Xmas Chortles The Movie!
"They've got a fag camerman on this, he keeps closing in on the men" - Lee.
I never knew you filmed this Lee!" - Kenz (PUNCH!)

The famous (?) Xmas Chortles title sequence
Movie production started:- 18-12-91

After the massive worldwide success (?) of the Chortles audio tapes work began on the first Xmas Chortles movie late in 1991. The reason I wanted to make a movie was because people who heard the audio tapes enjoyed them but had no idea of exactly WHAT was going on! The best way to solve this problem was to SHOW them!

The basic idea of the movie was to try to emulate the style of the audio-tapes but in a visual kind of way. That meant lots of assorted scenes, movie moments and chunks of cool music all carefully edited together on my Akai VS-A650 video recorder. And here for your enjoyment is a picture of the said piece of video equipment. Flipping crikey!

My trusty Akai VS-A650!

The movie opens with a familiar looking CERT 18 screen. I decided to make Chortles an '18' because it does contain some HARSH LANGUAGE. Not a lot really but enough to warrant that cautionary certificate at the start (oh, and also cos it looked neat)!

Techno-Trivia:- The Cert 18 screen was actually digitised off my Lethal Weapon video and then I just changed the name of the film to 'Xmas Chortles'. This was done on the Amiga in LOW-RES so I could fade it in and out with a picture viewer ... (higher or interlaced resolutions would not fade on my Amiga 500).

The rubbish cert 18 screen as drawn by me!
The film was given an 18 certificate because it contains
HARSH F**KING LANGUAGE and clips from cert 18 films!

Then the famous 20th Century Fox fanfare plays and you see a Sinclair ZX Spectrum on FIRE! The movie titles are genlocked in over the top (again, done on the Amiga in slightly jerky-o-vision).

After the titles the film really gets going and you are treated to a variety of weird and amusing scenes, mainly filmed at Matt Waltons house (interspersed with movie moments). 4 mins into the film you get the first footage generated by the C64 (with us shouting into microphones!) Games being played are:- 5th Gear, Pac Land and Ghosts 'n' Goblins (with a CLASSIC commentary!) "Here comes the shoes, they are NOT Monks!"

Ewww! Phil having a slash
Phil doing a watering can wee-wee!

The first 'music' section appears at 6 mins and features a slow motion golly fight with the Art of Noise track 'Yebo' playing. VERY strange footage indeedy! At 8 mins it's back to the C64 with us playing 'Out Run' (and me doing a FINE rendition of the music!). This is followed by Combat School and then Formula 1 Simulator (where you drive a shoebox around the screen!)

After a couple of other clips (including Zippy from Rainbow looking VERY odd!) comes one of the main "music video's" in the movie. It's a tribute to the series "Hitman & Her" which was a terminally CRAP program filmed in nightclubs! Redeeming features:- Lots of fit chicks dancing and the host - Michaela Strachan! What I did for the music vid was edited together all the scenes featuring luvverly females! (And I dropped in a few scenes of me and the lads getting down!) The Kraftwerk track "Radioactivity" provided the superb background music this little lot which features 11 mins into the movie.

Michaela having a bit of a boogie!

Techno trivia:- I really like the 'slow motion' ending which is in the sync with the end of the music (which is nice and slow).
It features Mike grooving around before doing a HUGE pelvic thrust!) A big EJECT sign then appears complete with
flatulence provided by Uncle Kev!

After that comes more assorted vid-cam footage and us playing Space Harrier on the C64 (it was in this scene the phrase "Throw Elvis around the room" was born). Then an innocent looking newsreader appears. Innocent until his name appears:- Mike Shaft! Much hilarity ensued about that at the time but Mike became a memorable character and was even featured in the Xmas Chortles game!! This is followed by some flying saucer scenes for some odd reason!

It's MIKE SHAFT!  Hehe!
And now the news from MIKE SHAFT!

A few scenes later a scene from the Bond movie 'Licence to Kill' is nicely cut to us playing the game of the same name on the C64! We also play Stormlord, observe a nice C64 pic of an astronaut and the Green Beret loading screen. A huge fart announces us playing Hyper Sports which is then cut to Lee tipping a load of paraffin on a burning Star Destroyer model. (Don't try this at home kids!)

I even managed to emulate the re-re-re-rep-repeated style of some of the bits on the audio tapes. At the 25 minute mark I do a loud raspy noise which is repeated SEVERAL times in quick succession! This is followed by another, erm, music video. With the Bigod 20 track "The Bog" playing in the background there's assorted shots of TOILETS! Noooo! One bog has an absolutely GIGANTIC turd in it. I'd just like to say it was not produced by ANY OF US! This footage was obtained from an A-Team spoof filmed at Droitwich High School by some other peeps. Okay? Good.

There's an excellent scene at around 30 mins which features a foot to head panning shot of Elvira holding a HUGE gun. She then SHOOTS the gun causing the Cyberdyne lab from Terminator 2 to explode! The shot then cuts back to Elvira blowing the smoke from the gun. I'm dead pleased with that little bit of editing!

Elvira getting to grips with a large weapon!
Phwoar! Look at the size of Elvira's ... GUN!

This leads to the second main 'music video' - "CBM 64 DEMO MANIA" I recorded nice scenes from a whole host of classic C64 demos and dropped in the superb backing track "Hallo - Listen to the Program" by Master Program. This is definitely a treat for C64 fans and it really shows some of the amazing things the C64 is capable of doing!

More video camera mayhem and movie moments take us up to more C64 games complete with odd commentary (Metrocross, Commando, Risk and Ninja Commando). There's actually another mini music-video at around the 40 minute mark. It's a 'Lost in Space' inspired animation from the Amiga backed by an ambient Laserdance track. This was probably very cool at the time but now it looks really sad and jerky! Sorry Amiga fans!

At 46 mins it's time to avert your attention cos there's a SICK ALERT! A carefully rigged shot which had the camera under a piece of glass. I then loom overhead and SPEW UP on the glass! Yuuuuuukkkkkk! The 'spew' as actually a concoction of sweetcorn relish, mayonnaise and other assorted ingredients snaffled from the kitchen cupboards. I then crammed it all into my mouth and let it gush onto the camera. Delightful footage!

SICK ALERT!
SICK ALERT! Kenz has blown chunks! GOIK!

Then there's another couple of C64 games being thrashed (Tangent - "Look at parallax scrolling!", MicroSoccer, and Thing on a Spring) which lead onto a selection of scenes starring me, Mez and Collett! (Scenes of fighting in the living room, us watching 'Hitman & Her' and flatulence!) This is followed by us throwing some toys (and Mez) down the stairs.

Techno trivia:- The selection of toys we threw around, shot, set fire to and generally destroyed were purchased from one of those 'everything a pound' shops. We pooled our cash and basically bought some destroyable junk! Stars of the show were the 'telephone box' style moneybox which shattered nicely when shot and the garden gnome which we filled with KETCHUP and then blew his brains out. Aren't we nice?!?!

The next music vid is at just past the 50 minute point and features the aforementioned toys being blasted apart in slow motion. The stirring Terminator 2 theme provided background music for this part of the movie ...

At 56 minutes is one of the most popular bits of the film - our remake of the "Pepsi Advert!" You know the one, gorgeous babe gets out of sports car while dweeby kids observe her. Thanks to some careful editing WE are now the dweeby kids and the advert ends with lots of "Phwooars!" from us. This is actually the only scene in Xmas Chortles which has properly planned and 'acted' by us!

Pepsi babe!  Hubbahubba! But who are these goons?!

After another selection of assorted clips (including the famous (??) "killer hankie" scene) leads to another music vid - "The Robots". An easy one to do this. With the Kraftwerk track "The Robots" providing the backing music I waded through my sci-fi films for any decent robot footage. Stellar stuff! This is soon followed by a section from the Amiga generated 'Space Wars' short film with ass kicking Mark Shreeve music in the background - far better than the weak and tinkly crap that was in the original version!

Some "I'll be backs" from Arnie are then followed by a bit of a C64 "art show". For this we rigged the C64 to the video recorder, plugged in the microphones (and Matt Walton added nice background music) and then we looked at lots of C64 loading screens while intending to be serious 'art critics'. This soon went straight downhill and ended up with us doing hilarious and LOUD renditions of the music for each game that appeared (with lashings of harsh and abrasive language, just for good measure).

After that comes a cool scene from Alien, us ranting on while playing MORE C64 games (Jack the Nipper 2, 1942 and Slayer) and then a small tribute to a girl I grew fond of - when I was much younger. But that's enough about that! Then there's wacky scenes of waterfights, a plastic figure gushing 'blood' (blackcurrant juice!), Mez gushing 'blood' (more blackcurrant juice!), a rollercoaster ride (complete with lots of shouts and even some harsh language thrown in) and a classic genlocked scene of an animated character from Stoppit & Tidyup walking through Collett's front garden!

The cool animation of Tidyup by Andy Roberts!
Techno-Trivia:- The "Tidyup" animation was converted from the cartoon onto the Amiga by Andy Roberts. The music that plays
in the background is a remixed version of the cartoon theme - now replete with farts, burps and other amusing sounds ... Honk!

A brief moment filmed in my living room (with Mez and Lee spouting phrases in an unknown alien language) is followed by Marty McFly being incinerated in a model of the time travelling DeLorean car! This was donated to the Chortles cause by Mat Recardo - and we made sure it received it's 40 seconds of fame by filming it's destruction. "Marty, get out!"

There's another music video at this point! This one is made up of a "slowed-down-so-it-looks-dramatic" montage of everything we blew up, shot, set fire and stomped on while making the film. The stars include a wind-up soldier which crawled along while being shot to pieces (in Private Ryan stylie!), a Knight Rider type toy car which was blasted and then erupted in flames (in a small kind of way), Robin Hood in a telephone box (surreal!) and there's even some nasty blackcurrant drinks being shot to bits, a Pot Noodle filled with MUD rather than noodles (not that you can tell the difference) and a garden gnome having it's head blown off (fnarr). Why? Because we could! All this is backed with the track "Battleground" by Leaetherstrip. Classic! This is rounded off with a genuine glass "Pot-Pourri" being smashed!

Tinkle!
Smash a Pot-Pourri!

Techno-Trivia:- The phrase "Smash a Pot-Pourri" was invented at Lee's house during a frenetic cushion fight. Whilst battling away we inadvertently broke a glass pot-pourri (filled with smelly leaves or something). Other casualties of past cushion fights include a curtain rail, plastic lamp-shade (which was attached to the ceiling), Christmas Tree and a light fitting ... Oops!

Another bevy of short clips then follow including us noshing a takeaway, me spazzing on an Amiga Pinball game, Ned (a small plastic wrestler figure) being run over on my stairs and Lee investigating a Portaloo + assorted other odd clips!

Mark Shreeve provides the backing music for yet another music video (a track from his fabulous album "Assassin")! This one has clips of everything we sit fire to! (A Star Destroyer model, the Speccy, a small model house, Action Force figures etc. etc.)

The we have more noshing (and farting), Lee in the Portaloo (again) and the bizarre "Filthy the Dog" song! In this version of the movie the footage used with the song is of my little dog (Ginny) doing a big crap in the garden! Noooooooo!

And then we come to the end sequence! This is made up of clips of me (complete with Binary Zone PD cap) with my face pressed against my Plasma-Ball announcing the end of the film (with timely clips thrown in here and there). The final clip is the gnome having it's head shot off! Uuuurgh! That leads to the end credits which were all genlocked on the Amiga using the Scala package. The credits list the main stars, guest stars, the music used in the film, other material used in the film and even greetings to friends and contacts! Mark Shreeve once again provides the music which bangs away during the credit sequence!

THE END?
Is it really THE END? Not quite!

But it doesn't end there though! Right after the credits you get a little sequence made with my Plasma-Ball flashing to the beat of a Laserdance track and then you get to see all the footage which was displayed behind the end credits. This is backed with the piano version of "Who Wants To Live Forever" by Queen. This totally changes the mood of the clips and makes it look kind of like a retrospective look at the good old days ... Nice! The very last clip in this scene is of Mez waving bye-bye (and then lobbing the V's while the screen fades to black!)

As a bonus extra you also get the "New Year Rave" which contains two lengthy music mods by Andy Roberts joined together with stacks of Chortles footage. The samples used in the music were taken from some audio tapes which were produced by Me, Mez and Lee one New Years Eve! "Ruby Wax is a MAN!" This is followed by a strange Star Wars inspired clip! Basically, I roamed around the foundations of a house being built with the camera to make some (muddy) Deathstar trench footage. I then genlocked a badly digitised cockpit (of a snowspeeder cockpit, strangely) over the top ... Why? I have no idea!

To round it all off the lads then swill grog from tankards!

Tankards of grog!
AHAAARRR! Those were the days!

Xmas Chortles The Movie
(SPECIAL EDITION)

Xmas Chortles The Movie (Special Edition)
Movie production started:- 20/7/93

Three years after the release of the Xmas Chortles Movie I decided to remaster the original footage on my then new Akai VS1000 VCR. This VCR was much better suited to editing the Chortles footage as it featured a JOG SHUTTLE and allowed frame perfect editing. Re-doing the tape from scratch gave me the chance to fix any bits of the original I wasn't happy with and also include a smattering of new scenes.

The first thing I changed was the title sequence. The opening titles were produced on my Amiga 1200 and were much smoother than those on the first movie. The same "Speccy in flames" footage was used behind the titles and a "Special Edition" logo was added to the title sequence. This is followed by a whole new "Starring" sequence which introduces the viewer to all the main characters in the film. This was produced by simply filming a photo of each main "star" and then genlocking in their name on afterwards! The background music was produced by Andy Roberts and features samples from assorted "Chortles" audio epics!

Look out!  He's got a shooter!
Lee Collett - armed but not very dangerous!

I've actually extended the scene where Phil has "a day in the life of a spastic" - this is now much longer than the scene in the first movie and ends up with Phil being attacked by Luke! Another extra scene has been added a minute later on which features "Tyson limbering up!" and there's also a new clip of Mez hurling a cushion at Kenz.

This brings us to the clips of us playing C64 games and the scene where Pacman leaps in the air with Matt making an odd noise has now been repeated several times. Two new clips were added after the C64 game section which include Matt claiming "I hurt me bloody ear!" There's an extended scene with Matts hankie ("Urgh! There's a bogey") and the footage of Outrun from the C64 has been slightly reshuffled. There's a new brief clip after the "Grand Prix Simulator" footage which has Phil exclaiming that "This is f**king boring!" and clip of a dubbed schools program with a "dirty man in the background having a good eyeful!"

Spot the perv in the background!
Look at that dirty man having an eyeful!

This brings us to the "Hitman & Her" music video. I actually changed quite a few clips towards the end of this so about halfway through (from when Michaela is dancing with an inflatable banana - and I don't mean Pete Waterman) you will spot lots of changes! I also added a new "poo on the floor" and a "poo on the wall" after the music vid (!) and there's a new Christmas song from Mez which replaces some footage from "Space Harrier" on the C64. The "UFO" sequence after the Mike Shaft bit has been changed (because I couldn't find the same footage) and I also extended the "3D cinema" gag slightly. A new clip (of Mez shouting "BOL**CKS") has been included and I've also dropped in a new clip of us playing Storm Warrior on the C64 ("A great game with amusing features like teleports").

This is followed by a few minutes of clips which are identical in both versions of the movie. Some of the scenes of us fighting in the garden have been changed around a bit although the next main change is the clip from "Back to the Future". In the first movie the flying Delorean clip is from the second BTTF movie but in the Special Edition it's from the first! A bubbling fart has been added after this clip which makes for a better edit (somehow), the fart does feature in the first film a few moments later - and a few scenes have been switched around here (but I can't remember why!)

The footage of Elvira blowing up Cyberdyne is identical and so is the "CBM 64 DEMO MANIA" music video (if something ain't broken, don't try to fix it ... etc.) The next change is the "Kenz hand sever" gag which now features background music. There's a new clip of "Licence to Kill" being played on the C64 after this and also a new clip of us playing "Arkanoid 2" as well. Treat! (?)

The music for the "Lost in Space" style Amiga animation has been totally changed and the animation runs much faster as it's being played on the Amiga 1200. (This also means it doesn't last quite as long!) Much mirth about pouring paraffin on a small cardboard cinema frontage has been added before some clips from the "A-Team" spoof video. A clip from Indy Jones 3 has been changed to a clip of Kenz exclaiming "Eggog-Eggog" (as you do) and then there's another good few minutes where both versions of the movie are more or less identical.

Round about here you need an odd picture of Zippy!
What the f*ck?!

A bonus (?) clip of us STILL playing "Licence to Kill" has been added to a selection of clips of us playing various C64 titles but all the footage filmed in my lounge after that (with the huge spider and "I never do farts" etc.) is all unchanged. The "slowed down" footage of shooting various items (with the T2 music in the background) has been totally changed for the Special Edition. Many of the same clips are in there but in a totally different order! The next change is the addition of the "That man is silly" clip at the car wash. Some new scenes have been added after the famous "Pepsi Advert" (filmed at Lee's house) and the scenes with the "Killer Hankie" have been changed around a bit.

Two clips of us playing Amiga games have been added after all the Killer Hankie stuff. A racing game (with a RUBBISH explosion effect) and Stunt Car Racer are now featured with dubbed weirdness from the lads and there's some new dubbed C64 clips thrown in too! ("Kenz you TW*T!!" - Shouts Phil as Kenz nearly hauls the C64 rig onto the floor!) This is followed soon after by a new clip of Mikes hamster flying around (!) and Mez rejoicing after winning the SKIDOO event! No changes were made to the "Robots" music video until right at the end where it was shortened slightly for the "Special Edition". New clips have been added to the sequence of shots after the "Space Wars" clip (which now looks slow and jerky and the asteroids look like yellow space turds, interestingly!) and this all leads up to the biggest new sequence in the Special Edition version of Xmas Chortles!

The FeekZoid Music Syncro-Video

Crap spinny thing! (tm)
Good old Deluxe Paint!

For the Special Edition of the Xmas Chortles movie I added a lengthy new music video which utilised two superb music tracks produced by Paul "FeekZoid" Hannay. Called "Xmas Chortling 1 & 2" the Amiga music modules featured many classic "Xmas Chortles" sound samples and some cunningly mixed in remixes of famous dance tracks by "2 Unlimited" and "Cappella". The footage was painstakingly synchronized to the music and to this day is the most precise piece of (non digital) editing I have ever done. It really was all done with two video recorders and NO video mixing or editing equipment! This is one of my favourite parts of the Xmas Chortles movie (due to the immense difficulty in putting it together and the perfect edits it resulted in).

Cartoon boob!
Awww. Can I kiss it better?

The next main section is the C64 art show and this remains largely unchanged although I think it does actually go on for a bit longer in the first version of the movie (I must have trimmed it down for the Special Edition to prevent boredom from setting in!) Some of the pics near the end seem to be in a different order too for some baffling reason. There's a new addition to the selection of C64 games being played after the art show, in the form of the "Fungus" song by Phil. (Hehehe!)

I've added the "I'd buy that for a dollar" clip after a tribute to a certain young lady and then there's a few minutes of material which is the same in both versions of the film. The next change is the addition of Beavis & Butt-Head saying "Fire, Fire, FIRE" to announce the music video which features various things we set fire to! The "Filthy the Dog" clip which follows has been changed to a clip of the REAL "Filthy the Dog" eating a chunk of dog-meat which looks amazingly like a dog-turd! I must say the violin being played in this clip is suitably appalling! Merry Christmas, Filthy!

And that brings us to the end! The end credits are pretty much the same although the wording has been slightly updated for the Special Edition (and incorporates credits for all the extra music/stars/clips etc). Some of the background footage is different and features clips which were filmed after the first version of the movie was produced. You still get the "Plasma-Ball" section but the "stuff behind the credits" (with the Queen track) has now become the "New Year" rave. This still shows what was happening behind the credits along with tons of other Chortles footage. The "Deathstar Trench" gag is also still present but has been updated and now features a much improved X-Wing cockpit (zooming along the extremely muddy trench!) This is rounded off by the tankards of grog once more.

Gun butt the PCB again Lee!
Another quality Kenz & Collett repair!

And then you get a BONUS SCENE! Yep, it's the "Xmas Chortles Guide to Video Repair". This introduces "Kenz and Collett Repairs" and shows how they "repair" a broken Video Recorder. The end result of the repair is a totally destroyed video which has been shot to bits and is full of ketchup and smashed glass. Mez plays "Mr Passer-By" who puts the boot in with his big Doc Marten boot! The video repair tomfoolery is followed by a small "Mutant TV" music video (filmed in Lee's car) and the whole movie is rounded off with water being poured on a pierced aerosol can which is emitting flames.


Gibber!  It's the 4 minute Chortle!

So now you've read all about the film how would you like to SEE it?! Well, now you CAN! All you have to do is click the image below to start downloading the '4 minute Chortle' ... This is the whole of 'Xmas Chortles The Movie - Special Edition' packed into UNDER four minutes of groovy Mpeg footage!! It's done in a similar stype to the audio Chortles Mp3's which feature a 45 minute tape which have been remixed into a 4 minute track. It's quite a big file (5.06mb) but at least you will be able SEE some of the oddness that we've filmed in the past. The '4 minute Chortle' also features a nice background music track by FeekZoid (so at least you get SOMETHING good for your big download - HOHO!)

Click the picture below with your RIGHT mouse button and select the option
'Save Target As ...' to save the '4 Minute Chortle' onto your hard-drive.

Click HERE to download the 4 minute Chortle!
4 minutes of mpeg madness!


THE BLOODY END (AT LAST!) PHEW!

That was a fonka-wonka of a section.
I'm tired and I want to go HOME!