Be Excellent To Each Other

I post this because I find it shocking. As most of us know Tommy Cooper died on live TV in 1984. The head of Thames TV (not LWT as the Youtube details state) ordered that the tape of the show be placed in a safe in his office and would never be shown again.

His mistake it appears was not ordering that the tape was destroyed, because somehow it's managed to turn up on Youtube. I saw this on Popbitch and assumed it would be something else because I naturally assumed that this footage would simply not be out there.

If you don't want to see images of a much loved comedian having a fatal heart attack then don't click below. I only post it to provoke debate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9ZW3reIqoQ&eur

Take a look, and please if you feel as strongly as I do then report this to Youtube. I have no idea how this has got out but it's just not on. Simply flag it, and the other one that's linked on the right as well.

interesting take on the incident on the Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip album

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LdYA0wef8

It's a fucking disgrace is what it is.

And I'm with Pip on this, that track was on my mix CD last time we did this and that's why I've saved the video if anyone wants it later.

In terms of the performance live, perhaps. He died to laughter. But in 2009 you are totally unable to watch that clip in the same context as the audience in 1984 was, thereby rendering it a rubbernecking clip to gawp at for the majority and a historical curiosity for the minority.

How deeply unpleasant.

I'm fairly indifferent to it.

It's only one person.

We don't get too bothered with footage of aerial bombardment or anything like that.

At the end of the day, it's just another person, who happened to have a camera on him when he died.

I love Tommy Cooper - I honestly thought my sides had split after watching his bit where he's trying to do a ventriloquist act on a ship at (very rough) sea(s).

And there's a bloody great statue of him in the middle of Caerphilly that I go past every day.

I find it very upsetting - all the life just drains out of him and he slumps to the floor.

To be honest, I watched this video more out of intrigue. I certainly knew about the man and read up before on the circumstances surrounding this death, but this clip helped me to learn just how it all looked to everyone watching, be it on the box or in the audience, considering I wasn't even born at the time.

I kinda worried at first that it would be more dramatic than it turned out to be.

Speak for yourself...

I remember seeing this live on telly at the time, I have no wish to see it again.

This. What is it with english people and death? Seriously, it's just a man dying, it's not shocking or offensive ffs.

Mm, I wish I hadn't watched that.

Anyway, some googling suggests that some sort of clipshow on Dutch TV recently aired it, and that is how it has resurfaced.

Oh brilliant - Tommy Cooper's swansong* is on a Dutch version of You've Been Framed.

*well, posthumous thingy, then. But that doesn't sound as good.

Possibly because some people, myself included, believe that people deserve some dignity in death, rather than it being some sort of event that rubberneckers and shitheads watch for amusement. Is it different than the supposed footage that someone took of a woman dying in a car accident with half her face torn off? Not really.

Well, yes it is, because *that* sounds totally gross and therefore waaaaay coooooool.

I saw it live and then IIRC watched Plan 9 from Outer Space. Anyone got the TV schedules from that night to see if I've got memories confused or not.

Regardless, I'm not going to watch it again on YouTube.

:-(

What, pray, is undignified about his death? He died doing what he loved, and it's interesting to watch. Most of the comments are actually pretty positive - and that's on youtube, which has a lower standard of comment than almost anywhere in the universe.

I don't get why people think you have to hide away and die secretly and politely in order to have dignity.

Because it's become a spectacle.

It was already a spectacle. He was a performer performing on stage. What difference does it make whether he died on camera or not? Just the fact that people are watching doesn't harm him or his reputation in any way, so what's the problem?

The people who were there saw it by accident, in effect. People who watch it now are deliberately choosing to watch a man die.

I can see why people may think that's a bit... odd, to say the least.

None. But what possible reason would people watch this again for, knowing now what happens. A man dies. Let's watch it! Let's rewind it so that you can see the very moment his life extinguishes in his eyes!

Nothing should not be examined under the microscope of the camera and made a public spectacle! Quick! Let's put cameras in toilet pans!

But the question remains how did it get out? The broadcast tape was supposed to be locked away. Doesn't look low grade enough for a home tape of that era.

I just looked into it and it turns out it was on an LWT show rather than at Thames (who he was contracted to). So it's not hard to imagine it leaking frankly.

Still, given most TV companies liking for wiping tapes in the 60's and 70's, LWT should have wiped that one!

A man going up on stage in front of a camera is about as far from a man going to the toilet as you can get.

I watched it out of curiosity, because it's a famous moment of a comedian I like a great deal, and I thought it would be interesting. It's not like they deliberately filmed him dying for the hell of it. He was on stage and he happened to die.

Yeeee-es. But that film, which had been in a safe for a long time, has now been put out there *solely* for the purpose of going "he died! LOLZORS!" while the Dutch equivalent of Harry Hill (can you imagine?) says something along the lines of "Some people think they've died on stage - this guy *really* did!"

No, but it was only captured by accident during a live TV broadcast. If it had been a pre-recorded show then it would never have been broadcast. In fact if it had happened 15 years previously the chances were that they wouldn't have even bothered to record it.

Likewise it was never intended to be seen again but it almost certainly leaked (given that there is only a small chance of a home recording existing from that era*).

And ultimately although some people are interested in the historical context, the likes of Dave Twat (the office joker) forwarding it around going "look at this bloke dieing while people laugh" is rather unsavory.



* Although that said there are quite a few Doctor Who stories on VHS from that time period and earlier which enables the DVD producers to put the continuity on the DVD's. But Who is an exceptional case because it had a) fans and b) fans geeky enough to own a VCR. Believe it or not there's a home recording of Who from the 60's recorded on one of the very first home video recorders which would have cost as much as a car!

Like Dave Twat in the office, there's no context involved. The only way I could imagine that being used is if it was tastefully cut into a documentary about his life. Not the convulsing, not the pained expression of a man dying.

Just hours before he himself died, Eric Morecambe said on-stage he would hate to die like his friend Tommy Cooper. Luckily for Eric the concert he was performing at wasn't being televised and he had his heart attack just a few minutes after leaving the stage.

I suppose, but fuckwits are going to be fuckwits regardless, so meh. Besides, it was a pretty comical thing, as the reaction of the audience shows. Someone falling over in a funny way doesn't magically stop looking funny just because they die. It's sad as well, yeah, but still looks funny.

I suspect the Dutch are less weird about death than we are, to be honest. Or weird in a different way. A lot of places are much more matter of fact about it than we are here.

Being less "shush!" about it is not the same as being all "let's deliberately watch a guy dying"

No, but I don't see what's actually wrong with or strange about intentionally watching someone die, either. It's simply a fact of life, like childbirth, falling asleep or sneezing. In fact I would much rather see someone die than see them give birth, because I'm significantly less likely to give birth than I am to die, so it's more relevant to me.

However, there are less boobs and vaginas in the average death.

Not in mine!

Oddly, I agree with sinister agent on this one. (Who is so often wrong about other stuff like Steam, and what have you.)

It's a matter of fact how Tommy Cooper died, it's part of history, it happened, nothing is going to make it un-happen. I watched the clip, it wasn't pleasant, but I don't see how it makes me a ghoul or a rubbernecker, or demeans his legacy as a remarkable comedian and performer in any way.

We all fucking die, and it's very rarely pleasant, the man was a performer and he had a camera pointed at him at the time his number came up - it's not overly complex.

A quick question. If it was one of your parents who had died with a camera pointed at them, would it be okay for that footage to be publicly screened and distributed?

I would get royalty fees, so fuck, yes.

Ah, internet.

Imagine if you were one of his kids (don't even know if he has any), and you weren't there for that performance and didn't see him die. How horrific would it be 25 years later for it to be put out there as a public spectacle?

I don't really see why I would care. Nobody's making me watch it, and nobody's using the footage to track me down and call me a cunt or whatever, so ... what effect is it supposed to be having on me, exactly?

But dude, you'd get royalties, apparently. You'd be well chuffed.

You'd be sat there, wondering whether you should watch it. Wondering if it would help with the feelings of loss you experienced 25 years ago, or whether it would drag it all up to the surface again. Horrid.

Yes, I can imagine that would be *exactly* your response were that to happen for real rather than as a hypothetical on a web forum.

Clearly I was being tongue-in-cheek with that one. Royalties from Youtube? Do me a lemon.

It'd still have this much effect on me: None. I seldom meet the vast majority of youtube viewers, possibly because they are daily outwitted in their struggle to open the front door in the morning, so I don't see why it should matter all that much. Cooper's kids may well feel differently of course, but having grown up with a famous dad, I suspect they're even more laissez faire than I am.

It's the internet. Once stuff like this has come out, the chances of it going away decrease exponentially with every word of fuss you make. Best thing if it bothers you is just to ignore it.

I watched it, I'm not sure why. The most disturbing thing was that it really did look like part of the act, right to the end. Actually, I think I do know why I watched it. It was because I've heard about it so often and was somewhat dubious as to whether the audience could have been genuinely confused. I don't know if that qualifies as morbid curiosity or not.

I await the inevitable newspaper reports to the contrary.

And the fact that the press will be badgering the fuck out of the family all weekend until they get a reaction says more about the press than it does about youtube.

Yeah, a very easy thing to do when it's a film of your dad dying, that you hadn't previously seen.

I'm pretty sure this is actually just a "well, man, I'm as totally laid back about this as I am about sex and everything else" internet pose put-on rather than genuine sociopathy.

Oh for fuck's sake. It's just a bloke dying. Happens constantly. Happened to a few dozen people while you read this. If you don't want to watch it, don't watch it. Same goes whether it's a stranger or your best mate or your famous dad.

I'm sure your parents would be touched by the fact you wouldn't be in the least bit bothered by watching a film of them dying if you hadn't been present at their death.

Regardless of the normality of the event, it's a bit odd wanting to watch a guy you've never met die out of curiosity. It's even weirder not being bothered by the fact that his relatives may not want to see that or have other people get their yayas out of it.