#on the buses

[all-action-all-picture]

RIP Georgina Hale who died on 4 January this year. British actress with a long list of credits but if you've never watched it seek out the One Foot in the Grave episode "Love and Death" (which also guest stars Stephen Lewis from On the Buses). Alright My Love!

[georgefairbrother]

Remembering British-South African actress, model and dancer, Anna Karen, who passed away February 22nd, 2022, as a result of a fire at her home, aged 85.

She worked as an exotic dancer and model to pay her way through drama school, appeared in Ken Loach's first feature, Poor Cow (1967), and alongside Barbara Windsor in Carry On Camping (1969), with whom she remained lifelong friends.

As a result of a role in a short-lived sitcom, Wild Wild Women, Anna Karen was cast as Olive in On the Buses in 1969. In a later interview, she recalled that the brief she was given for the character was simply 'always ill and sex mad'. She came up with the look herself, apparently based on a relative.

She appeared in all 74 episodes and three feature films. In an interview with Rabbit and Snail Films for On The Buses at the Movies, she said, leading up to the first film, the producers told the cast, "There's no money, the entire cast budget is 7 500 pounds, so don't be stroppy about it!"

The first On the Buses movie was brought in for well under 100 000 pounds and made back around 28 times its production budget. She also recalled that her favourite of the three feature films was Holiday on the Buses, with happy memories of filming at Pontin's holiday camp, Prestatyn, in amongst the camp's guests.

She later revived Olive for a reboot of The Rag Trade, appeared in The Bill, and as Aunt Sal in 54 episodes of Eastenders between 1996 and 2017.

Anna Karen was married to variety comedian, actor and stuntman, Terry Duggan (below left), from 1967 until his death in 2008.

She was the last surviving principal cast-member of On the Buses, after Stephen Lewis (Blakey) passed away in 2015.

[boscofuller]

[kitschykitschykoo]

Olive Rudge

[yamnbananas]

On the Buses (Part 3)

[futurebird]

The "B" is *not* for "buses"

Via mastodon(aka the fediverse)

[gorillaxyz]

in the second movie arthur joined the depot and he wore the uniform for a bit and it axtually made me sooo happy he was so fucking cute. and the bit with the fucking... washing machine or whatever the hell happened. AND THE ZOO ANIMALS... ahhhhhhhh

[trainsinanime]

I wonder: Do Americans know about american school buses? Not their existence in general, but how they're seen overseas.

Over here, they're one of the symbols of America, on par with the Statue of Liberty, the flag, the Eagle, and well ahead of any chain restaurant you can name. People won't know any US states, but they will know these vehicles.

The thing is, here in Germany, we don't have dedicated school buses. The general idea is that kids go to school on their own. When that's not practical, they're expected to use (and given free tickets for) public transit. Public transit is designed around this requirement; there are many places where there is a bus, and anyone can get on it, but the route and timetable really only makes sense for school children. In case a dedicated school bus is really needed, that's generally subcontracted out, and the lines either use something like a Sprinter Van for smaller routes, or a normal city or interurban bus (often a used one that's a bit older). School trips are normal public transit, or a rented bus, typically a coach or regional bus.

It's not a perfect system, in the past couple of years there's been an epidemic of people bringing their kids to school in their cars instead of letting them walk, which is less than ideal. It is what it is. But building a dedicated network of public transit lines only for students, and building dedicated vehicles only for that, has never occurred to anyone here.

Of course we know about these buses, from movies and such, but they're as foreign here as cacti or pick-up trucks (actually we're seeing more and more of these here) or yellow cabs (all europeans will assume all cabs in the US are yellow until they actually visit).

You do see these buses here at times, because people still generally like the idea of the US, even if they have a lot of issues with a lot of details, and so folks bring them over, along with stretch limos and stuff (also not really a thing here). And of course, if someone goes to all that trouble, they don't do it to haul school kids, they rent it out for city tours or as a party bus or whatever.

So you see these yellow things as a symbol of faraway places, scenic vistas, some vague undefined idea of freedom that doesn't necessarily hold up to any contact with reality, and it's just a huge part of the whole US aesthetic.

And then you go to a student exchange with the US, and you finally get the chance: You yourself get to ride in one of these iconic chrome yellow buses! It looks just like in the movies! You get in, you drive in them a little…

…and you realise they're shit. Just the worst buses in the western world. Terrible suspension. Uncomfortable seats with weirdly high backs (so they don't have to put seatbelts in, they just restrict how far kids can fly in an accident). Everything made out of the cheapest materials. Turns out the reason why the US uses school buses like that instead of normal modern city buses, which the US has, is to save money and because they just hate kids.

And then it hits you why US Americans say "as American as apple pie", a dish that is made and enjoyed literally anywhere in the world, instead of "as American as yellow school buses". Of course the Americans already knew all this. They got tortured by these things forever. It would never occur to them to see this as a symbol of America, it's just a normal part of life for them. It's a symbol of school and school life and sometimes normalcy, and tells us that these actors getting out of it are supposed to be teenagers, nothing more.

But most people in Europe have, of course, never ridden on these buses. So when they see them in movies and TV, that's a giant big yellow signifier that we're not in Hessen or Wallonia or wherever anymore. A symbol of a different world, one that may be at most a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for most people, just like a picture of a tropical beach, Mayan Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, or Hildesheim (there's no reason to go there twice). And I think Americans don't know that, and that's fascinating.

[transperth-official]

public transport and public libraries are making out nasty on the couch

[politijohn]

Source

Source

Make public transit free

[georgefairbrother]

Remembering Stephen Lewis, merchant seamen turned actor and writer, who passed away August 12th, 2015.

Born in Poplar, East London, in 1926, he initially went to sea, before joining Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, where he made his West End debut in The Hostage, by Brendan Behan, in 1958.

He wrote Sparrers Can't Sing, a play performed in broad cockney with significant improvisation, which was adapted as a feature film in 1963.

According to Variety:

"…The film is based on a play that (Joan Littlewood) staged at the Theatre Workshop. She and the author of the play, Stephen Lewis, collaborated on the loose screenplay and Littlewood surrounds herself with most of the Workshop cast. She also operates almost entirely on location in the East End that she knows and clearly loves so well…Much of the dialog, which is rather salty, appears to have been made up off the cuff of the players. This shows up dangerously in the intimate scenes, but gives gusto to others..."

Stephen Lewis later found lifelong fame as Blakey in LWT's On the Buses, on television and in three movie adaptations by Hammer, which went on to be some of the most profitable British feature films of the early 1970s. He wrote 12 episodes of On the Buses with co-star Bob Grant, as well their segment for the 1972 ITV Christmas special, All Star Comedy Carnival, and IMDb lists him as a contributing writer for the anthology series Armchair Theatre (Thames/ITV) and Comedy Playhouse (BBC).

He reprised the character of Blakey in the On the Buses spinoff, Don't Drink the Water (1974-75), with Blakey having retired to Spain with his sister, played by Pat Coombs.

He popped up on British television over the years with the occasional cameo, and appeared in David Croft and Richard Spendlove's Oh Doctor Beeching (1995-97), and in 135 episodes of Last of the Summer Wine.

Unlike Bob Grant, who struggled with the legacy of his On the Buses stardom and subsequent typecasting, with ultimately tragic consequences, Stephen Lewis happily embraced his persona to the very end...and beyond.

(This image: 70s Time Machine. Other Background from IMDb, Variety and The Guardian)

See also:

[boscofuller]

[jh-ph0tography]

[beatlepaul4ever]

John Lennon once got hit by a bus - Paul was driving it.

Average Beatlemania victim

[disabled-femme]

labor psa: a scab is somebody who does struck work. a scab may be a union member or not—usually not, in many industries. if you are doing work that would ordinarily be done by a person on strike, you are a scab, even if you yourself are not part of a union whose members are striking

for example, an influencer who starts doing promo work for struck companies that would ordinarily be done by actors: that is a scab

regular person going to see a movie: not a scab

annoyed addition: customer going to coffee shop whose baristas are on strike to get a coffee made by a scab: not scabbing, but crossing the picket line

[ceevee5]