Marty

Having been born and raised in the United States, I have only seen one episode of IT'S MARTY at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. From watching this one episode, I feel it's a shame that Marty Feldman's show is currently unavailable to the American public. (I understand segments from it were shown on American network television in the early 1970's).

The one episode I've seen seems to precede Monty Python with its iconoclastic and surrealistic humor. In fact, individual members of the Python troupe wrote for this show. One delightfully bizarre sketch features Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor as flies discussing their relationship with humans. Another zany sketch is entirely silent- Feldman plays a tramp who joyously romps on a playground only to be arrested by a child in a policeman's hat because he is too mature to frolic there! This particular bit displays Feldman's pantomimic gifts. Indeed the whole episode is sufficient evidence that he was a marvelous comedian. Proving that there's much more to him than his grotesquely protruding eyes, Feldman conveys a droll nuttiness that is both humorous and endearing. With a wryly expressive mouth, a disheveled tuft of hair, and a twee English voice, Feldman suggests a human pixie who is quite at home in these zany sketches. But Feldman may have seemed too strange to American audiences accustomed to conventional comedians like Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason. This may explain why until he appeared in Mel Brooks's YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, Marty did not make much of an impression in the United States.

With America's DVD explosion unearthing previously unavailable British programs like the original BBC version of PENNIES FROM HEAVEN and BOTTOM, shouldn't the BBC provide Americans with all the episodes of IT'S MARTY? Of course, Feldman has been gone for a long time, but he left behind some significant work that most Americans haven't seen. Marty Feldman was such a notable talent. From watching one episode of his show, it seems to me that IT'S MARTY was an even better showcase for him than YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

Marty was an excellent comedy programme, but for some reason largely forgotten more than 30 years after it was first broadcast.

The programme ran for 2 series in 1968 and 1969, and was one of the first to be made in colour, after the launch of colour TV in the UK on 1 July 1967. Unfortunately the recordings of 7 of the 15 programmes made have been lost.

My favourite sketches have to be The Stunt Man Goes On Holiday (when was the last time you saw visual humour of this quality?), or the Bishop on a Train sketch.

No doubt there are all sorts of rights issues preventing it, but a DVD re-issue of what's left of Marty would be most welcome.

Marty Feldman made such an impact in Associated-Rediffusion's 'At Last The 1948 Show' that the B.B.C. poached both him and Tim Brooke-Taylor for this series. And what a series it turned out to be. Marty co-wrote several sketches with his 'Round The Horne' collaborator Barry Took, others were penned by John Cleese and Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam. Many feature an ordinary setting, such as a train, a vet's or a travel agency, being disrupted by Marty ( sometimes with Tim ) in lunatic mode. The late John Junkin played various authority figures whose sanity goes out of the window after meeting Marty. In one item, Marty played a gnome who goes to his bank to see about getting a mortgage on his toadstool. Visual comedy featured prominently; 'A Hard Day's Night' must rank amongst the all-time greats, in which Marty's henpecked husband makes repeated nocturnal assignations with beautiful girls right under his wife's nose! Classic stuff - and with a cool theme tune by Ken Jones to boot!

The list of writers who supplied material for this series should give you an instant idea as to how brilliant this overlooked gem was. Apart from Feldman himself there was the Monty Python team and a handful of other now legendary comics. The result was one of the funniest TV shows in history. Marty Feldman was the perfect looking ringmaster for the distinctively no-holds-barred and aggresively zany humour. Each show was a stream of great sketches that didn't show the slightest weakness. It is a pitty that few shows were made, but also a blessing that they were made at all. Marty Feldman went onto international superstardom in the USA with a further, though slightly inferior, TV series and a load of smash hit movies. But this series is Marty Feldman at his performing, writing peak.