''Cool It'' is a British television comedy series which first aired on
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...
between 30 August 1985 and 18 December 1990. It was a vehicle for
comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing
Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...
Phil Cool
Phil Cool (born Philip Martin; April 1948)Neville Thurlbeck"Phil Cool reveals why he’s ready to bow out of touring " ''Wales Online'', 29 March 2013. Retrieved 19 May 2013.York Membery"Who'd have thought it... Phil Cool is not at all averse to ...
.
Impressions ranged from
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
and
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
to popular celebrities, comedians and musicians such as
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...
Mike Harding
Mike Harding (born 23 October 1944) is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet, broadcaster and multi-instrumentalist. Harding has also been a photographer, traveller, filmmaker and playwright.
Early life and education
Harding's ...
,
Terry Wogan
Sir Michael Terence Wogan (; 3 August 1938 – 31 January 2016) was an Irish radio and television broadcaster who worked for the BBC in the UK for most of his career. Between 1993 and his semi-retirement in December 2009, his BBC Radio 2 weekd ...
Clive James
Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.Rik Mayall and the disgraced Rolf Harris. Fictional characters like
Quasimodo
Quasimodo (from Quasimodo Sunday) is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the novel ''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (1831) by Victor Hugo. Quasimodo was born with a hunchback and feared by the townspeople as a sort of monster, but h ...
,
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring roles in the '' Looney Tunes'' and '' ...
and E.T were also impersonated and even inanimate objects such as Morris Minors and
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...
s.https://web.archive.org/web/20050418174906/http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/c/coolit_1299000731.shtml BBC Guide to Comedy.
Series 1
The first series of three, 25-minute episodes were first broadcast between 30 August and 13 September 1985, on Fridays at 10pm. Cool wrote all of the material for this series himself, it was made on a shoestring budget with few props, a basic set and a small audience. Jasper Carrott was associate producer on this series.
Highlights included; impersonating the entire cast of '' The Young Ones'' including Alexei Sayle,
Prince Charles
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...
interviewing Mick Jagger, the Pope ordering fish and chips, Rolf Harris painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Mike Harding singing the song "Spewie, Ewie" and Quasimodo singing "The Bellringer's Blues".
Each series of ''Cool It'' had a different set of
opening titles
In a motion picture, television program or video game, the opening credits or opening titles are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen ...
, for Series 1 it had an animated version of Cool's head pulling various faces behind a light-blue background.
Series 2
The second series of five, 30-minute episodes were first broadcast between 24 November and 22 December 1986, on Mondays at 9pm. Cool co-wrote this series with Jasper Carrott and it later won the
Royal Television Society Award
The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...
for "Most Original Television Achievement".
Series 2 featured a bigger set with a bigger audience, there were more props and a few pre-recorded video inserts. To tie in with the show, Cool released a comedy album through
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...
called "Not Just a Pretty Face" and a single in which Cool (as Rolf Harris) sang a rendition of the
Simon and Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo consisting of the singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the singer Art Garfunkel. They were one of the best-selling music groups of the 1960s, and their biggest hits—including the electric remix of " ...
song " Bridge Over Troubled Water". A tie-in book was also released entitled ''Cool's Out''.
Highlights included Rolf Harris (literally) painting the audience, an anecdote in which Cool reminisced about the time he imitated the face of an Aquaphibian from ''
Stingray
Stingrays are a group of sea rays, which are cartilaginous fish related to sharks. They are classified in the suborder Myliobatoidei of the order Myliobatiformes and consist of eight families: Hexatrygonidae (sixgill stingray), Plesiobatidae ( ...
'' and it stuck and portraying Terry Wogan as an intergalactic alien from outer space.
The opening titles for Series 2 feature five animated versions of Cool jumping Up and down to harmonica music. After that there is a long shot of Cool's head pulling a selection of funny faces while slowly spinning all the way round. His head then explodes revealing a variety of Mechanical works and cogs inside it, the lights go out and the ''Cool It'' logo appears on screen.
Series 3
The third series of six, 30-minute episodes were first broadcast between 1 September and 6 October 1988, on Thursdays at 9 pm. Along with Cool, this time around the writers consisted of Keith Donnelly, Paul Alexander and Barry Faulkner.
Highlights included impressions of ventriloquists' dummies, a parody of the
Four Tops
The Four Tops are an American vocal quartet from Detroit who helped to define the city's Motown sound of the 1960s. The group's repertoire has included soul music, R&B, disco, adult contemporary, doo-wop, jazz, and show tunes.
Founded as the ...
called "The Four Bottom's" performing the song "Mooning" and singing the
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
song "
Are You Lonesome Tonight
"Are You Lonesome Tonight?" (sometimes stylized as Are You Lonesome To-night?) is a song written by Roy Turk and Lou Handman in 1926. It was recorded several times in 1927—first by Charles Hart, with successful versions by Vaughn De Leath, He ...
" in Japanese.
The opening titles for Series 3 started with Cool relaxing on a chair watching television and then for no apparent reason the Series 2 titles appear on screen. Cool uses the remote control to change channels but it appears on screen again, he gets increasingly frustrated and starts pulling faces. He then presses a red button at the top of the remote which operates a huge swinging ball that smashes the TV screen.
Christmas special
A final ''Cool It'' special was aired on Tuesday 18 December 1990. Filmed in front of a live audience in Birmingham, it included impersonations of the Gremlins, Terry Wogan interviewing Michael Crawford and a routine about the hazards of the
M25 Motorway
The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major road encircling most of Greater London. The motorway is one of the most important roads in the UK and one of the busiest. Margaret Thatcher opened the final section in 1986, making the M25 the lon ...
.
Cool then made the move to
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
with the shows ''Cool Head'' (1991) and the self-titled ''Phil Cool'' (1992).
VHS releases
There were two VHS releases of ''Cool It'', the first one was a best-of compilation of Series 1 released in 1985, the second entitled ''Cool It Too'' contained the best moments from Series 2. ''Cool It'' has not yet been released on DVD, but videos from the show have been uploaded to
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...