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John J. Hoare

@dirtyfeed.org
2.6K followers 527 following 1.3K posts

Links to vaguely pop, vaguely culture articles over on Dirty Feed. www.dirtyfeed.org ISSN 2754-2807

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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 6h
I know it sounds pretentious, but there’s this weird link with everyone who has sat in THAT chair. (And I include the nations in that.) You can’t really quite know what it’s like unless you’ve done it, and if you have done it, there’s an instant understanding between you.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 7h
Lovely evening spent with BBC pres colleagues and ex-colleagues. People who have long since retired still have the “I’m directing BBC One from my living room, for some reason” nightmare.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 21h
On that point, I do wonder how much my experience is affected by playing later emulated versions rather than originals, because a) the resolution is higher, and b) I'm not using a CRT. With the technology at that exact point, both those changes feel more vital than they otherwise would.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 21h
Both M64 and (especially) Ocarina have a feeling to them which is fascinating and impossible to describe... and I *know* it's real, because I never grew up with Nintendo. My first console of theirs was a Switch. So it's not nostalgia or childhood nonsense.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
My worry whenever I publish something isn’t some silly factual mistake, as annoying as they can be. It’s some awful revelation that I’ve completely misinterpreted what something is.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
Because I guess to certain eyes, what’s the difference, it’s all the BBC, right? The actual department doesn’t matter. But, of course, it does matter. Because it’s vital for the show to be essentially harmless factual entertainment fluff, before it goes batshit on you.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
Letterboxd have just published an official list that describes Ghostwatch as “framed as a real BBC News production”, and it reminds me of how much you can easily get wrong if you’re writing something which is just slightly adjacent to your expertise.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
Lots of sketches labelled LLV541T-Pilot.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
You know I would say that, but I've just watched Twins of Evil on there which a) isn't available on any other UK streaming service, and b) is fucking fantastic.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
I seem to recall that from the paperwork, a lot of the first episode is from a genuine unbroadcast pilot. I'd love to see it. (No, I have no idea if it even still exists.)
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
The thing about Stuff is that it's so packed with, erm, stuff, that even though there's only 18 episodes, most of it refuses to stay in my head. Which means that every three years or so, I can watch it again, and it's almost brand new.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
I feel that if you're British and respond to the ITVX film collection labelled the "Brilliantly British Films Collection", you aren't really British.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
I'm reminded of Gene Kelly saying how great he was on the third That's Entertainment. Including the lot to be immodest about part.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
Despite everyone slagging off Seven, I actually think he's not much of a problem, because he gets so little screen time that you can pretty much ignore him for the most part. (As the writers pretty much did from the beginning.)
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
Ah, so Season 7 of Married With Children is where it starts going dodgy, then. Still fun, still worth watching, but everything feels a little thinner than it did up to that point. Each episode stretches its ideas out too much, and it feels a little too much like unrelated ideas bashed together.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
For all that, is AITF the best US sitcom ever made? From what I’ve seen, it might be the best sitcom ever made full stop. And continually improves for pretty much its entire run, which is extraordinary.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
Just a slight sense from Lear that nobody had ever done anything boundary-pushing in US sitcom before AITF, which literally isn’t true.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 29/09/2026
The 200th All in the Family hosted by Norman Lear was great, albeit there is a slight sense of Lear writing an autohagiography. On the other hand, he created All in the Family, so, y’know. (And despite Speight and Till Death, the shows end up being so different that I’m comfortable with that term.)
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
So It Takes Two didn't actually return as a video podcast at all like everyone was reporting, then?
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
I'm used to shows varying between episodes and seasons, but it's utter whiplash to have it happen within 30 seconds.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
Watched a Mork and Mindy recently for a THING, and that show never fails to annoy me. At one moment superb, and then the next moment nowhere near as good as it should be. Williams is the same, varying from amazing, to a fundamentally irritating man.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
NO
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
No, YOU once spent two hours carefully examining the video to System Addict to see if it had any props used in Red Dwarf
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
The only reason the Fawlty Towers remount is so well known is because it interfered with the original TX date. The Young Ones, “Time” and “Summer Holiday” were remounted two months later due to strike action; nobody ever bothers to say they were nearly cancelled.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
You don’t need to make shit up in order to make comedy history sound interesting, it’s plenty interesting enough anyway.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
Just seen somebody claim that “Basil the Rat” was “nearly lost to history due to industrial action”, and this is literally not the case, I have seen no evidence that the BBC didn’t immediately plan to remount the episode ASAP.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
You’d only need one film like Used Cars again to make everyone go “Hang on…”
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
One thing I always say is: TV and film doesn’t have to be stuck. All it takes sometimes is for ONE production to push the door open again. See: SNL UK, doing things it looked like everyone had forgotten.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
Used Cars is interesting, because I think it has a reputation of being full of dodgy jokes you couldn’t make nowadays, but I don’t think that’s true. Only the first commercial where the woman is stripped is the thing you wouldn’t do any more.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
It’s a bit like audience sitcom, which has now got to the point where making something like that doesn’t even occur to people. The language of comedy - which yes, has expanded in some ways - has vastly shrunk in others.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
It more feels to me that people have simply grown uninterested in making that kind of comedy any more. At least, the kind of people who are in a position to make that kind of film happen.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
As I rewatched Used Cars the other day, I was struck by just how impossible it seemed that any current film would or could make anything like the climax of that film. H&S might be a tiny part of that, but I don’t think it’s a lot of it. Budgets for comedy is also part of it, but again not all.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 28/09/2026
We used to call that “a tour of the mixer”.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
The ONLY good bit.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
That goes beyond a need for wanting to see competence in the crew, and into absurd territory where a fundamental part of the mission is completely ignored for the sake of false jeopardy. Fuck off, stop wasting my time.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
And it's so ludicrously badly plotted. HOW can the crew suddenly get confused near the end of the film that they need to get to planned exit at a certain time, or bad things will happen? That is a) completely fucking obvious, and b) would be a major piece of their debrief given at the start!
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
I can deal with the fact that you need to suspend your disbelief to accept the main thrust of the film, I can cope with that. The problem is then not doing anything interesting with it.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
I thought that was fucking awful, and the good reputation the film has entirely bemuses me.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
The best bit so far is someone taking a label printer to that bald guy’s head.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
Currently watching Fantastic Voyage, and it’s BORING
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Reposted by John J. Hoare
Andy Lewis @andylewis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Every time someone links to this film, I have to repost it. It's one of the most significant bits of British 20th century art. Everything about it is incredible. Groundbreaking music production by Daphne Oram. Amazing camera work by Wolfgang Suschitzky (who later filmed Get Carter).-
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
I have a big rant about software duckers I could do at this point, but I’d get into trouble so I won’t.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
Anyway, thank you so much for the recommendation. My favourite unexpected treat in a long time.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
(My favourite thing about Morpheus: you can actually trust those damn fixed points to auto-fill now.)
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
I still have nightmares about last-minute changes not cueing up properly.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
(In all seriousness, this exact thing is why 80s Knightmare worked brilliantly, and why the 2013 Geek Week episode didn’t. And why I generally think that TV/film which first did any given breakthrough, generally holds up today.)
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
The last 20 minutes of Used Cars feels like the climax every comedy film wants now, but struggles to provide. Nothing quite looks like that any more, but you get the sense that they really wish they could.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
Sounds like Morpheus.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 27/09/2026
Very much enjoyed my rewatch of Used Cars tonight. THAT’S TOO FUCKING HIGH
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 26/09/2026
In particular, there's more than one Bond film which has a female agent blundering around being useless, which - and I'm not over-sensitive about this stuff - is genuinely offensive. Fathom just avoids any of this nonsense.
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