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(Article by Kim Stevens)
On The Buses
was an extremely popular television situation comedy, written by Ronald
Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, which began in 1969. Its setting was the Luxton
and District Traction Company, where Stan Butler (played by Reg Varney)
worked as a bus driver. His conductor was Jack Harper (played by Bob
Grant) and the fly-in-the-ointment of his life was Inspector Blake (played
by Stephen Lewis) - overly officious and with an appearance somewhat
reminiscent of Adolf Hitler. Not that Inspector Blake's job was an easy
one - Stan and Jack were invariably late for work and unreliable, and made
his life miserable too. Stan lived with his mother (played by Cicely
Courtneidge and later, Doris Hare), as did his sister, Olive (Anna Karen),
and her husband, Arthur (Michael Robbins).
All of these characters would appear in the Look-In strip although,
understandably, it focused mainly on the antics of Stan, Jack and Blakey.
The weekly instalments avoided the sexual innuendo of the TV episodes,
instead concentrating on the battle of wits (or lack of) between Blakey on
the one hand, and Stan and Jack on the other. The writers included Scott
Goodall and Geoff Cowan. Harry North was the artist for the entire run,
creating some wonderful comedic scenes as well as some stunning depictions
of rainy and snowy settings. Interestingly, he had worked as a bus driver
for a period.
The television series went through some changes as the years passed and,
for the most part, these were reflected in the strip. Arthur makes his
final appearance in the Look-In stories a few weeks after Michael Robbins
left the series at the end of its sixth season, and when Reg Varney left
part-way through its seventh season, Stan is immediately removed from the
Look-In strip. Stan's final appearance is in the issue for 24/3/73
(No.13). Thereafter, the stories would focus on Blakey and Jack, the pair
becoming a double act of sorts, with Blakey now living in Stan's old room
(as did his television counterpart). Oddly, the masthead continued to
include Reg Varney's character; the photograph of Stan was not removed
until issue No. 8 for 1974.
All the
stories are good, but these later Blakey-Jack stories are among the best,
both in terms of script and artwork. Blakey and Jack on holiday (31/3/73 -
No.14 to 21/4/73 - No.17), with each of them going through the same
actions and with the same thoughts as the other, is wonderful, and the
final story is particularly noteworthy, inspired by another television
programme of the time which featured in Look-In, namely 'Kung Fu'. In an
issue which has David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine on the cover (state
issue number), the reader is shown Jack as Kwai Chang Harper, barefooted,
with a rolled up sleeping mat over his shoulder and spouting wisdom
Oriental-style. Taking the Kung Fu theme further, there is a driver or
conductor (it is unclear which) named Frank at the depot, who bears an
uncanny likeness to a somewhat belligerent Master Po - though just what a
blind conductor/driver is doing in a bus depot is perhaps best left
unasked. It's interesting to note that one instalment of this story was
in monochrome, the only one of all the weekly parts to be so. As the strip
approached its end, Harry North began work on the single-page colour
instalments of 'Doctor in Charge' for Look-In, and it may be that On the
Buses suffered due to this extra workload. But with the three-day week
only recently ended and further industrial action to come, the On the
Buses strip may simply have been another victim of the politics of the
time.
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