch stuff because I try and I go, that's too much, that's ridiculous, that's shit.

And I watched it for like 20 years and go, how did you ever get any work?

But obviously, when you work, you get better.

Work breeds work and you learn.

Well, that's the plan, otherwise you shouldn't be doing it.

And what you feel you're doing sometimes, I think you learn from watching stuff back and you go, okay, that didn't play out quite how I thought it did.

So that's part of learning your craft, I think, in a way.

I remember watching Man Stroke Woman at the time, and I would have been on tour because I come from a tech background.

I started backstage, then I started writing, wrote a book, and now I do stand-up comedy and a podcast.

So it's a complete transition.

And I'm a stay-at-home dad for most of the last two and a half years while my wife goes out and does carpentry.

Does she?

And works at Northern Stage, weirdly.

Assholes.

Scenic workshops, yeah.

So I know you met you at your...

I met my missus at Northern Stage.

At Northern Stage, yeah.

25 years ago.

That was supposed to be a one-night stand.

I don't know, I'm either really good at one-night stands or really bad, but either, you know.

It was a planned one-night stand.

25 year one-night stand.

Might get married one day.

Were you on tour?

No, I was doing a play written by, I don't know if you know, Jermap Dunster.

He's like a big Western director now.

He's done Hangman, he did 20, 22 Ghost Story, The Pill and that.

I like your costumers.

And he'd written a play.

It was up at Northern State.

She was choreographing the piece beforehand.

And so yeah, we just ended up meeting on that, really.

She said, oh, you'll be all right when you're 50.

I thought, cheeky.

I said, I'm right.

I'm 20.

That's weird, because my missus said something similar.

We met in an open mic in Toronto.

I was playing music, she was playing music.

And we sort of, you know, connected.

And then it was a sort of, it was a bit harder because I had to fly across the Atlantic about five times a year.

Oh yeah, that is the longest.

Or woo her, if that's the words we could still use.

Not sure.

Were you courting?

Were we courting?

We were courting.

I think she had another guy on her books.

On her books?

And he was tall and handsome.

She sounds efficient, though.

Oh, really?

And she didn't go for it.

So it was like, all right.

Brill.

Woke town, didn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

And now she lives here and everyone here says, why did you leave Canada for Britain?

She's not Canadian, though, is she?

She's Canadian, yeah.

She's Canadian.

Is she getting all right with the...

Because I worked with a guy recently and he moved to Canada and he said it's kind of strange because I've always got a bit of a fascination with Canada.

It's one of those places I've always imagined I'd want to go.

I think what happened is my grandfather, he was from a big family and they all left.

I think it was about 12 kids and they all went to move to Canada and he was the only one that stayed here.

So I have this sense of like, you know, I should go there, but...

Are your family all English Englishy or are they?

There's a bit of, yeah mainly, yeah.

Yeah, there's a bit of Italian back in the day and stuff.

Oh yeah, you look a bit Viking here, don't you?

I've got a ginger beard as well.

There's some ginger in the mix.

Yeah, there's definitely some ginger in the mix.

I was watching Man Stroke Woman, which is, what, 15 years more, maybe?

Yeah, we did it in 2005.

2005.

2007, so it's about 18 years.

It's a whole child's life away.

Yeah, it's crazy.

But you know, like, obviously, this is not an original thought, but there aren't really that many sketch shows on anymore.

I've been watching quite a lot of it, because I actually, I watched it just to sort of see you in it and remind myself of the show.

And I just started watching more and more and more and more, because obviously all of you are very well known now, and you know, Daisy Haggard has gone on to breeders and back to life and amazing things like that as well.

And obviously your career and Nick.

But like, I don't think it's that dated.

There's only one sketch I can pick out.

And that's the one where you're in the office and everyone's dressed as a woman.

Oh yeah.

It's a little bit prophetic.

I wouldn't cut this if you want, but it's just.

Do you know what?

It's, there's a lot of stuff in there that wouldn't get made now.

I mean, the things you talk about with sketch shows, there was a glut at the time.

There was an absolute, suddenly, because there was swinging, at Channel 5, I'd go at that, there was spoons on Channel 4, there was Titty Bang Bang.

There was, suddenly, there was like, for a few years, there was an absolute, there was loads of sketch shows.

And I was, even at the time when we were filming it, there was points where we were going, is this a bit, is there a little bit of misogyny set at points?

I think Nick Frost said, we should call it Manstrike Woman.

There's a series of scenes where there's two women saying, oh, that was amazing, so that's great, oh, that's well done.

How can we possibly thank you?

And then we all in turn go, oh, just kiss.

And just getting the women to go.

And there's a few sketches in there that I think wouldn't play out today.

But I think, I think unlike the nature of all sketch shows, they're a bit hit and miss.

But there's enough hitters in there, there's enough good ones in there, I think.

They'll probably work well, particularly in this generation, where you can cut up content and you just send it around in one minute clips and stuff.

I mean, has it been chopped up and thrown all over TikTok?

Yeah, I mean, you know, every now and again.

I mean, I'm not on TikTok, so people send stuff sometimes.

You're only 50 years old, you can't be on TikTok.

No, I can't be on TikTok, exactly.

I've got mates, I've got...

Why aren't you on TikTok?

I only just do Facebook for mates and stuff and I do Instagram as like a general presence.

Because I don't do Twitter because that seems like a cesspit.

Yeah, I only put the...

I mean, I don't get anything on any of it really, only Instagram.

Everyone asks me what the Insta handle is.

That's about it, really.

Facebook seems to be like the same people that are liking my episodes are the people that liked my songs 10 years ago.

It's like, I need new people on Facebook.

I do like family stuff and stuff.

I just have family and friends on that.

But Instagram, everything's got to be...

You've got to sort of be careful what you put out there.

Because everyone's got an opinion.

It's just noisy.

Life's noisy, isn't it?

It's chaotic.

Even talking to people, if I speak to somebody...

Because obviously, your politics can come out sometimes.

My views on monarchy could come out sometimes.

You've got to be really careful on what...

Kind of careful what you say, but also be truthful and not sort of hide who you are.

Absolutely, yeah.

And that's hard because...

Think about five or six years ahead.

Like, am I saying something that...

Yeah, yeah, I find that tricky.

I want to be like...

Kids growing up now and stuff like that.

If somebody does well or something, somebody will then go back seven years to their Twitter account, you know, and they'd said something slightly stupid.

And they'll vilify the fraud.

You're thinking, do you know what?

We've all been young, we've all made mistakes and stuff.

And we sort of live in a...

This is what's happening now.

I've turned into angry bloke, shouts this guy.

What's going on in the world?

Do you know what I mean?

We live in a sort of world of polemics now.

And also, if you have an opinion, whatever it is, you can find 10,000 people who will back you up.

So they probably go, well, I must be right, you know.

Well, confirmation bias is easy.

I can find out.

Exactly.

If I want to believe...

I mean, I've done it.

I know I've done it where I've read a story against something I believe in.

And I say, I'm not going to read that.

I just want to read positive things about that story.

Exactly.

And there's people, you see people and you go...

And sometimes people have...

You can see people just repost it instantly.

Like, before I repost something, I always do a check, do you know what I mean?

There's something, oh, God, yeah, that really puts me in a bad light.

Just check Snopes.

Do...

corroborate stuff.

Quick deep dive.

Yeah, two or three check.

Is it valid?

Check it's not coming from Infowars or something like that.

Don't add to the misinformation and stuff.

I think it's...

How old are your kids?

You've got a couple of kids.

Four...

Fifth of us just turned 15 and nine.

So they got...

Has the oldest got a phone?

He's much smarter than me, though.

He joined Instagram years ago and he went, Do you know what, Dad?

This is distracting me.

I'm going off it.

Yeah, I wonder if the next generation are going to hate the last, because it's not them who have made this world.

We've made it, not me, but probably our generation are the ones who have done this to them.

And now they all have to grow up in public, like you say.

Oh, yeah.

Explain what they...

Can you imagine explaining a thought that you have?

I know for a fact...

I'll put my hands up here and say, I know for a fact at 15, I was probably racist.

I would have said all kinds of stupid shit in the playground.

If that was recorded in any way and then being able to...

If you put that mirror up to me now, I'd be so ashamed and embarrassed.

Talk about television, that was the example that was set and stuff at the time.

I mean, you know, Al was much smarter than me.

I was in the bath and, you know, I was on the phone, he knocked and he said, are you on your phone?

I was like, he said, jump to bring you that book on the Stoics.

I was like, no, I'm out in a minute, you know what I mean?

He's trying to get me to do a bit more reading.

Really?

That's amazing.

There was hope.

There is hope.

But yes, no, the 70s, that was my time for going on with 70s and 80s and stuff.

I feel we can jump into a format point here, Ben.

Absolutely, go for it.

I'm just going to steer into the podcast quickly.

I mean, it was a natural chat there and I've kind of ruined the flight.

Okay, Ben, question number one.

I don't really do it like this.

Can you recall a TV show, usually, this is usually when you're growing up, if you grew up in the 70s, it's definitely going to be there, a TV show that was on when you were a kid that you can't quite imagine they put on and it would never get put on now.

Oh my God, the 70s, most of it.

Pick your worst one.

Okay, I'm sure there's...

Well, I love The Neighbour Comes To Mind and stuff like that, but I wouldn't, you know, I'm trying to think what else wouldn't get made.

I imagine the children's dramas wouldn't get made now.

Like what?

Well, you know, like Children Of The Stones and...

What's Children Of The Stones?

Children Of The Stones was the one where it was a bit like Stonehenge.

You sat around Stonehenge and there was a magic sort of circle.

There was all sort of mysticism and, you know, check out Children Of The Stones.

I've heard things about Stones, like I remember Rent A Ghost being occasionally scary, but quite light.

This is that 70s underbelly of sort of dark, so the changes and stuff.

Celtic font scary.

Yeah, so it's...

I suppose it's like Wicker Man for kids, that sort of thing.

There's quite a few...

I mean, also, I'll tell you what wouldn't be on now.

I don't think it's not a show, but it was definitely television.

The public service films.

Do you remember those?

Yes, what the child...

Dark Water, My Eye and Dark Water.

About, you know, warning children of...

Do you know another one?

I'm 53.

Oh, you should remember these.

These are the ones where...

The ones with the pylons.

Do you remember the pylons?

They'd climb the pylons and a kid would be like, don't climb the pylons.

And then they'd get electrocuted and you'd see a kid falling off.

Or they'd be on a tractor.

And they'd fall off a tractor and get run over.

You'd go, well, I think you've, you know...

I see what your point is here.

I think this is one for the railway tracks where a kid touches a live rail with his foot as well, right?

Yeah, and they've got names, these little short films.

And they put them on in the middle of the day.

And I have to tell you, the way these was mental, Noseybonk, do you remember Noseybonk?

The name sounds familiar.

No, look up Noseybonk.

The tune would probably, the tune's always what brings it back, isn't it?

It is the stuff of nightmares.

Can't play the tune, but.

I have no idea why somebody would, I'll tell you what, kids are like, this fucking monstrosity.

Yeah, if you've seen that.

Fucking hell, I have to.

Yeah.

Kid, anybody listening, go on, just Google Noseybonk now.

Don't Google Noseybonk, it's, wow, that is, this is the, 79, I mean, that looks 60s almost.

There's a book out.

Oh, I must have been in Ireland then, fucking hell.

Yeah, no, no, probably.

There's a book called Scarred For Life, which is like a huge compendium of all the stuff from the 70s.

I mean, I think there's an 80s one which I'm gonna get.

But there's so much stuff back then that is, that you go.

That looks really awful.

And I kinda missed that in a way.

A lot of the shows they made then, they didn't pander to sort of kids.

They were sort of, you know, they were genuinely sort of scary and thoughtful and that.

Do you think they were trying to do that in some kind of post-war, make them tough way?

Like, because we would have been the first kids of the post-war kids, like my parents are boobies, obviously.

I'm assuming yours are as well.

I grew up with my grandparents for quite a lot of my childhoods and that was like direct like parenting of like, you know, oh, they showed me their ration books when I was moaning about not getting enough for alpine fizzy drinks delivered or whatever.

If I wanted to know that dandelion and burdock, they were like, oh, in the war, we had to look, your grandma had powdered egg.

I'm like, yeah, but I don't want fucking powdered egg.

It's 1981.

I wonder if there's something about after the optimism at the end of the 60s and stuff, there was a sort of freedom of celebration there.

Maybe once you hit the dystopian 70s and the three day week or something, and somebody went, well, we've got freedom to tell these stories now and things are a bit shit now and let's take monsters.

I think monsters became more psychological.

You know what I mean?

I don't know if it was the fallout from drugs or something.

So it's like, what really fucks up my head?

I'll tell you what, let's turn this into a story to frighten.

It must be like the magic roundabout was very psychedelic and I got this picture.

Well, that's all drug influence, isn't it?

Do you remember Pipkins?

Do you remember seeing that?

Yeah, but that was the...

That looks like a...

That looks like it's been run over.

It looks like it was found in a bin.

Yeah, found in, yeah, exactly.

I used to love Hartley Hare and I look at it now and I think, I wouldn't give that, imagine buying that for my child.

No, no you wouldn't.

You wouldn't get more.

Can you imagine the merch range on that now?

The flask, no thanks.

And they all had those, and that's the other thing with 70s stuff, they had a very old school British, everything had a posh accent.

I think Hartley was very, hello, I'm Hartley the Bear.

It was all old BBC chat, wasn't it?

There were no accents in the 70s.

And quite a lot of, I sort of left behind 40s, hello, over there, where?

And stuff like that in children's telly.

And I sort of forgot about that till I played a bit of Blue Peter back.

I like John with the flumps.

Yeah, I do remember the flumps.

I think, and then, I always listen to that because I always think she was brilliant.

The actress who did the, narrated that is Gay Soper.

And I was always surprised she wasn't better known.

She has such a beautiful voice for narration, but the characterization of those flumps was absolutely brilliant.

I have to re-watch it.

A friend of mine brought up the flumps recently.

So was there a TV show when you were at school that you would like run home to see that was like your favorite that you didn't want to miss?

Oh, The Adventures of a Huckleberry Finn.

And it was the American version with Ian somebody, Ian Tracy and Sam Snyder.

I can see the kid in my head.

I had a beautiful soundtrack.

And the shot of the boat going down the Mississippi.

I think I can see the...

Yeah.

And it was quite dark as well.

They had Jim the story with, won't be a Native American, but they called him Indian Jim, I think.

It was really good.

It really well made television.

I used to want to get back for that.

And actually recently, cause I collect soundtracks for TV and films.

I don't know if you know that.

No, I don't.

Yeah.

So, nipped over to Liverpool yesterday, came back with another BBC TV themes album.

Cause it had The Lightning Lads on it and Moon Base 3.

And I had to, yeah, managed to finally track down the soundtrack for Huckleberry Thin.

It was on this obscure German compilation CD.

Oh, right.

So, yeah.

If you want to borrow it, then you know what I mean?

If you're thinking, oh, what is that Huckleberry Thin?

Yeah, well, there was things that like, I was selling a friend of mine, they talked about this show.

I think it was Richard Herring was talking about something called Beachcombers and I was like, I've never heard of that.

And they said, play the theme, you'll all know it.

And I played it and I was like, oh, I remember this.

You know, it just takes you straight back into it and the things that you've never, you just don't remember.

What you will remember though, is probably the first character or person on television that gave you that fuzzy feeling in your loins.

Ha ha, that's probably a few of those.

Erin Grey would be up there definitely, from, you know, Buck Rogers.

Yeah, I think it's a, Bidi Bidi, what's up Buck?

And who else was in there?

Gil Gerrard.

He was a handsome man.

Oh, Pam Dorber.

Oh, was that?

Morka Mindy.

I absolutely loved Morka Mindy.

I mean, that was, I mean, let's talk about, you know, programs that made an impression.

Morka Mindy was huge.

There's one probably, one of the earliest shows I remember watching.

I read something the other day about that, something about the sound people that worked on Morka Mindy had to like go through the sound really slowly every time to make sure, because he was always trying to sneak swear words in the face.

No one was trying to sneak swear words in.

To get past that, he then ended up learning foreign swear words apparently.

They were trying to drop them as well.

So they think they had to try and get a translator in.

And so actually, there's a brilliant, a brilliant TV movie.

It's called something like Behind the Camera, Behind the Laughter.

And it's about the story of Robin Williams becoming famous through Mark and Mindy.

And it's got an amazing performance by, now this act is called Chris Diamondotopoulos.

It's a Greek surname.

You might, have you watched The American Office?

He plays the sound guy, Brian.

Do you remember who ends up falling for Pam?

Towards the end, there's a little, they try and put a bit of jeopardy in Pam and Jim's friendship, relationship.

And it's a really interesting point because it suddenly, it like breaks the fourth wall in a way, in a way, in the way that's the first time they acknowledge the film crew.

Yeah, it takes forever, doesn't it?

Yeah, and then the boom operator comes in.

Yes.

And he's like, are you okay?

I do remember that moment because I remember that was when I forgot it was mockumentary until they did it again.

Yeah, and suddenly they acknowledge it.

It's a real sort of pullback moment.

Oh my God, yeah, this is supposed to be a documentary.

And then, but he plays Brian and that, but he does this incredible interpretation of Robin Williams.

It's on YouTube, but yeah, it's called like Behind the Camera, The Unauthorized Story of Morka Mindy and Robin Williams.

And is this something that was on regular TV?

No, I think it was like made for American TV.

I don't remember being on, you know, I think it was made about 10 years ago and it's great because it also, it looks at how Morka, you know how Morka first appeared on Happy Days?

Yes, actually.

And it was the whole Gary Marshall thing.

And I love, I think Happy Days is the most spin-offs or something off of TV.

Because it had Morka Mindy, then it had Joni Loves Chachi, Laverne & Shirley, and there's another one called One Blue Clouds.

It was something, lastly it was a pile of something and then some cartoons spin-offs.

Yeah, I always think of like, I mean, actually this podcast is called Television Times.

I wrote a musical when I was at college in Roseburyford like 25 years ago.

And in there, there's a line where someone comes in and it's like, who do you think you are, Chachi?

You know, because everyone starts clapping when they come from that clapping bit.

Yeah, yeah.

So I know that, I know that, I know that move.

But that was also a through line from Taxi all the way to Cheers, wasn't it?

It was the same writers?

I think it was.

It might be, I'm not sure.

Or there's definitely people involved in that whole sort of thing.

Involving the whole sort of thing.

Through line all the way to Frasier.

I know Gary Marshall was a big sort of name.

I mean, Happy Days is so pivotal.

I mean, it was, I mean, I don't know.

I mean, it was, I don't want to say it, but it was probably rubbish, right?

But I mean, it.

Do you know what, there was a point when I was probably about 16, 17 or something, and Channel 4 used to show, they used to show them sometimes, some Happy Days.

And yeah, some of them, some of them, Tom Hanks was, Tom Hanks appeared in that.

Really?

Yeah, he plays a martial arts guy.

A lot of people got a break in that.

I love that as well, when you see old TV shows or films and you see somebody start out.

But I used to, I used to love catching up with them.

Like, Mork & Minde used to be shown at 6, 6.30 on Channel 4 on a Friday night.

And I know this because me mates in Stockport, we used to go and meet down in the garage and sit on the wall.

And we'd have some cans and that because it was Friday night.

And it was the time when it was like the late 80s.

So we had like jeans where you know, you'd cut in the hem and you'd put in, stitch in some, like a paisley triangle and go on the soup dragons or something, stone roses.

So how were you watching that?

Well, I was watching it late because what I'd do is I'd tape it.

And then I'd cut out the adverts, watch it all.

And then I've, so I ended up having all, I think there's 84 episodes on taped off telly.

I was a bit of an anal geek.

I used to have like all, I used to tape loads of stuff off telly.

Did you have the alphabetized?

No, I had them numbered and then I had, oh my God, what a catch.

I used to have a book, I used to have a book and each page was like listed.

So page one through to like 100 something on each page was like, you know, there was a film on there, The Omega Man and then like 20 minutes of The Chart Show or something, you know what I mean?

The, you know, what's it called?

The Met from the Mary White House Experience, do you remember that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just gonna.

What's this, Toe?

Have you got the Doomsday book here?

Have you got a census of all of the North of England?

I just wanna make sure he doesn't feel bad about list making, that's all, because this is-

This is my life before my wife, all right?

Yeah.

Look at that shit.

This is great.

From like the 90s, my wow, the world trip, all this stuff, but in the back, chance Iberianship.

So have you already described this?

Because this is-

It's something to give my kids to get rid of when I'm dead.

It's brilliant.

It's like, you know how people nowadays journal and they do sort of drawings and stuff.

Ah, this is great.

I've started doing some of this, but with folders.

This is, so it's loads of old photos and lots of writing, isn't it?

Look, little maps of like my tour.

What tour was that?

That's an Inspector Calls tour, 2005.

All the tour dates.

That's in Maccadam.

Oh Steve, I love that.

I have fold out things, I just wanted to put it up.

Like the pop out version, the pop up version.

No, I know that I have even a list of like every flight.

So where does it start?

82, Harley-Davidson.

Oh, this is the 90s.

Yeah, yeah, this is me going, this isn't part of the podcast.

But yes, there's lots of, you just look, distances in kilometres.

You know you should do.

How am I doing?

You know you should do.

Have you done this already?

Have you taken a picture of every page?

I have not taken a picture of every page.

Take a picture of every page.

Because if on something.

Really?

Yeah, if for any reason it went, you would want you to at least have like a digital sort of thing.

That is amazing.

This is my thoughts on comedy in a night out in Oslo in 2004.

There's a lot, got a lot of thoughts there, don't you?

I know, it's so stupid.

But so don't feel bad about saying you like the list.

No, that's brilliant.

I mean, a guy came around to me on a plane about eight years ago and I said, I was having a bit, I get a little bit, well, let's be honest, I don't like flying, but I do it anyway.

And this guy came around and he was like, you're looking a bit nervous.

I said, yeah, how do you, what are you doing?

I said, I'm just writing down every flight I've ever been on.

Because if I write down that I've been on 99 flights.

You'll realize that they're good ones.

And he said, that is the worst thing you can do.

We had a really bad flight when we were doing Game of Thrones.

Yeah, flying from...

That was really interesting, flying in, because we flew to Reykjavik, and then there was a 45-minute drive over to other Reykjavik, I suppose it's a bit like Gatwick in City Airport or something.

Yeah.

But the security there was just like...

It was like a kiosk.

It was like you'd lost property.

And then you go and sit in, there's a vending machine and just a room.

It was like a room like this, really, and there's some other guys there, and they're like, hello, what have you been up to?

And they go, oh, we've just been hunting.

And they got their bags, and they got their bags.

They got guns in their bag, and they just take them and put them above the, above the, you know, in the sort of carry-on and stuff.

And then we had this flight over to the northeast.

I think we were, was that Vique?

No, Mevat or something.

We were filming up in the northeast, and it's a notoriously turbulent ride.

And apparently, they take some of the, when they're training their pilots, they do this run, because it is such a turbulent ride and stuff.

And we were like, it was the worst flight I've been on.

There was all the night's watch on there, and we were like, holy shit, fucking hell.

Oh, people just with their feet up against them, you know.

Some people sort of praying and stuff like that.

And one of the directors, he said, he didn't like flying either.

He said, I'm not going to do that back.

So he took like the long drive back.

Because the flight was...

I guess it's the thermals, right?

From all the volcanic activity and...

I don't know.

I wasn't asking.

Maybe it's the thermals.

Fucking hell.

You must have been going backwards and forwards to Belfast for Game of Thrones anyway.

And that going over the Irish Sea is bad enough sometimes.

I mean, I was quite lucky because it's such a short flight.

It goes straight to Newcastle and stuff.

I quite like that.

It's only an hour.

But sometimes we'd finish.

Because sometimes if you were doing a night shoot, you'd rap and then you'd be like having hours hanging around, you know, four o'clock in the morning in Belfast City Airport, picking the mud out of your face.

Somebody tried to tell me yesterday, and you can dispute this one, somebody tried to tell me that all the sort of animal coats that some of the people are wearing in Belfast, is that true?

I believe so.

I laughed at some, I think some of them.

Somebody told me that last night.

I laughed at Michelle because Michelle, Michelle was a costume designer.

She's, she now works, she often works for my missy, not for, like with her.

And, but I remember going, because I joined in season two.

I don't like costume, I'm quite like sensitive with clothes and stuff like that.

I know it was part of the Tourette's or whatever, but I just don't like, often costume fittings, I'm like, I can't wear these things.

You just have to get, you just have to sort of wriggle into them a bit.

But I remember going, can I have my cloak be quite loose?

I had like the loosest, lightest of the cloaks, yeah.

And then, spoilers, there's a point where I become Lord Commander by default.

This won't mean anything to you, but.

I apologize.

Sorry.

No, it's fine.

It's fine, Steve.

And there's Kit, who plays Jon Snow, he was the Lord Commander.

He had this big, fuck-off, rug-like, bare, rug-like of a cloak.

And I was like, oh, I can't wear this for next season, I'm gonna.

There was a thing in Thrones, though, where people, the knights watched, they're all, we're up in, just to give you context, we're up in the north, so we wear all these heavy garbs and stuff.

And you'd always see.

Near the wall, yeah, and everyone would try and go, can I not have my cloak on for this scene?

And then once one or two people had done it, you couldn't all do it, so you'd be like, oh, fucking hell, they got their cloak off first.

I wonder if they'll say Game of Thrones for this future guests, because I'm sure there's some scary scenes in that.

Oh, yeah.

So, let's ask you.

What's a TV show you saw growing up?

This will be a growing up one, I'm sure, or maybe teenage, whatever, that scared the shit out of you?

Like I say, there's so much from growing up.

But one episode, I really remember, I just remember it scared the shit out of us.

I didn't know what it was until years later.

It was about 10 years ago, I found out what it was.

And it was an episode of Doctor Who.

I don't know how familiar you are with those.

I watched it as a kid and I watched the Eccleston one, but I didn't go into the new one too much.

It's the story, The City of Death.

And it's the first one they shot abroad, it's set in Paris.

And it was the first time Doctor Who shot abroad.

Who's the doctor in this one?

It's Tom Baker.

Tom Baker?

I would have seen it for sure.

74 to 80, I think he was.

And what happens is, I think it's Julian Glover and he's this sort of grand character and he's got this very plush sort of, I don't know, shadow or something.

And at the end of the episode he's sat looking in the mirror and then he just, I think, I can't remember if he's sitting in the back, but he just unzips the skin from his head and pulls it back and turns around and there's this green pulsating brain-like thing and then you get that, you, duggadugung, duggadugung.

And I absolutely shit my pants and that like was seared into my head.

I think I must have been three or four.

Good night.

And then years later, you were in Doctor Who.

I was in Doctor Who, yeah.

That was a red shirt moment.

It was a Star Trek red shirt moment.

But it didn't matter because everything I was doing at the time, he was causing me song because of Albie, he was about six at the time.

He was a massive Doctor Who fan.

And I was out in Belfast doing Game of Thrones, and Ben Wheatley, do you know the director?

Yes, of course, yeah, I've seen all his shows.

And Ben did, Ben directed a series, two series of something I did called Ideal, which is a BBC three thing with Johnny Vegas playing a drug deal.

So Ben was out there at the same time, and I said, you're doing The Next Doctor, aren't you?

I said, is there anything in it?

I wouldn't normally ask the stuff, but it's Ben and his mate, and I did want to do something with Kids Could Watch.

He said, there's not much, but there might be a little part.

So he got us in that, and then we watched it, and it was the time when they show a little trailer of what's happening in next week's episode.

And I'll be watching, he went, oh my God, and he's like, this is the best day of my life.

And then it was in the next week, and I showed him.

And he was like, oh my God, this is brilliant.

And then five minutes later, I got exterminated by Dalek antibodies.

I was just evaporating into dust, and he burst into tears, and I went, oh shit.

And he was like inconsolable for about 10 minutes, and I've not talked to Mr.

Rowey.

Oh man, it must be so wild to see your dad on television and something you love, though.

That must be crazy.

Yeah, well, weirdly, again, and this is a spoiler for you, but the kids, when we were doing Game of Thrones, they only managed to come out once.

And they came out the day I got killed.

I got speared from behind.

I assume everyone gets, I don't know.

Most people get killed in that.

But yeah, so that was an interesting day for them, seeing all these, you know.

I mean, I hadn't seen it when I went up for it on the second season.

I know, clue is just that thing.

I'd seen Sean Bean under the billboards.

I didn't know what to talk about, really, when it was set or anything.

But you know, so I watched the first season thinking, I don't know if I would have watched this otherwise, but I got about two or three episodes in and I was like, oh, get it now, this is really good.

I'm going to have to stick with it, because I remember seeing the first episode years ago and thinking, oh, this isn't really my cup of tea.

But that's only because I'm not a fantasy guy.

I wouldn't have known where to get it then.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, what's the name?

Yeah, it was HBO, I ended up getting it on Now TV.

Now TV.

Well, they do it good because, you know, I would get it for a season or something.

And then just as you were about to leave, they dropped something else that was good.

That happened with Succession and stuff, but yeah, you get that and then they had Barry on at the same time.

Yeah, and it did at the same time.

Yeah, they did, didn't it?

The same week.

And there was something, oh, Ted Lasso.

Ted Lasso, yeah, yeah.

I haven't watched that though, but yeah, Succession and Barry finished, yeah, in the same week.

So this is a real drought summer for Tali for me.

Like I'm looking and going, I know you're in some good things.

I didn't know about this Full Monty TV show.

I don't know how I didn't know about it.

I just looked at a trailer today, it looks awesome.

It's good, it's really good, yeah.

Yeah, it's Disney and they picked it up from 25 years later and they got the original cast back.

Yeah.

And that was a really nice job to do actually.

We just did it two weeks last year and I just did one episode.

I'd done a thing called Lockwood & Co.

Yes, I'm gonna talk about that.

I mean, I haven't seen it only because I thought it was a kid's thing because there's a lot of teenagers in it, but I know it's Joe Cornish's big show.

It's based on these books that Jonathan Stroud wrote.

It looks fucking amazing.

Oh, it's great.

It looks genuinely terrifying.

It is actually.

I've started watching it with me daughter, let's say she was nine and it was quite soon and she sort of bailed and we were like, yeah, this is a bit scary.

It's weird stuff because I'm not quite, I think it's really good and the leads in it, Cameron Chapman and Ruby Stokes and George, Ali plays George, they're really good.

They're really good and it's a bit like Ghostbusters meets Harry Potter.

That's what I think.

Immediately I went to Ghostbusters.

I think maybe because I've heard Joe talk about it on a Muxen's podcast or something, but there's that, I don't know about how your kids are, but I can show, my kids can watch Harry Potter.

They can watch any kind of new CGI, bit of horror in it, you know, something that would shit the life out of me because I know it isn't real.

I guess it doesn't do anything as an adult.

But if I show them something old like Ghostbusters, a few scenes from there or a bit of Indiana Jones, the original one.

My son's nine, I mean, I would show him the ending.

I want to show, I flick through the Nazi milk face.

Did you forget too, in But Temple of Doom?

There's still beating heart being pulled out.

No, flick through that.

No, no, no, no, no.

I was working, there was a bit-

I stopped, paused it and I went, he's not gonna like this.

But he left the room already because he-

I think they're in there, I think Indy and-

What's her face?

Oh, Kate Capsule's character.

The second one, yeah, different lead woman, isn't it?

They go, they're about, it looks like they're about to fuck, to be honest with you.

But she goes to her room, he goes to his, and she comes back in and there's a creepy noise, and my son just went, I can't.

Can't be.

Because it's the idea, it's like Woman in Black, it's like the idea of something that they can't see rather than they used to see in the thing.

But I think Lockwood would shit the life out of me because it's like-

No, it's, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's scary, it's that, yeah, it's for kids who like to be scared and stuff, but it works well for an adult audience as well.

It was good.

Unfortunately, we found out it's not going again, and it was like number one in 18 countries on Netflix.

But there's just this thing now that, you know, I think Netflix have started to get this reputation for people investing in first series and second series not getting picked up and I think it's something to do with the algorithm stuff.

You've got to hit a certain level.

They won't tell you what you're doing.

No, and I think that's a shame because, you know, there's a history with television of some series, first series, it didn't do well, it went on to be hugely successful.

I mean, season three before anyone watched it.

Only Fools and Horses, that nearly got binned.

Blackadder, that nearly got binned.

I'll tell you what else, Game of Thrones, they didn't go.

The pilot by all accounts was Dogshit.

And David and Dan, who were the runners on it, have said it will never get seen in the light of day.

Is this not season one, so it wasn't like a separate pilot they did before?

No, they did a pilot and there was different casts in there.

There was different Daenerys, there was a few different, Jennifer Eli played, was it there instead of a big Katniss star, and it was too clean and I think Alfie Allen had bleach on her, but there was lots of reasons for the people to say no, and of course fantasy wasn't a big thing then.

Really?

The Lord of the Rings wouldn't have been that long, had it not been a decade before?

Well, I mean, that was 2001 and 2002.

Yeah, so for television, fantasy wasn't, you know, wasn't a big thing.

I guess not.

You know, Zena was way past and Hercules, they were all back in the past.

So in terms of high concept television, it wasn't, it was a bit of a risk.

So you know, imagine, there's a good chance there's no reason really for it to be made.

It is a shame what's happening, but I mean, there is also the chance that, see, my brother-in-law is an actor and he was in the second season of this show called Minx, I think, and it was a HBO Max, and they just dropped it, but they filmed it all.

And then, you know, they do this thing as a tax write-off now, where they just bin it and call it done, but it has been picked up by another streamer whose name I cannot remember.

It's probably called like LuPoo or PooLoo or Jooloo or something.

Whatever, whatever.

Pogo, PupPie, yeah, yeah, where's the next one right now?

Who knows yet?

Coming soon to Stephen.

Campaigns have been successful.

Family Guy was relaunched, wasn't it?

Fox tried to cancel that twice, I think.

Well, like you say, Red Dwarf, Dave picked up Red Dwarf, didn't they?

I don't think Red Dwarf's going anywhere.

They're just gonna keep doing whatever.

No, they're gonna keep shifting from different, yeah.

I think it's about time I can watch out with my son.

I really hope.

How old is he?

He's nine.

I'm scanning him, I'm thinking.

There's probably, but there's always the thing, I have to be careful.

I'll be careful just in terms of, my big thing in watching something is anything to do with Father Christmas.

That is the thing.

So that, for example, is why I'm very wary about, say, Gremlins.

Oh, Gremlins, can't you?

I mean, I couldn't watch Gremlins anyway.

Yeah, exactly, it is a horror film.

Even then, there's the beginning, there's a bit of the beginning.

I often go on, you know IMDB, and you look at Parents Guide and stuff like that, a little bit of swearing or a little bit of horror I can work with, I can say that.

It starts to get a bit scary.

But if I think, if I think, has this got anything in here about that, that's something you watch and go, huh?

That's the only thought I have to go, I'd hate that.

That would be a shitty way to...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

I don't think about that.

Cause I do look, I look on the common sense media as well, but that's American.

Right.

They're a little bit more namby-pamby.

They're like, oh my God, he said the word shit.

He said damn.

Yeah.

Damn is a good word, you got that.

Yeah.

I'll put you in your fucking head, you fucking muffy, you fucking weak gun.

They are a bunch of pussies.

I mean, I can't say pussies anymore, but if you could, they would be.

Mild peril.

Anyway.

Meryl, what's that?

I've watched one recently and it comes up.

Don't say it and it says like, suicidal thoughts.

Oh, I know.

I can't believe that.

The spoiler thing, the trigger.

I mean, I understand the trigger warning thing in a way, but I wish there was a way to do it without giving it.

I mean, it's when you go to the theatre and they used to say, there's a gunshot in this going, well, someone's gonna get shot at some point.

There's some narrative giveaway.

Yeah, yeah.

And I understand the lighting stuff, epilepsy and stuff like that.

Yeah, of course.

But in terms of story, I wish there was some way you could put something without giving away plot points.

American trailers are the worst.

They give away half the movie.

I've seen it.

I watched one for some comedy that was on the other day.

I'm sure it's rubbish with Pierce Bosnan in it.

It looks unwatchable.

But there's so few, I love a comedy movie.

When I'm in a hotel or something, I wanna watch a comedy.

I don't wanna watch bleak things.

Sometimes I'll watch some Scandinavian murder thing.

But when I check in, I like to just watch something funny, either stand up or a funny movie.

And it got like 17, I'm right on top of my eyes and I'm thinking, but that doesn't mean anything because that can be just...

Yeah, yeah, that's just...

I don't trust that half the time either.

But I watched a trailer, seen the whole film.

That's it, yeah.

I mean, I know they are the thing that they're supposed to be, bank robbers.

And he's the sort of guest who's coming to dinner, but they're bank robbers and that's it.

And it's like, well, why would I watch that now?

I know everything.

It's just a truncated version of the thing.

There's no surprise, is there?

I know people who will watch, they will go on IMDb and they will read the whole synopsis beforehand or of a book before they watch it.

So they're not surprised.

I'm like, I love the surprise because for me, obviously there's some stuff in films and films are so formulaic, the almost narrative idea that in theater.

Do you remember Mike Bradwell from the Bush Theater, if he worked in theater?

I don't know if you know, he ran the Bush for years and stuff.

But he talks about every narrative is, put a monk up a tree, throw stones at the monkey, get a monkey down from the tree.

That's your three act sort of play.

Set up, conflict, resolution.

It's the monkey's last day at work as well.

Yeah, okay, so he's doing one last job.

Yeah, of course he is.

To get as many nuts as possible for the rest of his life.

It was really weird because even Happy Valley did that last season of Happy Valley, which is a bit of a trope.

And one of the monkey's parents is dead.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I mean, Happy Valley was amazing.

But it was good.

I really waited as well, and that's a good thing about sort of British stuff sometimes.

I love Happy Valley and I've got this little, talk about notes, I've got a little folder on there and I have a little folder with nothing in it and it just says like upcoming 2023, 2024, I'll put in there TV shows roughly when they're coming out.

And every month I'll look in there to see what they are.

Yeah, yeah, so Happy Valley was in my sort of upcoming 2023 folder for a while or last year whenever it came out.

And then I was looking forward to it for what, two, three years and then I didn't watch it.

I had to wait till it was done because I just knew I didn't want to do a weekly thing with that one.

No, no, no.

And I left it for like six months or something.

No one told me anything.

I didn't find anything out.

I just saw Matey Boy on Graham Norton looking all fresh faced and nothing like himself.

It's like, just like this nice posh man.

It was like, how is he that?

That's a transformation.

And we watched it and my God, it was brilliant.

I mean, the way they-

Oh, it's great.

The way they brought that all around and they waited just the right amount of time for it to-

I do feel like we're, I feel like we're in terms of, I loved the television I grew up on.

I really loved it.

But, and I do think we're in an amazing age of television now.

You know, there's still a lot of dog shit out there, but you know, there's that idea that also, television has become more cinematic, cinema has become more television.

You know, you've got, with the MCU and stuff, they're all episodic and things sort of follow through, where the scale of what television do now is huge.

And just the narratives are becoming more complicated.

And I love that.

I love being surprised by stuff.

Because you know, when you, you see characters set up sometimes and you think, well, that'll pay off later, or they're gonna get the surprise one.

Who don't you think in?

Who have they not given the...

Everything's a who done it now.

Everything's a who done it.

Broadchurch, remember going, in this point where they're panning on people of who it could be, who have they looked at the least and stuff?

Who did they not want to linger over?

It was a bit, you look for little tells on what they're...

Well, yeah, with the succession, that's what me and Kai were talking about.

It's like we, but neither of us got it.

Massive spoilers for succession.

But yeah, my theory is always Greg.

Greg was gonna win the game.

Well, I listened to yours and Kai's.

I sat on the train back in Liverpool.

So I do know what you're talking about now with the theory thing.

Yeah, the Wams Gans.

His surname was a baseball player from the 20s and he amazingly got people out on a triple play.

So the idea of actually he was always gonna be...

There's also this thing with the titles.

You know the thing about the titles of the episodes finale?

Yeah, do they even have titles that we see?

Do they come up at the beginning?

Yeah, I just can't remember where I see that though in the...

The season, well I think you have to go online and sort of find it and nerd it out.

No, it doesn't come up.

It's not like the old Highway to Heaven or something.

I used to love that, oh my God, what a theme.

Beautiful.

Michael Landon.

Little House on the Prairie.

But they had it for each of the, like for all the season finales, they were all taken, all the lines were taken from a John Berryman poem called Dream Song 29.

And he was this poet from the 60s, which was a bit like Sylvia Plath.

And he had all these family issues, he had issues with his father, I think.

And his father killed himself when he was 12.

And then he took his own life when he was older, I think he jumped off a bridge, into water.

And all this sort of thing, if you remember like Kendall's obsession with water, like whenever Kendall, when things were going well, Kendall would get in the water and he'd be like king of the world and floating.

But when things would go bad, he'd go in the pool.

And there's always that thing where you're going, Kendall's in the water.

I'm not entirely comfortable with it.

And of course, when it ended, of course it ended.

And you go and Kendall leaves the office and you go, where is he going?

Where is Kendall?

And of course you see him walk down to the sea from.

And there's the bodyguard, I can't remember his name.

The one that Logan calls his best friend.

That's like one of those solid characters that sometimes is on the peripheral of your eye for nearly realising they're always there.

But you know that he's there and he's keeping an eye on Candle and I thought it was lovely.

You know there was a take during that where, what's his name?

Jeremy Strong actually ran towards the railings and stood up and went to sort of jump in.

And the actor playing the bodyguard ran up and sort of pulled him back down.

That's the end of part one of Ben Crompton on Television Times Podcast.

You can hear part two next week.

Tune in for more of that.

It's a very long conversation.

That's why I split it in half.

It's a lot of fun, and we cover a lot of subjects.

Ben is very, very well versed at all things television, and you can hear more of what he has to say next time.

Well, all that talk of 70s telly with Ben made me think a great outro track today would be my song 79.

This is a song about 1979, about my relationship with my granddad around that time.

It was very close.

I used to go to the edge of the park to wait for him to come home from work.

He fell into a glass table around that time, trying to put wallpaper up, and I was really scared for him when that happened.

I just loved him.

He was basically my dad, because my dad's a piece of shit.

So, he was my dad, in my opinion, and he was actually my legal guardian.

So this is kind of a song about that feeling of everything being fine then, when I was 10.

We sort of fell out a bit, obviously, when I got a bit older, because of me running back to my parents and all kinds of stuff that is in my book, You Shot My Dog and I Love You, available in all bookshops, stories in there.

But essentially, in the later years, we didn't really get on, and we weren't as close, and it always made me sad.

He died very suddenly when I was 17.

And yeah, he was my male role model.

And I wrote this song about him.

He was also into sort of psychic stuff.

And he would like, you know, so I'm gonna come back as a ghost and all that.

And I was like, well, I fucking hope you do, because you could prove, you know, there is something to give us some hope, you know, but he never did.

And that is why the year 09, 2009, is mentioned as a future year, because this song was actually written in 2005 on a piano on tour, where it sounded a bit Lenin-esque.

And then later on, I went for a sort of alpha-ville, sort of 80s electronic kind of background sequencing kind of thing.

And this was recorded in Tokyo, in Japan in 2006.

This is called 79.

Thanks for watching!

Well, it starts off all sequence and it ends up all guitar-y, all strage.

That was 79, recorded in Japan in 2006 as part of We Are Animals, the album that I will be remastering at some point in 2024.

I'm thinking, okay, that was Television Times Ben Crompton episode part one.

Come back next week for part two.

Thanks for tuning in.

I'll see you soon.