KEY POINTS:
He was the character that made you wince at the screen more, perhaps, than any other on television. And he appeared to be long gone.
But, in a move that risks as many groans as it does leaps of joy, the effeminate, haphazard disaster-zone that is Frank Spencer is set to make a return, in spirit at least, to the small screen.
The BBC has been asked to get working on scripts for a pilot episode of an American remake of the classic comedy Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, at the request of Fox TV, the American network owned by Rupert Murdoch.
The extraordinary and somewhat unlikely news was greeted with glee by Raymond Allen, the creator of the original, which ran from 1973 to 1978 and embedded the brilliant, painfully awkward performances of Michael Crawford to the nation's psyches, if not hearts. "I never would have dreamt 35 years ago when I originally wrote the series that dearly loved but disastrous Frank would be creating havoc on American soil," Allen said. "It's a very exciting time ... and a treasured moment of glory for Frank!"
In Some Mothers, the hapless but constantly optimistic Spencer - known to millions still for his catchphrase "Ooh Betty" - was constantly struggling to please his long-suffering wife, played by Michele Dotrice. Often dressed in his trademark beret and grey trenchcoat, Spencer would plough into people's lives, frequently causing calamitous accidents and even nervous breakdowns.
The first episode saw Spencer encouraged by the sensible and apparently normal Betty to go for a job interview as a sales rep to an ironmonger, or as Spencer could not stop calling it "wholeiron salemonger".
On arrival, Spencer causes an office assistant to topple from the top of a ladder simply by his unhinged grin; gets stuck in the lift for hours and during the interview itself proceeds to make a number of breakages, a tendency which caused Betty's original desire to get him out the house.
Some Mothers is the latest in a line of British comedies to be remade for American screens., ranging from the 1970s sitcom Steptoe and Son, which became Stanford and Son, to, more recently, The Office for NBC.
- Independent
Did you know?
* Michael Crawford was the third choice for the role of Frank Spencer. The first two contenders were Norman Wisdom and Ronnie Barker
* Crawford usually wore gloves when performing stunts, so gloves on his hands indicate a stunt is about to follow
* The rhythm of the theme tune is based on the words "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em" (minus the apostrophes) written in Morse Code
Source: imdb.com
