In 1968/69, Marty Feldman made two seasons of his award-winning 'Its Marty' for the BBC. Instead of making a third, he did this one-off special, transmitted in 1970. Some of the sketches were old, such as the bookshop skit with Marty as an awkward customer asking for non-existent titles ( originally done in ITV's 'At Last The 1948 Show' ) and the aeroplane cockpit sketch with John Junkin and Tim Brooke-Taylor as pilots who tease the passengers by making them think the plane is about to crash ( originally done in 'How To Irritate People' ). Among the new items are Marty as a cricketer who takes a long run at his bowl and winds up going over a cliff, Marty trying to spy on a pretty girl taking a shower ( they could not make that now, obviously ), Marty as a judge who calls on an unsuspecting married couple ( Junkin and Mary Miler ) and puts them on trial, and Marty interacting with characters from old books. Vivian Stanshall's 'Big Grunt' makes its one and only television appearance here, and it is not hard to see why this was the case. French comic Robert Dhery plays a waiter in a bizarre restaurant sketch ( which gives Marty no opportunity to be funny ). Once again the writers included John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle.
A mixed bag, then. Marty would next be seen on British screens in his ill-fated ITV series 'The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine' ( which ITV dumped after only a few weeks, replacing it with repeats of 'The Benny Hill Show' ).
A mixed bag, then. Marty would next be seen on British screens in his ill-fated ITV series 'The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine' ( which ITV dumped after only a few weeks, replacing it with repeats of 'The Benny Hill Show' ).
