Alas Smith and Jones is a British comedy sketch television series featuring Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. It was broadcast on the BBC from 31 January 1984 to 14 October 1998. From 16 November 1989 to 3 December 1992 and 6 September 1995 to 14 October 1998, it was called Smith and Jones.
The series followed in the footsteps of Not the Nine O'Clock News in its use of taboo-breaking material and sketches in questionable taste (as well as bad language), and also featured head-to-head 'duologues' between Smith and Jones. The series shared several script writers with Not the Nine O'Clock News including Clive Anderson, Colin Bostock-Smith and used Chris Langham as a cast regular. Other writers included Andy Hamilton.
The show's title was a pun on that of the American television series Alias Smith and Jones. The head-to-head sketches were very much in the Pete and Dud mould - Smith was the idiot who knew everything, Jones the idiot who knew nothing.
The series was one of the first to be commissioned by the BBC from an independent company, Talkback Productions of which, Smith and Jones were also directors. The format of the Head to Head with similar characters was used by Smith and Jones in a series of commercials.
The show also had a brief run in the United States on A&E and PBS.
In 1987, (between Series 3 & 4), the duo went on to London Weekend Television for The World According To Smith & Jones. The BBC was not happy about the move to a rival and came close to not renewing their relationship. Reviews for this series were mixed; critics did not know what to make of it and Smith and Rhys Jones soon appeared back with the BBC for a fourth series later that year. Despite the criticism, The World According to Smith & Jones returned for a second series in 1988, and then, disappeared from the schedules without a repeat (unlike Series 1, which was repeated in battle against the BBC in late 1987).
In 2006, Smith and Jones returned with The Smith and Jones Sketchbook, recorded in front of a live audience acting as a look back at their earlier shows.
Read more about Alas Smith And Jones: Schedule, Commercial Releases
Famous quotes containing the word smith:
“... there is a place in the United States for the Negro. They are real American citizens, and at home. They have fought and bled and died, like men, to make this country what it is. And if they have got to suffer and die, and be lynched, and tortured, and burned at the stake, I say they are at home.”
—Amanda Berry Smith (1837–1915)