Wayne and Wanda - The Glorious Muppet Singing Duo, The Appendectomy And The Fever...

The Muppet Show! Jim Henson's lovely Muppet puppet concept had been around in one form or another since its very first manifestation in the 1950s. In 1976, this all-American phenomenon sprouted new characters and descended on a clapped-out old English music hall to become one of the fondest remembered kids' TV shows of all time - and it's still a thriving comicdom, fandom and filmdom today.

I loved the show, which ran from 1976 to 1981. Who could forget the Swedish Chef? Pigs In Space? The Great Gonzo? The horrifically scientific Dr Bunsen Honeydew? Poor, terrified Beaker? Fozzie Bear's bravery and optimism in the face of an indifferent or hostile audience? Sam the Eagle, battling (and failing) to keep things decent? The fabulous Great Gonzo? Or the strange success of Mah Na Na? This song, originally performed by the Muppets in 1969, took over UK pop culture like a rocket when it popped up on the Muppet Show a few years later. Suddenly, everybody was saying it. My cousin, opening the door to the insurance man: 'Ma nah ma nah'. Insurance man: 'Funny you should you say that - ma nah ma nah'.

Me, to a bus conductor: 'Ma nah ma nah!'

Bus conductor: 'Where do you want to go, you stupid XXXXXXX kid?'

Well, maybe not everybody.

My own personal favourite Muppet characters were Miss Piggy - that gorgeous purveyor of sweetness, glamour and violence - and the singing duo of the first series, Wayne and Wanda.

Wayne and Wanda? Yes. Kermit fired them after series one. They sang lovely old songs in Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy style. But things were not nearly as good. Wanda had a terrible voice (I liked Wayne's) and the props and other things always ensured they never got very far into their act.

Wayne and Wanda struck my own personal funny bone in a sketch which featured Wayne sawing Wanda in two while she warbled You Do Something To Me. This was the famous old magician's sketch, but it ended abruptly when Wanda suddenly began shrieking. Something had gone wrong.

I was, for some reason, in stitches. My adolescent humour was aroused and I guffawed and guffawed and guffawed. And so, Wayne and Wanda became favourites.

Not long afterwards, I was literally in stitches - in hospital.

I'd been ill for a while and finally ended up fearing for my life as I experienced pain which took my breath away. This was quickly traced to my appendix - perforated - and so into hospital I was rushed and the offending part removed.

It was September 1977, I was less than a month from my 12th birthday, and I was ill. I was ill for a few days after the operation - experiencing high temperatures and delusions. Into this unhappy state came a set of brand new annuals - bought by the neighbours who had collected for the poorly lad in hospital. The annuals were The Quest (now long forgotten Western series), The Sweeney (hated it) and The Muppet Show.

I perused the annuals during lucid times. In the Muppet annual, Wayne serenaded a Spanish woman: 'Lady of Spain I adore you!' Wanda responded by kicking him off the stage: 'Make another pass at her and I'll floor you!' This interested me. After all, the concept of making a pass at somebody seemed a little adult for a kids' annual. I also looked at The Quest. In my fevered states, the two worked together to create a strange world in which Wayne and Wanda were present at my bedside and I was, at the same time, a cowboy in the desert.

'Howdy!' I drawled to a nurse at one point.

'Where's Wanda gone?' I asked at another.

It was all highly embarrassing in retrospect because the nurse reported these fascinating facts, with great amusement, to my mother.

Wayne and Wanda were kind enough to refrain from singing during their attendance at my bedside.

Anyway, I survived to see 1978 (blurgh) and Wayne and Wanda, now gone from The Muppet Show, were etched on my memory.

They returned in an episode shown in December 1979 in which they reproached Kermit the frog for firing them. Wayne was now fulfilling his 'life's ambition' as a manual labourer, and the pair were okay - thanks to help from Wanda's mother's pension money.

By then 14, I was dead chuffed to see them. Guilt-ridden Kermit rehired them, and then promptly refired them when they burst into a spirited rendition of that lovely 1930s number Sweet Mystery Of Life.

I never forgave Kermit.

Wayne and Wanda have cropped up a few times since, but there is a shocking lack of Muppet merchandise devoted to them. I want figurines of this legendary pair to pop on my mantelpiece. They will forever remind me of their out-of-this-world visit to my hospital bedside in 1977.

And I will smile.

Go to it, please, Disney.

You're Only Young Twice - The Adventures of Flora, Cissie, Mildred, Dolly, Katy, Miss Milton, Finchy and Roger

A scene from the opening titles of 'You're Only Young Twice' - Flora Petty enjoyed her 'True Romances' in the Residents' Lounge at the Paradise Lodge Home For Retired Gentlefolk, collected elephant ornaments, loved reminiscing about the late Mr Petty and her through-lounge in Chingford, and often wreaked havoc from September 1977 to August 1981.

I had an interesting e-mail last week:

Was the ITV sitcom You're Only Young Twice anything like Waiting For God?

Good heavens, apart from the setting, it was not! You're Only Young Twice, written by Pam Valentine and Michael Ashton and produced by Yorkshire TV, was a lovely old-style sitcom which ran from September 1977 to August 1981, with two Christmas specials (1979 and 1980). Waiting For God was screened in the early 1990s, and by then a great sea change had occurred in the world of TV sitcoms. They had moved on and matured, often mixing drama and issues with comedy in a way that was just not thought of in the 1970s and early 1980s. 

That's not to say '70s sitcoms couldn't be daring for their time - for instance, late in the decade we had Mixed Blessings, a show about a white man and a black woman getting married. That was pretty controversial at the time (although not as controversial as many might think today), but it was a show that I (and most of my friends) found lecturing and boring. The depth and drama incorporated into later efforts in the 1980s and 1990s was quite missing from Mixed Blessings.

Watching Waiting For God, I was deeply moved by leading character Diana's sadness about her infertility. Watching You're Only Young Twice, I laughed like a drain as Flora Petty wept over the latest issue of True Romances, Mildred Fanshaw thought her son had dumped a baby on her, and Cissie Lupin fed her green jelly babies to the birdies. Flora and co gave us first-class lighthearted fun.

I think a clue to the tremendous difference between the two series can be found in their respective titles: You're Only Young Twice - old age as fun, a second childhood; Waiting For God - well, it speaks for itself. 

The residents of Paradise Lodge lived in a nice, cosy world. Even poor, all-alone-in-the-world Mrs Willis, who is unseen and leaves after an operation in the first episode, has a second cousin in Penge who steps up to help her in her time of need.

Big Chief Flora Petty turns Cissie Lupin into a Red Indian.

You're Only Young Twice is a huge favourite of mine. I think Peggy Mount, who had been playing TV battleaxes since The Larkins in the late 1950s, was absolutely wonderful as fiercesome dragon Flora Petty, Pat Coombs as the gloriously dippy vicar's daughter Cissie Lupin, was terrific, and I loved the... I was going to write 'supporting characters', but they were more than that. They all made excellent contributions to the Paradise Lodge brew.

Let's canter through them...

Mildred Fanshaw (Diana King), widow of Colonel Roderick Fanshaw, was beautifully vinegary. She had a 'pretty' purple Honda and her unseen son Damien was a cause for concern; then there was past-it actress Dolly Love (Lally Bowers) - who lived on memories of former glories and a little too much alcohol at times; Katy O'Rourke (Peggy Ledger), she of the bizarre Quick Knit creations, was endearingly dotty in the first two series; Miss Milton (Charmian May), who owned the Paradise Lodge Superior Residence For Retired Gentlefolk, was terribly posh, well meaning and endlessly harassed by Mrs Petty; and the lovely Miss 'Finchy' Finch (Georgina Moon) and poor old kindly-but-put-upon Roger (Johnny Wade) assisted at the home and provided those all-so-necessary sniggers about "slap and tickle" - usually present in any late '60s to early '80s sitcom.

And what about Gladys Smallwick? Don't mention that woman to Flora!

The cast were absolutely excellent.

The ladies of Paradise Lodge. Who will meet the Queen? Vote for Flora!

As for the stories in You're Only Young Twice... well, there was that dreadful time when Cissie won a car in a competition (it wasn't what it seemed) and Mr Chatterbox interviewed her for the local paper; the awful situation when everybody got stuck to a draught excluder on Christmas Day; and who could forget the dinner in Mr Petty's memory - when Cissie put mislabelled laxative in the peas instead of salt - and everybody ended up queuing for the loo? Mildred's 'Wall of Death' stunt at the local church fete simply doesn't bear thinking about - in fact the whole day was a disaster, particularly as Cissie put Flora's winning raffle ticket in a teacup and Flora drank it. Moving on, there was the enlightening occasion when Flora explained to Cissie how conceiving a baby was like getting your library book stamped. And what about the dark day when Dolly sang I Am Sixteen Going On Seventeen? Furthermore, to end this catalogue of unfortunate incidents at Paradise Lodge, do you recall Katy's baby rompers turning out a little unusually? Flora coming back from the dead with a bag of chips? And dear Dolly nearly getting to star in a TV commercial, but being upstaged by Flora, who was then upstaged by a bulrush, slicing a sliced loaf?

I do.

'TV Times', September, 1977. The series begins. Writers Pam Valentine and Michael Ashton compare Peggy Mount and Pat Coombs's comic pairing to Laurel and Hardy. In the pic, Flora soaks her feet. Well, fake sleep walking through a goldfish pond in the dead of night can make that a great pleasure. 

'It's like talking to The Magic Roundabout!' Flora once said of Cissie.

Cissie's Uncle Bert did something highly unusual in his shed...

Mildred... did she really have puffy ankles? 'Where's my Wincarnis?!'

Dear Dolly... once fell downstairs singing 'Lover Come Back To Me' in a Father Christmas outfit...

Lovely Katy... what WAS she knitting?!

Finchy and Roger were popular staff members with the residents. But requests for pay rises were met with a stern 'NO!' by Miss Milton.

Early on, several of the characters had catchphrases: Dolly Love's was: 'Just a minute! Just a cotton picking minute!'; Mildred Fanshaw was oft-heard to squawk: 'Hang on! Hang on!'; and a perplexed Miss Milton often demanded: 'What are you telling me? What are you saying to me?' Once the characters were established, the catchphrases were dropped - although Mildred did occasionally give us hers. Well, 'Hang on! Hang on!' suited her so well. Roger the handyman was often driven to say, 'Dunno why I stick this job!' Poor geezer.

Miss Milton joins the ladies in the Residents' Lounge.

It could be said that Flora bullied Cissie. But Cissie sometimes got her own back when Flora was incapacitated, and Flora cared about her. Indeed, Flora even turned down a proposal of marriage because her fiancé didn't like Cissie and did not want her living with them after they were wed. 

A signed photograph of Cissie Lupin! When she bought jelly babies, Cissie always ate the arms first. But she soon found out that the local bird population did not like jelly babies.

Poor Miss Milton - permanently well-meaning and permanently harassed. Usually by Flora.

Do watch it! If you love comic greats like Peggy Mount and Pat Coombs and the traditional English sitcom you will not be disappointed, I promise you. You're Only Young Twice is a thing of great beauty. But don't expect an early version of Waiting For God. Flora and company give us something very different, despite the similar setting. But just as good.

70s Top of the Pops: Come on baby do the juke box jive...

This is a snippet from my local newspaper the Cambridge Evening News, dated 10/12/1977. It's interesting (if you happen to live in mid-Anglia) to see what was on in the "What's On" section (the Spinners! Wow!), but the main reason for the inclusion of this little snippet is the TV review.

Do you mourn for the days when the pop charts were full of mind-blowingly innovative, totally new, totally THRILLING stuff?

Er... just when exactly was that?

Our local rag's TV reviewer back in 1977, Crawford Gillian, had a hate/hate relationship with TOTP. I've copied the review below, as the original is a little on the faint side in parts.

Ten-year toppers

About 10 years ago, "Top of the Pops" was a Thursday night "must" for me.

It was an easy way to keep an eye on the pop end of the music scene. And for good measure, if you will excuse such a tasteless pun, there were always Pan's People - suitably undressed.

In those days, you could expect to see such giants of the pop world as Paul McCartney, Manfred Mann or the Bee Gees.

On Thursday last week I tuned into "Top of the Pops" for the first time in ages and on the show were... Paul McCartney, Manfred Mann and the Bee Gees! Pan's People were still there, or at least their younger sisters. But now they're called Legs and Co.

Even the camera angles looked the same. There is still the lingering close-up of the pianist's fingers, the shots in negative, melting into others aimed directly into coloured spotlights. Of course, in 1967, we didn't know they were coloured.

The performers respond with the same mock-petulant postures and still don't bother to maintain the pretence of playing their instruments.

Women's Lib doesn't seem to have penetrated the pop world. There was the statutory girl draped round each of Tony Blackburn's shoulders as he introduced the groups, purely decorative.

One exception was a gravel-throated girl singer who looked and sounded like Rod Stewart - another reminder of the sixties influence.

Even the Number One spot looked decidedly dated with Paul McCartney and his jingoistic tribute to the Mull of Kintrye.

It featured a Scottish pipe band marching up and down a beach. Being of the appropriate nationality, I suppose the blood should have been leaping in my veins at such a sight. All it reminded me of was the "Monty Python" sketch with the kamikazee Highlanders throwing themselves one after the other from castle battlements.

If Messrs Cleese and Chapman had got hold of this one, the sequence would have ended with the pipe band marching out to sea.

But that's one of the troubles with "Top of the Pops". It never has had any sense of humour.

Next week Elton John takes on the job of handling the introductions. Another sixties superstar. Need I say more?

The "gravel-throated" singer was none other than Bonnie Tyler with It's A Heartache.

The top ten for the week ending 10/12/1977 was:

1) Mull of Kintyre/Girls' School - Wings

2) Floral Dance - Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band

3) How Deep Is Your Love - Bee Gees

4) Dancin' Party - Showaddywaddy

5) I Will - Ruby Winters

6) Daddy Cool - Darts

7) We Are The Champions - Queen

8) Rockin' All Over The World - Status Quo

9) Egyptian Raggae - Jonathan Richmond and the Modern Lovers

10) Belfast - Boney M