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The Original Foursome: Sir Clement Freud

Messages in this topic: 1
bobbyshaddoe3004Apr 25, 2007
 

 
Seeing as it is the 83rd birthday of Sir Clement Freud, it would seem
high time to open up this topic regarding the man himself as he is
the last of the Original Foursome.

Ah, Clement Freud, even at 83 years young, he holds the distinction
being the only surviving original panelist who started on the show
when it first began 40 years ago.

The grandson of the famous psycho-analyst Sigmund Freud, I always
enjoyed Clement's contribution to the show, because although he
always lent a certain amount of gravitas to the show, and although he
speaks very seriously in an almost professorial Ben Stein like
monotone, he has an exceptionally great sense of humor. I mean he
has a very distinctive laugh, when you hear it, you know its Clement
having a grand ol' time.

The man himself was always very clever, sharp, quick and witty on the
show, knowing how to keep going because the man himself seemed to be
a bottomless well of knowledge and intellect on all sorts of things.
but the one thing he always seemed to have the greatest insight into
was on culinary matters.

Entering politics didn't seem like much of a stretch in my mind, if
for nothing else I always felt that Clement would make an excellent
politician, and lo and behold during much of the 70's and even some
of the 80's, I'm not sure, Clement was indeed a Member of Parliament,
and towards the end of the 80's received a knighthood, and it
couldn't have happened to a nicer gentleman.

I always enjoyed both the intellectual and the humourous sides of
Clement, and this often seemed to come up a great deal in his
appearances on Just a Minute. Amongst my favorite things that he'd
do would be to challenge people when there's only 2 seconds to go or
even half a second left, and it always seemed that Clement did it
deliberately, and the record of times he's done it successfully is
amazing, in that having done it that many times it couldn't be luck
or even coincidence, but its not as if Clement has a watch of his own
that allows him to keep track of the time.

Also, the most frequent thing that Clem does is challenge people for
repeating 'of course' which always makes me laugh, because its almost
like a catchphrase for him.

something else he loves to do is challenge humorously for deviation
because someone didn't do something that Nicholas disallowed a
previous challenge on, like 'he didn't say Well', or 'he didn't
stammer' or things like that.

Of course, the one thing that makes me love Clement all the more is
that he is in fact Nicholas' harshest critic of his chairmanship, and
with good reason. In that he seems to be more aware of the rules than
Nicholas most of the time, and will very often remind him of
something he had firmly established in a previous episode or even a
few episodes before hand which Nicholas seemed to be contradicting
right then and there.

The few times that Clement has been chairman were rather interesting,
but my favorite time when he was Chairman had to be in 1983 or 84,
when Clement frequently took points away from Nicholas for arguing
against him and even started off the program by saying that Nicholas
would be last (even though he wasn't).

There is one thing that irritates me about Clement, his penchant for
listing. He'll spin out lists of things that more often than not
will have absolutely nothing to do with the subject in hand, but
Nicholas never seems to give it against him because he makes the
claim that 'listing isn't a crime, that it's very difficult to do a
list, and that he was being very funny in making a list' and more
often than not Clement isn't being funny or even all that clever. I
mean how much cleverness does it take to say that there are people in
Warbeswick, Southwold, Suffolk, Lancaster, Lincolnshire, Sherwood,
Nottingham, Rotterdam, Hartfordshire, Herodfordshire, Hamstead,
Putney, and so on that eat spam? It's not funny or even all that
clever to say that.

There have been people who've challenged Clement on this notion time
and again with no success, except for Kenneth Williams, who
challenged him for deviation. the fact that Nicholas doesn't seem to
think that is just mindboggling.

The most frequent person who would challenge Clement for listing was
Wendy Richard, because she feels the way most people do about
Clement's habit for listing, that it shouldn't be allowed, and during
one show Nicholas had a little condescending fun with her, in that
each time she challenged for him listing, he didn't give it to her,
saying that 'he had to go into a list' even though Clement was
already into a list.

however, that is merely one fault of Clem's.

it's amazing the fact that Clement is still going strong even now,
interacting with the latest generation of panelists ever since his
contemporaries, Kenneth Williams, Derek Nimmo and Peter Jones have
long since departed this world. and it's amazing just how well he
interacts with them.

Something else that I found intriguing was that there was one episode
where his own daughter Emma was a panelist, and he never once
challenged her or interrupted her, although it would've been nice to
hear him stand up for her for the way she was treated by Nicholas. I
would've thought some of the condescending things he said to her
would've at least caused Clement to leap out of his chair and belt
Nick upside his head. would've been an interesting moment I'm sure
to hear Nicholas say 'I must explain to our listeners, and all that
nonsense.'

Anyway, it will be a very sad day indeed when the news announces Sir
Clement's passing. but let's hope that he'll at least outlive
Nicholas. ;)

 
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