Last week’s vandalization at the World Snooker Championship was so unprecedented and absurd, it felt like maybe Robert Milkins and Joe Perry were on some UK episode of Punk’d or Saturday Night Live. But as we learned real-time, the guerilla stunt was real. A Just Stop Oil protester had managed to climb on the table, while the Milkins/Perry match was in progress, and spray it with orange powder paint before getting hauled away by security.
Too bad. In a different universe, that would have been the set-up for an uproarious comedy sketch.
While televised snooker desecration is a relatively new phenomenon, televised snooker lampooning goes back five decades, when British comedians, such as Benny Hill and Tommy Cooper, trained their sights on the sport’s formality and increasing popularity.
This was the beginning of the Golden Era of Snooker, a time that has since been memorialized in the 2002 TV movie When Snooker Ruled the World and the 2021 TV series Gods of Snooker. Pot Black broadcast its first snooker tournament on the BBC in 1969. Ray Reardon eclipsed John Pulman as the man to beat. And snooker, having only recently removed its shackles as purely a “gentleman’s sport,” began to grow in popularity as a national pastime and eventually spread overseas. At the era’s peak, the 1985 World Snooker Championship between defending world champion Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor was watched by 18.5 million people – about one-third of the UK’s population.
While my list is surely not exhaustive, the following quintet of sketch comedies, from 1973 to 1986, provides a rollicking ride through snooker’s Golden Era, miscues, sneezes, warts, and all.
The Benny Hill Show – “Spot Black” (December 5, 1973)
Both boorish and brilliant, British comedian Benny Hill was one of the first to satirize snooker in his sketch “Spot Black,” a spoof on the popular snooker broadcast Pot Black. Dressed in an ill-fitting mesh shirt and sporting a mop of wild orange hair, Mr. Hill plays Hurricane Hill (a jab at Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, who won the World Snooker Championship in 1972). His opponent is defending champion Henry McGee. The skit includes almost no dialogue. Most of the six minutes consists of Hill making a variety of disturbing noises and grunts, interspersed with blatant cheating (e.g., giving his opponent a crooked cue, swapping the cue ball for one that doesn’t roll properly) and constant head pats and rubs to the bald-pated referee. It’s a pitch-perfect mockery of the sport’s chivalrous reputation.
Of course, no Benny Hill Show sketch would be complete without the eyeballing, eye-rolling, and eye-goggling that Hill gives to a sexy woman watching the match. Initially distracted, he becomes near paralyzed as she undoes a button of her blouse, rolls up her dress to reveal her garter, and ultimately, applies a dab of perfume to her cleavage. In a premature fit of cuejaculation, Hill loses his focus and misses the ball, spearing the baize. He is disqualified, and the object of his affection goes over to Hill’s opponent, kissing him and leaving the match together. The episode is available to watch here.
The Morecambe & Wise Show – “The 1981 Christmas Show” (December 23, 1981)
Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise were one of Britain’s most loved comedic duos. Their sketch series, The Morecambe & Wise Show, was ranked 14 on the BFI’s list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programs. At the end of 1981, they released “The 1981 Christmas Show” which included a snooker match between Mr. Morecambe and (the real) Steve Davis, who had won the World Snooker Championship earlier that year. The sketch was divided into three segments, interspersed throughout the episode. I was unable to find the first segment, the second segment is on Facebook, and the third segment is here.
The skit’s premise is that Mr. Davis is unable to pot a single ball, whether that’s because Mr. Morecambe is secretly descuffing Mr. Davis’ cue or interrupting his concentration with a loud sneeze. At the same time, Mr. Morecambe is making a series of incredible shots, such as a beautiful masse (in segment two, where the score is 0-40) or a three ball topspin trick shot (in segment three, where the score is now 0-59). Like the Benny Hill sketch, there is almost no dialogue; it’s all sounds, pantomimes, miscues, and stunning snooker shots (clearly made by an off-camera snooker pro). The announcer’s monotone voice-over ties it altogether.
Of course, at that time Mr. Davis had a reputation for being robotic; his manager Barry Hearn described him as having “zero personality” in those early years. Thus, it’s all the more enjoyable to watch Mr. Davis mock himself (and try to suppress a laugh – something he was not able to do in the “Invisible Snooker” sketch a few months later).
The Cannon and Ball Show – “Invisible Snooker” (May 8, 1982)
As its literal title suggests, “Invisible Snooker” was a sketch on The Cannon and Ball Show which pitted (once again, the real) Steve Davis against the comedian Tommy Cannon in an invisible snooker match. (The Cannon and Ball Show was a British comedy variety show featuring the double act of Mr. Cannon and Bobby Ball that ran 1978 to 1988.) The joke is that Mr. Cannon is not in the joke; the match is a ruse hatched by Mr. Davis and Mr. Ball to con Mr. Cannon out of 50 quid. The fourth season sketch is available to watch here.
While the gag runs a bit long, it’s funny because Mr. Ball’s deadpan description of the shots contrasts wildly with Mr. Cannon’s rising frustration that he’s the only one who thinks invisible snooker is absurd. When Mr. Davis pots his final ball and declares himself the winner who is owed 50 quid, Mr. Cannon has his best line:
“You can’t see any balls on the table,” Mr. Davis offers as proof of his victory.
“I can’t see any table!,” retorts Mr. Cannon.
As with The Morecambe & Wise Show sketch, Mr. Davis is a trooper for joining the roast of his own monochromatic foibles, even periodically breaking character to laugh.
Spitting Image – “Steve Davis Rap” (January 27, 1985)
By 1985, Steve Davis was a British household name. He had won the World Snooker Championship in 1981, 1983, and 1984, plus a host of other major titles. Yet, he still had to contend with his reputation for being “boring,” a moniker first given to him by his opponent Alex Higgins.
That’s what makes the “Steve Davis Rap” on the show Spitting Image so raucous. For those unfamiliar with the satirical puppet show, Spitting Image was a mainstay of British TV in the 1980s.1 The series used puppets to satirize British politics, sports, and entertainment. No one was safe from their derision – not Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret Thatcher, Mick Jagger, Princess Diana, Ronald Reagan, Michael Jackson…and certainly not Mr. Davis.
The three-minute rap, available to watch here, features a puppet of Mr. Davis lamenting that he has no nickname and that he should be deemed Steve “Interesting” Davis. The lyrics include a mix of braggadocio, sexual double entendre, and awkward attempts to convince others that he is interesting:
Hey, you’re Tina Turner aren’t you?
You look just like the woman who just moved in next door to my Auntie.
That’s interestin’, innit?
‘Ello, I’m Steve Interstin’ Davis. I’ve got a new record out.
It’s called the Steven Davis Interestin’ Rap. It’s good.
I sing on it. No, I don’t sing, I speak actually.
Here, we had turkey for Christmas, what did you have?
We have lots of turkey every Christmas.
It’s really nice. I like Turkey.
Saturday Live – “Pot Snooker” (March 22, 1986)
Finally, there is a sketch from The Oblivion Boys (Steve Frost and Mark Arden) which appeared on the first season of Saturday Live, a British twist on the more familiar Saturday Night Live. Entitled “Pot Snooker,” yet another send up of the popular series Pot Black, the sketch consists largely of loosely glued together sight gags that deride the formality of snooker. It is available to watch here.
Like the Benny Hill skit thirteen years prior, there is little dialogue; in lieu, there are fake arms, a mechanized ref that slides across the rail of the table, a player sleeping on the table, a player emerging a hole in the table covered in sawdust, and a brief morphing into Robin of Sherwood, another 1980s British TV show.
In this viewer’s opinion, it’s a disappointing bookend to a pentad of parodies. The jokes and gags feel haphazard and recycled; earlier sketches nailed the landing with less effort and more creativity. Maybe it was a sign that the Golden Era of Snooker would soon come to an end.
Fortunately, it was not a sign that the comedic gods were finished deriding the sport. As new superstars would dominate snooker (e.g., Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O’Sullivan), the nineties and the aughts would usher in a new crop of acerbic humorists. Sketch comedy shows, such as Hale & Pace, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, The Fast Show, and one of my favorites, That Mitchell and Webb Look, would bring new levels of ridicule and mimicry. Such is the topic for a future blog post!
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- If you grew up on 1980s MTV, you may also recognize the puppetry of Spitting Image in the 1986 “Land of Confusion” video for Genesis.
