Just A Minute

 
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The Original Foursome - Peter Jones

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bobbyshaddoe3004Apr 17, 2007
 

 
The next topic as I move onwards down the line, we now come to a
gentleman who, although joined the program four years after its
initial inception, soon became such an integral part of the show that
it was as though he had been there all along.

Yes, I'm talking about the one and only Peter Jones.

In my opinion, it was really Peter Jones that helped to steer the
show more towards comedy than Kenneth Williams. Peter was amongst
the first people to openly call Nicholas out on his inconsistencies
with his rulings and judgements, how he would do something for
someone one minute, then do the exact opposite the next.

He was also someone that regularly poked fun at the rules themselves
considering they were just as inconsistent as the Chairman's
rulings. He was definitely a gentleman, and never went on any
sexist, male chauvinist tirades the way Kenneth would, and more often
than not would be sitting next to the female guests that would appear
on the show.

Peter was also one not to be put off by Kenneth's behavior and was
actually the first person, in fact, to make frequent challenges
against Kenneth for being Kenneth, which often included challenges on
Kenneth's mannerisms, his attitude, his behavior, which would often
be taken up by people in the episodes to follow. not only that, it
always seemed that even though Peter was never quite as competitive,
he always had something to say, and often would be the most quick-
witted, often coming up with lines that instantly gained the biggest
reaction from the audience, usually due to his particular brand
of 'observational humor'. He was also the first to perfect the sorts
of challenges that are one worded or one lined joke challenges or
comments, the sorts of things that nowadays give people bonus points,
but back then never gained anybody anything, not even on the rare
occasion that it would a clever interpretation of a challenge or
something.

Peter came onto the show during a period when Derek Nimmo had been
absent from the show, and even when Derek came back, Peter remained
on the show, thus providing a much needed infusion of freshness to
the show as more and more it was steered towards comedy. What always
got my goat though was that Peter was never asked to be chairman. it
never really made much sense that Clement, Kenneth, Geraldine, Andree
Melly, even Ian Messiter got to be chairman, but not Peter.

Something else that I noticed, was that apparently before becoming a
regular panelist on Just a Minute he was actually the chairman of a
program called 'Twenty Questions', because there have been several
occasions when Peter's past experience as a programme chairman have
been brought up during Just a Minute. including one famous incident
I believe in an episode that featured Dr. Magnus Pyke and Janet Brown
as the guests, and Kenneth Williams as the other regular panelist.

it had something to do with Peter being challenged on the word 'own',
and Peter complained that he shouldn't have been penalised for
repetition of a 3 letter word, and then Kenneth was challenged on the
word 'this', and Nicholas says that they don't normally challenge
on 'is', 'in' 'and' 'but' 'this', and so on, he then said that 'own'
was a positive word, to which Peter replied "Let me get this
straight, 'own' is a positive word, and 'this' isn't, is that
right?" then Kenneth replies, "Don't you start! Look here, he is a
marvelous chairman, a fine chairman, you'd go a long way to find his
equivalent. We all know you got chucked off '20 Questions', we all
know what he was getting up to with Anona Winn, don't we?"

what's interesting to note is that Peter at times could be very
passionate about things and would wrangle over points, but it was
more about trying to get his point across, and but usually he often
would be content just listening to the others talk, which is why he
never challenged as often as the others, he would often note certain
transgressions, but would be generous to people, and even when he is
generous and he comments that he noticed someone made a mistake,
people would yell at him, usually Nicholas, asking him why he didn't
challenge.

Peter was often the funniest when he would get riled up, because it
often meant that he did actually care enough to say something rather
than just admitting to when he made a mistake. One particular
example I love is on the subject of 'Carrier Bags', during a 1980 or
81 episode, that featured I believe the first ever appearance of Tim
Rice on the programme. Peter was very passionate about how much he
hated the carrier bags utilized in supermarkets because of the fact
that most of those big supermarkets expected people to pay extra to
have people carry those bags full of groceries out to the person's
car. and on several occasions he was challenged incorrectly, and
most of the frequent challenges came from Kenneth, especially one
very heated challenge having to do with the fact that Peter mentioned
Kenneth's friend Ingrid Bergman.

another rather heated argument arose during an episode from 1974 or
75, the opening subject was 'The First of a New Series'. Clement
gets in on three seconds to go, Clement tries to start talking and
gets challenged by Peter for hesitation and then Clement tries to go
again and is challenged by Derek who says that he didn't challenged
and Peter continues his argument because Nick said that Clement had
two seconds left even though before he had three seconds.

Peter makes the case that his challenge must have been correct
because as Peter put it, 'you said he had three seconds, and he said
nothing'. Nicholas counter argues that Clement did speak, the full
content of which he can't remember and Peter exclaims to one and
all 'You're the chairman and you can't remember what the last speaker
said?!'

which I think definitely sums up a great deal regarding the personal
joy I get, and the joy that the audience gets whenever someone hoists
Nicholas up by his own petard and bursts his overpompous bubble.

and usually it would be because half the time he would challenge and
he would never get the subject even though his challenge would be
correct, and there even came a point in the series where he just
didn't give a damn, and it was during that time that Nicholas became
very patronizing towards him and would often steal the subject away
from other people and give it to Peter even though Peter hadn't
challenged. a prime example of this being on one episode during
1995, I believe the panelists at the time were Paul Merton, Steve
Frost, Derek Nimmo and Peter Jones. the subject was 'Our Feathered
Friends', Derek starts off the subject, is going exceptionally well,
and then suddenly out of nowhere Nicholas says 'Peter you've
challenged', the result of which causes a huge argument over
Nicholas' sanity, which has always been in question, and Nicholas'
excuse was that 'Peter looked at me'. and Peter never once even
spoke up to say anything during all that, which made me wonder if he
really had nodded off or if he was simply sitting back and enjoying
whatever the hell it was that was going on, because I sure as hell
didn't understand it.

during Peter's latter years, a hesitation grew even more pronounced
in the way he spoke, but he was allowed to get away with it, mostly
due to his age, I think. I'm not sure.

anyway, Peter was also the only regular panelist to take part in the
daytime version of Just a Minute that ran for a few months back in
1999, and it was here that he was able to interact with a number of
people who went on to actually appear on JAM during the radio,
including Pam Ayres and Linda Smith. the funny thing being that I
often thought of Linda Smith as being a female Peter Jones type,
because they both possessed a similar observational style of humor,
and both rarely won a game even though they contributed the most
humor and banter to the show itself, and both could also be quite
competitive if they felt like it.

Peter Jones sadly died in the early part of the year 2000, his death
was just as unexpected as Kenneth's and Derek's. there has never
been another quite like Peter Jones, and there never will be.

I also seem to recall that during either a radio or television
adaptation of Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy', Peter
Jones provided the voice of Book.

I also seem to recall amongst his other credits that he was on an a
sitcom called 'The Rag Trade', and was also a regular ensemble
performer that worked with Spike Milligan on his series 'Q5, 7, 8 and
9' along with loads of movies and other guest appearances on other
television programs.

I also seem to recall him putting in an appearance on the series 'The
Avengers' in the adventure 'The Curious Case of the Countless Clues'
as a character named 'Sir Arthur Doyle'.

I'll now open the floor to anyone else wishing to talk about this
wonderful man.

 
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