::WWW.FISTOFFUN.NET:: A Celebration Of Mediocrity. Richard Herring & Stewart Lee Archive.

FIST OF FUN SERIES TWO, SHOW THREE - BROADCAST 1st March 1996

Rich starts things off by telling us that it is, indeed, over for one of the world's most popular couples. Yes, the X-Files has finished. Undermining Stew's initial point about the marriage of Prince Charles & Lady Diana. When corrected, Rich claims that his sympathies fall on the side of Princess Di, because of all her secret work for charity. Work so secret that it was across the front of every newspaper, every day. Rich himself, apparently, does lots of secret work for charity in Diss in East Anglia where he nurses the sore paws of otters. This catches Stew's interest. He too does lots of secret work in Diss. He goes around infecting the paws of otters with salt.
Rich is puzzled. If Stew didn't do this, they wouldn't have to keep going to Diss!

Hobby loon Simon Quinlank's back.
And he is angry. Stewart Leach from Glasgow has written in to the show declaring him "a jumped-up stamp collector". To prove Stewart wrong, Quinlank provides us with this week's hobby. "Train Ignoring". For this week's hobby, you will need a pen, a list of all the rolling stock in Great Britain today, a blindfold - or some eyelids, a flask of weak lemon drink, and a trainspotter. Simon's trainspotter of choice is called Alan.
The premise of this hobby involves standing at railway sidings with the trainspotter and waiting. When you hear a train coming, cover your eyes & apply the blindfold. Your trainspotter will tell you which train has just gone past & you can then catalogue it, keeping a record of the trains that you have now ignored.

Back in the Studio, Rich is trying to fill the gap left by the X-Files with their own show. After all, what have Scully & Mulder got that Lee & Herring haven't?
Well, as Stew points out, they've got acting talent, real good looks, a top selling video, and nine million viewers in a peak time BBC one slot. But then, Stew wants the moon on a stick. The other thing, of course, that Scully & Mulder have over them, is an unconsummated sexual chemistry between the two leads, and the thought that at any moment that could spill over into flames of suppressed passion. When Rich suggests that they too could have have that, Stew points out that they would get nine viewers if they followed that road, not nine million. Undeterred, Rich throws accusations of wanting the moon on a stick at Stew, and then attempts to get the show transferred, mid-series, into a prime time BBC1 slot. Welcome to "The F-Files".

Within the "F-Files", Rich & Stew are going to take seven minutes of the show to ask the question, "Is magic real?" and then answer, "No. Of course it isn't. You twat." In doing so, they send Sally Phillips up to York, to report on the rumours that York City Football Club is magic. In another sketch culled from Lionel Nimrod we see that York City are, indeed, magic - but that they only use their magic for good purposes. Not evil like previously thought.
Or do they?
In an additional scene at the end of the report, we see Sally interviewing the footballers while showering (Tom Binns fans: look out for actor Tom Binns' penis, which apparently made it's way past the BBC censors into the broadcast edit...) and a pantomime cackle from Kevin Eldon suggests that perhaps there was something more sinister to their talents.

Magician Paul Daniels is next under the microscope, as Stew interviews "Cheryl", one of the tiny bald magician's ex-assistants who explains how the shrieking bald dwarf performed some of his tricks. For example, he made it look like he'd sawed her in half by........sawing her in half. With a saw. After the trick, false rubber legs - made by the people who make the false rubber arm for Rod Hull - were stapled to her torso, completing the illusion.
Hold on.
Rod Hull has a false rubber arm?
To asses these claims, Rod Hull, off of Summertime Special is invited back to the Studio to have his two arms tested by a doctor. Is one of them false? We may never know as, in the heat of the moment, Rod panics & knocks the doctor out cold. His subsequent demands for jelly are met with scorn from Stew after the doctor-punching incident, but he gets his jelly anyway - even if it is red, and not green like he wanted.

Seahand & Zemquitt are back again now, telling us about another film that they have improved. Some guy had approached them with a script for a film called "Reservoir Dogs". They didn't like it, get rid of the dogs & replace them with cats - and don't use a reservoir - use an alleyway. And don't call it "Reservoir Dogs", no - this should be "Top Cat The Movie".

Testing Rod's Real Arms

Some Studio banter about women being able to propose to men on the leap year's extra 29th February leads into a discussion of love & marriage, illustrated by a sketch that displays the iconography & related conceits of marriage. Rod Hull meanwhile is still trying to revive the doctor from earlier.
He hits upon the idea that his jelly may bring him round but, as Stew points out, jelly has no medicinal properties.
Fortunately, Peter's on hand to revive the doctor with his accompanying stench.