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Punch & Judy

Analogue Boy

Bar 6
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
13,448
As I've been mentioning Mr. Punch a lot on 'The Meaning of Crocodiles' thread and as he is a British cultural icon (even though he is an Italian import) I thought this strange fellow deserves a thread.
There's oddness, psychosis, symbolism and, of course, extreme violence in his history that goes back to his first critical review by Samuel Pepys in 1662.

 
He does get under people's skin doesn't he? Nearly as many children seem to be frightened as others are delighted by his antisocial antics.

According to a half-remembered anecdote from a biography I read, when Tony Hancock was shooting 1963's 'The Punch and Judy Man' - set in a slightly shabby English seaside town (my favourite kind if I'm honest) - and was feeling quite gloomy about the way the production was going he spoke fatalistically of Punch as though he were an actual malevolent entity with a life of his own.

"It's HIM",
he said, to John Le Mesurier (or whoever it was) " - it's Punch. He won't let it happen..."

...and I've always enjoyed these lines on the fictional 'mischevious and devious' MDMA merchant Ebeneezer Goode, presented as the archetypal Lord of Misrule by The Shamen:

"A gentleman of leisure he's there for your pleasure
But go easy on old 'Ezeer he's the love you could lose
Extraordinary fellow, like Mr Punchinello
He's the kind of geezer who must never be abused".
 
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I love the Hancock film and can remember seeing it on television way back, before they trimmed it.

For a while, the missing scenes were posted on Youtube. But they have long-since been removed on copyright grounds.

Some say it was done for the sake of decency but the usual account says it was done to fit the two Hancock features onto one 3-hour videotape*. I don't think this is entirely true: double-features usually came after single-issue versions and my single-issue Punch & Judy Man is also abridged.

In the original version, Hancock was seen to shove [his wife's table decoration of] flowers up a piggy-bank's arse.

The spirit of Punch clearly lived on in this gesture. :rasp:

*Annoyingly, the same abridged master has been used for subsequent DVD issues.
 
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According to a half-remembered anecdote from a biography I read, when Tony Hancock was shooting 1963's 'The Punch and Judy Man' - set in a slightly shabby English seaside town (my favourite kind if I'm honest) - and was feeling quite gloomy about the way the production was going he spoke fatalistically of Punch as though he were an actual malevolent entity with a life of his own.

"It's HIM",
he said, to John Le Mesurier (or whoever it was) " - it's Punch. He won't let it happen..."
That seaside town was Bognor Regis, where I lived. They were advertising for extras at the time, and I and a few friends thought we'd try our luck, but when we saw the length of the queue we lost interest.
 
Don't blame you! According to the always-reliable wikipedia there were over 2,000 hopefuls.
 
I love the Hancock film and can remember seeing it on television way back, before they trimmed it.

For a while, the missing scenes were posted on Youtube. But they have long-since been removed on copyright grounds.

Some say it was done for the sake of decency but the usual account says it was done to fit the two Hancock features onto one 3-hour videotape*. I don't think this is entirely true: double-features usually came after single-issue versions and my single-issue Punch & Judy Man is also abridged.

In the original version, Hancock was seen to shove [his wife's table decoration of] flowers up a piggy-bank's arse.

The spirit of Punch clearly lived on in this gesture. :rasp:

*Annoyingly, the same abridged master has been used for subsequent DVD issues.

I don't remember that scene at all. It's difficult to believe it was cut to keep the running time down as I can't imagine it lasting more than a few seconds to have any chance of providing a powerful full stop to the silent resentful breakfast.

I wouldn't mind seeing the other deleted scenes. Perhaps they'll turn up on YT again, as everything always does :)
 
Sunday Morning with Hancock & Rynner:

Hancock: Oh dear! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

Rynner: Sunday morning again, is it?

Hancock: What time is it?

Rynner: Time we went back to bed.

Hancock: You finished with the paper?

Rynner: There's nothing on the telly.

Hancock: I was just wondering. How's Macmillan getting on, dear old Harold . . . ?

Rynner: You call him old?

Hancock: Just wondering, you know. How's your computer?

Rynner: Man can't get out till Wednesday. He'll never repair it anyway.

Hancock: Well there's always Wetherspoons, I suppose. Lend me ten bob?

Rynner: Next bus has gone.

Hancock: Well, look on the bright side, eh. "pcheers:
 
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If you'll indulge me:


I've seen this painting dozens of time as I grew up a stone's throw from Leeds Castle, where it is on display.

1007808.jpg
Tiepolo_The-Punchinellos-Kitchen.jpg


The Punchinellos Kitchen by Giambattista Tiepolo the elder (1696-1770) hangs above the fireplace of the Yellow Drawing Room. I believe he made quite a fetish of this proto-punch.
 
Well, well, well. He's still making the news.

Was Mr Punch suffering from tuberculosis? Researcher says the puppet's hooked nose, large chin and protruding forehead were meant to show he had the disease
  • Findings by Italian scientist Dr Francesco Galassi are set to be published in European Journal of Internal Medicine
  • British researcher previously claimed Mr Punch had acromegaly, a disease which causes abnormal growth
  • Dr Galassi says this did not account for fact that puppet has small hands
  • He also said TB would better explain Mr Punch's curvature of the spine
Violent puppet Mr Punch may have acquired his grotesque features because he was suffering from tuberculosis, a scientist has claimed.

The seaside favourite, famous for his attacks on wife Judy, has historically been portrayed with a hooked nose, large chin, protruding forehead and curved spine.

This, an Italian researcher argues, shows he had the potentially fatal disease.

Dr Francesco Galassi has researched a paper which is set to be published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine this month.

0613154E0000044D-3313380-image-a-13_1447234277513.jpg


The ugly truth? Violent puppet Mr Punch may owe have acquired his hooked nose, large chin, protruding forehead and curved spine because he was suffering from tuberculosis, an Italian scientist has claimed

His findings contradict those of British researcher David Bryson who claimed in 1996 the character was suffering from acromegaly, a disease of the pituitary gland which causes abnormal growth.

Dr Galassi told The Local: 'Tuberculosis is a disease that would better explain the origins of the character.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ing-forehead-meant-disease.html#ixzz4n0Szk3sV
 
Also from that article....

The puppet later became known as Punchinello and finally Mr Punch.

But their roots can be traced back even further to the character of Macchus in a series of fables from Ancient Rome in 391BC which sought to highlight humanity's base instincts and 'deformed' features, Dr Galassi said.


Professor Frank Ruehli from the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine in Zurich said attempts to diagnose historical characters was important to understanding society at that time.

He said: 'By looking at paintings and other depictions we can see if a particular disease may have been around or not and what the medical and social importance of it was.'



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ing-forehead-meant-disease.html#ixzz4n0Um2mwK
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
 
Wiki has this...

Atellan Farce
The Atellan Farce (Latin: Atellanae Fabulae or Fabulae Atellanae,[1] "favola atellana[2]" ; Atellanicum exhodium, "Atella comedies[3]"), also known as the Oscan Games (Latin: ludi Osci, "Oscan plays"), were masked improvised farces.[4] It was very popular in Ancient Rome, and usually put on after longer plays like the pantomime.[5] The name is believed to have been derived from Atella, an Oscan town in Campania, who were one of the first to have a theatre and the hypothesized point of origin of Atellan Farce.[6][7][8] They were originally written in Oscan and imported into Rome in 391 BC. In later Roman versions, only the ridiculous characters read their lines in Oscan, while the others used Latin.

Stock characters
Some of the hypothesized stock characters included:

  • Maccus (a hunchbacked, beak nosed character)[9][10]
  • Buccus (the country booby)[10]
  • Manducus (the arrogant soldier)[10]
  • Pappus (the old man)[10]
  • Centunculus (the comic slave) [10]
  • Dosseunus (the pompous doctor) [10]
There has been some debate of these characters connection to similar stock characters in Commedia dell'arte, as well as Punch and Judy. Atellan Farce and Commedia were both improvised masked comedies. Some Historians argue that the stock characters in Atellan Farce are the beginnings of what would become the stock characters of Commedia dell'arte.

Some of the theorized character progressions are as follows:

However, the connection of Atellan Farce to Commedia dell'arte and assumption that Atellan Farce is the precursor to Commedia dell'arte is still under debate.[16] As for Atellan Farce's connection to Punch and Judy, the similarities between Punch and the Commedia dell'arte character Pulcinella are notable. However, many historians still debate whether or not Punch's derivation can be traced back to Pulcinella.
 
fascinating re-inerpretation of Mr Punch in Ben Aaronovitche's "Rivers of London". Good read for a lazy summer afternoon.
 
Here's a character I never heard of before...

Fragments of two quite primitive texts came to me a few years ago along with a puppet set. At the end of one, Punch has a fight with a creature called “Nightgrab,” and comes up with yet another farewell, befitting his birdlike attacker:

Punch. What are you thinking about you nasty snappy beast? Do you think I am

something to eat? I will kill you. (Hits the animal on the head)

Nightgrab. (cries) Tweet, Tweet, Tweeeeeeet!

Punch. (hits the animal dead) We do not want creatures like you in this world.

Now that you are very dead, you will be skinned and kept in an art

cabinet.

(Drags out the animal and sings.) La! La! Ladidum. Da.

http://www.oldwoodtoys.com/punch_&_judy.htm
 
Punch and Judy comes into the mystery of the man Kay meets at the start of Masefield's Box of Delights. Personally I find them terryfying even now.

Isn't there an MR James story?
 
Punch and Judy comes into the mystery of the man Kay meets at the start of Masefield's Box of Delights. Personally I find them terryfying even now.

Isn't there an MR James story?

Indeed there is.
“It [the dream] began with what I can only describe as a pulling aside of curtains: and I found myself seated in a place—I don’t know whether in doors or out. There were people—only a few—on either side of me, but I did not recognize them, or indeed think much about them. They never spoke, but, so far as I remember, were all grave and pale-faced and looked fixedly before them. Facing me there was a Punch and Judy Show, perhaps rather larger than the ordinary ones, painted with black figures on a reddish-yellow ground. Behind it and on each side was only darkness, but in front there was a sufficiency of light…

I believe someone once tried to re-write Punch as a serious tragedy; but whoever he may have been, this performance would have suited him exactly. There was something Satanic about the hero. He varied his methods of attack: for some of his victims he lay in wait, and to see his horrible face—it was yellowish white, I may remark—peering round the wings made me think of the Vampyre in Fuseli’s foul sketch… But with all of them I came to dread the moment of death. The crack of the stick on their skulls, which in the ordinary way delights me, had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way, and the victims quivered and kicked as they lay. The baby—it sounds more ridiculous as I go on—the baby, I am sure, was alive. Punch wrung its neck, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, I know nothing of reality.....

It gets creepier....

From 14m on...

 
:h5: that's it! I've perceived it a one of the lesser known ones, if such a thing can be said to exist.
 
Well guess who I bumped into today?

Mr.Punch operating a booth in a market in the Midlands. It’s quite a surprise to encounter the fellow so far from the seaside. The puppets were traditional. The story started with Toby the Dog wrestling the slapstick from Punch and giving him his first beating. Punch then beats the Dog. The dog’s owner Tommy turns up and Punch beats him up too. Then we get to see Judy and the kissing routine. Then the Baby arrives and we have the Walkie, Walkie, Walkie scene ending up with Punch sitting on the Baby.
Judy- ‘What are you doing?’
Punch- ‘Babysitting’.

Judy calls for the Constable.

There was then a scene where Joey the Clown meets The Ghost. At first, the ghost appears as a white rabbit, appearing and disappearing as Joey asks the audience to tell him when it appears. The rabbit is then suddenly replaced by a rather sinister skull-faced white figure in a dark cloak who lies prone on the playboard. Joey makes The Ghost face the wall and asks the children to shout if he turns around. There’s a lot of shouting and misdirection going on at this point along the panto lines of he’s behind you.
The Ghost has a final trick where his head extends way above his puppet body and both characters were then whisked away from the playboard.
Then there’s the scene with Mr.Punch, The Crocodile and the sausages.
This is followed by a brief spat between Punch and The Devil before the Constable arrives to lead Punch to prison. ‘Bye, bye boys and girls’ says Punch as he’s led away.

Justice has been done.

So after the performance, I asked about the show and chatted about some points made on this thread and The Crocodile. I got shown the inner workings of the booth which is very cramped but the puppets are hung on hooks according to appearance in the performance. Punch is ALWAYS on the right hand. The Swazzle is kept in a cup of antiseptic and The Professor says he’s never swallowed one but it’s only a matter of time.
I asked The Professor if he ever does ‘The Hanging’. He said he doesn’t as kids today don’t get it.

All in all, an unexpected treat for a Punch fan like me, a golden opportunity in fact.
Like they say.... You don’t find Punch. He finds you.
 
I loved it when he showed me the booth. It’s half the size of a phone box and he said ‘Excuse the mess, I’ve just done the show’.
 
I loved it when he showed me the booth. It’s half the size of a phone box and he said ‘Excuse the mess, I’ve just done the show’.

Did he let you try his swazzle?

'cos if he did, I'm not kissing you.
 
Reading this thread suddenly reminded me of Joy Sarney's 1977 one hit wonder 'Naughty, Naughty, Naughty'.

Its got some proper questionable lyrics 'He's been in trouble with the law for grievous bodily harm…but I believe his temper’s just for show' - I think someone's in denial there Joy!

I'll bet its the only time Mr Punch has appeared on Top of the Pops - that episode was hosted by Noel Edmonds, so at least Mr Punch was safe from you-know-who. This song always creeped me out as a kid though.

 
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Reading this thread suddenly reminded me of Joy Sarney's 1977 one hit wonder 'Naughty, Naughty, Naughty'.

Its got some proper questionable lyrics 'He's been in trouble with the law for grievous bodily harm…but I believe his temper’s just for show' - I think someone's in denial there Joy!

I'll bet its the only time Mr Punch has appeared on Top of the Pops - that episode was hosted by Noel Edmonds, so at least Mr Punch was safe from you-know-who. This song always creeped me out as a kid though.



Nice. I wonder what piece of information pushed that out of my memory.

Probably this...

 
^A 'perfect' pop song^
 
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