From Here?

Summary

Over the years, I’ve written plenty about comedy writers reusing jokes. Today’s topic is one of the most famous and most-quoted examples of the lot. So let’s turn to ersatz Bond film Never Say Never Again, which premiered in the US on the 6th October 1983. Oh dear, James Bond isn’t having much fun. NURSE: Mr. Bond? I need a urine sample. If you could fill this beaker for me? BOND: From here? The tale surrounding this is well-known by now. Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais did some emergency rewrite work on Never Say Never Again, coming in three weeks after the film had started shooting, and staying with the production for three months.1 Of course, they nicked the above joke from their own Porridge, and both writers have openly and repeatedly discussed this. For instance, in the Omnibus edition “Whatever Happened To Clement & La Frenais?”, broadcast on the 20th July 1997: DICK CLEMENT: We’re always tempted to recycle jokes, We did use one… it’s not a similar joke, it’s the same joke, in Never Say Never Again as in Porridge. If you see them back-to-back, it’s quite amusing. IAN LA FRENAIS: We call it homage. We don’t call it recycling. (laughs) But it doesn’t happen very often. The joke was actually taken from the very first episode of Porridge2, “New Faces, Old Hands”, which first aired on 5th September 1974: DOCTOR: You see those flasks over there? I want you to fill one for me. FLETCH: What, from ‘ere? For me, it’s the lightning-fast reaction from Barker which really sells it. He knew when you shouldn’t have time to anticipate the gag. Obviously, this scene has become one of those clips over the years – if not quite rivalling Del Boy falling through the bar, then definitely in the ballpark. You do get to the point where at least as many people remember the clip from documentaries and anecdotes as they do from the actual show. With that in mind, it’s worth noting at least one newspaper reviewer enjoyed the joke so much on first transmission, that they quoted it in the...