@cstross @delanthear @aspragg @edchivers @JamesPadraicR

I think that we can thank _Game for a Laugh_ and _Beadle's About_ for the addition of cruelty to the character. They made that sort of thing mainstream. Candid Camera was not as invested in making people suffer, as I remember it.

Had it not been for them, Blobby would have been the Phantom Flan Flinger but with a Christmas number 1 single and a BBC budget. TPFF never pranked unsuspecting people who thought that they were on some other show or doing something else.

People got a stunt pie in the face from a taxi driver, or Jim Davidson's chauffeur, or an ATV reporter; but they did so knowing that that was part of the #Tiswas format when they were booked.

#JimDavidson himself was TPFF — exactly once. Probably for the best that it stopped there, I think.

https://youtube.com/v/UQpz3-5uuFQ

#MrBlobby #JeremyBeadle #NoelEdmonds #PhantomFlanFlinger