The Wheel and Axle

Red Nose Roundup

by on Mar.24, 2017, under Film & TV, Travel & Culture

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Last week, as a precursor to the UK’s Red Nose Day 2017, videos of three celebrities posing as British Airways agents and pranking several travelers in Heathrow Airport were released. Those three celebs happen to be some of my faves: gay Olympic diver Tom Daley, Spice Girl Emma Bunton, and Little Britain‘s David Walliams.

(And if you’ve never watched Little Britain, shame on you.)

Now these are must watch hidden cam pranks! To be completely honest, Tom was not that funny except for a couple of beats, but he was still absolutely adorable. Emma was very funny, especially when she would randomly infuse the conversations with random Spice lyrics and the customers would still be so clueless and unaware. David Walliams is of course a comedic genius and was just  hilarious AF, especially whenever he just deadpanned his way through things.

Personally, I would’ve recognized all three of them, but then, who would really think these folks would actually be there?

Red Nose Day, which is a biennial telethon tied to Comic Relief (a UK charity dedicated to alleviating famine in Ethiopia), will be held today, the 24th. Comic Relief itself has a long history of artists supporting it, particularly through charity singles – many of which, by the way, have videos tinged with humor and lots of silliness.

Some of the more memorable ones, for me at least, are the pop ones.

One of the earlier singles was the 1989 remake of the Beatles’ Help! collaborated on by Bananarama and Lananeeneenoonoo (a spoof girl group featuring comediennes French and Saunders plus Kathy Burke). Now if Jennifer Saunders looks familiar to you, a Friends fan, that’s because she played Emily’s stepmom (i.e. Ross’ stepmother-in-law).

In 1997, an alternative video of Who Do You Think You Are? by the Spice Girls was released alongside the main one. The Comic Relief version featured the return of French, Saunders, and Burke – this time joined by Lulu and Llewella Gideon to form the spoof impersonator group Sugar Lumps. British humor, I mean, humour at its finest folks. I love it.

Of course, how can I forget my favorite boyband and their contribution to Comic Relief? Westlife’s cover of the Billy Joel classic Uptown Girl was a huge hit, and the MTV – with that classic Claudia Schiffer moment – got a lot of airtime. In the Philippines at least. Back when we actually had MTV.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be digging out more of these 90s/00s BritPop bands from my archives. A1 and Steps, anyone? Always simply fun, just like Red Nose Day.

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