by Mark Murton
Original Air Date: October 2, 1988
Directed by: Vic Finch
This review contains a comedic Kitty Carnage Warning!
Cat Out Of The Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this episode / sketch. We strongly suggest watching the clip before reading the review!
Synopsis: Sketch-based British comedy show with recurring characters and comedy songs. Broadcast after the watershed, the show delighted in pushing the boundaries of good taste.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): In a sketch at the end of the episode (Gareth) Hale and (Norman) Pace are standing on the stage addressing the audience. Gareth is holding a black and white tuxedo kitten while Norman explains to the audience that “There’s a lot of controversy at the moment about bad taste on television, but of all the things you can now do on British TV nothing causes more of an uproar than being cruel to animals. Isn’t that right, Gareth?”
“Yeah, that’s absolutely right,” agrees Gareth, “especially if you take a lovely, furry little kitten like this and . . . ” whereupon he pulls the cloth from an object on the table behind them to reveal a microwave oven. This brings a huge roar of laughter from the audience which causes the cat to climb up on Gareth’s shoulders.
“Seriously though we wouldn’t do anything like that would we, Gareth?” assures Norman, taking the cat from Gareth’s shoulder. “I mean, we like to experiment with comedy but even we wouldn’t microwave a cat live on national television” [the show wasn’t actually broadcast live]. “We certainly wouldn’t,” confirms Gareth.
Comedic Kitty Carnage Warning! “So,” Gareth continues, opening the oven door, “here’s one we did earlier.” At which point he removes (a comedy model of) the charred remains of a kitten (which manages to be both horrifying and somehow funny at the same time).
This sketch caused considerable controversy at the time and is still the best remembered moment from the 10 series of Hale & Pace that followed over the next 10 years. In 2006 it featured in Channel 5’s countdown of The 50 Most Shocking Comedy Moments.
Hale & Pace appeared with another fake dead cat the following year when they played the store owners in the Dr. Who story Survival.
Final Mewsings: Outrageous, disgusting and absolutely hilarious!
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