The second series of Jokers Wild began airing four months after the first, being shown from March-July 1970. The second series is available to buy on DVD from Amazon, but in the meantime please join me in a ranking of the worst to best of all 14 episodes...
Team Captains: Ted Ray and Arthur Askey. Panellists: Ray Martine, Clive Dunn, Les Dawson and Stubby Kaye.
There's an odd comedown when watching the first of the second series. We're back to a studio again, as opposed to a theatre, which does bring back some of the more formal atmosphere, with the two teams apart once more, but it does seem a drop in sound when you've got used to the raucous later episodes of the first series.
Not that this audience are particularly hyped up anyway. Barry tells us that Ted Ray got 10 laughs in his solo spot, but he appears to be struggling to get life out of a much smaller studio audience who haven't been warmed up properly. It's an oddly uncomfortable atmosphere.
Last time we looked a bit closer at one of the show's co-creators, Ray Cameron. Ray also appeared as a panellist in 24 episodes, so was a notable presence, but what of the other man who co-devised the show, Mike King?
Well, Mike was one of the '50s-'60s vocal trio The King Brothers, who had eight Top 30 hits in the UK Chart, two of them in the Top 10. The group was made up of Mike and his brothers Denis and Tony, with Denis later the writer of the theme to Black Beauty, which gives him legendary status.
But what of Mike? Well, in 1999's You Won't Believe This But..., Barry Cryer describes him as "my friend from way back", and, as with his later book Pigs Can Fly, suggests that the format of the show was a direct steal: "'Inspired' by an American radio show called Can You Top That?".
And... that's kind of it. You can read in Thora Hird's 2000 autobiography not in the diary how he used to date her daughter, but if you want to read interview extracts with Mike, or autobiographical details about his role in Jokers Wild, you're kind of out of luck. It exists solely as an unspoken footnote in his career.
Team Captains: Ted Ray and Arthur Askey. Panellists: Ray Martine, Lance Percival, Les Dawson and Joe Baker.
An episode that takes the conceit that the show is in any way "improvised" and shatters it into a million pieces. There are reused jokes, with Ted Ray a particular offender, but what happens in this edition is not just reused material, but entirely reused "ad libs".
Back in the first series, Episode Twelve, David Nixon had begun to tell a joke about a hunter who saved an elephant, and saw the elephant years later in the circus. Ted interrupts the joke to say he think it's the gag where the elephant recognises him, and lifts him up with his trunk, putting him in a more expensive seat as a thank you.
David Nixon corrects the interruption, saying Ted had got the wrong joke, and that actually the elephant grabbed him, trampled on the man and threw him out of the circus tent as it was a different elephant. Here Arthur Askey gets to tell Ted he had the joke wrong, with a slightly more violent ending where the elephant trampled him to death... "It was a different elephant altogether".
Arthur gets a huge laugh from this moment of "spontaneous" wit, and TV audiences might not have remembered the same routine being performed over six months earlier. But Ted Ray, at the very least, had to be aware of giving the same interruption and getting the same response. It really does drag the series down, suddenly presenting the entire cast not as comedians testing their wits, but as puppets delivering pre-planned material, even down to the rejoinders. Arthur Askey is presented as a comic delivering an organic response, but really he's just a vessel to deliver pre-planned lines... it could have been anyone on the panel doing it.
Such matters are crushingly disappointing, and make you realise just how hollow an experience Jokers Wild truly is. The episode doesn't come last because it has some entertainment value that the one below it is missing, but it's the most disillusioning episode of the lot.
Team Captains: Ted Ray and Arthur Askey. Panellists: Ray Martine, Charlie Brown with Arthur Worsley, Les Dawson and Kenneth Connor.
One of the frustrating parts of the show's format is that each team has to go down the line, starting with Team Captains first. This means that when Ted Ray and Arthur Askey do their - frankly, slightly tedious - "rivalry" bit, it holds up the show for anyone else waiting. The second men, Les and Ray, usually get two turns as well, but for some shows the "third man" only has the chance for one joke of his own and the quick-fire round, or the stand-up solo spot if he's lucky.
But this one takes it to such an extreme level that there's not even time for Les and Ray to get their second turn, and the "quick-fire round" has to be abandoned. This is all incredibly frustrating as it means the "third men" only get one joke each, and it seems selfish behaviour, particularly as Askey also got the minute-long stand-up spot. It's not so much a big deal in the case of Kenneth Connor, who just tells pretty standard gags and doesn't seem all that comfortable, but when you've got talent like Arthur Worsley on the show, and he's not allowed to perform, it's inconsiderate and, frankly, irritating. The lack of jokes told in this edition leads to the lowest scores of the first two series, with a 35-35 draw.
The inclusion of Arthur Askey on the series may be questionable to anyone below the age of 60, as he is very much a different generation for even those of us born in the '70s and '80s. (Which is probably a fairly large demographic of visitors to this site.) In his likeably chatty, engaging autobiography Before Your Very Eyes, Arthur details turning professional in March 1924 and performing at a time when stage microphones weren't common, instead having to project his voice. A man of so different a time that he describes having worked separately with Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise when they were both teenagers.
It's this very old-time, "showbiz patter" and projection that can disrupt the show a little, and seem like Arthur is resting on past laurels. It's not quite Jimmy Tarbuck saying the phrases "golf" and "Kenny Lynch" and thinking that makes an act, but it can be somewhat puzzling for those who weren't around when Arthur was in his pomp... he was, after all, approaching his 70th birthday at this point.
Published in 1975, the main focus of Arthur's book is from his childhood to the early 1950s, with the advent of television and the decline of music hall. He does devote two or three chapters to his later years up to 1974, but Jokers Wild is once again absent from an autobiography. It's perhaps understandable, as during this period his wife was suffering from pre-senile decay and Arthur was becoming depressed as a result, so his focus was on more important things.
Perhaps the nearest thing to being related to the show is his brief reference to the radio comedy Does the Team Think?, which featured Arthur and Ted Ray as regulars: "In my opinion the listeners don't hear the best part of this show. We record for an hour and our producer, Ted Taylor, then cuts out the more bawdy parts". There's also a brief mention of Alfred Marks, who had appeared in a play with Arthur, The Kid From Stratford, as a 27-year-old and was recast, largely because he was already bald at 27 and looked like a father rather than the intended romantic lead. (Alfred wasn't really a contemporary in the same way Ted was, of course: Ted was less than 5½ years younger than Arthur; Alfred was over 20 years his junior.)
Let's finish on some trivia. Speaking of the scores, then for the overall second series Arthur Askey beat Ted Ray 5-3 with two draws, getting an average of 56.5 points against Ted's 54.5. When Alfred Marks took over in the last four weeks as a stand-in for Ted Ray, Arthur beat him 3-0 with one draw, getting an average of 52.5 against Alfred's 45. Even more than series one, Barry Cryer admits to rigging the scores for "needle", so this is very much nerd stats rather than anything essential.
Team Captains: Ted Ray and Arthur Askey. Panellists: Ray Martine, Lance Percival, Les Dawson and Joe Baker.
The blatant contrivance of the whole set up continues unabashed in this edition. Not Ted Ray and Les Dawson using old jokes we heard in the first series - old jokes get reused all the time - but just in the "off the cuff" moments that are clearly anything but.
Ray Martine has a letter containing a joke, which he reads at length, causing all the other panellists, and Barry, to pretend to fall asleep. It has a distinct "pre-rehearsed" feel, but not as much as Arthur Askey asking Lance Percival to do an ad-lib calypso song (which was a regular part of Lance's act), and, when he tells Arthur he doesn't have a guitar, one is dutifully produced from behind the desks by Les Dawson.
The various combinations for the solo spot are now greatly reduced from what they were at the outset, of course. While series one began with all six names being on cards and chosen at random (or at least the illusion of such), with series two a Team Captain is asked to choose from the opposing side. So Lance Percival performing for a minute seems very much pre-arranged, but it backfires when his calypso - possibly genuinely ad-libbed for once as it's based on the events of the show - doesn't really go over particularly well, and he manages just 8 laughs in his single minute.
It's the lowest score of the run, with the average from 12 other episodes 11.83 laughs. The next lowest is Ted Ray with his aforementioned 10, while the highest stated counts are Les Dawson in Episode Five and Charlie Brown (with Arthur Worsley) in Episode Ten with 13 laughs apiece. You might note that this only adds up to 13 episodes with laugh counts when there are 14 in this run... it's because the last episode has Clive Dunn get so many laughs in his solo spot that Barry Cryer loses count. (Though if you sat there counting you'd reach a number of around 25, a 78.57% increase on any previous record.)
Team Captains: Ted Ray and Arthur Askey. Panellists: Ray Martine, Clive Dunn, Les Dawson and Stubby Kaye.
This second week saw the Southern ITV Region take up the show, placing it in a 6:30pm Tuesday night schedule. Confusingly, STV had also taken up the show and was screening it during this time, but it wasn't the same series. From 5th February-2nd April 1970 the STV region showed 9 episodes from the first series, and didn't begin showing this second run until the 10th June. This is another problem with trying to clarify which regions carried the show, and where they charted - they're not necessarily the same episodes being shown around the regions in the same week.
Clive Dunn makes six appearances during this second series, and would in fact go on to be the fifth most regular cast member of the entire run of the series (after Barry Cryer, Les Dawson, Ray Martine and Ted Ray), clocking up 47 appearances. Clive is commendable for being able to so effectively play dotty old men, especially given the fact that he was still only 48 when Dad's Army started, and still only 59 when Grandad began.
But it's a shame that Clive doesn't drop out of character for his appearances on Jokers Wild, just telling gags as himself, rather than doing a "turn", and essaying another dotty old man part to help with the gags. As a result you don't really see "Clive Dunn" on Jokers Wild, but a projection, a character. It's a shame, because with a show like Jokers Wild you want to see the people behind the mask, and are deprived of the chance.
Team Captains: Ted Ray and Arthur Askey. Panellists: Ray Martine, Graham Stark, Les Dawson and Ted Rogers.
Graham Stark is the new face here, though not a new face to television. Probably now best known for roles in six Pink Panther sequels (the French detective, not the cartoon character) he also later appeared in the Ray Cameron-Barry Cryer film project for Kenny Everett, 1984's Bloodbath at the House of Death.
A popular character actor, Stark had appeared in almost 130 films/pieces of TV even before this edition of Jokers Wild aired, all the way back to a teen in 1939's The Spy In Black. He even had his own series in 1964 with The Graham Stark Show. Two months after this edition of Jokers Wild aired there was a broadcast of Simon Simon, a short he directed, co-wrote and starred in. In fact, after this edition aired he appeared in over 80 further film/TV projects. So yes, even if you might not recognise the name, or even the face, Graham Stark was by no means an "unknown" in the industry, quite the opposite. He was also well-versed in radio, where he'd worked with both Ted Ray and Arthur Askey.
Stark is another panellist who released an autobiography without a single mention of Jokers Wild - not such a big deal in his case, as he was only in two episodes. But while he doesn't talk about the show itself, in 2003's Stark Naked he highly praises Ted Ray, regarding him as, among other things, "[...] one of the wittiest ad libbers in the business. Tommy Trinder, Jimmy Edwards, Arthur Askey - all had great reputations for the snappy retort, as quasi-American reporters had it, but Ted was number one". It's a shame that, as we've seen, this ability to ad-lib wasn't stretched in a series that was too heavily pre-configured.
Ted Rogers is the "lucky" one here in that he gets the stand-up spot, while the first time we get to hear from Graham is after the commercial break, almost twelve minutes into the show. Now, when we finally get to hear Graham, he does an Israeli shooting Arabs gag, complete with "Arabic" voice, so it's not really something that plays great in 2025, to say the least. (Ted Rogers also talks about knowing which Doctor is on duty as you can "smell the curry".) Fortunately for Graham, things go a little quicker in the second half, meaning he does get chance for a second gag.
So, why the quotation marks around Ted being the "lucky" one to do the stand-up spot? Simply because the audience are brilliantly disengaged this episode, and jokes whither and die. While Ted's stand-up doesn't go over too badly (Barry Cryer generously claims he got 11 laughs in a minute) there's a later moment at his desk where he does three gags in a row that are all greeted with total silence.
Ted Rogers went on to be a pretty decent quiz show host with 3-2-1, but his "slick", oddly soulless brand of "comedy" never really sat well here at The Anorak Zone. Despite this, and the suspicion that he was dying his hair during his appearances on Jokers Wild, it's not all that much fun watching someone die with three gags in a row, even Ted. But he isn't the only comedian to see jokes die on this one, ironically the episode where they introduce a trophy for the funniest team. Yet it's not as uncomfortable as in Episode One, it's more amusing as tumbleweeds blow across the set.
Team Captains: Alfred Marks and Arthur Askey. Panellists: Ray Martine, Clive Dunn, Les Dawson and Stanley Unwin.
Jokers Wild is so far back in time, relatively speaking, that it places us in an age where Stanley Unwin was reasonably new to the business, after a fashion. One of his first professional roles was taking part in The Spice of Life, a BBC radio vehicle for Ted Ray that was broadcast in 1956. Fourteen years is a fair stretch of time, but just a fraction of his career when you consider he was still working until the late 1990s.
Stanley worked on so many projects it's impossible to even try and list them all, and you're probably aware of them anyway: parts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Carry on Regardless, along with a Gerry Anderson series built especially around him, The Secret Service. He was a guest on multiple light entertainment shows (including Crossroads!), had his own recordings and played the role of narrator in "Odgen's Nut Gone Flake", the album by The Small Faces.
Is Stanley Unwin funny? Again, it's pretty much subjective. Some people find him hilarious, others don't get the joke at all. But while he does a couple of unusually coarse bits on the show - including belching, saying "nippleode" in Episode Fourteen, and, as pictured, miming a pair of breasts - his own made-up language is pretty clever. It also gives an idea about the nature of language, given that you can just about understand what he's saying, when what he's saying is mangled English, if not exactly nonsense. (A similar phenomenon occurs with the pure nonsense of an Italian song released two years after this edition aired, "Prisencolinensinainciusol", which presents nonsense as how English is heard by non-English speakers. The track, by Adriano Celentano, works along the same lines as Unwin's speech - to a point - in that it offers an auditory illusion.)
For trivia, then this episode saw the series finally manage to have been broadcast by every ITV region, with ATV Midlands picking it up, largely in a trade for the Yorkshire region showing The Golden Shot. The region got to see the show at 5:15pm on Saturdays, while the other regions went with Tuesday at 6:30pm (Southern), Wednesday at 7pm (Grampian, HTV, STV, Ulster and Yorkshire), Thursday at 6:35pm (Tyne Tees), Friday at 8pm (Anglia) and Saturday at 6:15pm (Border). Unfortunately for the second series, it was dropped by the Channel, Granada, Thames and Westward regions. As with the previous article, this information has been put together by spending hours personally going through archive newspapers, so human error is possible, but I don't believe this information is wrong.
Such a brief summary only takes into account this week of broadcasting, as all the various regions moved it around in the schedules throughout series two, while Anglia showed just six episodes, some months after they'd been shown elsewhere. It's all very complicated, so if you want the exact episode-by-episode schedule (and why wouldn't you?) then you can see it under the trivia sections on the IMDb.
Working out the reach of each region is difficult, because the various transmitters around the UK overlapped: the total audience that were able to view ITV in 1970 was around 51 million from a population of around 55.6m, but adding all the transmitter reaches together produces a higher figure due to the fact that transmitters could reach over regions. However, while the show could have sustained a national-sized audience without Channel (which, naturally enough, served the Channel Islands), Granada, Thames and Westward were broadcasting to areas that accounted for over a quarter of the population.