Very sad to hear Ronnie Corbett passed away today. He was a very funny and very talented man who made people laugh for much of his adult life across a number of decades. Have very fond memories of watching his show with his partner Ronnie Barker in The Two Ronnies throughout the seventies and the eighties That was quite a run for any partnership and they enjoyed audience viewing figures of up to more than twenty million people on a Saturday night. Off course in these more enlightened times( Oh yes, how we like to kid ourselves) a lot of the humor would come across as crass and even offensive but this is what passed for family entertainment in those far off days. Their shows were a mixture of sketches and monologues both men would wrestle with to make us laugh the most. I particularly like the on-going mystery and adventure larks they used to indulge in. Stuff like the Worm That Turned or detective yarns like Done to Death starring the crime solving duo of Charley Farley and Piggy Malone. The Jason King spoof with Ronnie in the title role is a wonderful example of just what these two very funny men were capable of. Ronnie Corbett Jason Kinged-up and Ronnie Barker in drag. It is incredibly seventies and just as incredibly funny.
My absolute favorite though was The Phantom Raspberry Blower Of Olde London Town written with Spike Milligan. A Jack The Ripper like toff holds all of London in a reign of terror by running up to them, flapping his opera cape and making a loud farting noise in their faces causing them to shrivel up in spasms of awkward embarrassment. Deep stuff,eh?
I do remember laughing at every episode right up to the phantom being revealed as this ghostly pale corpse man with red smeared lips and mad eyes and almost wetting myself in shock.
And I was twenty seven year old at the time.
I still get a ghastly shudder when I hear distant farting noises in the night.
R.I.P. little man and thank you for the big laughs.
