Web Page 3014 2nd November 2022 WHACKO! First Picture: Professor Jimmy Edwards

Second Picture: School nameplate

Third Picture: A mass whacking

Forth Picture: In the classroom

Whack-O was a sitcom TV series starring Jimmy Edwards, written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden, and broadcast from 1956 to 1960 and 1971 to 1972. The series (in black and white) ran on the BBC from 1956 to 1960 and (in colour) from 1971 to 1972. Jimmy Edwards took the part of Professor James Edwards, M.A., the drunken, gambling, devious, cane-swishing headmaster who tyrannised staff and children at Chiselbury public school (described in the opening titles as "for the sons of Gentlefolk"). The Jimmy Edwards character bore more than a passing resemblance to Sergeant Bilko as he tried to swindle the children out of their pocket money to finance his many schemes. The first six episodes were subtitled "Six of the Best". In 1959 a film was made based on the show, called Bottoms Up!. The series was revived in colour with updated scripts in 1971–72, slightly retitled Whacko!. In all, it ran for a total of 60 episodes, with 47 of black-and-white and 13 colour, of 30 minutes each. There were three special shorts. There was also a radio version with Vera Lynn starring as herself in the second episode. Many of these radio episodes were recovered by a BBC archivist from a listener's collection of tapes in 2012, and are now being broadcast on Radio 4 Extra. The front of the historic house of near Egham in Surrey was used in the opening title sequence of the TV comedy series, behind the name of the fictional Chiselbury School. Most of the show's episodes are missing, presumed lost. Six of the original black-and-white episodes are known to exist today; from the colour revival series of the early 1970s, only one is known to have survived. TV comedy historians have written that the central theme of Whack-O! and Bottoms Up! was corporal punishment and specifically the caning of boys’ backsides. This however was largely absent from the revived series in 1971, as by that time corporal punishment was becoming less acceptable in Britain and was eventually banned in state and many independent schools in 1986. Whack-O! tended to glorify a ritualised form of punishment that had been an accepted practice in British schools, but by modern standards the popular humourizing of corporal punishment is an anathema. The comedy of the series was built around whether boys would be caught and punished for minor misdemeanours, and the size and effectiveness of canes and the building of caning devices. In one episode a device and long cane was made so six boys could be punished together. In another a device was made so the teacher carrying out the caning did not see the boy, and it turned out that all the backside seen to be caned were that of deputy headmaster Pettigrew (when played by Arthur Howard). A feature of Jummy Edwards carrying out punishment was the clear enjoyment he exhibited. Both Jimmy Edwards and Arthur Howard were gay men and Anthony Slide, a biographer of Jimmy Edwards with "Wake Up at the Back There! This is how the BBC sums up this aspect of Whack-O! on its official website: "Watching the series now is a little painful in one respect – we're too sensitive to find canings amusing – but it's right on the money in other ways, mainly because finding over-privileged kids vile hasn't gone out of fashion." BBC Radio adapted the TV scripts into 45 thirty-minute shows, mostly with the original cast, of which 42 recordings survive. There were three series which originally ran on the BBC Light Programme from 23 May 1961 until 22 July 1963. They have been repeated on BBC Radio Extra since 2015 and the last airing was in 2020. Jimmy Edwards died in 1988 Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com