Whoops Apocalypse: The Complete Apocalypse (DVD review).
TV cast: Barry Morse, John Barron, Richard Griffiths, Peter Jones, Geoffrey Palmer, Richard Davies, Alexi Sayle, Bruce Montague, John Cleese, Ed Bishop, Kirsty Pooley and David Kelly
‘Whoops Apocalypse: The Complete Apocalypse’ contains the 1982 TV series and the film version. Writers Andrew Marshall and David Renwick were British comedy royalty at the time, and it’s hardly surprising that they could come up with a series that was so startling and addressed the foibles of the USA, Russia, the UK, and the Middle East.
Take President Johnny Cyclops (actor Barry Morse). He is scheduled to run for re-election, and his aide, the Deacon (actor John Barron), possesses divine wisdom. In the UK, newly elected Labour PM Kevin Pork (actor Peter Jones) also believes he is Superman and can save the defence budget in his alter ego, yet he has problems opening an ink bottle. Meanwhile, Shah Mashig Rassim (actor Bruce Montague) is supposed to be taken by his blindfolded driver Abdab (actor David Kelly) to the port and a boat to the UK when it blows up. Abdab has blindfolded himself to prevent himself from looking at his leader, even when the Shah prompts him to do so. The boat explosion conceals the Shah’s existence and is orchestrated by America, allowing him to travel to the USA after visiting the UK. To keep up with all of this, American newsreader Jay Garrick (actor Ed Bishop) is obviously in the USA reporting the news at breakneck speed. In the second episode, an unnamed bare-chested TV news reporter (actress Kirsty Pooley) provides the news from the UK.
As the weeks pass in the episodes, things get progressively worse. Russian Premiere Dubienkin (actor Richard Griffiths) is continually being replaced by lookalikes as he continually succumbs to heart attacks, presumably dying off. There’s also the little matter of professional assassin and master of disguise Lacrobat (actor John Cleese without his moustache) having been hired by cutouts to move the Quark nuclear bomb, formerly called the Johnny Cyclops nuclear bomb, to Europe to kill the Shah. He, in turn, nearly a month of seasickness on the ferry, still can’t get Abdab to take his blindfold off to shave him properly. Oh, and Russia is bugging the British PM’s office enough to blackmail them into the Warsaw Pact.
The last two episodes are the final week, and, literally, insanity takes over, and there are so many spoilers with a poignant kick at the end. Hope you have the currency to buy a mushroom badge.
‘If God had meant us to panic, he wouldn’t have given us clean pants,’ quotes the Deacon, amongst the many he does over the episodes. Who would have thought we would have so many dangerous world leaders? Where’s the parallel to our current times?
A lot of this show depends on visual gags, so you need to pay attention to the screen. I haven’t seen this series since its original release. Today, I find it even funnier, which is rather telling considering its age. All the comedy actors used fit the parts so well with a sense of believability, and some in parts you would least expect of them. It’s a shame that the out-takes were never kept because I suspect they couldn’t keep a straight face through all this material.
1986 film cast: Peter Cook, Loretta Swit, Herbert Lom, Daniel Benzali, Richard Wilson, Alexi Sayle, Rik Mayall, Michael Richards and many, many more.
The second disc is devoted to the film version with a bigger budget and cast. I’m not too keen on watching two of these one after the other, but necessity kind of dictates it. The film version of ‘Whoops Apocalypse’ came out in 1986, 4 years after the original. Surprisingly, the original scriptwriters also contributed to this version, despite its inferior quality. Vice-President Barbara Adams (actress Loretta Swit) steps in when President Jack Preston (actor Murray Hamilton) dies after being thumped in the stomach, showing how fit he was.
The mercenary Lacrobat (actor Michael Richards) is causing mischief a lot earlier in this film, starting with sabotaging a peace conference.
Tory Prime Minister Sir Mortimer Chris (actor Peter Cook) is fixated on pixies rather than the Superman fixation of the TV version. Don’t even go there when he has a unique way to reduce unemployment. With this in mind, Adams hires Lacrobat to assassinate Chris but doesn’t want to know about it. He in turn kidnaps Princess Wendy (actress Joanne Pearce) in the process of carrying out this mission. To get her back, Chris is planning a nuclear war, confident that the British umbrella will protect his people from the fallout. Well, only those who vote for the Tory Party.
The various elements are updated to what was ‘modern’ at the time and probably to match some of the sensibilities of the actors hired. In contrast to the TV series where many of the cast played against type.
Given a choice between the two, the TV series is a lot funnier because it was a lot more intimate. Giving it wider screens and more cast just ends up looking more decorative than funny.
As I’ve made comparisons to current reality in recent editorials to ‘Whoops Apocalypse’, are we really that close? Sad to say, as I said about in the second edit, three out of four world leaders with access to nuclear weapons are getting pretty close, with two of them intent on genocide, stopped only from using them because they want the land for themselves.
Over the decades, there have been a limited number of films about world leaders, usually American, set in regular reality making the decision to use nukes or not. Only Strangelove’ is a black comedy. TV series. There is only one TV series available. These are all reminders never to let things go too far. Watch and learn and be afraid of the consequences.
GF Willmetts
April 2025
(pub: Network/Granada Ventures, 2010. 2 DVDs 6 * 26 minute episodes, 1 88 minute film. Price: varies. ASIN: 7952668).
