I watched this on the opening night of Channel 4 back in 1982.
I think some viewers actually expected to see an episode of Enid Blyton's The Famous Five and had no idea who The Comic Strip were.
This may had been the first time people saw the alternative comedians of the 1980s such as Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Adrian Edmondson.
It is a biting parody of the Enid Blyton books. I used to read The Famous Five stories voraciously as a kid and even then I had an inkling that something was not right. Foreigners in the stories were strange, untrustworthy and usually were villainous.
Set in the 1950s, The Famous Five go to Dorset to stay with Aunt Fanny, but Uncle Quentin, a scientist has been kidnapped again.
On a cycling trip, they keep bumping into two thugs who seem to have recently left jail and bump into snivelling rude posh boy Toby Thurlow.
The clues take them to a strange house and a trail of jars of Vaseline. Julian thinks it is all very queer. Things get slippier and slippier with lashings of ginger beer.
The parody has it all. Robbie Coltrane playing a strange gypsy. The police quickly arrest the porter from the train station who is black.
George is blatantly called a dyke by Toby. I am sure she really wants to transition to be a boy. Dick is a closet gay. Everyone tells Anne that she will make someone a perfect housewife one day and Julian is mature for his age because he looks about 30.
The final surprise for viewers was when Ronald Allen (then famous for the ITV soap opera Crossroads) enters as Uncle Quentin and reveals himself as a raging homosexual. I guess the clue was in the name Quentin. Before Tarantino it was associated with Crisp.
The Comic Strip films blew hot and cold for me. Peter Richardson the main creative force behind them was variable in the quality of the output. This was a sharp parody with even some affection for the source material.
I think some viewers actually expected to see an episode of Enid Blyton's The Famous Five and had no idea who The Comic Strip were.
This may had been the first time people saw the alternative comedians of the 1980s such as Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Adrian Edmondson.
It is a biting parody of the Enid Blyton books. I used to read The Famous Five stories voraciously as a kid and even then I had an inkling that something was not right. Foreigners in the stories were strange, untrustworthy and usually were villainous.
Set in the 1950s, The Famous Five go to Dorset to stay with Aunt Fanny, but Uncle Quentin, a scientist has been kidnapped again.
On a cycling trip, they keep bumping into two thugs who seem to have recently left jail and bump into snivelling rude posh boy Toby Thurlow.
The clues take them to a strange house and a trail of jars of Vaseline. Julian thinks it is all very queer. Things get slippier and slippier with lashings of ginger beer.
The parody has it all. Robbie Coltrane playing a strange gypsy. The police quickly arrest the porter from the train station who is black.
George is blatantly called a dyke by Toby. I am sure she really wants to transition to be a boy. Dick is a closet gay. Everyone tells Anne that she will make someone a perfect housewife one day and Julian is mature for his age because he looks about 30.
The final surprise for viewers was when Ronald Allen (then famous for the ITV soap opera Crossroads) enters as Uncle Quentin and reveals himself as a raging homosexual. I guess the clue was in the name Quentin. Before Tarantino it was associated with Crisp.
The Comic Strip films blew hot and cold for me. Peter Richardson the main creative force behind them was variable in the quality of the output. This was a sharp parody with even some affection for the source material.