The Comic Strip, Part 12 - That's sugar cane that tasted good. That's cinnamon. That's Hollywood.

"Eddie Monsoon, a Life" - February 4, 1984

Frankly, I wasn't looking forward to seeing this one.

Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson have two themes that they are drawn to time and again:

1) Fame and the horrible emotional toil that it takes out on a person - both when they are trying to achieve it (Filthy Rich and Catflap), and when they have it and are attempting to keep it (Rik Mayall Presents: Micky Love)

2) People being horrifically awful. (The Dangerous Brothers, Filthy Rich and Catflap, Bottom)

I wasn't opposed to either of those things either as themes or coming from them, it was more of a sense of "Oh great. Here they go again."

I've found much of the time I've spent on this adventure to be amusing - but I didn't realize until this one ended that this was the first time I've actually laughed out loud at one.


As you might recall, the last episode of the first season was withdrawn because the jokes therein were deemed too slanderous or violent or obscene. Apparently.

This episode ("A Life") is about what seems to have been the fallout from that episode's ("Back to Normal") cancellation. It is unclear to me how much "A Life" refers to "Back to Normal." We see a clip, but was it shot for the original episode? Was it shot for the new episode from the original script? Is it a complete fabrication? Likewise, there is a news clipping - real or fake? I've been keeping away from the extras, so that I can see the episodes without background info. Hopefully this will be the only episode that causes a great deal of regret for that stance.

"A Life" plays like an episode of "This is David Lander" (a show which is sadly unavailable on DVD) in that the documentary style is pitch-perfect. A stand out moment is the clip of Monsoon's ill fated children's show. The cliche of the children's entertainer who hates kids is an old and well used one, but this version cannot be topped - it ends with him dropping the sock puppets and actually firing a pistol at the children. First of all this is inexplicably somehow funny. Secondly, it begs the question: If Channel 4 let this on, what on Earth was in the episode that had to be pulled?