40 Fun Facts About The Two Ronnies

In The Two Ronnies sketch Four Candles, what does the hardware shop customer really want first?

Fork handles, meaning handles for garden forks, is what he wants, but his dropped aitches make the order sound like a request for candles. The shopkeeper duly puts four of them on the counter.

Barker and Corbett opened and closed every edition of The Two Ronnies sitting at a desk as what?

Newsreaders gave the shy Barker a mask to hide behind: he found it almost impossible to talk to an audience as himself, so the spoof bulletins kept both men in character.

Which Goon Show star wrote The Two Ronnies serial The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town?

Spike Milligan first planned the story as a TV special for the Goons, but Peter Sellers's Hollywood commitments sank it. The serial's credits named him and 'a Gentleman', who was Ronnie Barker.

The Two Ronnies' Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town spoofed the hunt for which killer?

Jack the Ripper is the model for the Phantom, a madman who stalks the streets and stuns or kills members of the upper classes simply by blowing a raspberry at them.

In which sitcom did Ronnie Barker of The Two Ronnies play jailbird Norman Stanley Fletcher?

Porridge takes its title from old slang for a prison sentence, after the breakfast once served in British jails. Barker privately regarded it as the finest work of his career.

In which sitcom did The Two Ronnies' Ronnie Barker play Arkwright, a stammering, miserly shopkeeper?

Open All Hours flopped at first: its 1976 run on BBC2 drew low ratings and was not renewed. Repeats on BBC1 then did so well that the BBC ordered a new series in 1980.

In The Two Ronnies serial The Worm That Turned, who has seized control of a future England?

Women run the England of 2012 in the 1980 spoof, where men keep house in frocks, the Union Jack has become the Union Jill and Big Ben is known as Big Brenda.

In The Two Ronnies spoof of the quiz Mastermind, what is odd about every reply?

It fits the previous question, because Charlie Smithers has chosen answering the question before last as his specialist subject. Each mistimed reply lands as an absurd answer to the next one.

Whose 1978 exit from the BBC left The Two Ronnies as its flagship light-entertainment show?

Morecambe and Wise left the top spot to Barker and Corbett, whose show went on to win the fiercely fought Christmas Day ratings battle year after year.

Which tiny but domineering monarch did Ronnie Corbett play in The Two Ronnies' Phantom Raspberry Blower?

Queen Victoria bullies her browbeaten son, the Prince of Wales, played by Ronnie Barker. The pairing sent up Edward the Seventh, a recent TV drama starring Timothy West.

Which towering comedian played the upper-class man beside Barker and Corbett in the 1966 Class sketch?

John Cleese wore a bowler hat beside Barker in a homburg and Corbett in a flat cap, each man looking down on the next. Marty Feldman was one of the two writers behind the sketch.

Members of which troupe, including Michael Palin and Terry Jones, wrote early Two Ronnies sketches?

Monty Python members gave the early shows a surreal streak, writing sketches in which eccentric people turn comically violent. Four of the six Pythons contributed.

What did Ronnie Corbett sit in to deliver his rambling solo monologue on The Two Ronnies?

A big easy chair made the 5 ft 1 in Corbett look smaller still as he spun one simple joke out over several minutes, wandering off on tangents before a deliberately corny punchline.

What do Piggy Malone and Charley Farley, heroes of several Two Ronnies serials, do for a living?

Private detectives Piggy (Barker) and Charley (Corbett) first appeared in the 1972 whodunnit Done to Death and came back for three more serials, the last filmed aboard a cruise liner.

In The Two Ronnies' Four Candles, what does the customer want when the shopkeeper fetches gate letter Ps?

Tins of peas is all he is after, but he only says so once the weary shopkeeper has climbed a ladder to fetch down the awkward box of gate letters for a second time.

In which country did Barker and Corbett spend 1979, later making a Two Ronnies series for the Nine Network?

Australia was a tax move: on a tip from two sitcom writers, both men took their families to Sydney for the year to avoid paying that year's income tax.

In which Scottish city was Ronnie Corbett of The Two Ronnies born, the son of a master baker?

Edinburgh was home until national service in the RAF, where Corbett was the shortest commissioned officer in the British forces. He then moved to London to become an actor.

On which night of the week did The Two Ronnies hold its prime-time 8pm slot on BBC1?

Saturday at 8pm made the show a weekly family fixture for sixteen years, from its first edition in April 1971 to a final Christmas special in 1987.

What business did Ronnie Barker open in Chipping Norton after retiring from The Two Ronnies?

An antiques shop called The Emporium kept him busy for ten years, though he joked that it lost money every week and was still cheaper than skiing.

On which 1960s BBC satire show did Barker and Corbett first perform together, before The Two Ronnies?

The Frost Report drew the two together as grammar school boys who had never been to university, in a cast and writing team made up mostly of Oxbridge graduates.

Which sitcom co-star of Ronnie Barker blew the raspberries for The Two Ronnies' Phantom Raspberry Blower?

David Jason settled an old argument in his 2013 autobiography by confirming that he made the noise. Many accounts had wrongly credited the serial's famous co-writer.

The Two Ronnies billed its Phantom Raspberry Blower as a Chopper Films production, mocking which horror studio?

Hammer was famous for Gothic horrors starring Dracula and Frankenstein, the style that the serial's stalking madman sent up.

Which name in The Two Ronnies' writing credits was really Ronnie Barker, the author of Four Candles?

Gerald Wiley was invented so that Barker's scripts would be judged on merit, not on his fame. He kept up the act by criticising his own sketches, and guesses at the real author included Tom Stoppard.

In the sitcom Sorry!, The Two Ronnies' Ronnie Corbett played a 41-year-old librarian still ruled by whom?

His mother, Phyllis, smothers Timothy Lumsden and talks him out of every attempt to leave home. The sitcom ran from 1981 to 1988, alongside the later Two Ronnies series.

Where did four candles escort the cross at the 2006 memorial service for Ronnie Barker of The Two Ronnies?

Westminster Abbey had honoured only two comedy figures this way before, Joyce Grenfell and Les Dawson. Some 2,000 people came, and the extra candles saluted his best-loved sketch.

Which English city, where Ronnie Barker of The Two Ronnies grew up, has a pub named The Four Candles?

Oxford gave Barker his schooling, his first job as a bank clerk and his start in amateur dramatics. The Wetherspoon pub named after the sketch stands on George Street.

Which tools does the assistant offer in the last gag of The Two Ronnies' Four Candles, later rewritten?

Billhooks sound close to the rude word the shopkeeper has just misread on the shopping list. Barker thought the gag too obscure and too coarse, and wrote a new ending for the stage show.

In The Two Ronnies' Four Candles, what does the shopkeeper fetch for a customer wanting a 13-amp fitting?

Bath plugs come out by the boxful after the customer asks for a rubber one for the bathroom. Only when he is asked what size does he reveal that he wants the electrical kind.

Which comedian joined Ronnie Corbett in My Blackberry Is Not Working, a 2010 homage to Four Candles?

Harry Enfield shared the sketch in The One Ronnie, a BBC One special for Corbett's 80th birthday shown on Christmas Day.

Which blonde bombshell of British cinema led the state police in The Two Ronnies serial The Worm That Turned?

Diana Dors, who found fame as a star in the Marilyn Monroe mould, played the Commander, whose guards patrol in boots and hot pants. The serial aired in 1980.

The Picnic and By the Sea, two films made by The Two Ronnies, are unusual for having no what?

Spoken dialogue gives way to sound effects, mutterings and music as a squabbling upper-class family blunders through a day out. Barker wrote both films under yet another false name.

Ronnie Barker's vast collection of which seaside souvenirs inspired The Two Ronnies film By the Sea?

Saucy postcards filled Barker's collection of more than 53,000 cards, and the film was his tribute to their best-known artist, Donald McGill, complete with a randy old general and a cheeky schoolboy.

Which composer of the Last of the Summer Wine theme also wrote the theme tune for The Two Ronnies?

Ronnie Hazlehurst loved a musical joke: his Yes Minister theme is built on the chimes of Big Ben. The opening and closing Two Ronnies themes are two sections of one longer piece.

Which sketch show offended Ronnie Barker with The Two Ninnies, its parody of The Two Ronnies?

Not the Nine O'Clock News cast Mel Smith as Barker and Griff Rhys Jones as Corbett. Barker took offence, Corbett was reportedly amused, and the song's writer also wrote songs for the real show.

Which writer for The Two Ronnies, later creator of One Foot in the Grave, wrote its Mastermind spoof?

David Renwick had tried a rougher version on the radio series The Burkiss Way before handing it to Barker, who played the quizmaster Magnus Magnusson.

Which former Doctor Who star played the judge in The Two Ronnies sketch Courtroom Quiz?

Patrick Troughton, television's second Doctor, presides while a cross-examination turns into a round of quiz-show questions. He was one of several well-known actors to guest in the later series.

Which BBC entertainment chief hired The Two Ronnies after they ad-libbed through an awards show hitch?

Bill Cotton had no idea the pair had just lost their ITV contract and were free to move. He later joked that he must have offered them too much money.

The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town began in 1971 as an episode of which ITV comedy series?

Six Dates with Barker gave each episode its own year, and this one was set in 1899 with Alan Curtis as the Phantom. Barker reworked the script for The Two Ronnies five years later.

What was Ronnie Corbett's job at London's Buckstone Club when he met his Two Ronnies partner Ronnie Barker?

Barman was Corbett's stopgap between acting jobs in 1963, while Barker was a rising West End character actor. Three years later a TV satire show cast them side by side.

In The Two Ronnies sketch Swedish Made Simple, what does each word become in the on-screen subtitles?

A single letter stands in for every word, so a whole restaurant conversation between a waiter and his customer plays out as strings of capitals that sound like English when read aloud.