The Splosh UK Forum

Hi

Continuing the Fantasy Splosh! League theme, I was sitting at home last night thinking of people who deserved a mention for their dedication to getting messy and are now either too old (or too dead) to be a 'fastasy'. Besides these guys did it for real!

1) Sally James - icon of Tiswas famed for her tight teeshirts who got pied and soaked frequently on the show in the 80s. Also took a Tiswas show on tour around universities (anyone see it?) and appeared soaked wearing tight jeans and a tight denim wasitcoat in the excellent Bucket of Water song video. Incidentally, PVC fans should check out the follow up single "Water is Wonderful". Plenty of wet macs!

2) Jan Hunt - hugely unsung heroine of Crackerjack in the 70s. This bubbly blonde got pied, sloshed and soaked in many filmed items. Occasionally seen on retro shows saying what a great time she had!

3) Claudi Cairoli - wife of Charlie Cairoli Jnr who took part in the act (usually in a low cut top and tight satin skirt which got ripped off at the end (the skirt not the top!). Toured as part of Charlie Cairoli Jnr and Co for years, regularly getting pelted with slosh, slapped on with bum with pies and decorated with foam horns, beard etc. A shortened version of their act once appeared on a 1980s Crackerjack.

4) Lucille Ball - US icon from the 1950s to the 70s who was a truly fine slapstick performer. Always getting into messy scrapes from being locked in tanks filling up with water to getting covered in chocolate and holding grape fights. Brilliant timing.

5) Mable Normand - Mack Sennett's wife who regularly was the butt of his silent slapstick gags. Pied, whitewashed, pushed into mud...a marriage made in heaven.

6) Ayshea Brough - the Holly Willoughby of the early 1970s! Very attractive presenter of pop show Lift Off with Ayshea (she later went out with Roy Wood of Wizzard fame) who was the weekly butt of wet and messy practical jokes by puppets Fred Barker and Ollie Beak. The one we remember resulted in her deluged in vegetable soup.

7) Judy Carne - British star of Rowan & Martin's Laugh In who was hit every week by buckets of water (and occasional pies) in Sock It To Me Time in the late 60s/early 70s. And, yes, it was an adult show! Pretty in a perky, short-haired sort of way.

Jessica (sorry don't know her surname) - Co-presenter on Nickelodeon's Slime Time Live, America's only regular gunging show. The show ran for four years (8 seasons) five days a week with Jessica getting slimed, pied or soaked almost every show. Now that's what we call a trooper!

9) Moose from You Can't Do That on TV - another regular slime and water victim on the Canadian show that made it in the US and onto satellite here in the 90s. Average looking girl who started appearing on the show as a teenager but carried on getting messy into her 20s. You can spot her (at least we believe it's her) in the background getting repeatedly slimed on the TV during the opening few minutes of Fatal Attraction.

10) Errr.....

So do tell us your nominations for veteren sploshers....and send a pic if you can.

Hayley (with Bill supplying the dull info!).

The much abused (in the nicest possible way) Mrs Cairoli and her hubby

Hi Hayley,

I'm amazed by how much history you know about this field. To most people it is a fun lark, but it's nice to see that you are also the custodian (custardian?) of the history and traditions of WAM.

Not ironic - genuine respect!

That deserves a knighthood!

Arise Lady Hayley!

King Arthur

That's mainly Bill to be honest - he can bore fror Britain on the subject - but I do add my bits now and again (Ayshea was one of mine cos I remember watching it when I was a kid).

But I'll accept the knighthood (and without lending money to the govt).

Lady Hayley

Cracking idea this let`s go.

1) Gotta be Sally James for all the reasons above.

2) Jenny Powell used to co-host a show called get fresh where she was oftern hosting a game on it which involved her standing in a pool of gunge (with a kid who was playing the game) and having gunge and water thrown at them. Might be my imaganation but i swear she LOVED it.

3) Charlotte (cant remember her 2nd name, might have been Hudson) Hosted a game on the same show called `Get Mucky` simple premise tank of gunge suspended above 2 kids on opposite sides while there mates played a comp game to win the chance to gunge the loser. I`m sure Charlotte got gunged a couple of times on that (in black pvc too mmmmmmm)

4) Michaela Strachen Gunged on the really wild show often and was doused in porridge once on Crackerjack ( Crackerjack with Stu Francis, i`m not that old)

5) Kate Lonergan often soaked with water and plasterd with mud on the kids tv show Maid Marion & her merry men. Dumped in a bath of porridge in a episode of Johnathen Creek. And was gunged & pied often on a satirical sunday morning show call `This morning with Richard Not Judy`

6) The female presenter on how dare you but cannot remember who it was ?

7) The 2 twins on Fun House didnt strictly get it but somtimes got a little bit coverd in the mayhem.

Annenka Rice got soaked and pied on tresaure hunt and gunged on NHP.

9) Holly.

10) Una Stubbs have great memoires of her getting soaked,flanned,pied & caked on Wurzel Gummidge each week.

Yay i got 10 WOO-HOO Now i know most of em are from kids tv shows but all tv shows i watched as a kid and ground my wam teeth on, all played a part in making me the full blooded Splosher i am today so i tip my hat to them all splosh queens every one & all . God bless em.

I borrowed this off Bill too.

It's the back cover picture from the album (yes ALBUM!) Tiswas made which includes the Bucket of Water song. The rest is rubbish.

Sally James is top left but not in jeans which is a shame with Lenny Henry below her, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (like I am)" host Chris Tarrant next, then the man who gave the world Spit the Dog (and not much else) Bob Carolgees and finally John Gorman - now a highly respected TV mogul (yes, really). Oh and the kid in the rabbit suit who turns up on retro shows and is a truck driver or something. Spose I should have taken him out. Shit.

Hayley

You only got to 10 by including Holly which is cheating! She's still a contender and belongs in the Professional Fantasy League (am I getting a bit anal here?).

Because we discussed it on the phone this weekend I can tell you that How Dare You had two female presenters. The first was Foella Benjamin (who got gunged in a Clive Webb magic routine). Then came the long forgotten Carrie Gray (Bill may have a pic of her somewhere too!). But neither of us remember her getting very messy (well, Bill didn't, I'd never heard of it!). Be delighted to be proved wrong.

Baroness Hayley

You completely forgot about Ann Margret! In 1965, she wallowed in paint in THE SWINGER, and in 1975, we all know what she did in TOMMY! Plus, she went swimming with her clothes on, in quite a few of her other films.
By the way, I've heard a rumor that Sally James didn't really like getting WAMed, and in her last year wrote it out of her contract! Any truth to this?

Ah good, a chance to be boring about TV history!

If Sally James was initially rather reluctant to get messy but then (not unlike a certain Holly) realised that it made her more of a star and so joined in. Remember she was a 'posh bird' used to presenting pop items (not comedy) surrounded by very blokey blokes, so it must have been quite a shock to her. She also maintains that he messy bits were rarer cos it took her longer to get clean and made up again (Holly uses one of those sprays that glues make up on!). She even employed her own tricotrisse (probably spelt wrog) to deal with her hair during the show! This was the high maintainence 80s afterall.

Since she was the main star in the last series (Tarrant having left) it is highly unikely she had a no-WAM rule in her contract. What did happen as many TV historians will tell you is that Tiswas was under a lot of pressure to be more PC and less anarchic. ATV had become Central TV, audiences were slumping, Gordon Astley (the co-host) was wooden and most of the spirit had gone by then. Consequently there was less WAM in general in the last series, more cartoons and a lot more shit children's jokes (and no adult ones). They even started doing animal items! But there are pics of her messy from that series, albeit in a much more controlled way.

In short, what killed off the WAM in Tiswas was prevailing attitudes and the lack of Tarrant and Gorman to fight against them. Even if it had carried on, it is unlikely Sally would as she was keen to have a family which she did, then found that when she came back to TV, nobody was interested in her. You're only as good as your last pie! Are you listening, Hol?

Bill

Bill,

What an amazing mine of WAM related information you are! It seems I am not the only person who is interested in the history of the subject! From the Keystone Cops, Fatty Arbuckle etc up to Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow (which is piss-poor by comparison) WAM is (IMHO) as much a part of culture as music, art etc - and is certainly a more enduring partof it than certain elements of those.

Thanks for the factiods - keep them coming. And, you get a knighthood too!

Arise, Sir William.

King Arthur

Oh! Don't encourage him! There's tons of this stuff bursting to come out! And don't get him started on Dick & Dom....

Hayley xxx

Hi Hayley,

Sorry - have I lit the blue-touch paper?

Run for the hills!!!

King Arthur

I met Floella Benjamin once, you know. It was around or about the nine mile mark in the 2005 London Marathon. Fair do's, she looked absolutely knackered. As I passed her I simply had to say hello to her because she was such a big part of my childhood. I tell you what, though, she hasn't aged a day. Truly. So I told her how fantastic she looked and wished her luck and off I ran. She seemed very nice.
Just thought I'd mention it.
Right, down to business. It has to be Sally James for me everytime. She was my first crush. A genuine four-tissue fantasy! And Natalie Wood in The Great Race, eh? The first time I saw her in that pie scene I was so turned on I nearly shit myself.

I admit we should have got Ann Margret (how could we forget) but as far as we know Natalie Wood only got messy in the Great Race (good though it was).

Hovering outside the top ten is Kathleen Turner. She spend almost all of Romancing the Stone wet and muddy, got thrown in the mud in The Man with Two Brains and had a mudfight in another film I've forgotten the name of! And she's old enough to be a veteren!

Hayley

PS I saw Floella from a distance filming in Bexhill a couple of years back. She looked the same as she did on Play School but she was a long way off!

On a film front the kids version of Bugsy Malone and the Splurge Guns! With the huge pie fight scene at the end .... who was the girl that played Tuallaha ... web searches arhh yes Jodie Foster ...

And then there is I think a film called the Great Race where there is another huge pie fight at the end think with I think it was Dick Van Dyk in the lead male role can't remember the posh totty in the big dress tho ...

And there must have been some Laurel and hardy stooges that got gunged up as well?

edit ** just seen your Great Race mention above!

And another one from the world of punk rock "The Slits" with lead singer Ari-Up http://www.ari-up.com/photo5.html for the mud amazon image!