I can clearly remember the Louis Theroux documentary about Keith and he seemed a very troubled man who could not let his past go. He had a beautiful young wife with a lovely baby, a mercedes benz and at least two properties and a profitable sideline doing a 'blue' version of his act to college students. Most middle aged men would be in heaven in a situation like that, but not Keith. He seemed to think that he was still deserving of a prime time slot on television and to call him deluded would be an understatement. I could not understand how Keith could not be happy with what he had, but like a lot of celebrities, they live in another world and most of them end up unhappy regardless of the fortune they make.
Keep making these wonderful videos buddy, I, along with a load of others here we love em, your humour is great I always look forward to a good laugh from nostagia at the end of the day. Thanks 😊
I saw his adult-only show at Pontins and it was hilarious, the whole audience loved it. Seeing how funny he was outside the constraints of family-friendly TV was a total shock.
They once had him and Orville in the Identity parade on Buzzcocks. When Lamarr asked if Orville knew the word 'cunt', Orville cackled and said "I'm lookin' at one!".
Saw Keith take a massive shite outdoors when he worked at Butlins in the early 00's. All the toilets were occupied. He didn't wipe his arse, just pulled his jeans up, got in his car & drove off. He didn't give a fuck that there was at least 5 ppl who witnessed what hed just done
I was born in 1966 and there is a whole world of Saturday night tv from about 1982 - 1996 that I am completely unaware of. Looking at stuff like this, (and other offering from yourself) my choices of pubs, night clubs and cheap vhs rentals seems like time well spent.
Born in 1967 , I`ve no recollection of any of this , I thought he had a song out and did kids TV with the monkey , My dad used to say TV companies were in cahoots with the Breweries , make tele shite so people go t`pub
I remember his woefully unfunny TV show. He was down there with Little and Large and Cannon and Ball for me. It's amazing how long this type of "entertainment" held on way past its sell-by date.
It's SO BAD. I feel better about the relative quality of American television of the period after discovering this. It is seriously the most un-funny cringey garbage ever put on film. The puppets are beyond hideous. It's not even funny bad.
We need to talk about Keith, anybody else expecting a video about a BBC light entertainment act in the 80's expecting him to be exposed as a nonce and not "He's actually just shit?".
One of the most tragic things I've ever seen (and I was there at a fatal car crash) was Keith drinking alone and clearly miserable on Christmas Eve in a council estate working men's club. A solid five miles from the theatre where he was starring in panto and nowhere near a hotel. He'd *chosen* cheap pints, in a rough neighbourhood, on Christmas Eve. This was circa 2000, his bubble had burst and likely his liver shortly thereafter. It haunts me to this day.
So, so many shows from the mid-'80s to mid-'90s had the BBC trying to extract every penny's worth from their Quantel Paintbox. You can't just cut between a scene, no, it has to shrink into a square and then bounce around a cartoon background, doing a flip. You can't just do a split-screen, it has to be one circle on top of another circle. All of it! It infested CBBC for a while too, but any light entertainment and it's all there. Provided some cheap animation as well, though only quick ones. They were expensive to buy, but not by BBC standards. But so many shows, bloody everywhere, all using the same effects. You could work out the day they bought it with some old Radio Times.
I had to pause the video for about 30 seconds when you showed the list of traditional anniversary gifts as I just couldn't stop laughing. Brilliant video as always.
I worked as a techie on a panto he starred in with Orville. Normally on a 2 month panto run you hang out with the b-list celebs who are always bored stuck in a hotel, homesick and want someone to drink with or source substances. He was always serious off stage, no pranks or banter, straight to his hotel every night. He wasn't arrogant or ever treated anyone badly just flat and uncomfortable. You'd expect an entertainer with his experience to be larger than life but conversations were always strained. I think he was only confident when talking to kids through a puppet.
I'm surprised that he wasn't outed. I worked in a nightclub in Blackpool where he would come in after his show and desperately try to pick up 18/19 year old men.
My aunt used to work for the NSPPC in the early 90s, organising charity events in Lancashire. She told us how they once booked him for some show. He staggered onto the stage steaming pissed, eventually found his way to his stool, and then unceremoniously produced Orville from a bin bag. Once his act started, it wasn`t long before all the kids started crying.
Aha so he was lying when he told Louis Theroux that, whilst he used to have a drinking problem, he never worked pissed. I didn't believe him at the time because most addicts cross that line at some stage.
Thanks Millard, you've aced it again. Since your observation on Keith's 'video essay' is funnier than every single one of his jokes combined, it's time I had a gander at your Patreon page.
@@TruculentSheep As if for balance she was also dishing out 'streaky bonehead's poems' with suspicious regularity, though the kids almost always turned her offer down when that book was included.
I know someone who was sat around a table in Minehead Butlins with him and Megadeth. Apparently Megadeth were laughing at him because he made a living with that duck.
You totally nailed it with your comment about being at grandma's house, only with us it was our own house.That combination of big band intro and an audience of kids just brings it all back for me. Shows like Crackerjack, Basil Brush, The Generation Game, that Rolf Harris thing on a Saturday evening... but Keith Harris's schtick seemed to me, as a kid, to be for little kids. I know he tried to get all with it in the 90s for the post-pub crowd, but I wasn't buying it. Seeing this now, and being a sucker for recycled music hall gags, these shows seemed to have a kernel of hope going for them. Keep it coming, Millard!
Louis Theroux documentary on him was incredibly macabre. A man who felt like he was on top of the world, only to fall into utter obscurity as a minor footnote as an embarrassing circus sideshow.
It was an interesting watch for sure, Keith was like Les Dennis in his episode of Extras. My favourite part was where Keith had just finished a radio interview, he turns to Louis and starts slagging the radio station off but the microphones are still live.
It was weird, you’d think he could take a step back and say he’s got a lovely house, obviously still had money (despite three or four previous marriages) so clearly didn’t need the money - surely you have the perspective to say why continue doing this, why not enjoy what you’ve achieved and maybe move into something new - he must have made a ton of contacts - instead of flogging that dead duck continually.
@@Toooldforthis78But he couldn’t accept his total lack of talent, enabled as he was by being given multiple TV shows etc, despite being one of the worst writers and performers from that era, and that’s saying something when you look at the utter, barrel-scraped, moronic drivel that was 80s light entertainment.
Oh dear God! That Spit the dog song has been haunting me for decades. Now I know where the damn thing came from, I can finally put it to bed and... the horror... the horror will stay with me forever...
I remember when I was on holiday back in 1985 ( yes I’m that old)when I was a kid. We had this holiday rep at the Hotel . Who looked remarkably like Cuddles the monkey . She never got tired of people shouting “ I hate that Duck 🦆 at her” Great days 😊
Keeping the spirit of Victor Lewis Smith going with this incisive dissection of 80s TV guff. Keep up the good work. Born in 74 this sort of light entertainment crap was my childhood and it was no more appreciated at the time.
I think Stu's better than VLS. Victor was very good but his fans over-hype him. The Gay Daleks was really desperate and only-just funny.Whether it was worth the 50 quid they spent on SFX is a question for the ages. If you want a proper miserable old sod who's quietly and bizarrely hilarious, and also dead, Peter Cook is the greatest. "Good afternoon, madam. We're the Froony Green Eyewash men. Have you, by any chance, got 10 bottles of Froony Green Eyewash in your house?"
My mum actually saw a very young Keith Harris with a proto-Orville on stage many years ago…crap jokes and equally poor ventriloquism She said she was probably indirectly responsible for launching his career as her and her friends were on a work junket with their boss, who was also coincidentally called Keith Harris So every time his name was mentioned, they would holler and cheer drunkenly Probably the best audience he ever had😂
There’s a great clip of a rather offended Nigel Farage being asked to comment on the death of Keith Harris by a rather bored journalist. (News of his death broke during the election campaign in 2015 whilst UKIP were doing an otherwise unremarkable news conference)
There's a joke Harris did on the BBC and I've been trying to find it for years, one of the most tasteless gags ever and would have been around 1987 when Terry Waite was kidnapped. Emu tells Keith Harris he's worried about terrorists. He tellls Keith he's heard someone been taking Ostriches, Keith replies, no Orville, hostages, regardless of the fact Emu was supposed to be an duck, not an Ostrich
Biggest laugh for me was the wedding anniversary list, but "Savile's bath water" was a close second! Also, the Simmonds brothers @ 10.52 look like an alternative universe Little and Large.
Watching this makes me thankful we never got the likes of Keith Harris* Cannon & Ball and Little and Large over here in NZ. *technically we sort of did, with his appearances on The Black & White Minstrel Show, yeah, the BBC sold us copies of that!
Lenny henry worked with him early in his career as a stand and he said he learned alot from him about stand up comedy especially about stage craft. Comedy timing etc and said that he was very professional person and very kind. Keith Harris was very frustrated during his time with the bbc because he had other dummies beside cuddles the monkey and orville and he got tired of being told he could only use same two puppets.
The Theroux documentary revealed someone who had succeeded in all sorts of ways, but still felt unfulfilled. Maybe his tragedy was always trying to get that itch scratched by showbiz, which was always going to chew him up and spit him out, as it does to so many. It was cute how he referred to Orville and Cuddles as his daughter's brothers, mind you.
I think I saw that Louis theroux documentary and Keith Harris said in that he walked away from the bbc because they handcuffed him to best of compilation style show and he tried remind the bbc that he was not a kids tv entertainer. But the bbc kept forcing him to do things like the or ville roadshow. Which killed his comedy career.
19:38 Strangely enough there's a very similar joke in an episode of 'The Real Ghostbusters' where the cartoon treats the original movie in-universe as if it's a film about them. And it works better because the names are normal people's names and so make more sense in the punchline. Studio Executive: That's why we wanted you here to advise us, make sure we're doing it right. After all, this is your life story. Peter: No problem, as long as you got the right people to play us. Admit it, Redford was dying to play me, right? Studio Executive: Not exactly. Here's the cast list. Winston: [reads over the list] Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis?!? What's that, a law firm?
Stiff was a boy from my primary school- Danny Crossley, who was the first person many of us knew who 'made it big' for being one of the dancers on Pink Windmill. Yet it seems here he was also roped into the Keith Harris lot.
Keith Harris in leather trousers, leather jacket and slim tie on Top of the Pops! The sleeves pushed up on his jackets! Bob Carolgees in striped shorts with pink/lime green socks! Classic 80's! Brain Conley looks like he's a member of Modern Romance! The girls singing 'Harmony' are going to be major stars! The kids dance troupe too! I'd completely forgotten the name of that kid who sang 'Donald Where's Ya Troosers?' But he was everywhere for a while!
The Louis Theroux documentary is the place to go for the best insight into the late Keith Harris. He was obviously a depressed guy when Louis met him, but I found sympathy was a bit of an ask when he struck me as such a bitter character who’d likely indulge in fantasies of vindication given the slightest of chances. I also got the impression that he wasn’t that nice a character to work with back at the height of his mediocre variety act.
I always remember Harris stopping his show in Butlins as someone was filming him. He threatened to walk if they didn't stop, then pushed his 'best of' DVD which was on sale on a nearby table.
As someone forced to perform ceilidh music in his childhood PLEASE, PLEASE make a video about Stuart Anderson. I'd love to see a deep dive into that! Also, this video was great. I'm subscribed. :)
God, watching this video and seeing those clips was like picking a nostalgia scab. It's painful, you don't want to know what's lurking underneath and you know that its a bad idea. But you still eat it.
I like to think those magicians cited Kermit as a way to say to the audience, 'yeah you're watching this sh*te instead'. Which as a Xennial, sums up Keith. There wasn't much else on and a kind of bitter feeling your precious time was being taken up with second rate stuff that you aren't actively enjoying, but you got what you were given. To coin a phrase we were 'channelled' into this stuff.
I think that's why me and my mates gravitated towards playing games on our computers during winter when it was too dark to go out and play football or whatever. It was either that or rubbish telly. You can blame Keith.
Ohhh YESSS 😄A tea & Millard break - just what I needed today. Swamped with work, but 27 minutes is a good investment in raising my mood right now 🤣 Kettle on, ready to settle down... 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
This was never funny even as a kid. Just thought it was a bit odd. Watching it now I’m struggling to comprehend the punchline. Watching him on Louis Theroux just showed a man who couldn’t let go of the past and was still under the impression he was relevant
My mum and dad saw him in a show in the early '70s before he was famous (infamous?) - his puppet was a rabbit and the act was a stream of really filthy jokes.
TV back then was truly awful and they knew it. There wasn't any real competition on the horizon, so no reason to "up their game" in any way. Even today when most of us have long since given up watching TV, the likes of Ant and Dec still take top billing with nothing to challenge them. It is dross. Repetitive mind numbing dross.
I was prepared to make fun of English shows having low episode counts, but twenty episodes of this is a war crime. It looks like a show within a show about miserable actors.
I will never forget When Louis Theroux Met Keith Harris. Keith was getting wistful and crying at his own old videotapes on his elderly mum's living room floor.
I was a kid in the eighties and I never understood why he was popular. Although the idea of Orville tied to a snooker table, say at the Crucible during a five hour match, is appealing.
As a Gen X-er, I can assure you that even as a kid, I thought Keith Harris and Orville and the entire show was just WEIRD! I didn't mind the monkey, though, as he was naughty. All this list of really bad "comedians" from my childhood has brought back memories I'd repressed.
A fellow Gen X-er, I have to say you're not wrong! A green duck, in a nappy and creepy Keith?! Never liked watching this when I was younger. Polar opposite of Bob Carolgees and Spit the dog! Rod Hull and Emu were cringe too!
He falls into the same category as Saville for me in that we were always told he was great and popular but I never knew anyone who actually liked him, especially Orville. I was a kid in the ‘80s so his perfect audience and everyone I knew hated Orville (but most did love the monkey).
As a kid in the 80s I hated puppets and mascots especially those that spilled over from the 60s and 70s. Stuff like Orville and that horrific monkey were a fucking nightmare. I guess how kids these days feel about Five Nights at Freddy's.
I've been trying to find the video he did to a song called Stick It In (I think that's what it's called). It was done in his later years. It's a bit creepy. He's doing a conga with a long line of kids and he's singing "Stick It In". When he died it mysteriously vanished from the internet. Has anybody else seen this?
I loved Orville. The hit song is amazing if you take out the duck, and Keith and speed it up a little. In fairness I was about 3-5 years old through all of this and didn’t know better. Chances are in hindsight the producers were just happy to find someone the public liked that wasn’t a sex offender. Ed: Absolute hilarity that the Harmony school was 100% white children. The two singers looked like they’d been forced to write the song to atone for bullying offences.
I went to see Keith Harris and Orville at a Butlins in the early 90s. The MC asked the crowd to raise their hands and cheer if they'd seen them on telly. There were very few hands and even fewer cheers. (Unconfirmed if he did an outdoor shite on this occasion)
Think one of the very few (if any) funny things I remember seeing on the Little and Large Show, was Eddie piss taking Keith Harris and Orville. He was parodying that ruddy "I Wish I Could Fly" song. In the end he booted Orville up the arse.
He did a show at a haven site i used to attend and it was packed to the point security were using those little clickers to click folks in and out of the doors. His Act was very basic but i was a kid and just bought into it
One of my best mates mother sounds exactly like Orville, she's lovely but every time she opens her mouth it's like she's about to sing "I wish I could fly right up to the sky". And RUclips comment readers are the only people I can tell.
Stuart Anderson's every step looks like he's either creeping round a house he's burgling in the middle of the night or edging away from where he's just buried the bodies.
As a teenager I happily tolerated shows of this quality. What is truly terrifying is that when Billy Dainty died in 1986, and they televised one of his shows from the early seventies as a tribute, it seemed to me at the time to be utterly unfunny and irredeemable. So there is a whole extra tier *below* this one.
Alright Stuart. That was another classic video - you say the same shite my wife and I say about all this putrid crap. But you've DEFFO got to do a thing about Stuart Adamson. I mean Stewart Anderson. I get the names mixed up. When I was a kid, I had (possibly related to my ASD) trouble with the name Roy Hudd and Rod Hull. They drove me mad. I don't mean as performers - Rod or Roy was great at updating my equipment so I could get Channel 5 - their names were like a "name earworm" or something. There were a few more but I can't remember them now, and to be honest, I'd rather not. After nearly 50 years of them being out of me head, I'm not suddenly going to give them free living space again. Always ace vids my man! Keep mekkinum..
I was a teenager in the 80's and I can assure you that I totally missed this gem of non-entertainment, Orville was awful then and this compilation doesn't disprove that fact.
My God I hadn't realised he was this shit on TV. I liked Orville and hated cuddles. But Keith without them (which I didn't realise happened) - bloody hell. I did enjoy the Louis Theroux "When Louis Met...." on him though. He seemed like a nice man with a lovely family, but also a sad one who still wanted to be on TV regularly. These videos are brilliant by the way. Thank you.
I can clearly remember the Louis Theroux documentary about Keith and he seemed a very troubled man who could not let his past go. He had a beautiful young wife with a lovely baby, a mercedes benz and at least two properties and a profitable sideline doing a 'blue' version of his act to college students. Most middle aged men would be in heaven in a situation like that, but not Keith. He seemed to think that he was still deserving of a prime time slot on television and to call him deluded would be an understatement. I could not understand how Keith could not be happy with what he had, but like a lot of celebrities, they live in another world and most of them end up unhappy regardless of the fortune they make.
It's not just celebrities, most people seem permanently dissatisfied, chasing something illusory they think will fix all their problems
Keep making these wonderful videos buddy, I, along with a load of others here we love em, your humour is great I always look forward to a good laugh from nostagia at the end of the day. Thanks 😊
I saw his adult-only show at Pontins and it was hilarious, the whole audience loved it. Seeing how funny he was outside the constraints of family-friendly TV was a total shock.
Have you seen Michael Barrymore's new underground show? Dynamite entertainment!
They once had him and Orville in the Identity parade on Buzzcocks. When Lamarr asked if Orville knew the word 'cunt', Orville cackled and said "I'm lookin' at one!".
@@GordonCaledonia Under water more like.
@@1alsturgeon In a gigantic Ancient Roman bath-house filled with cum. Get the man a Knighthood!
Saw Keith take a massive shite outdoors when he worked at Butlins in the early 00's. All the toilets were occupied. He didn't wipe his arse, just pulled his jeans up, got in his car & drove off. He didn't give a fuck that there was at least 5 ppl who witnessed what hed just done
🤣🤣🤣...That's one for the eulogy.
This could be he best youtube comment i've ever read :)
That’s a party icebreaker no one will ever forget.
I just laughed tea through my conk. Hilarious little anecdote, that made my day!
Comments like this really make RUclips a joyous platform. Great anecdote.
I was born in 1966 and there is a whole world of Saturday night tv from about 1982 - 1996 that I am completely unaware of. Looking at stuff like this, (and other offering from yourself) my choices of pubs, night clubs and cheap vhs rentals seems like time well spent.
For 1966ers, as soon as we heard Cillia's dulcit tones, it was coat on and down the pub.
Born in 1967 , I`ve no recollection of any of this , I thought he had a song out and did kids TV with the monkey , My dad used to say TV companies were in cahoots with the Breweries , make tele shite so people go t`pub
I lost track of light ent TV forever when I slithered off to university in 1984. Good.
I remember his woefully unfunny TV show. He was down there with Little and Large and Cannon and Ball for me. It's amazing how long this type of "entertainment" held on way past its sell-by date.
And people saying 'I miss those days'. Really? Why?
It's SO BAD. I feel better about the relative quality of American television of the period after discovering this. It is seriously the most un-funny cringey garbage ever put on film. The puppets are beyond hideous. It's not even funny bad.
We need to talk about Keith, anybody else expecting a video about a BBC light entertainment act in the 80's expecting him to be exposed as a nonce and not "He's actually just shit?".
It's the default expectation when discussing all light entertainment acts from that period.
😅😅😅😅
Noel Edmonds next. I’m also expecting to hear about Russel Howard, Nish Kumar and James Acaster when they’re older. All BBC ”comedians”
Yeh, I set my expectations too high!
One of the most tragic things I've ever seen (and I was there at a fatal car crash) was Keith drinking alone and clearly miserable on Christmas Eve in a council estate working men's club. A solid five miles from the theatre where he was starring in panto and nowhere near a hotel. He'd *chosen* cheap pints, in a rough neighbourhood, on Christmas Eve. This was circa 2000, his bubble had burst and likely his liver shortly thereafter. It haunts me to this day.
So, so many shows from the mid-'80s to mid-'90s had the BBC trying to extract every penny's worth from their Quantel Paintbox. You can't just cut between a scene, no, it has to shrink into a square and then bounce around a cartoon background, doing a flip. You can't just do a split-screen, it has to be one circle on top of another circle. All of it! It infested CBBC for a while too, but any light entertainment and it's all there. Provided some cheap animation as well, though only quick ones.
They were expensive to buy, but not by BBC standards. But so many shows, bloody everywhere, all using the same effects. You could work out the day they bought it with some old Radio Times.
Has anyone ever seen Keith Harris and Ben Dover in the same room?🤔
Well…they’ve both had their hands up a bird’s you-know-what!
😂😂
Ha ha! Quality!
Lmao!
Correlation ≠ causation
Haha, doppelgangers
I had to pause the video for about 30 seconds when you showed the list of traditional anniversary gifts as I just couldn't stop laughing. Brilliant video as always.
Me too - 23 years and I get a Keith and Orville visit!
Both Keith Harris and Bob Carolgees were younger than I am now when this was on TV, yet still look like they could have a 39 year old son at the time.
Just came across your videos. This is a brillant channel Stuart. Much success to you.
When I was a little kid, I thought Keith Harris and Gene Wilder were the same person.
I was a very confused child.
I worked as a techie on a panto he starred in with Orville. Normally on a 2 month panto run you hang out with the b-list celebs who are always bored stuck in a hotel, homesick and want someone to drink with or source substances. He was always serious off stage, no pranks or banter, straight to his hotel every night. He wasn't arrogant or ever treated anyone badly just flat and uncomfortable. You'd expect an entertainer with his experience to be larger than life but conversations were always strained. I think he was only confident when talking to kids through a puppet.
I'm surprised that he wasn't outed. I worked in a nightclub in Blackpool where he would come in after his show and desperately try to pick up 18/19 year old men.
REALLY? Gay? He had a STUNNING wife at one point.
1:09 - why is Orville crying his eyes out over Cuddles attempting to flip a pancake?
The answer is dark:
It's a pancake made with duck eggs.
Orville is grieving for his children.
Cuddles really hates that duck.
My aunt used to work for the NSPPC in the early 90s, organising charity events in Lancashire. She told us how they once booked him for some show. He staggered onto the stage steaming pissed, eventually found his way to his stool, and then unceremoniously produced Orville from a bin bag. Once his act started, it wasn`t long before all the kids started crying.
We've had enough about his stool on here tonight!
This is the kind of comment I come here for! Nice one!
This is the funniest scenarios I’ve ever heard -Like the myth of Santa being beaten up by kids in the city centre
Aha so he was lying when he told Louis Theroux that, whilst he used to have a drinking problem, he never worked pissed. I didn't believe him at the time because most addicts cross that line at some stage.
Reminds me of that Peter Kay skit, booked an offensive balloon artist for kids.
Thanks Millard, you've aced it again. Since your observation on Keith's 'video essay' is funnier than every single one of his jokes combined, it's time I had a gander at your Patreon page.
You should definitely do a video on Emu's Pink Windmill one of these days.
“There’s somebody at the door! There’s somebody at the door!”
@@ChrisHopkinsBass No - there really IS somebody at the door. Oh, don't worry, it's just the Jehovah's Witnesses. I hid behind the sofa. Phew!
Grotbags was dishing out some seriously cool prizes, including a Thriller vinyl and the D&D red box.
@@TruculentSheep As if for balance she was also dishing out 'streaky bonehead's poems' with suspicious regularity, though the kids almost always turned her offer down when that book was included.
I know someone who was sat around a table in Minehead Butlins with him and Megadeth. Apparently Megadeth were laughing at him because he made a living with that duck.
And Dave Mustaine then wrote 'Symphony of duckstruction'
@@tonywilliamson3532 Duckstopia 🤘😂 oh what have you started
@@metalmickey TBF Mustaine started it with his *singing* I'm just here for the lols! Hanging here by the skin of my beak.
Ha, This explains Holy Wars... Punishment Duck
Megadeth did butlins? 😮
You totally nailed it with your comment about being at grandma's house, only with us it was our own house.That combination of big band intro and an audience of kids just brings it all back for me. Shows like Crackerjack, Basil Brush, The Generation Game, that Rolf Harris thing on a Saturday evening... but Keith Harris's schtick seemed to me, as a kid, to be for little kids. I know he tried to get all with it in the 90s for the post-pub crowd, but I wasn't buying it. Seeing this now, and being a sucker for recycled music hall gags, these shows seemed to have a kernel of hope going for them. Keep it coming, Millard!
Louis Theroux documentary on him was incredibly macabre. A man who felt like he was on top of the world, only to fall into utter obscurity as a minor footnote as an embarrassing circus sideshow.
It was an interesting watch for sure, Keith was like Les Dennis in his episode of Extras. My favourite part was where Keith had just finished a radio interview, he turns to Louis and starts slagging the radio station off but the microphones are still live.
Watching that documentary is a real character study in the inevitable outcome of a career.
It was weird, you’d think he could take a step back and say he’s got a lovely house, obviously still had money (despite three or four previous marriages) so clearly didn’t need the money - surely you have the perspective to say why continue doing this, why not enjoy what you’ve achieved and maybe move into something new - he must have made a ton of contacts - instead of flogging that dead duck continually.
@@Toooldforthis78But he couldn’t accept his total lack of talent, enabled as he was by being given multiple TV shows etc, despite being one of the worst writers and performers from that era, and that’s saying something when you look at the utter, barrel-scraped, moronic drivel that was 80s light entertainment.
IIRC, doesn't he take Louis to his parents house where they sit down and watch old VHS' of him?
Oh dear God! That Spit the dog song has been haunting me for decades. Now I know where the damn thing came from, I can finally put it to bed and... the horror... the horror will stay with me forever...
In all fairness, Bernie's 'pale ale' is a perfectly-delivered Dad joke.
Didn't he or his brother do Vegas? Either way they were a step higher. You know, ish.
Strawberry switchblade being on this show is a bigger mind fuck than any drug....
This is vintage Millard tele-archaeology. More laughs per min than any other youtube channel. Thanks and bravo 👏
I met Kieth once. He was surprisingly down to earth, and very funny.
Think I was at the same charity do.
He probably is. People are slagging him off for being a closet bisexual, but he seems decent, even if he shits in public.
Benny Harvey RIP
Keith Harris having a pop at Cannon & Ball for dodgy material is a bit rich
“A tin of shortbread on legs” I just snorted coffee through my nose
I remember when I was on holiday back in 1985 ( yes I’m that old)when I was a kid. We had this holiday rep at the Hotel . Who looked remarkably like Cuddles the monkey . She never got tired of people shouting “ I hate that Duck 🦆 at her” Great days 😊
Keeping the spirit of Victor Lewis Smith going with this incisive dissection of 80s TV guff. Keep up the good work. Born in 74 this sort of light entertainment crap was my childhood and it was no more appreciated at the time.
TV Offal was a blast!
I think Stu's better than VLS. Victor was very good but his fans over-hype him. The Gay Daleks was really desperate and only-just funny.Whether it was worth the 50 quid they spent on SFX is a question for the ages.
If you want a proper miserable old sod who's quietly and bizarrely hilarious, and also dead, Peter Cook is the greatest.
"Good afternoon, madam. We're the Froony Green Eyewash men. Have you, by any chance, got 10 bottles of Froony Green Eyewash in your house?"
Only just dawned on me how similar Orville and Keith’s ‘hairstyles’ are. Mirroring each other.
My mum actually saw a very young Keith Harris with a proto-Orville on stage many years ago…crap jokes and equally poor ventriloquism
She said she was probably indirectly responsible for launching his career as her and her friends were on a work junket with their boss, who was also coincidentally called Keith Harris
So every time his name was mentioned, they would holler and cheer drunkenly
Probably the best audience he ever had😂
I hope the proto-Orville was just a wireframe with red glowing eyes.
There’s a great clip of a rather offended Nigel Farage being asked to comment on the death of Keith Harris by a rather bored journalist. (News of his death broke during the election campaign in 2015 whilst UKIP were doing an otherwise unremarkable news conference)
There's a joke Harris did on the BBC and I've been trying to find it for years, one of the most tasteless gags ever and would have been around 1987 when Terry Waite was kidnapped. Emu tells Keith Harris he's worried about terrorists. He tellls Keith he's heard someone been taking Ostriches, Keith replies, no Orville, hostages, regardless of the fact Emu was supposed to be an duck, not an Ostrich
How can Emu be a duck? Think you meant Orville
If he'd mastered an Eric Idle impersonation he'd have been set for life
Biggest laugh for me was the wedding anniversary list, but "Savile's bath water" was a close second! Also, the Simmonds brothers @ 10.52 look like an alternative universe Little and Large.
Yes! That's who I thought it was at first
Watching this makes me thankful we never got the likes of Keith Harris* Cannon & Ball and Little and Large over here in NZ.
*technically we sort of did, with his appearances on The Black & White Minstrel Show, yeah, the BBC sold us copies of that!
"Put it away John Holmes" ! LOL
Dearie me, that's a lot of polite laughter.
0:54 - Keith getting his styling queues from Rob Halford of Judas Priest there!
He was a cabaret act the holiday park I worked in 1993 , he was a great laugh and a lovely bloke
He was a decent human being, irrespective of the perceived level of his act, RIP Keith.
But one with a dirty bum.
Lenny henry worked with him early in his career as a stand and he said he learned alot from him about stand up comedy especially about stage craft. Comedy timing etc and said that he was very professional person and very kind.
Keith Harris was very frustrated during his time with the bbc because he had other dummies beside cuddles the monkey and orville and he got tired of being told he could only use same two puppets.
@@markdaly1648 Perhaps because all the other puppets were dreadful and he only had two voices in him.
The Theroux documentary revealed someone who had succeeded in all sorts of ways, but still felt unfulfilled. Maybe his tragedy was always trying to get that itch scratched by showbiz, which was always going to chew him up and spit him out, as it does to so many.
It was cute how he referred to Orville and Cuddles as his daughter's brothers, mind you.
I think I saw that Louis theroux documentary and Keith Harris said in that he walked away from the bbc because they handcuffed him to best of compilation style show and he tried remind the bbc that he was not a kids tv entertainer. But the bbc kept forcing him to do things like the or ville roadshow. Which killed his comedy career.
19:38 Strangely enough there's a very similar joke in an episode of 'The Real Ghostbusters' where the cartoon treats the original movie in-universe as if it's a film about them. And it works better because the names are normal people's names and so make more sense in the punchline.
Studio Executive: That's why we wanted you here to advise us, make sure we're doing it right. After all, this is your life story.
Peter: No problem, as long as you got the right people to play us. Admit it, Redford was dying to play me, right?
Studio Executive: Not exactly. Here's the cast list.
Winston: [reads over the list] Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis?!? What's that, a law firm?
Stiff was a boy from my primary school- Danny Crossley, who was the first person many of us knew who 'made it big' for being one of the dancers on Pink Windmill. Yet it seems here he was also roped into the Keith Harris lot.
did they just use the crinkly bottom set from noels house party for the last series?!? it sure looks like it
Keith Harris in leather trousers, leather jacket and slim tie on Top of the Pops! The sleeves pushed up on his jackets! Bob Carolgees in striped shorts with pink/lime green socks! Classic 80's! Brain Conley looks like he's a member of Modern Romance!
The girls singing 'Harmony' are going to be major stars! The kids dance troupe too!
I'd completely forgotten the name of that kid who sang 'Donald Where's Ya Troosers?' But he was everywhere for a while!
As an American, I am confused and enthralled
We had some right weird/scary TV in Britain in the 80s, check out Noseybonk
The Louis Theroux documentary is the place to go for the best insight into the late Keith Harris. He was obviously a depressed guy when Louis met him, but I found sympathy was a bit of an ask when he struck me as such a bitter character who’d likely indulge in fantasies of vindication given the slightest of chances. I also got the impression that he wasn’t that nice a character to work with back at the height of his mediocre variety act.
I always remember Harris stopping his show in Butlins as someone was filming him. He threatened to walk if they didn't stop, then pushed his 'best of' DVD which was on sale on a nearby table.
As someone forced to perform ceilidh music in his childhood PLEASE, PLEASE make a video about Stuart Anderson. I'd love to see a deep dive into that! Also, this video was great. I'm subscribed. :)
They dont make television like this anymore......thank f*ck!
14:02 .. "10 on 10 sideways baseball cap on this kid. No notes. Proper British B-boy"
Exquisite commentary.
God, watching this video and seeing those clips was like picking a nostalgia scab. It's painful, you don't want to know what's lurking underneath and you know that its a bad idea. But you still eat it.
I'm scoffing down big bowls of those on the daily
@@StuartMillard at least it boosts your iron levels
'I like horses'
'How did she get a horse on ice?'
..............what?
I'm guessing that exchange was prefaced with "You like ice skating. What else do you like?"
I always had an uncomfortable feeling about him when he was on with that puppet. But, a lot of 80s childrens TV was truly, truly appalling.
I like to think those magicians cited Kermit as a way to say to the audience, 'yeah you're watching this sh*te instead'.
Which as a Xennial, sums up Keith. There wasn't much else on and a kind of bitter feeling your precious time was being taken up with second rate stuff that you aren't actively enjoying, but you got what you were given.
To coin a phrase we were 'channelled' into this stuff.
I think that's why me and my mates gravitated towards playing games on our computers during winter when it was too dark to go out and play football or whatever. It was either that or rubbish telly. You can blame Keith.
I remember my friend's little sister had an Orville toy and it really could fly! If you booted it up the arse hard enough 😂
These people with all their crossover universes of characters were the proto-RUclipsrs!
I bet the advice at his shows was just ‘don’t think about it, just laugh, the strange man will go off stage eventually’
I nearly spat my tea out on several occasions, finally conceding to the Saville’s bath water line at 14:36.
Brilliant as always sat here laughing and the wife just looking at me 😂😂what’s with Brian Conley dressed as Harry Enfield ‘loads a money’ …..
Ohhh YESSS 😄A tea & Millard break - just what I needed today. Swamped with work, but 27 minutes is a good investment in raising my mood right now 🤣 Kettle on, ready to settle down... 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
This was never funny even as a kid. Just thought it was a bit odd.
Watching it now I’m struggling to comprehend the punchline.
Watching him on Louis Theroux just showed a man who couldn’t let go of the past and was still under the impression he was relevant
My mum and dad saw him in a show in the early '70s before he was famous (infamous?) - his puppet was a rabbit and the act was a stream of really filthy jokes.
TV back then was truly awful and they knew it.
There wasn't any real competition on the horizon, so no reason to "up their game" in any way.
Even today when most of us have long since given up watching TV, the likes of Ant and Dec
still take top billing with nothing to challenge them.
It is dross. Repetitive mind numbing dross.
I was prepared to make fun of English shows having low episode counts, but twenty episodes of this is a war crime.
It looks like a show within a show about miserable actors.
I will never forget When Louis Theroux Met Keith Harris. Keith was getting wistful and crying at his own old videotapes on his elderly mum's living room floor.
This is the kind of stuff Adult Swim would parody.
“Say ‘Hello’, Orville” “Hello Orville!” (Rolls eyes) I’ve never heard that one before!
Used to see him driving his merc around Blackpool, with private plate orvil. Or in the duck club in Poluton, which he owned.
26:25 Kieth(sic) does his best Arnie impersonation.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I was a kid in the eighties and I never understood why he was popular. Although the idea of Orville tied to a snooker table, say at the Crucible during a five hour match, is appealing.
As a Gen X-er, I can assure you that even as a kid, I thought Keith Harris and Orville and the entire show was just WEIRD! I didn't mind the monkey, though, as he was naughty.
All this list of really bad "comedians" from my childhood has brought back memories I'd repressed.
A fellow Gen X-er, I have to say you're not wrong! A green duck, in a nappy and creepy Keith?! Never liked watching this when I was younger. Polar opposite of Bob Carolgees and Spit the dog! Rod Hull and Emu were cringe too!
He falls into the same category as Saville for me in that we were always told he was great and popular but I never knew anyone who actually liked him, especially Orville. I was a kid in the ‘80s so his perfect audience and everyone I knew hated Orville (but most did love the monkey).
Yes! Cuddles wasn't too bad, actually.
I liked Emu but Rod felt off. I was never sure which one was controlling which.
As a kid in the 80s I hated puppets and mascots especially those that spilled over from the 60s and 70s. Stuff like Orville and that horrific monkey were a fucking nightmare. I guess how kids these days feel about Five Nights at Freddy's.
I've been trying to find the video he did to a song called Stick It In (I think that's what it's called). It was done in his later years. It's a bit creepy. He's doing a conga with a long line of kids and he's singing "Stick It In". When he died it mysteriously vanished from the internet. Has anybody else seen this?
"Basically a tin of a shortbread on legs." 😅😅 I'm so glad I found your channel.
It's like a year 6 drama class production - "you've got 20 minutes to come up with a variety show"
I loved Orville. The hit song is amazing if you take out the duck, and Keith and speed it up a little.
In fairness I was about 3-5 years old through all of this and didn’t know better.
Chances are in hindsight the producers were just happy to find someone the public liked that wasn’t a sex offender.
Ed: Absolute hilarity that the Harmony school was 100% white children. The two singers looked like they’d been forced to write the song to atone for bullying offences.
everyone dies alone
Grandmas living room was so well timed
I went to see Keith Harris and Orville at a Butlins in the early 90s. The MC asked the crowd to raise their hands and cheer if they'd seen them on telly. There were very few hands and even fewer cheers.
(Unconfirmed if he did an outdoor shite on this occasion)
i sometimes think, wouldn't it be nice if their was a new Stuart milard video to watch and today that thought came true
So confused. I before e except afte c. Only works when the sound is ee. The sound is ee but it still doesn’t work 😮 Keith vs Kieth
I think the talking car joke is in reference to the 'a door is ajar' from the 1987 Chrysler car
Orville wished to fly...
Should have come on Jim'll Fix It!
Think one of the very few (if any) funny things I remember seeing on the Little and Large Show, was Eddie piss taking Keith Harris and Orville. He was parodying that ruddy "I Wish I Could Fly" song. In the end he booted Orville up the arse.
He did a show at a haven site i used to attend and it was packed to the point security were using those little clickers to click folks in and out of the doors.
His Act was very basic but i was a kid and just bought into it
Oh dear! Thanks for reminding me of the guff we had to endure as kids in the 80s!!!!!! DIRE!😂
One of my best mates mother sounds exactly like Orville, she's lovely but every time she opens her mouth it's like she's about to sing "I wish I could fly right up to the sky". And RUclips comment readers are the only people I can tell.
Definitely better than fucking reality TV.
Stuart Anderson's every step looks like he's either creeping round a house he's burgling in the middle of the night or edging away from where he's just buried the bodies.
As a teenager I happily tolerated shows of this quality. What is truly terrifying is that when Billy Dainty died in 1986, and they televised one of his shows from the early seventies as a tribute, it seemed to me at the time to be utterly unfunny and irredeemable. So there is a whole extra tier *below* this one.
Alright Stuart. That was another classic video - you say the same shite my wife and I say about all this putrid crap.
But you've DEFFO got to do a thing about Stuart Adamson. I mean Stewart Anderson. I get the names mixed up. When I was a kid, I had (possibly related to my ASD) trouble with the name Roy Hudd and Rod Hull. They drove me mad. I don't mean as performers - Rod or Roy was great at updating my equipment so I could get Channel 5 - their names were like a "name earworm" or something. There were a few more but I can't remember them now, and to be honest, I'd rather not. After nearly 50 years of them being out of me head, I'm not suddenly going to give them free living space again.
Always ace vids my man! Keep mekkinum..
"I 'ate that duck!" -Stuart Millard
These...These aren't even JOKES!!!
Terrified by the rush of those repressed memories....
I’ve just discovered I can do a very good Orville impression.
These days that would be silence....What? Too soon?
Get ready to make your fortune in Benidorm as a Keith Harris tribute act.
No you can’t
@@jameshollyoak8230 I-I-I can.
See?
@@jameshollyoak8230 He cAn
I was a teenager in the 80's and I can assure you that I totally missed this gem of non-entertainment, Orville was awful then and this compilation doesn't disprove that fact.
My God I hadn't realised he was this shit on TV. I liked Orville and hated cuddles. But Keith without them (which I didn't realise happened) - bloody hell. I did enjoy the Louis Theroux "When Louis Met...." on him though. He seemed like a nice man with a lovely family, but also a sad one who still wanted to be on TV regularly. These videos are brilliant by the way. Thank you.
I hate that duck
Any new ones on the way budy ? Hope your doing good.