Aother old TV memory

[BillShipton]

I don't think so.

[osbaldeston]

Seeing these Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK! - OK, I'll stop doing it now...) clips again has made me wonder: what was the first use of an overhead 'gunge tank' format on British TV? I know there was a gunge tank on a Peter Cook/Dudley Moore show but I believe that involved people being dunked, in the GYOB style. Kenny Everett had the rigged 'Star Quiz' - anything else?

Good to see those Crackerjack clips again though. They were what you might call 'formative'...

[BillShipton]

Poets Cornered was the Cook/Moore weekly sketch where they and guests sat on tipping chairs round a large tank of mainly soap suds (as I recall). They had, in turn, to keep a rhyming poem going, any hesitation had them dunked. I remember Alan Bennet going in! Probably Eleanor Bron was the only woman likely to have joined in as she was part of that circle.

First gunge tank? Will give that some thought....

Pantomimes and music halls have had 'drop box' gags (where things fell on performers from swivelling containers about the stage) for years, of course. The Crazy Gang used them a lot - even on female singers and messy things falling from above is a slapstick standard (can remember Charlie Drake having everything from eggs to ink dropped on him during one sketch). Less messy but much more dangerous was Jewell and Warris's lumberjack sketch where they ended up having wood dropped on them. They used kindling thinking it was light, but used nearly a ton of it. The result several near concussions!