| 01:00:00 |
BEGIN TAPE |
[CHEERFUL MUSIC] |
|
GERALDINE |
(LAUGHING) Now, I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone what that little blast of 90s nostalgia was. “Mr Bonzo’s On His Way,” which topped charts for over eleven weeks – |
|
DICKERSON |
(JOKING) Twelve. |
|
GERALDINE |
Twelve weeks, smashing the record for TV tie-in music and launching a merchandise empire. Well, today I’m here with the creator of Mr Bonzo and former host of “Saturdays on Six,” Nigel Dickerson. |
|
DICKERSON |
It’s an absolute pleasure to be here, Geraldine. Nice to be on TV again. |
|
GERALDINE |
It has been a while, hasn’t it? |
|
DICKERSON |
I’ve kept busy. |
|
GERALDINE |
So, twenty-five years since Mr Bonzo’s debut. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about how it all started? |
| 01:01:00 |
DICKERSON |
I mean, it started as a joke. Channel Six approached me in ninety-four to be the host and frontman of their Saturday night variety show. It was a risky move back then, of course – Channel Six had only existed for a year and I wasn’t exactly a household name. I mean, I was part of the BBC’s family programming, but I was hardly top of anyone’s list.
Still, “Nigel Dickerson presents Saturdays on Six,” or “Nigel’s SOS,” as they started calling it, really took off. I mean, at the end of the day it was still the same sort of variety show that BBC and ITV were running on Saturday primetime: skits, music, interviews, some on-location features. What marked us out, though, was that we didn’t take ourselves nearly as seriously as them. The whole conceit was that the set was built like an enormous comedy dungeon, and I’d been imprisoned by “Mr Six.”
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GERALDINE |
Mr Six? |
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DICKERSON |
Oh, he was our fictional head of Channel Six, and I had to do a good show so I’d be released. |
|
AUDIENCE |
[LAUGHTER] |
|
GERALDINE |
(LAUGHING) Oh, of course. |
| 01:02:00 |
DICKERSON |
We had a lot of fun with it. At the top of each show I’d get a phone call from Mr Six, who was always very angry, and he’s say he’d gotten a complaint from some busybody writing in with a name like Mrs. Sourpucker or Mr Smallprick, and then I’d be told I had to do the whole show without… I don’t know, using the words “up next” or standing on one leg or something. And people loved it. They really loved it. |
|
GERALDINE |
And where did Mr Bonzo come into it? |
|
DICKERSON |
…Yes. Mr Bonzo. Of course.
Well, one of our big things was pranks. We had a whole section called “You Got Berried!” where we’d invite on some serious public figure and make them look a bit silly, like, uh, get a famous footballer to do a bunch of kick-ups but we’d weighted the ball, and at the end I’d come out, say “You Got Berried!” and give them this big golden raspberry trophy. It was all in fun, of course. No guests were hurt.
So, one day, my producer, Rich, had this fantastic idea. We do the whole schtick of inviting a famous person on, someone really serious, and we tell them we’re going to have them do a segment with a popular children’s entertainer. Now, obviously these folks won’t have any idea about what kids are actually watching, so we could come up with the most horrendous thing, claim kids loved it, and see how long it took for the guest to realize that they were the joke. That they’d been “berried.”
So I came up with this awful clown character – this big, bulbous, splotchy suit, running around, screaming his own name and generally being a nightmare.
|
| 1:03:00 |
GERALDINE |
Who came up with the name “Mr Bonzo”? |
|
DICKERSON |
You know, I honestly don’t remember. I know it wasn’t me or Rich, but at some point someone said it and the name just stuck. I don’t really know what else to say about it. His name is Mr Bonzo.
I remember the first show we used him. We’d invited Gotard Rimbaeu – the chef. He was very big at the time. Lots of TV appearances, a cooking column in The Times. But I think he was looking to soften his public image after the Mirror ran a story on him, I don’t quite remember… |
|
GERALDINE |
“BRITAIN’S SNOOTIEST CHEF.” |
|
DICKERSON |
That was it. Yeah, after that he agreed to do a segment on our show teaching children how to cook. He’s obviously never seen the show and was completely oblivious to kids’ culture. He was absolutely perfect. |
| 1:04:00 |
AUDIENCE |
[LAUGHTER] |
|
DICKERSON |
When Mr Bonzo emerged out of the pantry, the effect was… incredible. Rimbeau’s face went white and he looked like he was about to scream. I’ll be honest, I’d seen the suit already, but I hadn’t seen it moving, and it was even freaking me out a bit.
Rimbeau tried to keep it together, as far as he knew all the kids did love Mr Bonzo, but when that big rubbery clown started knocking over pans and smashing eggs all over the studio kitchen, the “snooty chef” actually tried to hide behind a shelving unit. And finally, when Mr Bonzo went in for a cuddle, Rimbeau genuinely attacked him with a frying pan. He actually broke the arm of the guy wearing him, which I took as my cue to enter with the Golden Berry. This was on live TV, don’t forget. |
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AUDIENCE |
[GASPS] |
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GERALDINE |
Sounds like a disaster! |
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DICKERSON |
I thought so too. But according to our audience it was the best thing we’d ever done. Over the next week we got literally hundreds of letters demanding more Mr Bonzo. |
|
GERALDINE |
Even with a broken arm? |
| 1:05:00 |
DICKERSON |
Well, there was a different man in the suit, of course. There were a few of them over the years. It was very physically demanding and that wasn’t the only injury we had with it. It actually became a sort of ritual: the newest member of the production crew wore Mr Bonzo until someone else joined. |
|
GERALDINE |
Or until they got hit by a pan! (LAUGHTER) |
|
AUDIENCE |
[LAUGHTER] |
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DICKERSON |
Ha. Yes. Of course, the joke couldn’t last. The problem with a surprise prank is that doing it on Saturday night primetime means pretty soon everyone knows about it, and the guests knew it was coming. A couple even requested it. So the prank part of it sort of died, and he just became an SOS mascot. One of my many tormentors in the dungeon. By the end we’d even retired Mr Six, and it was all Bonzo. |
|
GERALDINE |
Clearly it was the right decision. |
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DICKERSON |
The kids certainly liked him. It turned out they really did think he was hilarious. Well, the ones who didn’t wet themselves, anyway. |
|
GERALDINE |
[LAUGHTER] |
| 1:06:00 |
DICKERSON |
There was a pretty stark dividing line between the two. Soon it was Bonzomania: merch sales were through the roof; “underserving number one hit single” actually did become a number one hit single, and we even started construction on a small Bonzoland theme park at one point.
It was… It was a good time. |
|
GERALDINE |
And then – |
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DICKERSON |
And then we all know what happened. People… stopped liking Mr Bonzo. |
|
GERALDINE |
If you don’t feel comfortable discussing Terrance Menki, we could move on to – |
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DICKERSON |
No, it’s fine.
You know it was only the last one, right? The one where he was caught? The police said there were eleven bodies in total and his wardrobe was full of all sorts of homemade costumes – who knows what he wore for the rest? But no. Because he was caught dressed as Mr Bonzo, that’s all people remember, the, uh, the… |
|
GERALDINE |
The “Bonzo Butcher.” |
| 1:07:00 |
DICKERSON |
The Bonzo Butcher! (ANGRY) Ridiculous tabloid garbage. It didn’t even look like him! He got the colors backwards! But they still splashed the image all over the front page. Complete overreaction. |
|
GERALDINE |
An “overreaction”? |
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DICKERSON |
(CALMED DOWN) No, I mean, uh, it was inappropriate. To show to the public, I mean. |
|
GERALDINE |
It certainly had a profound effect on the Mr Bonzo brand. |
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DICKERSON |
Bonzoland halted construction shortly afterwards, and the suits decided it was best to “temporarily” halt production on SOS. |
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GERALDINE |
And how about you personally? |
|
DICKERSON |
Well, of course I got death threats. We had nothing to do with it, obviously, but people can be very stupid about this sort of thing. Anyway, that was that – in the minds of the public, Mr Bonzo had been completely changed.
…I’m given to understand he’s still got some fans. In the, uh, edgier parts of the internet. As a “meme.” |
|
GERALDINE |
Yes, I was going to ask – Mr Bonzo merchandise is still on sale via your own website. Do you feel at all uneasy about that? |
| 1:08:00 |
DICKERSON |
About what? The fact that a few sales might be from people trying to be edgy? A man’s got to make a living, Geraldine, and it’s not like I can tell if someone’s buying a t-shirt ironically. Besides, people think of Nigel Dickerson and Mr Bonzo is never far behind, so it’s not like its changing my reputation. In a lot of ways I’m more his prisoner now than I ever was on my show. |
|
GERALDINE |
And how do you respond to the more recent rumours? |
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DICKERSON |
Excuse me? |
|
GERALDINE |
The witness statements from three murders over the last five years – |
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DICKERSON |
I told your producer this wasn’t going to be discussed. |
|
GERALDINE |
– that claim a person in a Mr Bonzo costume was at the scene? Do you think there could be a copycat? |
|
DICKERSON |
This interview is over. Don’t contact us again. |
|
GERALDINE |
Us? |
|
DICKERSON |
(SHOUTING) It was a joke, alright!? Mr Bonzo was meant to be funny, make people laugh! Is that so wrong? Why am I still trapped dealing with all this, this – Why won’t he let me go?! Why – |
| 1:09:00 |
END TAPE |
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