Television: You Can't Do That on Television: Sailor Suit Episodes and Sketches


Figure 1.--The producer of "You cam't do that on TV" tells us that as a little boy, " I loved the sailor suit. We lived near a port and during and just after the war I saw lots of tough looking Popeye characters wearing them. Also mine had a whistle which I went around blowing and driving adults mad. Mysteriously the pea disappeared from it overnight and it wouldn't work any more. My dad said I must have worn it out. The sailor suits satirized on YCDTOTV, however, had a different provenance in my subconscious. When I worked at Thames TV an overpowering stage mother dragged in her 14 year old son for me to audition wearing a white short trouser sailor suit.

We see sailor suits in many "You can't do that on TV" episodes. Usually this was a white sailor suit. It was presented as an outfit that only little boys would wear as was the case when the program eas produced in the 1980s. The producer of "You cam't do that on TV" tells us that as a little boy, " I loved the sailor suit. We lived near a port and during and just after the war I saw lots of tough looking Popeye characters wearing them. Also mine had a whistle which I went around blowing and driving adults mad. Mysteriously the pea disappeared from it overnight and it wouldn't work any more. My dad said I must have worn it out. The sailor suits satirized on YCDTOTV, however, had a different provenance in my subconscious. When I worked at Thames TV an overpowering stage mother dragged in her 14 year old son for me to audition wearing a white short trouser sailor suit. I always avoided mothers and kids like that. I said I had cast all the boys and was only looking for girls now. You won’t believe it. She came back next day with him in a dress and petticoats. They didn’t have a car so she had brought him about fifty miles on public transport, first in a sailor suit then in a dress! Poor kid. I insisted on taking him to the wardrobe department and dressing him in jeans and a T shirt before sending them home. Needless to say I didn’t hire him. He was actually quite good but the Mom would have been a Mommy Dearest from hell. I told him he could keep the jeans. His Mom was angry. She liked to keep him in short pants, except for about twice a week when she dressed him as a girl. She was a retired teacher and she taught him at home. I refused her the facilities to put him back in the dress for the journey home. I was angry too. If it happened nowadays I would have called the child cruelty people. I parodied that traumatic memory several times in YCDTOTV and on other shows. Ruth Buzzi and Kevin Schenk did it best in my Canada only series Whatever Turns You On. Kevin was 14 at the time and looked incredibly like the poor kid who endured it for real. Ruth portrayed the pushy Mom perfectly."





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Created: June 2, 2001
Last updated: 11:15 PM 9/2/2009