As an indicator of where Bless This House was during its final series, The Naked Paperhanger is a pretty good look at just how far it had fallen. The freshness of the earlier episodes, which had a wholehearted approval of Sid James, had long since gone, succumbing to the same combination of success-fuelled lethargy and apathy which turned On The Buses from initial mediocrity to utterly dreadful.
Prolific comedy scribe Dave Freeman had contributed to the writing of it at various stages, but times were changing around him. For a show about the generation gap, it had morphed into caricatures and archetypes, with the emphasis of how much Sid Abbot could be wound up before he inevitably blew his top. Sid was in ill-health, putting in only what was required, and his lack of enthusiasm really shows. Sally Geeson was now 26, playing the same bubble-headed 16 year old in a much more mature body, sapping away at the last shreds of credibility. Although Mike had moved out, efforts made to keep him part of the family unit became increasingly ridiculous, including attempts to have him move back home, as though it would restore to show to its glory days. The whole thing was on autopilot, existing only to give Sid James money to blow on gambling.
Freeman raids a key part of his script for Carry On Behind (written the same year) involving a mix-up between two very different kinds of "stripper", one which removes paint whilst the other takes off very different layers. Instead of it being the finale, it's bumped up to the status of premise, including the expected shot of Sid walking in on a nude woman and not knowing how to react - shown in classic side-boob style, of course. There's the ever-green "caught spying through a keyhole" gag, still just as fresh as it was in the 1920s. We get Sid and neighbour Trevor (Anthony Jackson, the excellent original star of Rentaghost, before it turned into a panto) pratting around on unwieldy instruments for music-hall style laughs. The mythical Aunt Alice is due to turn up, so the stakes are higher than a BBQ in Everest - even though she turns out have all the punctuality of "Godot".
Dave Freeman gave the Carry On series a shot in the arm with Carry On Behind, downplaying some of the more dated elements and even imbuing a bit of morality in there(!), and it's bizarre that it's the same guy who wrote the awful Carry On Columbus. Here, he was just slapping together expected elements with all the enthusiasm of an engineer oiling a money-printing machine.
Sid James died less than three months after the final episode went out. There would have probably been more, because as much as Sid loathed it, the money was giving him flexibility to line the pockets of bookies all over London. The Naked Paperhanger was indicative of how far Bless This House had fallen, and sad to see everyone strictly going through the motions on a show they were once proud of.