Just A Minute

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:52 PM, jerryvonkramer@... [just-a-minute] <just-a-minute@...> wrote:

I am going to switch from doing whole years to going season-by-season with my comments, because it seems to make more sense this way.

I got to the end of Season 5 today and the three-handed season finale (2nd March 71, first topic "Kenneth Williams"), is probably the single best and funniest episode I've listened to so far. Everyone is on top form, Derek has a perfect minute ("Funny Bones"), the banter is flying round at a frantic pace. The highlight of the episode is the topic "getting into debt" which takes about 7 or 8 minutes to get through and features Kenneth and Derek relentlessly baracking Nicholas over a decision as Freud chuckles to himself. I can't really do it justice here, but it's hilarious and well worth checking out if you've not heard that episode. Someone explains that when there's no women in the studio, the gloves come off. It descends into schoolboy antics, Nick even feigns crying at one point. Great stuff.

There's not much else on season 5 that I haven't noted already. The Barbara Castle episode came on again (which I heard in my initial false run), and she is definitely one of the more memorable female guests.

I did want to note Kenneth's little recurring character: "Maudie Fiddeworth, fun with a frankfurter!" Just find it amusing, quirky and rather odd that she keeps on coming up time and again. Does he keep her?

The only other thing I want to note is Derek Nimmo's common tactic of twisted the meaning of the phrase on the card. He does it sometimes in very imaginative ways, even when it is completely unnecessary.

For example, just from this past episode as it is fresh in my mind, this is on "Getting into debt":

"I bought a nice big house in the country and I called it 'Debt', and I'm looking forward to getting into it."

I'd say he pulls that trick maybe 50% of the time.

Oh and some noteworthy individual rounds:

From 26th January 71: Topic: "the worst thing I ever did in my kitchen" - Kenneth is talking about making cheese straws, Sheila doesn't believe him, so Nicholas goes to Kenneth's mother in the audience. Just thought it was an interesting little moment of Kenneth's real life being glimpsed on the show.

From 26th January 71. Topic: "pleasantries" - Derek starts off hilariously with his full range of ridiculous little phrases a la "what ho!", Derek is pretty funny in general in these early 1971 episodes, seems to hit top form.

From 16th February 71. Topic: "old gentlemen" - Kenneth does the whole thing in an extraordinary "old man" voice. It's very funny, but also not one from his usual repertoire and not one I can recall from the Carry On films either. Just an example of some of his extraordinary range.

From 2nd March 71. Topic: "Clement Freud" - notably as SOON as Derek mentions "grandfather", Clement buzzes and challenges and gets the topic to change. I've been waiting for some acknowledgement on the show  about his grandfather, but on every occasion it's brought up, something like this happens. He has studiously avoided mentioning him. I wonder if there's something to it.

--
James R Curry

scratchy@...