The Two Ronnies

The series is fun, as a tapestry of gigs and sketches any viewer and member of the acting trade can watch, enjoy and learn from.

It got a bit stereotypical due to the real time success, when they became afraid to innovate and change what proved to work so well, therefore conceding to the public demands, even if unspoken. The same phenomenon that put television to its knees and keeps it there, in the mud and failure, for decades - mistaking ratings for value, then invoking ratings to justify stale or bad material, then faking ratings to invoke as a cover for plain bad material that keeps the same people at the buttons.

The Two Ronnies stopped just on the edge, just leaving us their greatest achievements to enjoy, untarnished by going on too long, while already in the repetitive mode.

For sixteen years, big Ronnie Barker and little Ronnie Corbett hit hard on the nation's funny bone with their gently subversive, often wonderfully rude comedy routines, which lampooned countless aspects of British life - pompous authority figures, eccentric middle class guests at dreary cocktail parties, shabby men (with distinctly surreal private lives) putting the world to rights over a beer or ten, ghastly restaurants with rude waiters and incompetent chefs, bumptious politicians, leery rock stars and deeply suspicious doctors. Although often regarded as a "safe" series, The Two Ronnies' best sketches often strayed toward decidedly bizarre and ridiculous Monty Python territory, which isn't surprising as several of the Pythons (together with genius upstarts like Marshall and Renwick) wrote for the series - that's when the great Ronnie Barker wasn't providing the bulk of the material himself under a number of unlikely pseudonyms! (Remember Gerald Wiley? That was him.) The musical numbers can seem dated to modern eyes, but the country and western parodies from 'Big Jim Jehosophat'(Corbett) and 'Fatbelly Jones'(Barker) were always a joy, wrapping dozens of double-entendres around some genuinely catchy tunes, as were the lesser-seen spoofs of Chas and Dave, Status Quo and even Kid Creole and the Coconuts! As with many of the 'old school' comedians, the Two Ronnies' work has endured far better than many of the 'alternative' comedians who tried to push them aside - not only that, they're still being repeated. So where's Ben Elton now?

I've re-watched the entire series from start to finish, for me Messers Barker and Corbett are THE masters of comedy, there are many names in the mix, but these two are in a different league. I've not given it a ten because the Corbett monologue on a few occasions has to be skipped and some of the guest artists (Barbara Dickinson) didn't seem to fit. I digress, back to the good stuff, the sketches are painfully funny, there's never been a time in my life when A Two Ronnies DVD isn't far away, or the sketches are on Youtube.

The favourites for me are Fork Handles, Opticians, Crossed Wires, Sweet Shop (I'll smash your teeth in 'an all,) Mastermind (Charlie's Aunt,) Pinnochio, the list goes on. I'm a lifelong fan of the Worm that turned, magical, but even better then that is 'The Phantom Raspberry blower of Old London Town,' not wonder it's got a cult following, produced by Hammer Horror, with David Jason's raspberries, it's hilarious, my all time favourite, as a child I used to be terrified of it, I can understand why.

Two magical performers that truly came up with the goods, week after week.

9/10.

This tape is a celebration of the Two Ronnies who are comprised of Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker, and who presented a little comedy show (96 episodes) between 1971 and 1987. This video gives only a brief taste of what the Two Ronnies had to offer during those years. They always began with a funny newscast which went into a sketch with both of them. Then came Barker portraying some sort of official explaining his plight (beautifully written by him as Gerald Wiley). Then came Corbett in a true sit-down comedy routine, and finally a glorious musical number making fun of some sort of British life with songs, costumes and the whole bit. The shame is that this video is only about an hour, which is about a show and a half. We certainly would love to have the remainder in a better "best of..." series. And maybe the both of them would spearhead their return to the video screen in more shows. Barker recently appeared on the telly after being retired for eleven years, and Corbett keeps showing up in movies, so they are alive, well, and still funny! So go ahead, buy this, and hope that there is more to come.

"The Two Ronnies" is one of the funniest comedy/variety shows in British comedy history. Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett created some of the funniest sketches that were shown on television. Both were blessed with a natural wit. They complimented each other in a similar manner to Laurel and Hardy, in that they were as physically different to each other as could be but still worked so well together. Barker was the brains behind the series and wrote and collaborated on most of the material. The series lasted from 1971 to 1987 and goodness knows how many sketches. I laugh so hard every time I see them and that level of creativity only comes along once. The approach to the comedy was always to focus on character and on dialogue. Both Ronnies were very clever in their comic timing and knowing how to give the dialogue a double meaning when the sketch called for it. It was to the advantage of both comedians that they were trained as straight, dramatic actors as they created many different characters and to be as hilarious as they were. They played policemen, washer women, Canadian Mounties, officer workers, butlers and others. I enjoyed the spoofs they made in those serial programmes, simply brilliant. The song numbers they performed, they got away with because they made the songs amusing. The Two Ronnies are without doubt one of the funniest comedy teams in history, along with Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Will Hay and Moore Marriott and Graham Moffat and Morecambe and Wise.