Bootsie and Snudge

Did You Know?

• The surviving 39 episodes of series one were released by the Network imprint on 13 August 2012.
• A single episode of Bootsie and Snudge had been released on The Army Game – Volume 2 DVD on 14 August 2006.
• Between the 1963 and 1974 series, a spin-off called Foreign Affairs was broadcast.

Background

Alfie Bass and Bill Fraser first appeared together in small parts in the 1956 comedy film Jumping for Joy, which starred Frankie Howerd, and it is thought they may have become friends there. The sitcom The Army Game, a hit from 1957 to 1961, featured two main characters: Private Montague 'Bootsie' Bisley and Sergeant-Major Claude Snudge. Snudge relishes lording it over Bootsie, while Bootsie is content in his role because it lets him despise and make fun of Snudge, and challenge authority generally. Clive Dunn, then only 38, played 83-year-old Henry; in the show, he is first introduced as "Meadows" and then, moments later, called "Johnson". A comic strip in TV Comic from 1961 explained how Bootsie and Snudge first met. Over 104 episodes, a large writing team contributed. For the 1960–63 episodes, writers included Marty Feldman, Barry Took, John Antrobus, Ray Rigby, David Cumming, Derek Collyer, Peter Miller, James Kelly, Peter Lambda, Stanley Myers, Tom Espie, Jack Rosenthal, Harry Driver, Patrick Ryan, John Smith, and Doug Eden. The 1974 series was written by David Climie, Ronnie Cass, and Lew Schwarz. The show made Clive Dunn famous for playing elderly characters, which led to his well-known role as Corporal Jones in Dad's Army and his 1971 hit single "Grandad".

Plot

After finishing national service, Bootsie and Snudge find work at the Imperial, a gentlemen's club on Pall Mall. Bootsie becomes the handyman, while Snudge takes the hall porter position. The club is run by Hesketh Pendleton, a hot-tempered secretary who silences anyone who disagrees by shouting "Tup! Tup!" louder until they quit. Bootsie calls him "Ol' Tup-tup." Their colleague, the clumsy Henry Beerbohm Johnson, has been at the Imperial for four decades and initially mistakes Snudge for Lord Kitchener. Plots center on club members and guests, plus the relationships among the four staff. A decade later, their roles flip: Bootsie wins a million pounds on the football pools, and Snudge, who works for Permapools, appoints himself as Bootsie's financial adviser.

Episodes

The television programme Bootsie and Snudge ran for four series. The first three were filmed in black-and-white, while the fourth was in colour. Series one consisted of 40 episodes, broadcast between 23 September 1960 and 23 June 1961, each Friday at 8.55 pm. The second series, with 29 episodes, aired from 27 October 1961 to 10 May 1962, initially on Fridays at 8.55 pm before moving to Thursdays at 8.30 pm. Another 29 episodes made up the third series, shown from 8 November 1962 to 30 May 1963 on Thursdays at 7.30 pm. Over a decade later, a final run of just six episodes was broadcast from 16 October to 20 November 1974, on Wednesdays at 8.30 pm. Of the 104 episodes produced, four are no longer held in the archives: episode 40 from the first series, plus three from the third series—"The Rescue," "Soul Mates," and "Carnet de Balham."