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BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius
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Subject: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: GUEST,Bonkers Date: 02 Mar 03 - 04:51 AM I believe that Peter Cook was a comic genius and one of the funniest men in Britain. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: John MacKenzie Date: 02 Mar 03 - 05:59 AM You believe correctly, so you can't really be bonkers. Giok |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: GUEST,Basil Date: 02 Mar 03 - 06:08 AM Unlike John Cleese who is an oversensitive arrogant bore. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: John MacKenzie Date: 02 Mar 03 - 06:56 AM But funny too. Giok |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Nemesis Date: 02 Mar 03 - 07:08 AM I also believe that Peter Cook is a musical genius (so long as he sticks to practising his guitar and spends less time on the ruddy Gameboy, video game thing he sneaked in past his mother (me) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: John MacKenzie Date: 02 Mar 03 - 12:59 PM Bit of bias creeping into this thread I think Hille. Giok |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: cockney Date: 02 Mar 03 - 01:18 PM Not many knew that he was the Greatest Folk singer this side of Mexico!... I think? ... or was it Pete seegar? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Art Thieme Date: 02 Mar 03 - 01:49 PM There was a track on the old BEYOND THE FRINGE album entitled something like "SO YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE WAR". I just sent an e-mail to Rich Warren at WFMT-FM radio in Chicago telling him to resurrect this great and subtle comment on war. It rings so true in these times when we are contemplating yet another "war to end all wars". I say that feeling that if we pull everyone into it again it will be the "last" because nobody will be left. As a result, PEACE will finally be a fact on this planet. {subtle irony !!} YES, Dud and Peter were the best. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Rick Fielding Date: 02 Mar 03 - 02:05 PM Oh man, were those guys funny!? Did you ever hear their routine about "My thing's sooooo huge..." or the Jayne Mansfield and the lobsters bit? From the "Derek and Clive" records. It SOUNDED like Cook was making them up, and Moore was absolutely corpsing with laughter!! Rick |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: alanabit Date: 02 Mar 03 - 02:27 PM For me, Peter Cook along with Spike Milligan, stands out as one of the two most brilliant British based comedians since the war. All the tributes paid to Milligan were quite justified, but I think Cook was the sharper satirist. He also had a unique ability to improvise a character and simply let him ramble on as if his eccentricity was the most natural thing in the world. The best known of these was Mr.Whistie (I have probably misspelt that). The sketch which parodied the war films (it was the films being sent up - not the actual war) included a wonderful scene with Jonathon Miller, in which a pilot was being sent off on a pointless, suicidal mission. "We need a futile gesture at a time like this"... Most of the others who get called "a comic genius" are simply good comedians. For Peter Cook, I will allow that the word genius fits. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Mark Clark Date: 02 Mar 03 - 04:23 PM Couldn't agree more. I still love listening to those “Beyond The Fringe” recordings. The Aftermyth of WarI did get to see them live when they reprised much of BTF in a show called “Good Evening.” It played in Chicago at the Blackstone Theater. It was great to actually see the one-legged man applying for the role of Tarzan. Moore was actually hopping around the stage on one foot wearing a raincoat. He never stopped hopping and never lost his balance. “The trouble with minin' is when you're too old and sick and stupid to do your job properly, you have to go. Why the very opposite applies with judging.” - Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Ralphie Date: 02 Mar 03 - 05:04 PM From the Judges Summing up speech on the Jeremy Thorpe trial "Jurors....I would now ask you to retire.....as I should have done some years ago... and consider your verdict of.......Not Guilty" A Fine Satirist....anyone for Lenny B??? Regards Ralphie |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Mark Cohen Date: 02 Mar 03 - 06:07 PM I also got to see them in "Good Evening"--I believe it was in Philadelphia. I'll never forget the "Frog & Peach Restaurant" bit. "Why did you name your restaurant 'The Frog and Peach'?" "It just occurred to me that there was really no restaurant in town where one could get, both, a really good frog, and a really good peach." "I see. And can you tell me about your menu?" "Well, we actually have just two dishes. One, Frog a la Peche, is a very large frog, baked, with a peach in its mouth. And the other, Peche a la Frog, is a really huge peach, stuffed with dozens of tiny frogs." Aloha, Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 02 Mar 03 - 06:15 PM Ah Yes - But he could have been a judge.
But he never had the Latin. Never had sufficent of it to get past the judging exams. They are noted for their rigor you know? People come staggering out saying "Ye gads, what a rigorous exam!"
So he bacame a minor instead a coal minor. Their exams arn't nearly so rigorous, they only ask you one question, "Who are you?" And he got 50% on that.
I liked Peter Cook so much that I memorized entire monologues from Beyond the Fringe.
So all, in all, he would rather have been a judge, because as a minor, when you get too old, and sick and stupid to do the job properly, they let you go....well the very opposite applies to judging.
A Peter Cook fan, Gargoyle |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Art Thieme Date: 02 Mar 03 - 06:19 PM I remembered it as a large peach sliced in two with thousands of tadpoles swimming around in the juice. Art |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Mark Cohen Date: 02 Mar 03 - 06:30 PM You may be right, Art. I froget. Aloha, Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Ralphie Date: 02 Mar 03 - 06:36 PM Ah! But Gargoyle... Did you know that Arable land is land that is exclusively tilled by Arabs? Or that there is no proper name for the back of the knee? How Interesting! Regards.. Ralphie Never took you for a Cook fan...Ah Well! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Peter T. Date: 02 Mar 03 - 06:53 PM "Ah, yes, Identikit, that is where you piece together the face of the criminal." "No, I wish we could, I wish we could, no, we use Identikit to piece together a likeness of the face of the criminal. Of course, if we had the actual face of the criminal, the rest of the criminal parts are not hard to find." "So using Identikit..." "So using Identikit, we have been able to piece together a remarkable likeness of the Archbishop of Canterbury." "So His Grace is your number one suspect?" "Well, let's just say he is the person we are currently beating the living daylights out of down at the Yard." "And he is still your number one suspect?" "No, I'm sorry to say His Grace no longer resembles his portrait....." yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Stephen L. Rich Date: 02 Mar 03 - 08:38 PM Peter Cook stands as one of the most under-rated comic talents of the last century. Stephen Lee |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: JennyO Date: 03 Mar 03 - 08:10 AM Who remembers the movie "The Bed Sitting Room" - a black comedy depicting England three years after nuclear war - with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Spike Milligan and Rita Tushingham, with a brief appearance by Marty Feldman? It didn't get very good reviews, but it was one of my favourites. The new national anthem (sung for the next in line to the throne after most of the population was wiped out) was "God save Mrs Ethel Shroke". Jenny |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Schantieman Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:07 PM ...and then there was that prophecy scene on the mountain top.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: alanabit Date: 03 Mar 03 - 01:55 PM Do you mean "The End of the World"? I loved that one too. It was revived for "The Secret Policeman's Ball". I am too young (ha ha!)to have actually seen The Bed Sitting Room. Milligan and Cook together... I wouldn't have missed that on purpose. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: JennyO Date: 04 Mar 03 - 09:20 AM I have it on video - not a brilliant recording, but worth keeping for what it is. I haven't watched it for a while, but now I am thinking of digging it out. I also have a paperback of the same name, by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus, which is apparently the play, which was first performed in 1963, and is quite unlike the movie, but very funny all the same. Jenny |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Schantieman Date: 04 Mar 03 - 11:53 AM Yes - 'The End of the World' "Will this wind be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the earth? And will the veil of the Temple be rent in twain?" "Well, the veil of the Temple's always been a bit dodgy." (but this takes about 5 minutes with all the silly voices......) You have to be there. S |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: Gervase Date: 05 Mar 03 - 10:28 AM In the early Eighties when he was maudlin Cook used to liven up the airwaves on LBC, the shite London commercial station, by calling the phone-in shows in all sorts of surreal guises - Sven the love-lorn Norwegian mariner was a regular. I used to tune in sometimes, just on the off-chance of hearing him. *sigh* (cue 'nostalgia ain't what it used to be' mode...) None of the current crop of English comics seems to have the way with words that Cook and the rest of the Beyond the Fringe team had in spades. Even the four-letter ones. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: alanabit Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:25 AM He was also wonderfully rude about fans of Arsenal Football Club - and I miss him for that! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Peter Cook-A comic genius From: John MacKenzie Date: 06 Mar 03 - 01:26 PM I can be terribly rude about all the sad people who support soccer. However they say it are wicked to mock the afflicted. So I'll stick to feeling sorry for them. Giok |