Life and Laughing_ My Story - Michael McIntyre [17]
When I was a kid, my sister and I watched our fair share of telly. ‘Don’t sit too close or your eyes will go square,’ our mum would say before getting back to her colouring in. (The ‘eyes going square’ risk fascinated me, as did the ‘if you sneeze with your eyes open, your eyes will pop out’ claim. I spent countless hours trying to get my sister to sneeze while sitting too close to the TV, hoping her square eyes would pop out.)
We watched all the classics that will hit readers of a certain age with nostalgia. My favourites were Sesame Street, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Battle of the Planets and Buck Rogers. I could tolerate Rainbow but was not a fan of Playschool or Blue Peter; I found the presenters really patronizing. I know they were talking to children, but I just thought they were acting weird. The much-loved Floella Benjamin, for example, I couldn’t stand her. She was just way too over the top for me (and her first name sounded like a vaccine). I preferred the company of Big Bird, the Cookie Monster, Mr Snuffleupagus, and Bert and Ernie.
When my parents weren’t loving, teaching and raising me, they liked to dress me up as chart toppers from the 70s.
It was years later when it struck me that Bert and Ernie must be gay. ‘Good night, Bert’, ‘Good night, Ernie’ – they were sleeping in the same bed. I know this may come as a Michael Barrymore/George Michael/Rock Hudson-scale shock to some, but the evidence is there. They were flatmates. Flatmates would normally have their own room or at least have their own bed – if not, then it’s got to be a ‘head to toe’ sleeping arrangement. Flatmates in the same bed sleeping head-to-head? Gay.
We only had a television in our parents’ room, and Lucy and I would sit on the floor in front of their bed. Occasionally, we would watch TV as a family. The main event was always The Kenny Everett Show because it was ‘Daddy’s show’. The Kenny Everett Show was famed for the rule-breaking sound of the crew laughing at the sketches rather than canned laughs or the laughs of a live studio audience. My dad had the biggest booming laugh. He would constantly be laughing uproariously. So the laughter on The Kenny Everett Show was mainly my dad, which would have a twofold effect when we watched the show at home. He would be laughing on the TV and laughing behind me in his bed. I could barely hear the jokes.
Another evening I recall when we watched TV as a family was the launch of Channel Four in 1982. At last we would be getting a fourth channel. We gathered in my parents’ bedroom for what was a spectacular anti-climax. Countdown. I think the whole nation felt let down and immediately went back to the BBC and ITV, apart from Alan Hawkshaw, who went shopping.
People look back fondly at a time with so few channels because the nation was all watching pretty much the same thing. We therefore had more in common with each other, leading to what the Americans call ‘water-cooler moments’. This is when people discuss the previous night’s television at the water-cooler. This expression has crept into our nation’s lexicon (I know, ‘lexicon’, quite a fancy word for me). I think ‘water-cooler moments’ are purely an American thing, and the expression has no place over here. British people don’t speak to each other anywhere, let alone at water-coolers. The only thing a British person has said to another British person at the water-cooler is ‘There’s no more water’ or ‘We need more cups’ or ‘Sorry’.
I do think, though, that the multi-channels of today are great for kids. There are countless kids’ channels that are on twenty-four hours a day. If you have kids (or just enjoy unchallenging TV), it doesn’t matter what time it is, you can turn on the telly and watch Ben 10 or Bob the Builder. Whereas in the early eighties, my sister and I could only watch television intended for us at certain times, which led to us watching a lot of TV that wasn’t intended for us. I remember