15 MP3 Audio clips from Season 1 of The Mary Whitehouse Experience (1990)

PLAY ALL 33 CLIPS IN THE RANDOMISER™

The A-Z. In the pre-SatNav days they were a must. But there was also the Nicholson Street Finder. Which had nothing whatsoever to do with the Hollywood legend that is Jack Nicholson.

David Baddiel

An indispensable aid to getting around in your car is the A-Z. All city street finders are called the A-Z except Beirut's which is called the A-B. Apart from these, there is also the Nicholson Street Finder.

[Cut to ROB NEWMAN doing a passable impression of Jack Nicholson]

Rob Newman

Huh... huh... I gotta tell you guys, I don't know where the fu*k I am. My eyebrows have got lost as well.

Michael Buerk was the main BBC news anchor back in the 1990s. I somehow can't imagine him using his position to advertise premium-rate sex lines but the concept is definitely funny.

David Baddiel

Most of the phone network, however, is now occupied by sex lines. These have proliferated so much that in an average newspaper there is now more space devoted to adverts for sex lines than to the Gulf Crisis. The effects of their popularity could be far-reaching on all types of news.

[Cut to mock-up of BBC News at Ten]

Michael Buerk

He wears her panties, on 0898 444 444. I'll bend over so you can see, on 0898 444 455 and on 0898 444 555... he's got a woman's name. Sandy...

We've all had one of those builders round to quote for a job, haven't we? They can't focus on the task in hand. They have to find fault with anything and everything else whilst they're there.

Hugh Dennis

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... who put that fuse-box there? You see, that'll never do. And that joist, that's all wrong, it'll never take the weight. What else? Oh, your stereo's crap. Yeah, and your wife... your wife's a bit of a dog. You know that... you know that photograph of your mother on the mantlepiece? She looks a right whore. Yeah. Basically your whole life's rubbish. That'll be two-hundred quid.

Remember those bleak adverts which showed a teenage boy going cold turkey from heroin addiction? Surely you do. "Heroin. I can handle it. It's just..." Well, here's a new ending.

Heroin is seen as the number one evil drug. But... though psychologically traumatic, right... some doctors contend that coming off heroin is the physical equivalent of a bad case of flu. But then that wouldn't be so dramatic in those bleak adverts of the tormented fifteen-year-old kid.

[Cut to the bedroom of a teenage boy who is being tended by his mother]

Kid

Heroin? I can handle it. It's just... masturbating fourteen times a day that's the problem.

Dads. They can be wonderful, kind, loving, giving, affectionate, protective. But they can also be down-right embarrassing. Especially when you're with your friends.

Steve Punt

Let's talk about dads. Or to be precise, other peoples' dads. At least one person at school always had a really embarrassing dad who was never aware that he was being embarrassing. When you went round to their house to watch Top of the Pops, he'd come in and say...

Hugh Dennis

Hey! What's this? It's got a good beat!

Jewish mothers are notoriously proud of their children. And so they should be. But, as David Baddiel is about to explain, sometimes they can take it too far.

David Baddiel

I myself have a classic Jewish mother. My mother is the sort of woman who, if I fell into a river, would shout, "HELP! COME QUICK! COME QUICK! MY SON, the university graduate, IS DROWNING!"

Just what were Horatio Nelson's last words? Kismet, Hardy? Kiss Me, Hardy? Kiss Emma, Hardy? Well, whatever they were, he could have chosen something less ambiguous as an epitaph.

Rob Newman

Embarrassment is a modern condition of being. In history, it seems people were simply never embarrassed.

[Cut to mock-up of a ship's deck. HORATIO NELSON lays critically wounded]

Officer

The Lord Nelson is hit! He lies, dying.

Thomas Hardy

My Lord, has England's greatest Admiral one last request?

Horatio Nelson

Kiss me, Hardy.

Thomas Hardy

I'm sorry?

Horatio Nelson

Kiss me, Hardy.

Crew

Ooooooooooooooooo!

Thomas Hardy

Uh, well... I would but I'm not really that way inclined, I mean... don't get me wrong, I've got nothing -

Horatio Nelson

Oh, come on, Hardy. Don't be so up tight. Just a little peck. Not a Frenchy. Oh, all right. Mouth open but no tongue.

Thomas Hardy

Ummmmm...

Horatio Nelson

It's my one arm, isn't it?

Thomas Hardy

No, no, no, no, no...

Horatio Nelson

I've seen you looking at that two-armed fellow down in midships.

Thomas Hardy

No, no, no, no -

Officer

Go on, Hardy. SNOG, SNOG, SNOG, SNOG!

Thomas Hardy

ALL RIGHT! The truth is, my heart is already given to another. And every night I await their call across the waters.

Captain Pugwash

Ah-hoy, me hearties!

Thomas Hardy

PUGWASH!

Salad bars. Done right, they're a nutritious and delicious addition to a meal. Done wrong (as most of them are in my experience) and the waiter might as well say this...

Waiter

Okay, sirs... if you'd like to help yourselves to the salad bar, you'll find a selection of plastic trays half full of rather manky vegetables! And do note the skilful way in which the bits of sweetcorn have managed to get into all of them. Then, there's the choice of salad dressings. That's French, Thousand Island or Blue Cheese. That's the oily one, the one that looks like sick and the one that looks like semen.

Stranded on a desert island following a plane crash, the flight crew are having to seriously consider resorting to cannabalism. But British etiquette won't allow it. For one VERY good reason.

Survivor 1

We've got no food left.

Survivor 2

There's no sign of civilisation.

Survivor 1

We've got no choice. We're going to have to eat Jeremy.

Survivor 3

You disgusting, inhuman animals. We can't eat Jeremy!

Survivor 2

We have to!

Survivor 3

But he's red meat and we've only got white wine.

Remember Blockbusters? The daytime quiz show hosted by Bob Holness and especially popular with students? Well, I never heard Bob ask this question. Shame, really. 'Cos I know the answer!

Bob Holness

Hello and welcome to Blockbusters. I'm Bob Holness. The first letter on the board is flashing so fingers on the buzzers. What C... am I?!

Imagine Billy Idol presenting a Cycling Safety video. Can you imagine that? No? Well, luckily you don't have to. Because the Mary Whitehouse team already imagined it and this is what it would be like.

Billy Idol

Yippee ki yay... hi. Yes, hi. If you come to a busy junction, check to see if there's a lot of fast-moving traffic in the road in front. If so, go REBEL YELL!

[BILLY rides on, we hear the screech of tyres and a collision]

And then look left, look right, look left again until you find your leg.

Remember Alan "Fluff" Freeman? The voice of the Top 40 every week? Well, I bet you didn't know what he got up to when he wasn't hosting a radio show.

Rob Newman

But, if heavy metal fans are the minions of Satan, then the Prince of Darkness can only be one man.

Alan Freeman

All right? Hi, Pop Pickers. Fluff here. Hey, tell you what... earlier today I punched a baby's face and buggered some chickens. Not 'alf!

It's true. Most porn films in the 1990s were twenty-years out of date and dubbed incredibly badly into English by non-equity voice actors who simply couldn't act. But it could have been worse...

David Baddiel

Most porn films are made in German or Dutch in 1973 and are then dubbed by very bad, non-equity members going, "Hey, you're a tasty chick," or, "Say, this is an office lunchbreak with a difference!" However, if their budgets were half the size of big Johnny Holmes, God rest his soul, then they could afford big stars for the dubbing.

[We cut to a typical 1970s porn set, a garishly decorated living room filled with half-dressed people leaning inexplicably against walls and licking their lips for no apparent reason]

Dustin Hoffman

Say, Mrs. Robinson. This is a an office lunchbreak with a difference. Don't you think so, Woody?

Woody Allen

Watch out or I'm gonna shoot-off in my trousers.

Ronnie Corbett

And it's hello from me! Heh, heh, heh. Hey, sexy lady, how 'bout I help you out down there?

Johnny Morris

I don't half love your tits, baby.

Woman

Oh, do you, Johnny?

Becoming less inhibited around your partner is a natural part of a relationship. But I'm not sure being this uninhibited is a good idea. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's pretty gross.

David Baddiel

One thing I've noticed about long-term relationships is that, as time goes on, you become less and less inhibited in each other's physical presence. It's probably just as well this doesn't happen earlier on in relationships.

[He speaks on the phone]

Hello. Yeah, Donna... that's right, it's Dave. Yeah. I met you the other day. I just wondered if you wanted to come round to my place and, like... clean your teeth while I have a dump. Oh, right. You're already going round to Steve's to fart under the duvet?

If cartoon characters were a little more like their real-life counterparts, they'd be very, very different. Take Top Cat and Kermit the Frog, for example. Jesus...

Top Cat

Officer Dibble, Officer Dibble, I hope you liked the dead bird I left mangled with its entrails all over your doorstep. Okay Choo-Choo, now go and sick up a fur-ball all over the carpet.

Choo-Choo

Okay, T.C.

Officer Dibble

Top Cat, I've told you not to use the police phone after licking your own genitals.

Miss Piggy

Kermit! Kermee, Kermee, Kermee, Kermee... Tell me. When are we to marry?

Kermit

Uh, I can't marry you, Miss Piggy. Uh, you see, I fertilise externally and uh, well I'd... I'd just dribble all over your back.