Hardly anyone remembers 'Carrott's Lib' now, yet in its day this topical sketch show was every bit as funny as 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' and the much-later 'Spitting Image'. It went out late on Saturdays, and became a kind of 'alternative comedy' successor to the ground-breaking 'T.W.3'.
There was plenty going on in the world then to get the comedic juices flowing; Reagan, Thatcher, Brezhnev, The Falklands War, three million unemployed, Arthur Scargill etc. 'Red Dwarf' creators Doug Naylor and Rob Grant were among the many writers.
Linking the sketches was Jasper himself, guitar at the ready as though waiting for a song cue that never came, gleefully putting the boot into all and sundry. He got himself in hot water early on with a joke about deaf people. Responding to the criticism, Jasper said: "What I want to know is 'who told them'?".
Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer's surreal 'Dave: The Cardboard Box' was a regular item in Series 1. One very funny sketch was 'Perversion Street' which linked a number of well-publicised scandals involving the 'Coronation Street' cast. Chris Barrie was hysterical as 'Vera Duckworth'!
But the show's biggest target were 'Sun' readers, depicted as stupid and breast-fixated. In the final show of Series 1, a gang of 'Sun' readers in balaclavas took over B.B.C. T.V. Centre, demanding more bare bosoms on the box! Judging from some of the shows on now, I think they must have succeeded!
There was plenty going on in the world then to get the comedic juices flowing; Reagan, Thatcher, Brezhnev, The Falklands War, three million unemployed, Arthur Scargill etc. 'Red Dwarf' creators Doug Naylor and Rob Grant were among the many writers.
Linking the sketches was Jasper himself, guitar at the ready as though waiting for a song cue that never came, gleefully putting the boot into all and sundry. He got himself in hot water early on with a joke about deaf people. Responding to the criticism, Jasper said: "What I want to know is 'who told them'?".
Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer's surreal 'Dave: The Cardboard Box' was a regular item in Series 1. One very funny sketch was 'Perversion Street' which linked a number of well-publicised scandals involving the 'Coronation Street' cast. Chris Barrie was hysterical as 'Vera Duckworth'!
But the show's biggest target were 'Sun' readers, depicted as stupid and breast-fixated. In the final show of Series 1, a gang of 'Sun' readers in balaclavas took over B.B.C. T.V. Centre, demanding more bare bosoms on the box! Judging from some of the shows on now, I think they must have succeeded!
