Life and Laughing: My Story by Michael McIntyre Read Free Book Online Page B

parents weren’t loving, teaching and raising me, they liked to dress me up as chart toppers from the 70s.
    It was years later when it struck me that Bert and Ernie must be gay. ‘Good night, Bert’, ‘Good night, Ernie’ – they were sleeping in the same bed. I know this may come as a Michael Barrymore/George Michael/Rock Hudson-scale shock to some, but the evidence is there. They were flatmates. Flatmates would normally have their own room or at least have their own bed – if not, then it’s got to be a ‘head to toe’ sleeping arrangement. Flatmates in the same bed sleeping head-to-head? Gay.
    We only had a television in our parents’ room, and Lucy and I would sit on the floor in front of their bed. Occasionally, we would watch TV as a family. The main event was always The Kenny Everett Show because it was ‘Daddy’s show’. The Kenny Everett Show was famed for the rule-breaking sound of the crew laughing at the sketches rather than canned laughs or the laughs of a live studio audience. My dad had the biggest booming laugh. He would constantly be laughing uproariously. So the laughter on The Kenny Everett Show was mainly my dad, which would have a twofold effect when we watched the show at home. He would be laughing on the TV and laughing behind me in his bed. I could barely hear the jokes.
    Another evening I recall when we watched TV as a family was the launch of Channel Four in 1982. At last we would be getting a fourth channel. We gathered in my parents’ bedroom for what was a spectacular anti-climax. Countdown . I think the whole nation felt let down and immediately went back to the BBC and ITV, apart from Alan Hawkshaw, who went shopping.
    People look back fondly at a time with so few channels because the nation was all watching pretty much the same thing. We therefore had more in common with each other, leading to what the Americans call ‘water-cooler moments’. This is when people discuss the previous night’s television at the water-cooler. This expression has crept into our nation’s lexicon (I know, ‘lexicon’, quite a fancy word for me). I think ‘water-cooler moments’ are purely an American thing, and the expression has no place over here. British people don’t speak to each other anywhere, let alone at water-coolers. The only thing a British person has said to another British person at the water-cooler is ‘There’s no more water’ or ‘We need more cups’ or ‘Sorry’.
    I do think, though, that the multi-channels of today are great for kids. There are countless kids’ channels that are on twenty-four hours a day. If you have kids (or just enjoy unchallenging TV), it doesn’t matter what time it is, you can turn on the telly and watch Ben 10 or Bob the Builder . Whereas in the early eighties, my sister and I could only watch television intended for us at certain times, which led to us watching a lot of TV that wasn’t intended for us. I remember watching a lot of snooker on BBC2. My mother was forever trying to find Ray Reardon and Cliff Thorburn figures in toy shops. The film The Towering Inferno was on seemingly every day during the 1980s. It was on more than the weather forecast. It would be the news, The Towering Inferno , then the weather. Every time I turned the TV on, Robert Wagner was hanging out of a burning building. It was repeated so many times, I think I once watched it back to back.
    It was during my childhood TV viewing that I found out I was heterosexual. I can actually pinpoint the moment. It was in 1983, so I was seven years old and watching Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown Girl’ video featuring the model Christie Brinkley. She was gorgeous. I felt peculiar. I revisited those feelings a few times pre-puberty, and approximately every seven seconds post-puberty. Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman was a favourite, as was golden-bikini-clad Princess Leia, obviously, and there was a scene in Flash Gordon (the camp one with music by Queen – ‘Flash, Aaaaa!’) where