I’m from Seattle, you see, so the only context I’ve ever heard that… unusual exclamation is through the Red Dwarf Smeg Ups tapes. Craig Charles, who plays Lister, stopped by the local PBS station one day, and he belted out the word once himself. Unfortunately, he failed to explain what it meant. Okay, so it’s a little funny even without an explanation, especially because Chris Barrie and the rest of the cast seem to be having a lot of fun while chanting “extraordinary” in unison.
I assume this must be an imitation of some BBC personality who is virtually unknown in America, and I’d sort of like to know who. A newsreader, a sportscaster, a comedian, a political commentator… I dunno.
I also seem to recall John Cleese in the old Monty Python days doing an impersonation of someone the audience seemed to recognize, an old man with a permanently raised eyebrow who was perpetually excited and shouted out “extraordinary” quite a few times.
Are both these imitations of the same BBC personality?
As far as Craig Charles goes- probably Eddie Waring, a Rugby commentator from the sixties/seventies.
I don’t recall the Monty Python sketch, but they did do one called ‘The Eddie Waring Appreciation Society’ where many people impersonated the said Rugby commentator.
Eddie Waring. Could be. I’m not entirely convinced yet. (C’mon, somebody out there must be familiar with the BBC!)
I’ve nailed down the Monty Python sketch I was thinking of, which comes from Episode 12, near the end, during the “How far can a minister fall?” sketch. (It’s amazing, all I did was type “Monty Python” and “extraordinary” into a search engine and eventually came upon it.)
John Cleese’s rant is transcribed as going something like this:
Robert: “Well, well, Robert, the main thing is that it’s terribly exciting! You see, the minister is quite clearly lodged between rocks we know terribly little of. Terribly little. Of course, the main thing is we’re getting colour pictures of an extraordinarily high quality. The important thing is, the really exciting thing is the minister will–”
(as he gets more excited he starts to emit smoke)
“–be bringing back samples of the Earth’s core which will give us a tremendous, really tremendous tremendous tremendous clue about the origins of the Earth and what God himself is made of.”
(he bursts into fire and someone has to throw a buckets of water over him)
“Oh, oh, I needed that.”
As I said, the audience seemed to react as though Mr. Cleese were imitating someone they were familiar with. From the context, it sounds as if the sketch were poking fun at a BBC announcer’s demeanor during one of the high-profile space probe missions of the 1970s, the Viking landers perhaps, or the Voyager spacecraft.
This may have nothing to do with Red Dwarf’s cry of “extraordinary.” But I’m curious about both instances, and I’d like to put a name to them.
(It may very well turn out to be Eddie Waring after all, but I’d like confirmation from other sources.)
I’m fairly certain I saw it explained in alt.tv.red-dwarf that they were mocking one of the show’s producers. However, a quick Google search utterly fails to confirm it. I’ll keep hunting.
A quick Google search on “Patrick Moore” manages to turn up a handful of photographs of the man. Yes, that’s the guy John Cleese was imitating, no doubt about it. Apparently, he had a science program on BBC called The Sky at Night. So, presumably, he would have been someone the news programs could have turned to for insight into the space missions of the time.
One mystery solved. Now I just have to figure out the deal with Red Dwarf.
My guess is that if they’re imitating a well-known person (as opposed to somebody they all know privately) it’s probably the sports commentator David Coleman or (less likely) the Formula 1 commentator Murray Walker.
Chris Barrie started his career as an impressionist and did the voice of David Coleman on Spitting Image, a satirical programme of the 1980s featuring puppets of famous people.