I feel the compulsion to say that I hate, hated, hated everything about Margo’s personality with a passion, but I wanted to bone her like mad.
Well, yes, I get all that. There’s an episode where she gets all tipsy and flirts with Tom… 
I thought that was the most cringe-making episode of the lot. It didn’t sit well.
Just thought of another possibility after reading the “Acting question” thread.
If Jerry had blown his line the first take, in a particulaly funny way, the live audience could have overreacted to the correct line.
We had a similar thing happen during a show when the lead kept delibertely making us (background characters) crack up during one line during rehearsal. When we got to opening night, he played the line perfectly straight and we all dissolved into hysterics anyway.
Quite so. The overly-literal “runt/cunt” explanation offered elsewhere ignores the fact that a joke like that would have been far too rude for a mainstream BBC sitcom of the period. Plus, as you say yourself, it would have been entirely out of character for The Good Life’s gentle style. And it really wouldn’t have made much sense as a reply to Tom’s comment, would it?
Maserschmidt, it’s good to see someone with similar eclectic tastes! 
Hell’s bells (to quote one of Tom’s favorite exclamations), are you sure you’re remembering this show correctly? There are dozens of instances where Jerry says something roguish or even slightly blue and Margo snaps to him Jerry! or the director gives us a quick shot of her looking askance. Good lord, she even snapped at him for saying “bloody” on a Sunday. And gets annoyed with him when he makes a toast once Tom’s released from being bound over in jail (in “The Day Peace Broke Out”), “To absent friends… at the 'ville” (which reminds me, that’s another reference I don’t get–what is that last word meant to be?).
Same with Tom’s “smuttier” comments (“May I volunteer to scrape the barnacles off your bottom?”) – they’d inevitably be followed by one of Margo’s icy stares or an outright verbal slap. Now yes, the example I gave was ham-handed – I ain’t no Esmonde or Laraby – but simply an example of the way they often had Margo react to such a comment. In fact, it’s almost exactly the same way they handled Jerry’s “berk / Burke” joke. What was that if not putting a focus on the unspoken “cunt” rhyming slang reference?
There’s simply no way that Margo would’ve let a “runt/cunt” comment pass without even the slightest gimlet-eyed stare. I will not accept that. The woman who thought black stockings had certain “overtones,” the woman who was annoyed by Jerry’s having put her score to Handel’s Messiah next to a copy of Playboy, and the woman who changed her clothes in the middle of a pig emergency because she was afraid that the neighbors seeing her going into Tom and Barbara’s house in her nightrobe would think there was wife swapping going on… this is the woman who’d let her husband get away with a vague “cunt” reference with nary a blink? Preposterous.
And yes, perhaps the British audience attending a TV show taping in the mid-'70s were completely at ease with the word “cunt” (I have my doubts on that, but you’re presumably British, I’m not), I still don’t think they would’ve made the instantaneous connection between “I’m afraid it’s a runt” / “How very anglo saxon” to “oh my God it’s a cunt reference!” I know y’all are quicker than we slow-witted Yanks, but that’s still a slight mental leap to be taken, and a little pause would’ve been far more understandable.
All this said, of course, I do think it could be read either way and it may indeed be what the writers intended as a sly joke. And yes, it’s a very good point that the audience might have heard this before in an earlier take and so that’s why they got the joke so quickly. 
Another thing to bear in mind is that runt is in itself a cuss word even without the cunt connection. Maybe not used as such so much any more but it used to be the case that someone might say “Why, you little runt”
So the whole exchange makes sense even if you completely ignore any cunt reference ie it still works as a joke:
Tom says: I’m afraid it’s a runt
Jerry says: How very Anglo Saxon of you
It’s a double entendre - Tom means it’s literally a runt, Jerry jokingly interprets the word in its insult sense. That’s why Margo steps in with a shocked “Jerry” - because he’s changing the meaning of the word from runt (small pig) to runt (rude word). We don’t need the cunt for it to work as a joke.
Ah, thanks, Beastly Rotter! The scales have dropped from my eyes. In fact Barbara even mentions Pentonville earlier in the episode. When I was much younger I thought it was a pun – “pent-in ville” – until I later learned otherwise.
She’s not shocked by what he’s saying, though, she just says “Quiet Jerry!” because she’s aware of the gravity of the situation. (Surprisingly sensitive of her, considering she’s not fond of pigs to say the least, but I suspect she’s more reacting to Barbara’s obvious distress – she is very protective of Barbara, one of Margo’s best qualities.)
True, and Margo isn’t even in the shot-- oh. Wait. Sorry.
(Actually I rather adore Margo, despite her hellacious snobbery and browbeating of dear Jerry. Brilliantly played by Keith, as were all the other roles by their performers. I think it’s the best four-person cast on any show, perhaps tied with All in the Family, and I think it might even beat AITF because the much-less experienced Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers were often out-acted by Carrol O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, as one would expect. There isn’t a single weak link in the main GL/GN foursome. And don’t make me pick a least favorite, I can’t.)
Sorbo rubber - ideal as a dog’s toy because it will not burst, being sponge rubber skinned with a thin smooth film, not hollow like a tennis ball.
I saw something a while ago in which Richard Briers was talking about The Good Life, and he said that originally Jerry and Margo were to be more secondary characters, but they turned out to be comedy gold (helped by the casting, of course), so the writers came to Briers and said something like “would you mind too much if we wrote Margo up a bit?” (meaning, give the character more prominence). Briers reported that he and everyone else were fine with that. [edit] Oh, another thing was Penelope Keith laughing at some of the insane clothes they had Margo wear. The also talked to the costume designer who said what fun it was to design Margo’s costumes.
Anyway, I would put the show in the top three seventies sitcoms, alongside Fawlty Towers and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Sometimes people criticise it for being twee and too middle class, but I don’t think that’s fair. Doesn’t it poke fun at middle class mores?
I’ve heard that about Margo’s character too, Ximenean – heck, she isn’t even seen in the first episode, just her voice. By the end of the first series I’d say the show leaned 60-40 as far as focusing on the Goods by themselves vs. the Good / Leadbetter relationships.
The costumes, and Margo’s wigs (or falls, more likely) delight me. I swear my late mom’s passport photo from 1972 depicts her with the precise hairstyle Margo had in “The Early Birds,” where the Leadbetters are giving a party and Margo’s hairstyle and dress makes her look like a character from I, Claudius. (God, now I’m imagining Livia played by Penelope Keith-as-Margo. That’s too much awesomeness to contemplate.)
“The Early Birds” is my favorite episode, in fact, and it’s one reason I’d give for why this show is so wonderful – and if I didn’t want to bore everyone I’d be mentioning this show in the “Best portrayals of a married couple” thread. I just love the scene where Tom and Barbara are trying to sleep at 8PM, unsuccessfully, but when they finally do fall asleep, they’re woken by music (What the World Needs Now by Des O’Connor) because Jerry & Margo are giving a party. Furious, Tom gets up first to investigate the noise and Barbara slaps her pillow in frustration, then both return to bed. When the music continues, Tom again goes to the window, then reports back to Barbara again, poking her to wake her up (not that she needs it). She tries to go back to bed, then Tom, just before going to the window a last time, pokes Barbara for no particular reason. She makes this irritated slapping motion to stop him from poking her.
I dunno, it’s such a small bit of actor business, probably not intended as a joke and maybe not even scripted, but it’s so exactly what I would do if my husband did what Tom was doing (and Tom’s almost spiteful “dammit if I’m going to be woken up, you are too!” poking is so in character for him and, really, for many spouses). Here, enough of my bad description, here’s the scene. I’ve seen this episode thirty times at least, but Barbara’s whack at Tom never fails to make me laugh.
I think why this show worked so well is that not only did it send up middle class life, it also very gently teased the sort of all-or-nothing mentality that Tom evinces. I know Richard Briers has been interviewed and called Tom a horrible husband, but I just think he’s a wonderful example of writers not letting their apparent “hero” character (he is the one who boldly makes the decision to ditch his job) thoroughly flawed and able to make mistakes rather than being right all the time. Tom is clearly egotistical (“the biggest head in Surbiton” as Barbara calls him), headstrong, stubborn, and sometimes self-righteous. But he’s offset by some genuinely good qualities as well, including his idealism and overall interest in learning new ways to deal with problems, and of course, he was smart enough to marry Barbara. The show would never have worked without Barbara’s supportive but not fawning behavior toward Tom’s goals. She’s game but she’s not perfect, and they have some clever mocking banter toward each other.
And sometimes they even let the Leadbetters be the right ones (such as in “The Wind-Break War,” which mentioned above is the one where they all get tipsy and nearly do some wife-swappoing). Also in “The Early Birds” the Leadbetters are right again – Tom and Barbara are[ being rudely loud in the morning while the Leadbetters are sleeping, which is what sets up the turn-around when Tom and Barbara are trying to sleep and their neighbors’ party is keeping them up.
God, sorry for rambling. I just adore the hell out of this show.
There’s the “cunning runt” thing, which I think was already around back then. It does seem kind of obscure though.
I hate it
I was reading Ian Banks’ Beggar’s Banquet last night and in one of the stories an insult is flung: ‘You bloody little runt!’ from a character (and author) who would definitely say cunt if he meant to.
So, I’ve come around to the “Runt is an insult all by itself” team. That would make sense of the ‘anglo-saxon’ jibe and Barbara’s hurt-on-behalf-of-the-piglet reaction.
I’m hanging on to the audience over reacting due to prior takes theory, too.
Ah, Reginald Perrin. That show had some of the funniest lines, and plots, of any sitcom I’ve ever watched, but it could also be wretchedly inconsistent as well as unfunny (Reggie mentions his mother-in-law, followed by three tuba notes and footage of a running hippo…that’s just wrong, given the cleverness and sheer existentiality of some of the humor).
Bit of a cock-up on the writing front, I’d say, but I didn’t get where I am today without also recognizing real brilliance when I see it. Terrific!