Bamber Gascoigne - Influence On Popular Culture

Influence On Popular Culture

In the Young Ones episode "Bambi" he is parodied by Griff Rhys Jones as "Bambi Gascoigne" (with considerable emphasis being placed on the resemblance of his name to the Disney character), and several years previously Griff Rhys Jones played Gascoigne in a sketch on Not the Nine O'Clock News. He was also portrayed by actor Mark Gatiss in the 2006 film Starter for 10.

In 1998, as part of BBC2's Red Dwarf night, he presented a special "Red Dwarf" edition of Universe Challenge between the cast and fans of the show. The show begins with actor Chris Barrie impersonating host Jeremy Paxman, before being blown up as Gascoigne enters with a mock space-shotgun to much applause. (The fans won by a narrow margin.)

In 1974, while impersonating Richard Attenborough in the last Monty Python television episode, Michael Palin sought out the legendary 'Walking tree of Dahomey', but instead happened upon "one of Africa's many stationary trees, Arborus Bamber Gascoignus". His name also appears in one version of the Monty Python "Lumberjack Song" when Michael Palin sings of the "Quercus maximus Bamber Gascoigneii", and in the Python song "I Like Traffic Lights" the singer, Terry Jones, points out that his name is not Bamber.

In 2004, he appeared as a television presenter in an episode of Jonathan Creek, "Gorgon's Wood".

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