| We Have Ways of Making You Laugh | |
|---|---|
title screen with host Frank Muir
| |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Directed by | Bill Turner |
| Presented by | Frank Muir |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 12 (all unaired) |
| Production | |
| Producer | Humphrey Barclay |
| Production company | London Weekend Television |
| Original release | |
| Network | ITV |
| Release | 2 August 1968 (1968-08-02) |
We Have Ways of Making You Laugh is a comedic television series produced by Humphrey Barclay and directed by Bill Turner for London Weekend Television.[1] Frank Muir hosted the show.[2] It featured Kenneth Cope,[1] Eric Idle and Katherine Whitehorn, with music and writing by Benny Green. The theme music was composed by Don Partridge and played in his 'one-man-band' style. Dick Vosburgh prepared material spoofing Jimmy Young for the show. Terry Gilliam created animations using cut-outs, a technique he later used in Monty Python's Flying Circus.[3] The series was live. Its debut broadcast was scheduled for 2 August 1968. Although the cast performed, only the first 15 seconds of the first show were transmitted, due to an industrial action[2] (other, prerecorded programming was unaffected by the labour dispute).[4] There are no known recordings of its 12 episodes.[5]
We Have Ways of Making You Laugh with Frank Muir, Kenneth Cope, Dick Vosburgh. Prod Humphrey Barclay. Dir Bill Turner. London Weekend
The launch night, on Friday 2 August 1968, was to kick off with We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh, a live comedy show hosted by Muir himself [...] nobody transmitted the first We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh. Ongoing industrial action [...] meant that screens went blank after only fifteen seconds. The performers were allowed to remain oblivious and carry on [...]
[...] Humphrey went to London Weekend Television, [...] and he dragged me along with Eric Idle. There was a group [...] consisting of Benny Green, who was a jazzman and a good writer; Katherine Whitehorn, [...] [and] Dick Vosburgh, who was a great comedy writer. [...] Vosburgh had spent three months taping [...] Jimmy Young's radio show. [...] I suggested that I do an animated film. [...] the only way to work on that budget in that amount of time was to do cut-outs [...] So when it came later to doing Python [...] I didn't have the patience to draw [...] I just started cutting out the things I liked [...]
So far, we gradually learned, the strike was not continuous, but selective. Recorded programmes were still getting on the air, but live programmes like We Have Ways of Making You Laugh were not.
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