The Two Ronnies

The Two Ronnies is a British television comedy sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It was created by Bill Cotton and aired on BBC Television from 10 April 1971 to 25 December 1987.

The usual format included sketches, solo sections, serial stories, and musical finales. Their Four Candles sketch, first broadcast on 18 September 1976, was voted their funniest sketch in a television poll. In 2006, the British public ranked the duo number 6 in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.

Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett met in 1963 at the Buckstone Club in Haymarket, London, where Corbett was serving drinks between acting jobs. At the time, Barker was beginning to establish himself as a character actor in the West End and on radio. They were invited by David Frost to appear in his new television show, The Frost Report, with John Cleese, but the pair's big break came when they filled in, unprepared and unscripted, for eleven minutes during a technical hitch at a British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards ceremony at the London Palladium in 1971. In the audience was Bill Cotton, the Head of Light Entertainment for the BBC, and Paul Fox, the Controller of BBC1. Cotton was so impressed by the duo that he turned to Fox and asked: "How would you like those two on your network?" Unknown to the pair, the renewal of their contract had just been declined by London Weekend Television of rival network ITV, freeing them to change channels. Barker and Corbett were given their own show by the BBC.

The show was based on the complementary personalities of Barker and Corbett, who never became an exclusive pairing, but continued to work independently in television outside of the editions of the Two Ronnies. The show was produced annually between 1971 and 1987. It had many notable writers including Ray Alan, John Cleese, Barry Cryer, Spike Milligan, David Nobbs, David Renwick, Terry Ravenscroft, Eric Idle, John Sullivan, Michael Palin, Bryan Blackburn, Terry Jones, and Laurie Rowley. In addition, Barker used the pseudonym Gerald Wiley when writing sketches. Barker and Corbett would often structure each show themselves, alongside scriptwriters Ian Davidson and Peter Vincent.

The main theme music for the show was composed by Ronnie Hazlehurst. Although opening and closing credits appear to use different themes, they are respectively the first and third sections of a longer piece.

Another track associated with the show is the stock track The Detectives by Alan Tew (also known as the theme to 1975 Yorkshire TV series The Hanged Man). This was used for the Charlie Farley and Piggy Malone story Stop You're Killing Me.

The Two Ronnies always opened and closed at the newsdesk, which featured the Ronnies as newsreaders, reading spoof news items. This gave rise to the famous catchphrase at the end of each show:

Corbett: That's all we've got time for, so it's "Good night" from me.
Barker: And it's "Good night" from him.
Both: Good night!