Watch Them While You Can!

Watch Them While You Can!

If you like your comedy of the finest vintage Watch Them While You Can! as we are about to see some classics disappear in light of recent events.  In news bulletins we have already seen the Fawlty Towers ‘Germans’ episode removed from BBC streaming services, alongside Little Britain and Come Fly With Me.  It’s also come to light that for sometime the Fawlty Towers episode has had a scene edited out on some viewing platforms.

The Guardian reports “While traditional TV channels used to simply quietly stop repeating old shows that were no longer considered appropriate, the advent of streaming means catch-up services need to constantly reassess their back catalogues, attracting publicity in the process”.

It seems we could stop seeing some of our favourite comedy as even streaming service Netflix has removed BBC shows The Mighty Boosh and the League Of Gentlemen for featuring instances of actors made up to have blackfaces.   However a spokesperson for the BBC advised that both programmes still remain on the iPlayer service.

I’ve often said about some of the more controversial sitcoms that they are not racist but cleverly written to make the characters making the insults appear stupid as the person receiving the insult always gets the upper hand and the biggest laughs.  In Till Death Us Do Part an episode where the TV needs repairing, Alf is having his usual rant that many would see as racist.  However when the TV repairman turns out to be black, he gets the biggest laugh when seeing Alf has embarrassed himself proceeds to play up to, Alf’s comments before watching him squirm as he hands him the bill.

Despite the racist remarks it’s balenced as the TV repairman gets the biggest and last laugh.

Love Thy Neighbour was no different.  It was a comedy of complete opposites and Eddie only gets laughs because the viewer knows Bill is going to come back with something much bigger and funnier.

Here’s another classic clip.  This time the shopkeeper gets the big laughs.  this time we have a white man, a brown man  and a black man, all hurling insults at each other.

In my mind if you are paying by subscription you know what you are paying for and in the case of sites such as Britbox you know what your watching before you watch it, it’s your choice.