Talk:Dad's Army/Archive 1

Opening comments

Well done, everyone involved. A great page. --bodnotbod 16:44, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone know if and how Walkers character was written out of the series after James Beck's death? If he died in 1973, he must only have done 4 series! I never realised he was in so few.--Crestville 23:19, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

He was actually in 6 of the 9 series. They never attempted to explain what had happened to him in the 7th series. They did get 2 other actors to play the part in the radio version. PatGallacher 23:42, 2005 Feb 17 (UTC)

Aww, what a jip. Suppose he went to war.--Crestville 00:34, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I seem to recall there being an episode where the camera pans along the lined-up platoon in the church hall, and there's a gap where the missing Walker would usually be. It pans back, then down to the floor where the gap is and there's a not from Walker which Mainwaring picks up and reads, which apologises for not being there. Angmering 13:15, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Dead actors

Unfortunately, there is never a close enough shot of them to tell exactly how many cast members got to recreate their roles one last time.

Considering all the cast spare lavinder and dunn were dead by the point, presumable only they could have appeared. Is it perhaps more likely that look-alikes were used?--Crestville 21:06, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's a long time since I've seen Hope and Glory, but I don't remember cameo appearances. IMDB and Google have drawn a blank with a brief check. Unless someone can locate a source for this I suggest the section is deleted. The most likely explanation, unless this was completely made up (I have no idea), is that the home guard in the film were made to resemble Dad's Army characters to give the UK audience a bit of a chuckle. -- Avaragado 22:47, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've updated the entry per your info. It was not made up. The source is the movie so please watch it again before removing the entry entirely. The scene described is surely meant to represent them. IMDB, while a valuable resource, is full of errors and, no matter how often you send in corrections they do not act on them. If this entry is not proper for this very well done Dad's Army article maybe it could be moved to this talk page?MarnetteD | Talk 23:46, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

An email from the Dad's Army Aprreciation Society confirms this scene. It also confirms that all body doubles were used. MarnetteD | Talk 04:30, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

As a philosophical issue, however, even if the IMDB is absolutely wrong on something, we cannot point this out in the article; the rule against no original research means that we would have to continue reporting the IMDB's incorrect information until we could find a better source. As it stands the article is full of unsourced opinions (the sentence beginning "few would deny that Dad's Army was good" in particular), and reads like a fan page rather than an objective encyclopaedia article.-Ashley Pomeroy 18:33, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I would have thought that reporting material known to be wrong is a worse sin even than original research. Probably the best thing would be to mention it in a note or even on the Talk page. Loganberry (Talk) 1 July 2005 01:42 (UTC)

Some of the recurring lesser actors are still with us, including Bill Pertwee (ARP Warden) and Frank Williams (The Vicar). --NigelHorne 14:59, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup

I noticed there were some POV issues here, along with some inaccuracies (e.g. 'Jimmy Croft'). Nice page, though.

Wow. "Jimmy Croft" had been there since the very first revision. Good catch! -- Avaragado 20:34, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Blimey, so it was! I should have logged on properly! --62.253.64.17 12:09, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

This was the sort of thing I thought was a bit partisan:

'Few would deny that Dad's Army was good, and it is worth noting as one of the few British TV comedy series which both had a very lengthy run and kept up a fairly high standard for much of that run (although it did start going downhill during the last three series).'--62.255.32.14 19:41, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

some more episodes of Dad's Army

The list of episodes in the article on "Dad's Army" seems not to be complete. At least as far as the radio version is concerned. I've got recordings of some episodes on cassettes, which are not found in this list, viz "The Great White Hunter" - "The Jumbo Sized Problem" - "Sorry Wrong Number" - "The Cricket Match" and "Ten Seconds From Now". Can anybody find out where in the list they belong? gerd.thiele@city-remove-web.de.invalid

I'm pretty sure that all the TV episodes are listed (that's the title of the episodes section). The radio episodes probably belong in a second list. -- Avaragado 21:30, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Private Sponge

The article says he was present from the second series onward, but IIRC Colin Bean wrote a letter to Radio Times a few years ago protesting about being (once again) left out of the list of living cast members. He mentioned in that letter that he appeared in all episodes. Can someone please give a definitive answe on this? DavidFarmbrough 17:46 (BST) 6 September 2005

Frazer

Surely it's not correct that Frazer was "a dour Scottish coffin maker, who keeps a philatelists' shop". Wasn't he an undertaker?

Cut out the POV

Re: “The exploitation of old TV by a right wing party is considered in bad taste. The forerunners of the BNP after all were locked up during the War as a threat to National Security, as the system of Mr. Hitler was more popular with the British Union of Fascists than the more traditional British one of Parliamentary Democracy.”

Gee thanks for the history lesson, I also heard about this guy called Goebells the other day (very bad guy apparently). Excuse my humourous assault but your statement is complete POV and as such is in contention with wikipedia policy. The previous statement above it regarding the BNP’s use of the Dad’s Army theme reads:

"Recently the British National Party (BNP) have used the show's introduction cartoon – which traditionally displayed the Nazi's advancing arrows being halted by a British arrow which had just previously retreated across the channel back to the English coast. The BNP's version is a Euro-sceptic one. It displays Britain’s retreat from the advancing European Union (EU) and as in the original the Union Flag is seen defending Britain’s borders from foreign penetration. It concludes with the defeat of the EU and the restoration of national prominence across the continent."

This merely points out that it has been used and does not seek to gratify, promote or suggest either that this is good or bad – but merely that it is so. For the purpose of your POV argument you might at least use a citeation (i.e. the use of the Dad’s Army theme by the BNP is considered to be in bad taste by………who?) but you don’t therefor I am at odds to understand how this is anything substancially non-your POV. Whether or not I agree with you or not is not the case, the matter concerns that you are personalising the issue in the first case. If you cannot cite who (apart from yourself) might consider the use of the cartoon in bad taste the statemnt should be ommitted.

BNP

To the chap who wrote that "The forerunners of the BNP after all were locked up during the War as a threat to National Security, as the system of Mr. Hitler was more popular with the British Union of Fascists than the more traditional British one of Parliamentary Democracy."

I suggest that you research the issue of the current BNP who do not endorse Hitler or the Nazis in any official capacity whatsoever (though their leftist detractors will tell you otherwise). The BNP did not exist at the time of WWII and in actual fact it has many members and supporters who are returned WWII vets/widows… There is no formal conection between the BUF and the BNP. In an academic sense the modern BNP ideology is more aligned to the thinking of Sir Enoch Powell (old school conservative) than to Sir Oswald Mosely (BUF & pro-EU). In short, I would avoid making such leap and bound assumptions regarding imagined fictional conections between the BUF and and the BNP. Try to avoid letting your predisposed political bias interupting objective and factual recodings on wikipedia. The BNP do not hold to be Facsist in any capacity, if you can prove otherwise via official party policy on their website please add it to the BNP wiki page. For the record the BNP are Nationalists, not Facists and Nick Griffin’s father (Edgar*) was in the RAF fighting the Nazis during the war – thus it is insulting to make such suggestions. Nick Griffin has spoken numorous times about the demonising of British Nationalism through terminolgy like Nazi, Fascist ect…

• Edgar Griffn was (like Enoch Powell) kicked out of the Conservative Party because of his "racist" veiws.

For the record, the BNP clip is meant to draw paralells between the threat that Nazi Germany posed to Britian as being similar to the immediate threat posed by the EU to British sovereingty– intelectually speaking this is called political satire, get over it old boy!

BTW: Regarding POVs, I thought you might like to know that Dad’s Army is one of Nick Griffin’s favorite TV shows of all time – he told me so over a beer. Yep ol St. Nick reckons it is just great to be able to sit down with the family before dinner and watch a truly British show. A show that is not full of politically correct insanity messages depicting British culture as full of muslims, blacks, homosexuals, perverts etc – but who knows maybe in the future the Marxists at the BBC will edit the originals and put a few blacks in just to show us how ‘ diverse Britain really was’ – lol.

Signed 25 year old BNP supporter who loves Dad's Army