I seem to remember that at one time, probably about 1979/80/81 ish there being quite a bit of messy pie stuff on mainstream telly. At that time Tiswas was massive and slapstick seemed to spill over a bit into other programmes.

A couple spring to mind immediately, one programme, I think with Freddie Starr in 1980 featured a massive pie fight involving the audience, included in which were several attractive and nicely dressed girls and there were at least two or three others.

I also remember an article about slapstick called "The crazy cult of Tiswas" about pie throwing in one of the papers (I think it was one of the bum wiping ones like The Daily Star)

Anyone else recollect any of this?

There seemed to be pie fights going on all the time on TV around then. Mostly on ITV.

I do remember a couple of Freddie Starr female slapstick incidents - but I've never seen them again since. The one involving only men is on YouTube (he's throwing flour at his band in the orchestra pit and then pies a man from the audience with a shaving foam pie). His shows used to be repeated on UKGOLD on a regular basis - perhaps they still are??? Never the one you're looking out for, of course!

Do you remember The Good Old Days? A music hall tribute (Ken Dodd/Roy Hudd etc.) which was all done in period costume (performers and audience) from a theatre in Leeds. I've seen footage of a pie fight going on during one edition - of course never to be seen again, or any reference to it.

Hi Trouso, Yes I remember the Good Old Days, but not a pie fight on it. Incidentally, the guy who was the announcer who used to come out with long words was Manuel's (Fawlty Towers) father.

Another pie related event at the time was a Tiswas show at The Davenport Theatre in Stockport in early 81 which I went to. That was as messy as you can imagine and The Dooleys were in it too. I used to really like one of the girls in them at that time, but sadly, she seemed to avoid the pies

That's right - Leonard Sachs.

There was this one - with Toni Palmer - first brought to my attention by Bill Shipton. Not great quality but OK. I really want to find the one I remember - which was an audience woman smeared with cake. The search goes on.

https://youtu.be/Gm_FserCHgI

Ive half remembered another one too, it was on one of those Saturday tea time variety type shows that died out in the 80s, it would have been in 1980 again (seemed to be the peak year for mess on TV!) and I think Little and Large were in it.

They had a sexy dance group on the show, a bit like Hot Gossip/Hills Angels, and one sketch was based on a wedding reception which turned into a pie fight, this involved several members of the dance group getting pied.

FYI in the British sitcom called "Duty Free" in 1984 they had an excellent pie/cake scene where a girl in a tennis dress was pied. I recorded this scene on VHS at the time and recently replaced my copy when it came out on DVD a few years ago. I cannot find this show on Youtube, but coincidentally 8 years later they made a Dutch version of this sitcom in 1992 and they repeated the same scene verbatim...and that version is online. The cake mixture in the Dutch version was not as good as the original 1984 UK version ....but this is how the scene played out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfoi4bMp22w

The UK version uses a much better cake with better consistency.

MK

Nice topic. I have searched for clips of the "pie chair" on an ITV show called game for a laugh in the, I think, 80s, with no luck. There must have been a few female contestants who got heavily pied.

Considering a sponge with a dab of whip cream would have better consistency than the one used in this clip, I don't doubt you for a second.

I grew up in late nighties and early noughties so this is all before my time but growing up I remember there being a ton of pie fights on tele when I was younger. Remember there being an advert for some product can't remember what that had a wedding pie fight. From what I remember was brilliant can't find it anywhere though. Loads of the mess related shows came from citv if I remember currectly.

That'd be the short-lived Walls Lemon Meringue Pie Ice Cream. The advert can be found online, but I haven't the time right this exact minute to look, but I've certainly seen it before.

(Never got to actually try the stuff, unfortunately, or the even more appealing Toffee Neapolitan - several stripes of different caramelised flavours... Ah, well.)

Unfortunately, it was always a man on the occasions I can remember (usually a suited boss - a woman throwing the pie). According to an early Splosh! magazine there was a part of the show called the 'gloob tube' and there's even a picture (black and white) which includes a young woman in 80s clothing covered in something dark and gooey.

My first hand viewing knowledge of UK TV wam scenes was the 1960's and 70's where I rarely missed wam related scenes on UK when I was living there. I was absent from the UK all thru the 1980's because I was living in Taiwan and Singapore at that time, so I never saw "Game for a Laugh" first hand, but I traded tapes with several UK collectors at that time and they were diehard collectors of 1980's UK wam scenes. None of them ever mentioned or sent me any pie scenes from that show, and they only sent me 3 wam related scenes from that show. According to my database notes at that time...there were only 3 wam scenes on that show in 1985 and 1986....this is what my notes say

0501 GAME FOR A LAUGH 1986 ENGLAND - FOOD FIGHT AND MESSY FESTIVAL SCENES
PAL+NTSC
171001 GAME FOR A LAUGH 1985 ENGLAND LADY GETS MESSY CREAM ON HER FACE

1414 GAME FOR A LAUGH 1986 ENGLAND - SCENES FROM A MUD SPORTS DAY

The VHS tape 1414 was sent to me by the most reliable source of all....Bill Shipton of Splosh magazine, and he rarely missed anything that happened on UK TV.

I bought the first consumer video tape recorder available in UK in 1972...The Philips N1500 VTR....which was 4 years before Betamax and VHS were invented....so I recorded most wam scenes from 1972 onwards. I saw many wam scenes in the 1960's that occurred before I had the ability to record them....and sadly most of those scenes are now lost forever because of the BBC and ITV tape wiping policies.

One of the best wam scenes I have ever seen and was not able to record (because I was at a friends house) occurred in 1976 on a UK comedy series called "Whats On Next"...which was a UK copy of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh In". On the Carol Burnett show Carol did the "Colour Me" song and got covered in paint. This was done rather lamely...but the UK show "Whats On Next" with Jim Davidson copied this scene superbly with a young girl in formal dress getting gunged with buckets of paint every time she uttered the words "Colour Me". I missed recording that scene and have been searching for that series ever since. I thought the series was lost, but a few episodes of "Whats On Next" have shown up on Youtube now....so perhaps it will turn up. This is the lamer U.S. version of that song.

scene at 9 mins 28 secs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dmCFgTzwmg&t=9m28s

I saw the mud games 'Game for a Laugh' at the time - Sarah Kennedy was reporting from a mud beach (probably Weston Supermare?) and there was a bit of a skirmish; the lady with cream on face was actually as part of a guest appearance from Kenny Everett no less. He was dressed as a chef with a large piping bag and squirted some at a lady in the audience (a VERY small amount). This one has been on YouTube.

I'd love to see the UK 'Colour Me'. That's my new El Dorado.

Edit: dates conflict but this looks like it:

https://youtu.be/hh8ygjdzJG4

Found this, fast forward to 10 min 10 secs for the pie scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt3-RQS6tws

Talking about Game for a laugh...not so so much a Pie fight but a great scene for those that like to see women handing out the fun at the guys expense.

there was a scene where couples from the audience were asked on to stage. The skit involved proving womens intuition


The guy had to place his face behind a one of 2 closed windows on a wooden screen. The woman was then handed a pie and was asked asked to throw the pie at one of the windows as they opened simultaneously. She was first asked if she was going for a "hit" or a "miss.

On the show I saw, the women giggled and then both opted for a "hit". The windows opened the pies were thrown and the intuition proved good... the guys got nicely creamed!

Would be a fun scene to see again!

A good pie fight that I remember, although this is from a US series being broadcast on British TV, was in an episode of the TV spin off of "Fame", which would have been shown over here in about 1985/86.

The overall set up was that the Headmaster character (I think) whistled in the theatre the night before the show, which cursed the cast to bad luck until he reversed the "curse". Yes, for those who didn't see it, "Fame" really was that bad. Anyway, this was the cue for various unlucky mishaps to befall the cast, of which a couple were slapstick-based. The pie fight was two female characters who didn't like each other getting locked in the kitchen and ending up throwing pies at each other. There was also a pot of green paint being knocked off a ladder and over the head of a teacher, who I suppose we'd now call a MILF.

I seem to remember both being quite good, and a bit of Googling has tracked down the episode on YT, so I've just had a look. Hmm. The green paint is okay, but it's a bit watery and the "after" shot isn't great. The pie fight is pretty good however, with decent coverage. The paint is about 7:20, the pie fight around 35:00.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxaUZg8284

I saw this too - well, the trailer the BBC ran for a week prior! But I missed the broadcast, tuning in too late for the last five minutes of the only episode worth watching, ever. Yes, it was a nauseating programme, conceitedly stagey and wholly unfunny. Glee, 25 years later, was much better (if you like that kind of thing), funnier and less smug.

This is the best rendition I've seen of the footage so far, though. Thanks for sharing!

I think straight after this scene with Toni Palmer a woman with black hair in the audience got pied by Freddie.
I remember Hot Gossip getting pied on Kenny Everett.
The women never got pied on Game For A Laugh and often the were big yellow pies.
However once Sarah Kennedy got a white pie whilst having a shower.

Women seldom got it on GFOL. I do recall another scene where a guy got creamed.

Two couples were called from the audience. The guys have. to run thought a type of asult course involving a long tube unseen. The slower guy through gets pied by his wife.it is then repeated with a 5 second penalty....same guy creamed again.....10 seconds....same result.

The 2 couples take a bow and 3 clean and one very messy guy get applauded as a twin of the clean guy appears.....oh what fun!

I do like the clips in this thread.

Also great talk of The Pie Chair from Game for a Laugh. Yes it was a usually a smartly dressed guy that got the pies however it was so well done with great build up.
With the volunteer from the audience sat in the chair, Rusty Lee used to appear at the back of the stage with 2 wonderfully large yellow custard pies and shout 'can you see me?' which was met with rapturous applause from the audience. The pies were placed on a Pie Pod type device. Game lasts for 60 seconds or so before the inevitable pie in the face happened..again met with cheers and applause.
I loved the fact that the guy volunteered and knew what was coming to him. He was happy top be humiliated in front of a large Studio audience and viewing public (this show was prime time weekend TV).

Would love to see some clips of this (there is nothing on you tube).
Also would be cool if someone tried to replicate this with male or females (minus Studio audience of course )