RD Vlogs: Can't Smeg Won't Smeg

[@AtTheBellEnd]

Lister is confusing him with James Herriot, the vet, for those who didn't get that reference.

[@Cyborcat]

Ah, thanks. The joke works well enough without knowing it, but I still kinda wondered.

[@orastellathefirst]

The vet from All Creatures Great and Small

[@TheOnComingStorm121]

Really? I always thought it was a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall reference. Huh. xD

[@warrenrobertsen2724]

All Creatures Great and Small was also made into a BBC series with Peter Davison as Tristan, IIRC. I don't recall if I first saw him as The Doctor or Tristan first, or if the series is good, but there's a tidbit if that sparks anyone's interest in an old show about the time the Doctor was a country veterinary assistant. ;)

[@Awakeandalive1]

Peter Davison also plays a villain in an episode of Suchet-era "Poirot." As he was my favorite Doctor, I nearly squeed when that one came on.

[@Jayfive276]

The thing is with Kochanski is...well...it's not that she is or isnt a bad actress or the character is or isnt annoying. It's that she's not Kochanski. The Claire Grogan Kochanski was sassy, confident, flirty, funny and presumably could hold her drink. And also Scottish. Things that would make Lister fall in love with her. This Kochanski is capable and clever but also a neurotic posh middle class girl who we are told in one throwaway line is actually from Scotland. They completely rejigged her character so they could have the whole "Ew...smelly boys" thread through that series. They basically made her Space Hermione. Also there's an argument that they tried to 'do a Seven Of Nine' with Chloe Annette, after all she does make her first appearance decked out in red PVC.

[@TheAbstruseOne]

I always felt sorry for Annette. She had an uphill battle in the first place, considering she was replacing an actress in an iconic (if brief) role, had to deal with the not-that-great character writing in Series VII, was being thrust into an ensemble cast that'd worked together for years, and was "replacing" one of the most beloved characters on a cult favorite show. She was pretty much doomed from the start. I thought the writing on her character got better in Series VIII, but by that point, the damage had been done.

[@santanamauricio]

remember this is an alternate miss K

[@Dave_Sisson]

Robert Llewellyn shows that a new character can be successfully introduced into an established ensemble cast, but he made the character his own by turning up Krytens idiosyncrasies to 11. There's less opportunity to do that for a character who is written to be the straight, sensible one. But while Chloe Annett did an excellent job as Kochanski, my heart still belongs to Claire Grogan.

[@AtheAetheling]

I see your point. Personally I never understood the appeal of miss Grogan, I never found her interesting or attractive....but I am not Lister. My own tastes run much more towards Chloe Annett, whom I love as kochanski, because I see her appeal. But again, I am not Lister. And it's difficult to see what Lister sees in new Kochanski to be fair, as much as I myself prefer her.

[@Fricasso79]

I don't really get the obsession some people seem to have with the Claire Grogan Kochanski. She was pretty forgettable.

[@ShonMoccles]

Ainsley Harriott and 'Can't Cook, Won't Cook' was something my mum and I watched together when I was sick from school so its a real blast watching him and the Red Dwarf guys. Really glad you covered this and look forward to hearing your thoughts on season 8.

[@morphman86]

Ainsley Harriot is sortof a British folk hero. He's really popular and his cooking shows still go on today. Those "Best Face" awards you kept handing out are some of his signature moves. There's plenty of memes out there with him, most notably "Give your meat a good ol' rub". Most of them doing that thing where they distort his face and add hellish sound effects.

[@Davesknd]

Patrick Steward does the Rimmer... why are my pants wet?

[@tuttiman55]

My question for you is why wouldn’t they?

[@Ashurman666]

Ah good old Ainsley Harriott. He's been kind of a meme as of late due to some of his...reactions in his cooking show. And he KNOWS he's a living meme and he loves it

[@BH-98]

Hehe boi

[@Redrally]

I remember watching Red Dwarf Night live when I was young. The BBC organised it after the success of Star Trek Night 2 years earlier.

[@reloadpsi]

Nobody seems to have explained this outright so I will - Can't Smeg Won't Smeg is based on Can't Cook Won't Cook, in which two people each bring in another person - usually a partner of theirs - who is either terrible at cooking or refuses to do it, and so a celebrity chef - sometimes Ainsley, but not necessarily - walks them through the process of making a meal, much like here. Lister is the Can't, Cat is the Won't; so much so that he has to turn into Dwayne Dibbley just to participate. The scene at the beginning where they bring their own ingredients is a reference to another BBC cooking contest show, Ready Steady Cook, in which each contestant has to bring in under £5 worth of ingredients (that limit may have gone up in recent years; been a while since I watched it) and they are each paired with a celebrity chef to see who can prepare the most interesting meal in under twenty minutes. Kochanski's remark about the size of her bum was a recurring joke on a British sketch comedy show, in which this same actress (I forget who) would be in a different outfit for a different job, and would abruptly ask while doing her job, "does my bum look big in this [clothing]?" People used to quote it a lot at the time. I forget which show it was, though - either Harry Enfield or The Fast Show.

[@OEDODRAGON]

I watched this when it aired.... Glorious!

[@PassiveSmoking]

James Herriot was a vet and a novelist who wrote novels about a vet (hmmmm!). One of his novels was dramatised by the bbc back in the day as a series called all creatures great and small. I remember it being quite popular.

[@ThePeacekeeper71]

Took me a bit of time to get the joke, but I've read the books a couple of times, and they are rather fun

[@Fricasso79]

Can't Cook Won't Cook was utterly ubiquitous back in the 90s, it was on practically every day (it ran for something like 700 episodes). It seems like a really bonkers thing for the Red Dwarf crew to be doing nowadays, but back then it made some kind of sense.

[@simon-8660]

Is it just me or does Kolchanski's look of horror on her face look genuine instead of acted?

[@decam5329]

He is being mistaken for James Herriot, who wrote a series of books about his life as a Veterinarian in Yorkshire that where televised by the BBC as a program called All Creatures Great and Small.

[@GamerWho]

This aired along-side the Red Dwarf A-Z, where Patrick Stewart recounts the tale of wanting to sue the makers of Red Dwarf for ripping off TNG, until he realised it was a lampoon. I've always wondered which episode it was he saw, but I suspect it might have been Gunmen of the Apocalypse since so many TNG episodes feature holodeck episodes where they pretend to be cowboys.

[@Fricasso79]

It must have been, since Patrick Stewart said it was 1993 or 1994, and only Series VI (1993) was airing then (I don't remember there ever being re-runs of earlier series). I don't think any of the other episodes in Series VI are particularly TNG-like (although Legion has a bit of a TOS vibe).

[@ShamrockParticle]

I may have missed the post had anyone else already said this, though I did a quick peek beforehand, but Peter Davison put his hand up a cow in "All Creatures Great and Small" :)

[@TomJonty]

"I like to think that he does like this in his own kitchen when there's no camera running" Ainsley does stuff like that in all his cooking shows. He's obviously turned up to 11 here for comedic effect but it's not that far from his ordinary persona. He's high energy, has quirky turns of phrase, and (for lack of a better word) memerific facial expressions. He's beloved over here. The best comparison for Americans and Canadians is probably Guy Fieri in that they both are popular partly cause of how ridiculously silly they are as people.

[@Cyborcat]

I can believe it. He seems to have a really big personality.

[@natalyafisher2571]

Yes, I've actually met Ainsley in person, he's extremely HIGH voltage, and very OTT and very funny. And he makes a point of trying to remember people's names. He's also something of a flirt. I was at an event that he was appearing at, the best part was the ''Thanks, Nat! You take care now!" said to me and the fistbump afterwards. My job colleagues were jealous of me for roughly two weeks afterward.

[@AndrewChapman]

10:17-10:33 That's honestly how I feel about Kochanski's presence in Series 8. It's no wonder "Back to Earth" to Series XII went back to having just the 4 main Dwarfers again like Series 6 and the first couple Series 7 episodes. Apart from Kochanski's short cameo in "Back to Earth" that is.

[@apex2000]

I remember first time I saw this special, was on "red dwarf night" on BBC hosted by Patrick Stewart.

[@wmroo]

I feel like this was the problems facing Chloe from the start. I actually think she is a good actress, but the writers never really knew what to do with her character.

[@strongblade]

I completely agree with Wang on this. Kochanski in series 7 & 8 always felt like they were trying to fill in the gap of Chris Barrie's temporary departure and just never really figured out what to do with her, falling back on the tired female-centric gags most of the time.

[@theshadowdirector]

This is actually the most extreme I've seen Ainsley Harriet. He was pretty calm in the other cooking shows I saw with him growing up.

[@Jayfive276]

0:50 - The quiz show is a parody of long running show called "University Challenge" where (as you might expect) teams from UK university compete to win...a prize of some sort. It starts with an open question to the both teams for them to buzz in - the shows's trademark is the "JONES, OXFORD" or whatever on the voiceover when someone buzzes in. If the person guesses right the team gets a bunch of other questions. It's general knowledge but a few notches up from, say, Jeopardy. The original presenter of University and Universe channel is the beautifully named Bamber Gascoigne who was a like a firm but cheerful school teacher. He's been replaced in more recent times by the acerbic former BBC political news bloke Jeremy Paxman. Let me put it this way - Bamber would be like "I'm afraid Im going to have to hurry you..." whereas Paxman is like "Come on, need an answer quick..." UC is famous for having 'posh' establishment universities like Oxford and Cambridge to well in the show down the years, and this was parodied in The Young Ones.

[@TYNEPUNK]

Since we were all teens we didnt mind kochanski being a bit humourless because we all fancied her, also check out "crime traveller" if you can find it, bbc show show where she plays main role and shes really good in it, I loved that show.

[@callinater6133]

I didn’t. Her character was quite annoying. But I do feel bad for Chloe, she had massive shoes to fill.

[@AndrewChapman]

Since Danny buggers off as Cat and then reappears as Duane, wonder why they didn't have Chris appear as Ace instead. Or rather Rimmer returning as Ace since he became Ace and left Starbug right before Chloë came along as the new Kochanski. Plus we got to see Duane and Ace together after Cat and Rimmer were attacked by the Emohawk and became their alter egos. Would've loved seeing them paired up for Can't Smeg Won't Smeg lol

[@kickingroses8925]

I can still remember watching this live! It might have been the first thing I saw Patrick Stewart in!

[@icemanlj2k7]

The one thing I’ve never understood is that this special was included on the DVD....of series 4, not series 7. Which is really weird. Imagine someone watching through for the very first time, getting to this after watching the S4 episodes and being ridiculously confused about the new Kochanski, Ainsleys reference to series 6 and all those Easter eggs with the food they present. A weird choice by the dvd makers there.

[@Cyborcat]

I didn't know about that, I've only seen it on KZbin. That is a weird choice.

[@Channel-ij5px]

Been waiting for this thank you

[@helenFX]

james herrot. Books (and looooong running TV series) about the misadventures of a rural veterinarian.

[@TheAbstruseOne]

There's a slightly funny story about the Patrick Stewart cameo in this. Stewart was in his hotel flipping channels when he came across an episode of Red Dwarf and got pissed off, thinking they'd ripped off Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was about to call the producers so they could get legal on the phone when he started watching the show and fell in love with it. At least that's how Stewart tells it in interviews. Would've been an interesting phone call if he'd gone through with it I think, considering Red Dwarf premiered in 1986 while Star Trek: The Next Generation didn't come out until 1987. Stewart wrote a forward to one of the out-of-print Red Dwarf guidebooks that came out around Series VII and he did a video for the "HD Remaster Re-Release" videos that came out before Series VIII (that fans hated because of the "updated" all-CGI effects that looked like Playstation II graphics and overly-long inserted gags).

[@Cyborcat]

Yep, I've heard that story.

[@TheSofox]

Yes, and do you know where that story about Stewart almost phoning his lawyer was first told? On a Red Dwarf special "Red Dwarf A-Z" which was also made for Red Dwarf night and so first played on the very same night that Can't Smeg Won't Smeg played, maybe an hour or two after it. I watched Red Dwarf Night when it came out, and it was honestly awesome having a true celebration of the series. The substance of each program was different, but it was all Red Dwarf themed and so a lot of fun!

[@RadioactiveChannel06]

Red Dwarf premiered in 1988, and the remastered versions of series 1-3 aren't in HD as they were originally shot on 480p videotape, so a true HD remastering isn't possible.

[@sam808tt2]

Lister doesn't spit on the floor, Harriot puts a bin there for him

[@mrcritical6751]

It’s a weird combination whoever came up with this idea was drunk

[@RandomAmerican3000]

You say that as if it's not a valid inspirational technique.

[@LizardClone2]

I remember seeing Ainsley on a few late night talk shows - particularly The tonight Show with Jay Leno. I think he's one of those celebrities they tried bringing over to the states but had very little success.

[@namcos]

The "Does my bum look big in this?" seemed to be an ongoing UK joke in the 90s - dunno about the US side.

[@Cyborcat]

It was here too, but it's out-of-character for Kochanski to say that. It's just kind of a lazy "self-conscious girl" stereotype.

[@marblwrexbro458]

@@Cyborcat I don't know about the US but I think it was a running joke in the UK in the 90s because it was one of the catchphrases on a British comedy sketch show called 'The Fast Show' which I also loved growing up. The character was called "the insecure woman" and was played by Arabella Weir. Mark Williams, who plays Petersen in the first 2 Red Dwarf series plays some of the characters on that.

[@RadioactiveChannel06]

If you'd seen series 12 you'd know Cat is actually a surprisingly good cook!

[@Cyborcat]

Which episode are you talking about?

[@RadioactiveChannel06]

Skipper, I apologise if you haven't seen it yet! Although to be fair it's not a huge part of the episode so I wouldn't consider it much of a spoiler.

[@Cyborcat]

No no, I've seen it, I just don't remember that part.

[@RadioactiveChannel06]

I was referring to the part where Cat makes Lister breakfast.

[@Cyborcat]

Wow, maybe I remember that slightly XD I can't believe that doesn't stand out to me more. Oh well--it wouldn't have come up until the next Cat videos anyway.

[@johnking5174]

This was a very tough episode, as Doug Naylor had to write a script for it, but it was a cookery show too, and he could not plan what would happen and the reactions of the cast to what they were cooking. Ainsley had a lot of control over this episode, he decided what would be made, and the programme had to abandon its sitcom production, and move into the daytime television, cookery show style. Hard transition for a sci-fi comedy production.

[@noahlogue]

God I loved this when I first found it.

[@TYNEPUNK]

hey should check out "carpool" too, kryten interviews the crew while driving them to work, also patrick stewart is one, some interesting red dwarf chat

[@nepntzerZer]

this is the star wars christmas special of red dwarf

[@AndrewChapman]

Only difference is we love to come back and watch it again and again.

[@lazy1119]

a nice way to get away from having to cover series 8... atleast for a week

[@jazminlunn5634]

how have I never seen this?

[@benmiller3252]

I think Patrick Stewart said that he was Outraged that he saw an episode of Red Dwarf as a rip off of Star Trek the next generation

[@AndrewChapman]

He was outraged when he first came across Red Dwarf when switching TV channels and thought it was a rip off of TNG. He came close to calling his lawyer when a moment in the episode caught his attention and made him laugh. And he soon realised Red Dwarf is its own unique sci-fi sitcom. Though it is sort of a take on Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien etc. The episode he saw in question was likely "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", especially as he'd directed a TNG episode which also had a western setting lol

[@Jayfive276]

Oh and finally, Ainsley Harriot had a music career bfore being a TV chef as one of half of the Calypso Twins. What follows is possibly one of the most 90s things you will ever see: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZCrhnytgbOkoaM

[@Cyborcat]

Wow XD

[@ystin]

i can't imagine anyone who doesn't know the uk tv show this was based on getting this

[@Cyborcat]

What's not to get?

[@dennett316]

It's in the title...Can't Cook, Won't Cook. Get people in who usually don't, or can't cook, and get them to prepare a dish. Then pick the winner.

[@orlarosebs]

more red dwarf videos

[@Cyborcat]

The next one is coming out on Friday.

[@orlarosebs]

Cyborcat yay they are amazing

[@Cyborcat]

Thanks, glad you like 'em ^.^

[@orlarosebs]

Cyborcat red dwarf forever

[@Robert_B_445]

aww yeeeeeeaaaahh!

[@calebmarmon1310]

I feel sorry for Chloe because they kept positioning her as “the woman.” Honestly they should’ve went the Elaine Benes route and made her the someone none of them want to sleep with. The magic for Lister is broken and she’s no more an object of lust than anyone else on the ship.

[@stuartomahony5364]

All creatures great and small book and two tv series James Herriot

[@QuikVidGuy]

Oh yeah I remember all those moments in the series Kris talked about being anorexic Add knifework to Dan's list of skill

[@Cyborcat]

Done.

[@TheGhostOfAGamer]

Can't Smeg, Won't Smeg is weak, not really a favourite.

[@reloadpsi]

It's a bit TOO British compared to the rest of the series.

[@MrDon4343]

@@reloadpsi From what I understand, a lot of the show, particularly series VII and VIII, was written with at least half an eye on US syndication (in particular I seem to remember that being the reason given for them being longer to bring the total number up to 52). And this very much wasn't!