spike milligan

Description

The Two Ronnies was a British sketch show which aired on BBC1 from 1971 to 1987. It featured the double act of Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, the "Two Ronnies" of the title. The show was based on the complementary personalities of Barker and Corbett, who never became an exclusive pairing, but continued to work independently in television outside of the editions of the Two Ronnies. The show was produced annually between 1971 and 1987. It had many notable writers including Ray Alan, John Cleese, Barry Cryer, Spike Milligan, David Nobbs, David Renwick, John Sullivan, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Laurie Rowley. In addition, Barker used the pseudonym Gerald Wiley when writing sketches. One of the most popular sketches was "Four Candles", written by Barker, where Barker walks into an old-fashioned ironmonger's store and asks for "four candles." Corbett gives him the candles but it turns out that Barker wanted "fork handles -- 'andles for forks", meaning garden forks. Barker continues to ask for items from a list, very tersely, and Corbett continues to misinterpret them, growing more and more frustrated. Another popular sketch was a parody of the quiz show Mastermind with Barker as host Magnus Magnusson and Corbett as a contestant named Charlie Smithers, whose specialist subject was "answering the question before last". Both Barker and Corbett had their own solo sections on each show. Barker would have his own heavily wordplay-based sketch, often as the head of a ridiculous-sounding organisation. Likewise, Corbett always had a discursive solo monologue in each show, when he sat in a chair, facing the camera, attempting to tell a simple joke, but constantly distracting himself into relating other humorous incidents. The joke itself was normally deliberately corny; the humour came from Corbett's wild tangents, as well as the anticlimax when he finally reached the punchline.