We Have Ways of Making You Laugh

We Have Ways of Making You Laugh is a comedic television series produced by Humphrey Barclay and directed by Bill Turner for London Weekend Television.[1] Frank Muir hosted the show.[2] It featured Kenneth Cope,[1] Eric Idle and Katherine Whitehorn, with music and writing by Benny Green. The theme music was composed by Don Partridge and played in his 'one-man-band' style. Dick Vosburgh prepared material spoofing Jimmy Young for the show. Terry Gilliam created animations using cut-outs, a technique he later used in Monty Python's Flying Circus.[3] The series was live. Its debut broadcast was scheduled for 2 August 1968. Although the cast performed, only the first 15 seconds of the first show were transmitted, due to an industrial action[2] (other, prerecorded programming was unaffected by the labour dispute).[4] There are no known recordings of its 12 episodes.[5]

We Have Ways of Making You Laugh
title screen with host Frank Muir
GenreComedy
Directed byBill Turner
Presented byFrank Muir
Country of originUK
No. of episodes12 (all unaired)
Production
ProducerHumphrey Barclay
Production companyLondon Weekend Television
Release
Original networkITV
Original release2 August 1968 (1968-08-02)

References
  1. The Stage Year Book, Carson & Comerford Ltd., 1969, p. 129, We Have Ways of Making You Laugh with Frank Muir, Kenneth Cope, Dick Vosburgh. Prod Humphrey Barclay. Dir Bill Turner. London Weekend
  2. Louis Barfe (2013). Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment. Atlantic Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1848877573. The launch night, on Friday 2 August 1968, was to kick off with We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh, a live comedy show hosted by Muir himself [...] nobody transmitted the first We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh. Ongoing industrial action [...] meant that screens went blank after only fifteen seconds. The performers were allowed to remain oblivious and carry on [...]
  3. David Sterritt and Lucille Rhodes (2004). Terry Gilliam: Interviews. Univ. Press of Mississippi. pp. 71–73. ISBN 1578066247. [...] Humphrey went to London Weekend Television, [...] and he dragged me along with Eric Idle. There was a group [...] consisting of Benny Green, who was a jazzman and a good writer; Katherine Whitehorn, [...] [and] Dick Vosburgh, who was a great comedy writer. [...] Vosburgh had spent three months taping [...] Jimmy Young's radio show. [...] I suggested that I do an animated film. [...] the only way to work on that budget in that amount of time was to do cut-outs [...] So when it came later to doing Python [...] I didn't have the patience to draw [...] I just started cutting out the things I liked [...]
  4. David Frost (1993). "We+Have+Ways+of+Making+You+Laugh" An Autobiography: From congregations to audiences. HarperCollins. p. 364. ISBN 9780002150132. So far, we gradually learned, the strike was not continuous, but selective. Recorded programmes were still getting on the air, but live programmes like We Have Ways of Making You Laugh were not.
  5. "Missing or incomplete episodes for programme We Have Ways of Making You Laugh, lostshows.com


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