Before "Still Game", there was "Chewin' The Fat", a hilarious sketch show which amongst its umpteen characters indeed introduced the long-running Jack and Victor to the viewer. For my money though, they're not even in the top 10 of the numerous comedy creations that Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill foist on us here.
I suppose it is fair to say that all non-Scots should abandon hope and not enter here, not only as they're unlikely to understand the plain-talking broad Scottish accents on show, never mind share much sense of identity with the characters displayed. There's no doubt though that for me and most of my fellow countrymen and women, it was a riotous, must-watch show, employing catch-phrases which are still recalled today like "Gonnae no dae that", "Good guy / w*#k", "I'm on the night shift", "M'oan the fishes", "Taxi for Saracen Street", "Ya couple of f*nnies", "Individual fruit trifle" "I smell sh*te" and loads more.
I grew up in Dennistoun, a district of Glasgow, like Ford Kiernan, almost at the same time as him in fact so I particularly get the Glasgow strain to much of the humour. Of course there were occasional misses, for example the too-crude lifeboat sketches, but as for the rest, they're laugh-out-loud funny and as humorous to watch today as when first aired.
Just from memory, my favourite characters would comprise "The Big Man", inept actor Ronald De Villiers, Rab McGlinchey interpreting for the Neds, the work-shy painter and decorators, Big Jock, the golf club bore and the forever-fleeing party-girl doing the walk of shame. Favourite sketches, well how about the Tayside "Star Trek" ("Phasers to Malky!"), "Do you come for the bounce?" and the substitute court-room sketch artist amongst many others.
Kiernan and Hemphill take most of the parts in various guises, ably supported by Karen Dunbar and it's all great knockabout stuff. There are so many really funny characters and situations here that could maybe have been developed further that I think it's something of a shame that the F and G pair locked onto the Jack and Victor characters ever since at the exclusion of some of the gems here.
I suppose it is fair to say that all non-Scots should abandon hope and not enter here, not only as they're unlikely to understand the plain-talking broad Scottish accents on show, never mind share much sense of identity with the characters displayed. There's no doubt though that for me and most of my fellow countrymen and women, it was a riotous, must-watch show, employing catch-phrases which are still recalled today like "Gonnae no dae that", "Good guy / w*#k", "I'm on the night shift", "M'oan the fishes", "Taxi for Saracen Street", "Ya couple of f*nnies", "Individual fruit trifle" "I smell sh*te" and loads more.
I grew up in Dennistoun, a district of Glasgow, like Ford Kiernan, almost at the same time as him in fact so I particularly get the Glasgow strain to much of the humour. Of course there were occasional misses, for example the too-crude lifeboat sketches, but as for the rest, they're laugh-out-loud funny and as humorous to watch today as when first aired.
Just from memory, my favourite characters would comprise "The Big Man", inept actor Ronald De Villiers, Rab McGlinchey interpreting for the Neds, the work-shy painter and decorators, Big Jock, the golf club bore and the forever-fleeing party-girl doing the walk of shame. Favourite sketches, well how about the Tayside "Star Trek" ("Phasers to Malky!"), "Do you come for the bounce?" and the substitute court-room sketch artist amongst many others.
Kiernan and Hemphill take most of the parts in various guises, ably supported by Karen Dunbar and it's all great knockabout stuff. There are so many really funny characters and situations here that could maybe have been developed further that I think it's something of a shame that the F and G pair locked onto the Jack and Victor characters ever since at the exclusion of some of the gems here.