The Mary Whitehouse Experience

I get more and more nostalgic

I remember listening to this on the radio. Sitting in the other room. We called the sitting room-or lounge the front room.  I was listening to the show with my older sister, who had discovered it on the Radio, before the series hit BBC 2. I actually remember we listened to it on my parents stereo turn table.

Actually they mention about 6 million viewers watching the show. Compare this with the final episode of the latest Doctor Who episode which had 4.9 million

There is a comment about the Irish and abortion. This was the early 1990s. There is a mention of Wash and Go, Geoff Thomas. Teachers Whiskey-do they still make that? There is a dig at Gameboys. Gameboys had become a common sight just a few years before
. There is a discussion of porn. VHS and Magazines, which Baddiel says is physically delivered to his house by lorry. Baddiel also mentions his right on friends talking about how they could not achieve orgasm via 2 dimensional stimulation.  Baddiel would later become linked with laddism
There is a pop at Jimmy Saville. Did they hear backstage gossip at the BBC?
 The Marywhite House experience is  very much a product of its age. The early nineties. War in Iraq, and Indie music.The Happy Mondays-Ride-Julian Cope-The Cure-OMD. They call people Benders, and gay. There is the minced oath, the school spanner. Oh and Newman does a Shaw Taylor -Police 5 impression. Even  the way, Newman is dressed reminds me of Lister,from Red Dwarf. The same Deerstalker/ushanka
  The show is famed for the moment where Comedy became the new rock and roll. Its easy to see how the BBC  actually set the idea up.  People gasped at Baddiel and Newman later filling the Wembly arena.  Its a very post grunge MTV uncut look. It could be a Spin Doctors video, Jump cuts and black white, the 4 rehearsing.s-a reference to star wars. Across the pond, you had Bill Hicks and Dennis Learly as the heavy metal of comedy. This is the BBC's indie kids. They even  broke up.

The series makes a lot of throwaway  intellectual comments. Newman refers to the plays of George Bernard Shaw as ordinary. Really the quad are as much Oxbridge as Fry and Laurie. Or indeed Jimmy Carr. And yet Newman trots out the cup of tea and Earphones-masturbation joke.There are lots of references that a young audience would get. Not just Music-but Pugwash-Baywatch, and Rapidio.

Every generation thinks its the smartest and coolest the world has seen. But who remembers Ride now?
Or the Spin Doctors now a passing gag in DeadPool