Brits are great at calling-out bad behaviour using humour. At the time this was broadcast the police were often in the spotlight for Racism and this sketch nailed the extent of the problem.
This was 1980. The joke is that “Constable Savage” (London Metropolitan Police) is a thick racist. Rather than getting sacked he’s transferred to the SPG a (now long disbanded) special squad that had a reputation for extreme violence and racism. 😂
The SPG (Special Patrol Group) were a (now-disbanded) police unit that had a reputation for racism and violence. What a load of rubbish. They had justification for profiling and it is still relevant today. But we are not allowed to mention the races involved in violent crimes but we all know who they are.
@ Well, from recollection when assisting the (real) Sweeney, they managed to shoot a “wanted armed robber” driving a Mini about 20 times-who then transpired to be instead the son of a sitting High Court judge…🤷🏻♂️
@@normandavidtidiman9918 yes the SPG were notorious in the 70s and 80s foe being thugs in police uniforms - their bully boy tactics were in part respeonsible for the Brixton riots and others of that era - if further proof was needed of this - Vivian in the young ones named his hamster SPG
It's not the only sketch Not the Nine O'Clock News did about the SPG. There was one in which an officer bursts through the front door of a home,smashes several objects including a vase of flowers violently and shouts something like "SPG man! Come out with your hands up". His wife appears and says something like "oh darling,I do wish you wouldn't bring your work home with you."
In case anyone wonders... the Hedgehog at the end is a reference to an apology they had to do at the start of this program about a song (about Truck Drivers) they did in the previous episode, when a truck drove over a (stuffed) hedgehog - the BBC got several compaints about that - so, they had to do an apology at the start, which they turned into a joke, of course
Not The Nine O'clock News: An 80s sketch show broadcast on BBC2 at 9pm when the real news was being shown on BBC1. There were just 4 people doing it. Rowan Atkinson - who later went on to do Mr. Bean & the 4 Blackadder series, Griff Rhys Jones - he hasn't much else, apart from writing & doing a comedy series with another from NTNON. Mel Smith - sadly passed away a few years ago, but did Alas Smith and Jones, a mainly 2 handed sketch show with Griff. Lastly there was Pamela Stephenson, an intelligent woman who helped with the sketches who became a psychoanalyst & married the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly.
I watched this as a child in the 70's . They were very funny and not politically correct. SPG are the biggest thugs in the Police force usually seen being heavy handed in riot gear.
Hi Guys. I have been a subscriber for a few weeks & live in England. I want to offer you some guidance on English/British humour. It’s important to understand that many of the comedy shows from the 1970s through to the early 2000s were all about self deprecating humour, that is, where the English are making fun of themselves, highlighting the bigotry that comes with certain professions, in this case, the new Constable who is racist but doesn’t really see the problem until his superior, Rowan Atkinson points it out to him. What is being highlighted is the ignorance of the Constable, showing him to be a fool in continuing to harass the black gentleman. You will see this ignorance repeated in other series too where the ‘white man’ is confronted by a black man in a situation he cannot control. To see just how funny this can be & how this ignorance of the white English man makes you laugh at him, you really need to watch ‘Love Thy Neighbour’, the first episode. This series was filmed in the 1970s & became a hit as it featured the bigotry & hypocrisy of character Eddie Booth who arrives back from holiday with his wife to find they have new neighbours next door, a black couple, Bill & Barbie Reynolds. What follows are hilarious exchanges as the two couples get to know each other & Bill is constantly getting the better of Eddie. Please watch this as it was great at showing just how ridiculous racism & bigotry are. I promise you will laugh a lot at this. Best wishes to you all 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
A classic sketch from the era of 80s alternative comedy. Laughing aside, not a great deal has changed with regards to the police in London. In 1988, I was on my way to see some friends who lived in central London. I was 21, white and had long hair and leather jacket, so basically a typical 80s heavy metal fan. I had just walked outside an underground station when a police van pulled up, and several cops got out and stopped and searched me for drugs "because I looked like someone they were after". I wasn't arrested and they didn't find anything, but that kind of stop and search thing was out of order. When a young black man by the name of Stephen Lawrence was murdered by racists in London in 1993, the Met Police handled the case very badly due to institutionalised racism in the force. You can Google Stephen Lawrence murder.
The sketch was an instant classic; more so because the UK police at the time had a dreadful reputation for racism. SPG stands for Special Patrol Group; a somewhat notorious police unit from the same period. Vivian on The Young Ones had a pet hamster with a Glasgow accent called SPG.
It was 1980s not the nine oclock news was fantastic . Check out a song they sang called I LIKE TRUCKING ... and check out THE DARTS SKETCH you will laugh hard guys
U guys haven't seen the irony of his name, PC. Savage. The series was called Not the nine o'clock news. Watch it guys and what's sad is here in UK this is starting to be real!!!
Them fast dudes, thats was me when i played, their called wingers as the run down the wings of the rugby pitch. Its like a running back, you get the ball, and run, move just to get the other end.
Can you provide one single instance where this has happened? If you mean the summer riots, those people were spreading hate speech and incitement to violence, a serious offence. You sound like Stewart Lee's "They throw you in jail just for being British these days" routine.
Sadly still asleep while daily following the MSM narrative? "People like Trump" - you think things are decent now? Do you like Sleepy Joe or Kamala, or Keir Starmer the better?
This was made at a time when there were many comedies based on the bigot is the thick one showing, if you were prejudice you were thick. Watch Rising Damp from the beginning, it gets funnier as it goes along. We British are very thick skinned what ever our colour.
This clip is nearly 40 years old. The SPG - Special Patrol Group -was a public order group in the Metropolitan (London) Police. Originally created to deal with football hooliganism, it gained a reputation for excessive aggression and violence. It also developed a reputation for racism when dealing with events involving the Afro-Caribbean community in particular. It was disband after members of the SPG beat to death a white man called Blair Peach. Peach was a New Zealander working as a teacher in London. Walking home fro work, he passed the edge of a riot involving members of the black community. Peach had long hair and a beard and looked like the typical white middle class leftie agitator. The SPG assumed he was one of those stirring up the riot and beat him up; he died from his injuries. An inquiry identified that the killers had come from one of two six-man SPG teams, but were unable to identify the guilty team because none of the 12 would cooperate with the inquiry. Consequently, no prosecution was brought. Each team was mounted in its own van. Police helicopters video footage from the riot was able to confirm that the killers came from one of the two vans, but not which one. It is for this reason all police vehicles, since the late 1980’s, in the UK have had a large identity code painted on the roof
@rjjcms1 Peach was a Socialist Workers Party & ANL member,a professional leftie. He wasn't "caught up" in the situation,he was part of it. Like today,middle class liberal lefties think they can stir up trouble with impunity. Unfortunately for Peach that wasn't the case.
"Peach had long hair and a beard and looked like the typical white middle class leftie agitator". That's EXACTLY what he was 🙄 He was a fully paid up member of both the SWP and the ANL. He was there as like all SWP & ANL protests were/are,to cause trouble and basically attack the police and members of (in this case) the National Front. No one knows who actually killed him.
@@starrlarh Come on man,,. Those are 2 grown men.. if It was just one, I'd pay for him. Plus dental hospitals do a lot of promotions, You can get a good deal or pay installmentally. I'm not even trying to be hater cuz I love what y'all do. But them teeth gotta get straightened.
Brits are great at calling-out bad behaviour using humour. At the time this was broadcast the police were often in the spotlight for Racism and this sketch nailed the extent of the problem.
Perfect way to make a serious point and be hilariously funny at the same time.
This was 1980. The joke is that “Constable Savage” (London Metropolitan Police) is a thick racist. Rather than getting sacked he’s transferred to the SPG a (now long disbanded) special squad that had a reputation for extreme violence and racism. 😂
Now the SPG unit is known as the Territorial Support Group.
The SPG (Special Patrol Group) were a (now-disbanded) police unit that had a reputation for racism and violence.
What a load of rubbish.
They had justification for profiling and it is still relevant today. But we are not allowed to mention the races involved in violent crimes but we all know who they are.
Did they have a reputation for "extreme violence"? 🤔
@
Well, from recollection when assisting the (real) Sweeney, they managed to shoot a “wanted armed robber” driving a Mini about 20 times-who then transpired to be instead the son of a sitting High Court judge…🤷🏻♂️
@@normandavidtidiman9918 yes the SPG were notorious in the 70s and 80s foe being thugs in police uniforms - their bully boy tactics were in part respeonsible for the Brixton riots and others of that era - if further proof was needed of this - Vivian in the young ones named his hamster SPG
The SPG (Special Patrol Group) were a (now-disbanded) police unit that had a reputation for racism and violence.
Thats putting it mildly.
It was also the name of Vivian’s hamster in the young ones
@@cheryltotheg2880 I forgot about that.
Good times
It's not the only sketch Not the Nine O'Clock News did about the SPG. There was one in which an officer bursts through the front door of a home,smashes several objects including a vase of flowers violently and shouts something like "SPG man! Come out with your hands up". His wife appears and says something like "oh darling,I do wish you wouldn't bring your work home with you."
Evening from an English woman. Its great that you're listening with a light heart and a raw sense of humour. Thanks for posting.
In case anyone wonders... the Hedgehog at the end is a reference to an apology they had to do at the start of this program about a song (about Truck Drivers) they did in the previous episode, when a truck drove over a (stuffed) hedgehog
- the BBC got several compaints about that
- so, they had to do an apology at the start, which they turned into a joke, of course
HI from an old Englishman - you guys are great = happy and have great laughs = keep it up
Not The Nine O'clock News: An 80s sketch show broadcast on BBC2 at 9pm when the real news was being shown on BBC1. There were just 4 people doing it. Rowan Atkinson - who later went on to do Mr. Bean & the 4 Blackadder series, Griff Rhys Jones - he hasn't much else, apart from writing & doing a comedy series with another from NTNON. Mel Smith - sadly passed away a few years ago, but did Alas Smith and Jones, a mainly 2 handed sketch show with Griff. Lastly there was Pamela Stephenson, an intelligent woman who helped with the sketches who became a psychoanalyst & married the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly.
Thank you for recognising comedy 👍😂
I watched this as a child in the 70's . They were very funny and not politically correct. SPG are the biggest thugs in the Police force usually seen being heavy handed in riot gear.
Not the nine o'clock news, it was excellent 🤣
And the memory of the show after all these years kinda lingers
@tonycritcher3419 🤣 that song 🤣.
Gerald the gorilla 🦍 🤣
@@Smithjones12 'David b***** Attenborough!' 'Wild, I was absolutely livid!'. Not forgetting the Kate bush parody!
@@tonycritcher3419
Wild I was livid 🤣
@@Smithjones12 It certainly was a great time for comedy, people I'd never heard of and then becoming completely unforgettable!
It's to make racists look stupid, humour back then was to laugh at racists, the public knew it was wrong.
In the UK, the pavement is what you in the US call the sidewalk.
It's called British humour love❤
Who would have been thought this would become reality
One of the classics.
Hi Guys. I have been a subscriber for a few weeks & live in England. I want to offer you some guidance on English/British humour. It’s important to understand that many of the comedy shows from the 1970s through to the early 2000s were all about self deprecating humour, that is, where the English are making fun of themselves, highlighting the bigotry that comes with certain professions, in this case, the new Constable who is racist but doesn’t really see the problem until his superior, Rowan Atkinson points it out to him. What is being highlighted is the ignorance of the Constable, showing him to be a fool in continuing to harass the black gentleman. You will see this ignorance repeated in other series too where the ‘white man’ is confronted by a black man in a situation he cannot control. To see just how funny this can be & how this ignorance of the white English man makes you laugh at him, you really need to watch ‘Love Thy Neighbour’, the first episode. This series was filmed in the 1970s & became a hit as it featured the bigotry & hypocrisy of character Eddie Booth who arrives back from holiday with his wife to find they have new neighbours next door, a black couple, Bill & Barbie Reynolds. What follows are hilarious exchanges as the two couples get to know each other & Bill is constantly getting the better of Eddie. Please watch this as it was great at showing just how ridiculous racism & bigotry are. I promise you will laugh a lot at this. Best wishes to you all 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Well said, wonderful explanation. It applied to many shows and did a lot to quietly educate the ignorant folks.
it doesnt need explaining. Young folks today get it. They arent tadpoles.
A classic sketch from the era of 80s alternative comedy. Laughing aside, not a great deal has changed with regards to the police in London. In 1988, I was on my way to see some friends who lived in central London. I was 21, white and had long hair and leather jacket, so basically a typical 80s heavy metal fan. I had just walked outside an underground station when a police van pulled up, and several cops got out and stopped and searched me for drugs "because I looked like someone they were after". I wasn't arrested and they didn't find anything, but that kind of stop and search thing was out of order. When a young black man by the name of Stephen Lawrence was murdered by racists in London in 1993, the Met Police handled the case very badly due to institutionalised racism in the force. You can Google Stephen Lawrence murder.
The sketch was an instant classic; more so because the UK police at the time had a dreadful reputation for racism. SPG stands for Special Patrol Group; a somewhat notorious police unit from the same period. Vivian on The Young Ones had a pet hamster with a Glasgow accent called SPG.
It was 1980s not the nine oclock news was fantastic . Check out a song they sang called I LIKE TRUCKING ... and check out THE DARTS SKETCH you will laugh hard guys
They used to do parody songs as well,like the Ayatollah Song.
U guys haven't seen the irony of his name, PC. Savage. The series was called Not the nine o'clock news. Watch it guys and what's sad is here in UK this is starting to be real!!!
The punch line. transfering you to the SPG. That's Special Patrol Group.
Special Police Group - they didn't patrol as such, but were called in when violence and thuggery were seen as a requirement to solve an altercation.
it says on the screen that you were looking at at the beginning that it was 1980.
Them fast dudes, thats was me when i played, their called wingers as the run down the wings of the rugby pitch.
Its like a running back, you get the ball, and run, move just to get the other end.
You do know American football came from England. 😂
Most Americans come from somewhere else! As do most Brits!
Forget mr bean guys. Try Blackadder .
Well its stupid to call a touch down a touch down when they don't even touch the ground 😂
Crazy 😂
this is the UK today. hurty words? arrested. say bad things about rap1sts? arrested. praying? arrested.
Can you provide one single instance where this has happened? If you mean the summer riots, those people were spreading hate speech and incitement to violence, a serious offence. You sound like Stewart Lee's "They throw you in jail just for being British these days" routine.
It was ahead of its time and sadly will probably still be very relevant when people like Trump have power.
Sadly still asleep while daily following the MSM narrative? "People like Trump" - you think things are decent now? Do you like Sleepy Joe or Kamala, or Keir Starmer the better?
When did police Constables become Police officers?...there is a huge difference between the two
I used to work with a racist old white guy that swore blind this sketch was about black people being too touchy and not about a racist cop?!?!?
Special police group yes rember them well
The racist policeman was called 'Constable Subbidge', not Constable Savage.
No, he's called Savage.
I suspect that Reform would love to bring the SPG back - in some form - and that there would be a willing batch of volunteers from their voters.
Oh look a bigot, the irony.
This was made at a time when there were many comedies based on the bigot is the thick one showing, if you were prejudice you were thick. Watch Rising Damp from the beginning, it gets funnier as it goes along. We British are very thick skinned what ever our colour.
Use gotta watch still game be warned you will need subtitles 😂🎉 xx
Ask how only have messed up ears thats why some are wearing protection. Them nothing burgers of a helmet.
This group of individuals has no conception of British humour.
Must be some 40 yrs old. But funny.
Special patrol group.
Dealt with terrorism and things an pc can't deal with londons metropolitan estabulary.
This clip is nearly 40 years old. The SPG - Special Patrol Group -was a public order group in the Metropolitan (London) Police. Originally created to deal with football hooliganism, it gained a reputation for excessive aggression and violence. It also developed a reputation for racism when dealing with events involving the Afro-Caribbean community in particular. It was disband after members of the SPG beat to death a white man called Blair Peach. Peach was a New Zealander working as a teacher in London. Walking home fro work, he passed the edge of a riot involving members of the black community. Peach had long hair and a beard and looked like the typical white middle class leftie agitator. The SPG assumed he was one of those stirring up the riot and beat him up; he died from his injuries.
An inquiry identified that the killers had come from one of two six-man SPG teams, but were unable to identify the guilty team because none of the 12 would cooperate with the inquiry. Consequently, no prosecution was brought.
Each team was mounted in its own van. Police helicopters video footage from the riot was able to confirm that the killers came from one of the two vans, but not which one. It is for this reason all police vehicles, since the late 1980’s, in the UK have had a large identity code painted on the roof
Wasn't that a National Front rally,against which a counter-demonstration took place in which Mr Peach was caught up?
@rjjcms1 Peach was a Socialist Workers Party & ANL member,a professional leftie. He wasn't "caught up" in the situation,he was part of it. Like today,middle class liberal lefties think they can stir up trouble with impunity. Unfortunately for Peach that wasn't the case.
"Peach had long hair and a beard and looked like the typical white middle class leftie agitator". That's EXACTLY what he was 🙄 He was a fully paid up member of both the SWP and the ANL. He was there as like all SWP & ANL protests were/are,to cause trouble and basically attack the police and members of (in this case) the National Front. No one knows who actually killed him.
Coughing without due care and attention, now illegal thanks to COVID-19 Act.
Ah yes, I remember the days before Covid when people *checks notes* enjoyed being coughed at. Do you know how mental you sound?
Where are these people from I cant understand a word ? Can we have subtitles as I wanna see what they say and laughter at
Cant understand a word they are saying??
Because you listen with an accent!
Guys, Fix your teeth.. It's literally so cheap.
Shame you won't be able to fix your personality. Seriously, what is wrong with you?
It cost $1200 here. You can help with the bills 🫣😁
@@starrlarh Come on man,,. Those are 2 grown men.. if It was just one, I'd pay for him. Plus dental hospitals do a lot of promotions, You can get a good deal or pay installmentally. I'm not even trying to be hater cuz I love what y'all do. But them teeth gotta get straightened.
How bloody rude@kayladradshaw5972
WTF ???
The Irish cops are arresting Irish people for being "TOO IRISH" 😂