FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Loretta Ramos Terry
Presents
Peter
Sellers: Does That Include Television?
A Museum-Produced
Compiliation Featuring Sellers’s
Appearances on Television
Although best known to the moviegoing public for his classic roles in such films as The Ladykillers,
The Pink Panther, Dr. Strangelove, The Party, and Being There,
Peter Sellers (1925–1980) had a prolific and highly creative career in two
other mediums: radio and television.
Long before he was Dr. Strangelove or Inspector Clouseau,
Sellers was an acrobat of the airwaves—a virtuosic radio comic in his native
The success they found with the public ear
spurred them on to the infant medium of television, where, with the help of
Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night),
they created “Goonavision,” a radical rethinking of
the Goon ethos for the video age. Sadly, only fragments remain—most of which
are included in this series—of such landmark programs as A Show Called Fred and
Son of Fred. In 1963 the Goons
reunited briefly for a zany puppet spin-off, The Telegoons,
but by then Sellers was no longer just an ex-Goon but an international
celebrity, a rakish jet-setter constantly in flux.
In between films, records, and a
near-fatal heart attack, Sellers returned time and again to the tube to usher
out a never-ending parade of characters.
With his impish energy and inexhaustible repertoire of guises, he was
both a beloved comedic icon and a lucid conveyor of the schizophrenic madness
of the mid-twentieth century. A 1969
documentary profile got straight to the point: Will the Real Peter Sellers (Please Stand Up)? Sellers is reported
to have cried when it aired. “There is no me,” he revealed tellingly, and rather earnestly, to
Kermit the Frog in 1977. “I do not
exist. There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed.” The treasured pieces of Sellers that remain
will have to do.
Does That Include Television? will screen in
•A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred (1956)
“You
can ruin anything with Fred.”—Peter
Sellers. Hilarity and hijinks as the Goons bring their popular act to the tube.
•Yes, It’s the Cathode Ray Tube Show!
(1957)
Sellers
enlisted one-time Goon Michael Bentine to script this
freewheeling concoction—of which only one sketch, “Mars Hurtles Toward Earth,” survives.
•The Telegoons
(1963)
The
return of Neddie Seagoon
and his frolicsome friends—as marionettes!
Along with the mechanical challenge of syncing the puppets to fresh
recordings of classic Goon bits, there was an aesthetic hurdle as well:
“Everyone has his own idea of what the Goons look like.”
•The Steve Allen Show
(1964)
Allen:
“Speaking with Sellers that night was a bit like trying to interview the
General Assembly of the UN”
The chat-fest culminated with Sellers, egged on by his host,
placing a crank call to Scotland Yard.
•A Carol for Another
Christmas (1964)
Crowned
in a ten-gallon hat emblazoned with the word “Me,” Sellers, as the power-crazed
leader of the postdoomsday world, proved to all that
a brush with death wasn’t about to put a dent in his star. One reporter described fans who flocked to the set as “clutching at the wire like
frenzied monkeys.” Written
by Rod Serling.
•Not Only...But Also
(1965)
With a
nod to his legendary ancestor, prizefighter Daniel Mendoza, Sellers joins
Dudley Moore and Peter Cook for a skit about a punch-drunk pugilist who fancies
himself an artiste.
•
Sellers,
to whom illogical flights of verbal fancy must surely have appealed, embodies
the King of Hearts in what is considered by many the most inventive adaptation of Lewis Carroll's tale.
•David
Frost’s Night Out in London (1967)
“Never
try to be funny in a situation which is itself
absolutely and essentially funny.”
Notorious for ruining takes with giggling fits, Sellers manages to play
it straight in these two sketches (one written by John Cleese)
about men who pretend to be what they are not.
•The Last Goon Show of Them All
(1972)
“I
will now whistle the soliloquy from Hamlet.” Sellers and company reunite for one final
hurrah at Camden Theatre, hallowed venue of Goonery.
•The Muppet Show
(1977)
Sellers opens up to Kermit in a famous exchange that
has been endlessly analyzed for clues to the comedian’s elusive and often
contradictory personality.
And
much more!
Admission to Peter Sellers:
Does That Include Television? is included with the
Museum’s suggested contribution: Members free; $10.00 for adults; $8.00
for senior citizens and students; and $5.00 for children under fourteen. Admission is free in
The Museum of Television & Radio, with locations in
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The Museum of Television & Radio in New York,
located at 25 West 52 Street in Manhattan, is open Tuesdays through Sundays
from noon to 6:00 p.m. and until 8:00 p.m. on Thursdays. The Museum of
Television & Radio in