From the Daily Mail, Thursday 28th March 1974:
From the Sunday Mirror, Sunday 2nd July 1978:Clouseau on TV - by Sellers
PETER SELLERS is planning to make his first TV series - based on his screen role as the world's worst policeman, Inspector Clouseau.
Sellers, who made the accident-prone detective as famous as his Parisian Surete rival Maigret through two films - 'The Pink Panther' and 'A Shot In The Dark,' has discussed the series with Sir Lew Grade, chairman of ATV.
A pilot show is to directed by Blake Edwards, who made the Clouseau films, has already been written.
The series would probably consist of 28 episodes of 60 minutes each, and could cost £500,000.
It would undoubtedly have enormous appeal in America, which is why Sir Lew, noted for his flair at selling TV shows to the States, was initially attracted to the project.
A spokesman for Sellers said: 'Peter is very excited about the possibility of playing Closeau again. It's one of his favourite characters. So far negotiations are progressing very satisfactorily.'
'The Pink Panther,' which also starred David Niven and Claudia Cardinale was released in 1964. Sellers stepped into the role at the last moment after Peter Ustinov walked out following a script row.
Sellers said 'Closeau is one of those lovable characters that actors love to do. He's comic and gives so much room for individual interpretation. I love him.'
It's no go for the Goebbels showFrom the Sun, page 14, 12th May 1982:THE new scriptwriting partnership of Johnny Speight and Ray Galton has suffered a set-back.
B B C-TV has turned down their comedy series, Goebbels' Diaries.
This would have been the first T V product from Johnny (of Till Death Us Do Part fame) and Ray (who recently split with co-writer Alan Simpson after a long partnership which produced shows like Hancock's Half Hour).
Says Johnny: "When Jimmy Gilbert, the B B C-TV's head of light entertainment, read the script we gave him on Goebbels' Diaries, he said: 'It's fearfully funny, but no way can we do it on T V.
"'If I saw it in the theatre I'd probably fall off the seat laughing, but it goes too far to allow it on the air.'
"I suppose Jimmy has a point," says Speight. "Although I can't understand the reasoning.
"I know people are worried about Nazi revivalism, but comedy can make a serious comment.
"You can do real damage to an evil cause by making fun of it.
"In Goebbels' Diaries, we have put in all those marvellous songs of the period which offer an oblique comment.
"We have Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, pacing up and down in his bunker after heavy bombings. On the radio the young Frank Sinatra is singing I Didn't Sleep A Wink Last Night.
"In comes Hitler screaming: 'He should complain. Nobody in the whole of Germany slept a wink last wink.'
"Sure, Goebbels' Diaries might shock some people but so did Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part.
"We'll probably put Goebbels' Diaries into the theatre," said Johnny.
"And we've been commissioned by ATV to write a pilot for a new series about a suburban police force. This is a big mickey-take of series like Kojak. The Sweeney and Starsky And Hutch.
"Don't worry about us - it's all happening, although we're not going to write pap for anybody or anything."
ITV PLAN A SATIRE FUN SHOWI have it on reliable authority that this show became Channel Four's Who Dares Wins.ITV is planning a new LIVE satire show on the lines of the BBC's hit series Not The Nine O'Clock News.
The programme is called QWERT - after the first five letters on a typewriter - and will feature four presenters, including a girl.
Writers Colin Bostock-Smith and Laurie Rowley have already been recruited from the NTNON team.
The show is part of a new package of light entertainment planned by ITV next year.
The Daily Star, Friday 11th January 1985:
MORE PORRIDGE ON THE WAY...Page 5 of the Sun, Thursday 2nd May 1988:
By PAT CODDTHE BBC are planning a new series of Ronnie Barker's top-rated TV comedy, Porridge.
A repeat of the 1975 show was such a success at Christmas it beat Raiders of the Lost Ark in the ratings.
It attracted 19.36 million viewers compared to the American film's 19.33 million.
In Porridge, Barker plays an incorrigible old lag doing time in prison.
BBC 1 boss Michael Grade said yesterday:
"After the Christmas success we have discussed doing more Porridge with Ronnie.
"Ronnie and writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais would love to do more episodes."
Mr. Grade refuted ITV claims that they had won the Christmas ratings battle.
BLACKADDER BEN IN QUEEN RUMPUSPage 25 of Today, Monday 26th June 1989:
By GARY BUSHELLLEFTIE comic Ben Elton has outraged BBC bosses with plans for a Blackadder series based on a bastard son...of the Queen.
TV insiders yesterday revealed that Beeb chiefs are "seriously concerned" about the bad-taste plot which would star Rowan Atkinson as the "Royal bastard".
Co-writer Ben, 30, scrapped plans to call next year's series Bat Adder based on Batman in favour of the new storyline.
A friend said: "Ben would be the first to admit he doesn't like royalty, but he doesn't think this is particularly over the top."
ITV sinks Carling black comedy slotPage 3 of Today, Thursday 30th May 1991:
by KEVIN O'SULLIVANA NEW comedy series has been axed because its stars shot to fame in a TV commercial.
Programme chiefs at first wanted to cash in on the success of Mark Arden and Steve Frost, who play two likely lads in the adverts for Carling Black Label lager.
But they dropped the show after one pilot episode rather than risk it becoming a half-hour plug for the beer giant.
A Thames Television executive says: "Carling would no doubt clamour to get their commercials screened during the programme.
"But other beer companies might shy away and the situation would become too difficult.
"Mark and Steve are a brilliant partnership, but you have to be wary of trying to draw on the success of an advertising campaign."
Arden, famous for his catchphrase "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label", is philosophical about the rejection.
HUMOUR
He says: "It was disappointing but Steve and I don't want to become another Hale and Pace, or be compromised in any way."
But Arden, who does a stand-up routine with Frost on the alternative comedy circuit, does feel that some TV chiefs are out of touch with modern humour.
"Some have latched on to the new breed of comedy, but others are deeply seated in their previous experiences," he says.
"Someone who produced Terry and June 15 years ago is bound to get paranoid when handing out commissions for new stuff today."
Carling's campaign meanwhile has boosted consumption of lager. It has also made instantly recognisable faces out of Arden and Frost - which means the former can even joke about his series' cancellation.
He says: "Maybe Thames shelved it because there wasn't enough money. Or it might simply be because it was rubbish."
You're just a load of goonsPage 3 of the Daily Mirror, Wednesday 6th May 1992:
Spike's spitting mad at Blackadder and co
EXCLUSIVE by ANTON RUSH
THE grand old man of British humour, Spike Milligan, yesterday launched a bitter attack on modern comedy stars.
Hit shows like Spitting Image and Black Adder leave the former Goon cold.
He rubbished the crude Spitting Image scripts and added: "I prefer humour that's more abstract - nothing to do with the waist downwards."
Even award-winner Rowan Atkinson did not escape his contempt.
"I was horrified by the coarse sense of humour in Blackadder - sticking celery up people's backsides and all that. I left that kind of humour behind when I was in school."
But Spike gave the latest wave of comedians a grudging "OK".
"Some of them are funny - but the swearing is unbelievable, every second word is a curse."
Spike, 73, who wrote the Seventies cult TV show Q and several best-selling books, has had his confidence shattered by the rejection of his latest project. He said: "It's called Over The Hill and was written for Eric Sykes and myself as two over-the-hill comics trying to get back in.
"The BBC didn't think it was funny, then Thames TV read it and didn't think it was funny. Young people come along, you see, and feel they fire somebody."
Spike, a vegetarian, does 50 laps before breakfast round the pool of his huge house at Rye near the Sussex coast.
But, along with the rejection of his work, a nervous breakdown after the death of his mother last year has had a disastrous effect on his character.
"I used to have the urge to get up and go for a long walk in the morning and now I have to force myself to do that, I force myself to swim every morning in the pool. I'm a forced person.
"I've suffered a personality change and now I haven't got what it takes, it's all come to an end," he added.
Even the memory of his success with the Goons fails to cheer Spike.
"When I see a tethered horse blindfolded and going round and round in circles to turn a wheel I realise I was doing the same thing by writing The Goons.
"But I didn't know any other way to make a living."
To mark the 40th anniversary of the series BBC radio is re-running seven shows this week.
But Spike said: "I expect someone was just sitting around in a meeting and said, 'When is the anniversary of The Goons? Wouldn't it be a jolly good idea to bring some out?'."
BENNY SIGNED BIG TV COMEBACK DEALPage 3 of the Daily Star, Wednesday 5th January 1994:
By LOUISE FORDBENNY Hill was signed up for a great TV comeback just eight days before his death, it was revealed last night.
He was thrilled with the deal, and happier than he had been for a long time, said friends.
The comic was shattered when Thames ditched him three years ago - a move that put him into TV exile.
The new contract - with Central - was kept secret because the firm wanted to announce their coup at last week's Montreux TV Festival.
Benny was to have started work almost immediately on two hour-long Christmas specials directed by his pal Dennis Kirkland.
The comedian, who was in and out of hospital from February for heart treatment, signed the deal in his agent's office on April 10.
On April 18 he died in his Teddington flat.
Manuel Switches Channel - ITV Return For Basil SidekickPage 9 of Broadcast, Tuesday 15th March 1994:
EXCLUSIVE by NIGEL PAULEY
FAWLTY Towers waiter Manuel is planning an El of a TV comeback after 15 years.But the hapless Spanish sidekick from Britain's most awful hotel has ditched Basil...and the Beeb.
The new sitcom Ole! Manuel! - starring 63-year-old Andrew Sachs - will be screened by ITV at a costa £1.5 million.
The wacky waiter from Barcelona soared to fame in the hit series which was a massive money-spinner. But Fawlty Towers creator John Cleese - who played manic hotel boss Basil Fawlty - won't appear in the Yorkshire-Tyne Tees series.
Neither will Prunella Scales, who starred as his shrewish wife Sybil.
There's been no real-life bust-up between the old telly team-mates, though.
In fact Cleese, who killed off the original series after only 13 episodes, has given the new show his backing.
Andrew's son John, whose production company is behind Ole! Manuel!, said: "Manuel will be older - but no wiser.
"He's escaped from the clutches of Basil and Sybil but he's still working in a lowly position in catering and being bullied and generally terrorised."
German-born Andrew has often claimed Manuel blighted his telly career.
But he's still earned a nice paella money from commercials and wildlife programmes.
C4 raises its sitcom quotaPage 3 of Mail On Sunday, Sunday 15th June 1997:
BY SARAH LITTLEJOHNChannel 4 is seeking to expand its sitcom output and has ordered treatments for two comedies from specialist Hat Trick Productions.
Seamus Cassidy, Channel 4 commissioning editor of entertainment, has narrowed down new ideas for 1995 to six ideas. 'I'll be rebalancing things a bit and changing the emphasis to accommodate more sitcoms,' he said.
Hat Trick sitcoms in development with C4 are Father Ted Crilly, written by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews about three Irish priests, and Otherwise You'd Cry, by David Firth about a son looking after his bed-ridden mother.
Other sitcoms under development for Channel 4 include : The Cows, a story of a cow revolution in the 1930s, written by surreal stand-up comic Eddie Izzard, which will be piloted nine months behind schedule in the summer; Captain Butler of the High Seas by Rob Sprackling and John Smith and produced by Humphrey Barclay Productions; and The Horn Beams by Terry Frisbee being developed by Humphrey Barclay, about a family reunion.
Dressing for Breakfast by Stephanie Calman is in development with Warner Sisters. It is a story about women in their late twenties who are under pressure to get married. Just Good Neighbours, by Geoff Rowley, is a sitcom about two next-door neighbours having an affair.
Channel 4 is pressing ahead with programmes for stand-up comedians Lee Evans, Mark Thomas and Mark Lamarr.
Also being negotiated is a second series - of between 20 and 26 episodes - of Don't Forget Your Toothbrush.
No, Minister - it just won't do for Brussels
Yes, Commissioner is turned down by BBC as 'not funny enough'
By Michael BurkeTHE antics of Brussels bureaucrats seemed ripe material for a TV comedy...but the BBC failed to see the joke.
So Corporation bosses have turned down a proposed sequel to the highly successful Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister called Yes, Commissioner, it emerged yesterday.
They were decidedly sniffy about hit writer Sir Antony Jay's idea of transplanting the wily and urbane Sir Humphrey Appleby to the heart of Euro indecision-making.
As a spokesman said last night: 'We decided after very careful consideration that Brussels simply did not offer the comic opportunities of Westminster, so we passed on it.'
Beastly
But the rebuff has astonished Sir Antony who declared that whatever the BBC thought, he would still be going ahead with the project.
'Yes, Commissioner will be funny all right,' he said. 'You wait and see.'Indeed, the BBC might well live to rue its decision. ITV and Sky say they can't wait to see the scripts.
Nigel Hawthorne, who played Sir Humphrey to the late Paul Eddington's Jim Hacker, was also said to be highly enthusiastic.
Apparently, the plan is to lock the Machiavellian mandarin in a new battle of wills - this time with a British Commissioner.
But it could also involve him being beastly to the Germans and offensive to the French.
Sir Antony, knighted by Margaret Thatcher in 1988 for his part in writing the two series with his former partner Jonathan Lynn, is working on the idea with his 38-year-old son Michael.
But last night he was keeping the details close to his chest. 'We don't want to give too much away at this stage because we don't have a broadcaster yet,' he said, 'and we don't want people stealing our ideas.
'I suppose we are now looking for a little bit of encouragement.'
One broadcaster who has been briefed on Sir Antony's plans said: 'Frankly, a lot of people are amazed at the BBC's attitude.
'Perhaps it is that these days the Corporation is a bureaucracy only marginally less labyrinthine than the EU itself - and it has simply lost the ability to spot a good idea handed on a plate.'
He said that if Paul Eddington had lived Sir Antony could have had him losing a General Election and becoming a European Commissioner. In real life that happened to former Labour leader Neil Kinnock who joined Sir Leon Brittan in Brussels.
'The character who does survive and is transferred is Sir Humphrey,' said the broadcaster.
'I understand that initial approaches have been made to Nigel Hawthorne in connection with this and he has responded with enthusiasm. But nothing is signed and sealed yet.
Jokes
'In Yes, Commissioner the central battle of wills is between Sir Humphrey and the British Commissioner whom, naturally, he thwarts at every turn.
'However, on occasions, Sir Humphrey and the British Commissioner will form an alliance to do the dirty on Commissioners from other countries.
'I belive the French will be the butt of a lot of the humour, There will also be a great many jokes made at the expense of the Germans.'
Some observers wonder whether this lack of political correctness could have had a bearing on the BBC's decision.
But a spokesman would only say: 'Certainly, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister were brilliantly funny.
'The Jays came to us very early on - but we didn't think Yes, Commissioner had the same potential.'
Sir Antony retorted: 'We think the BBC's wrong. There is plenty of comic potential in Brussels.'
