Do Not Adjust Your Set

1967

Seasons & Episodes

  • 2
  • 1
7.2| NA| en| More Info
Released: 26 December 1967 Ended
Producted By:
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Do not adjust your set! is a television series produced originally by Rediffusion, London, then, by the fledgling Thames Television for British commercial television channel ITV from 26 December 1967 to 14 May 1969. The show took its name from the message which was displayed when there was a problem with transmission. It included early appearances of many actors and comedians who later became famous, such as Denise Coffey and David Jason. Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin later became members of the hugely successful Monty Python comedy troupe. Although, originally conceived as a children's programme, it quickly acquired a cult crossover following amongst many adults, including future Pythons John Cleese and Graham Chapman. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band performed a song in each programme and Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band also appeared. The musicians frequently appeared as extras in sketches. The programme comprised a series of sketches, often bizarre and surreal, frequently satirical with a disjointed style which was to become more famous in the more daring Monty Python's Flying Circus, which followed five months later. At least one DNAYS sketch was re-used in Monty Python. Strange animations between sketches were crafted in the final episodes by the then-unknown Terry Gilliam, who also graduated to Python – part of his "Christmas cards" animation reappeared there in the "Joy to the World" segment.

Genre

Comedy

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Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) is now streaming with subscription on Britbox

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Do Not Adjust Your Set Audience Reviews

Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever
SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie
XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.
Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
dryden-cooper My mini review is to say how it should be judged.When it was originally aired in the UK.The show was shown in the children's slot around 5 pm .Bear in mind at the time the UK had at the most 3 TV channels.At the time those in the show also appeared with Spike Milligan.The Goodies followed later all though the audience for them was of an adult and family nature.
Wizard-8 I just finished watching the first season of "Do Not Adjust Your Set". I was interested in this show because it was a pre-"Monty Python" show starring and written by several people who were to become part of Monty Python. Seen in that context, the show can be interesting. In many of the sketches you can see the budding of what was to become just a short time later.Though the show is interesting in showing what was to become, as entertainment, it has not aged very well. Oh, the show is not without its bright spots. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah band contribute some amusing and tuneful songs. And every so often there's something that will make you smile a little or chuckle a little. But for the most part, the humor comes across as very lame. You'll be able to figure out the punchlines for many of the sketches, for one thing. Much of the attempted humor is also not as aggressive or biting as on Monty Python. The worst part of the show has to be the Captain Fantastic sketches. They go on forever, and you'll be in agony waiting for them to end.I will entertain the possibility that when the show was first aired, it was fresh and funny, with nothing like it before. But in the decades that have passed, with more jabbing comedy teams and shows that have come up, today the show seems like feeble stuff. If you have fond memories of the show when it first aired, I would suggest let them remain memories and not revisit the show.
screenman This program was the first comedy show for kids that wasn't childish. Instead, it was silly but in an adult way. A way that we would eventually come to describe as 'Pythonesque', the style its contributors went on to develop with their Flying Circus. Originally screened before the 6 o-clock news, during what used to be called rather patronisingly 'Children's Hour', the show had sufficient comedy appeal to be re-scheduled after the news for the benefit of adults. Amongst the Python crew, David Jason cut his television milk teeth, anda very young Kenny Everett also featured from time to time, though he is not credited. David Jason played 'Captain Fantastic', a super-hero spoof based upon an earlier show called 'Captain Moonlight'. His nemesis was a prematurely-emancipated 'Mrs Black' (her absent spouse was never explained). With her lethal handbag - which contained only knobs and dials - but which could effect all manner of chaos, and her 3 cybernetic stooges called 'Blit-Men', she roamed free to wreak disaster, always one step ahead of the Captain. The excellent Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band with their bizarre musical mix of rag-time and surrealism suited the show perfectly. Who can forget 'I'm The Urban Spaceman', 'The Intro And The Outro', or the classic 'Love Is A Cylindrical Piano'? Most of their stuff is available through I-Tunes. Today it would probably seem ludicrously dated, like so much earlier stuff, so I'll just keep my memories unsullied, even if it appears on DVD. They don't make the 60's like they used to.
kittyflit I was a kid in the 1960's and this was my favorite show on TV. I suppose I was about 9 or 10 when I was watching it. When I watch clips of it now on youtube I can't understand why I thought it was funny back then. This was the pre-humor established by the Pythons which people didn't find funny until the mid-1970's (and even then not everyone found it funny). This humor was way beyond it's time, so back then it shouldn't have been funny, especially not for a child, but I really did enjoy it. It was probably one of the first shows (if not the first show) to establish that link between the staid soaps, sitcoms and standup comedy humor of the 1950's and the 1960's and what came later, starting with Python. Strangely enough, when I was old enough to stay up late and start watching Python (around 1972) I didn't find it funny at all. However, it was "in" to watch Python and talk about it at school the next day, so I pretended back then to like it. But DNAYS was a show that I actually watched because I really enjoyed it, and nobody talked about it at school the next day (as I said, we were only about 9 years old). Before I started watching clips on youtube, the only people I remembered from the show were David Jason, Denise Coffey and Eric Idle. I didn't remember the other Pythons being in it at all. And of course I remembered the Bonzos. By the time I was 16 I had all their LPs. Now there was a band who should have had a much bigger cult following!