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Whoops Apocalypse
Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 television sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 film of the same name from ITC Entertainment, with almost completely different characters and plot.
The British budget label Channel 5 Video released a compilation VHS cassette of all six episodes edited together into one 137-minute chunk in 1987.
The American video distributor EDDE Entertainment released a compilation VHS cassette of all six episodes edited together into one 121-minute chunk in 1991.
In 2010, Network released both the complete, unedited series and the movie on a 2-DVD set (Region 2) entitled Whoops Apocalypse: The Complete Apocalypse. (Rights issues were simplified by the fact that both LWT and ITC Entertainment productions were by this time owned by Granada Television).
In March 2022 the series was made available for streaming on BritBox.
The series details the weeks leading up to the Apocalypse. It features a chaotic and increasingly unstable global political situation in which nuclear alerts are accidentally triggered by malfunctioning Space Invaders machines. The naïve and highly unpopular Republican U.S. President Johnny Cyclops (a Ronald Reagan parody, played by Barry Morse) is advised by an insane right-wing fundamentalist security advisor, called The Deacon, who claims to have a direct hotline to God. The Deacon was so named because of the previous role of the actor who played him (John Barron) as a Cathedral Dean in the sitcom All Gas and Gaiters; the writers claimed not to know at the time that Alexander Haig, Reagan's first Secretary of State, was known as The Vicar in the White House.
In the Eastern Hemisphere, things are similarly unstable. Soviet Premier Dubienkin (Richard Griffiths) is in fact a series of clones, who keep dying and being replaced. Meanwhile, the deposed Shah of Iran, Shah Massiq Rassim (Bruce Montague), led by his advisor Abdab (David Kelly) who is always blindfolded to avoid looking upon the Shah's magnificence, is shunted around the world in search of a refuge, spending most of the series in a cross channel ferry's toilet.
The main danger is the Deacon's development of a new super-powerful American nuclear weapon. This is originally called the Johnny Cyclops Bomb; later, when the President vetoes the name, it is renamed the Quark Bomb (Formerly Known As The Johnny Cyclops Bomb After The President of the Same Name). The Deacon arranges for Lacrobat (John Cleese), a disguised international arms smuggler nicknamed The Devil (a parody of Carlos the Jackal), to steal a Quark Bomb and take it to Iran, to help the Shah in his counterrevolution. The Soviets get word of this and decide to invade, gaining control over the world's oil supply.
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Whoops Apocalypse
Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 television sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 film of the same name from ITC Entertainment, with almost completely different characters and plot.
The British budget label Channel 5 Video released a compilation VHS cassette of all six episodes edited together into one 137-minute chunk in 1987.
The American video distributor EDDE Entertainment released a compilation VHS cassette of all six episodes edited together into one 121-minute chunk in 1991.
In 2010, Network released both the complete, unedited series and the movie on a 2-DVD set (Region 2) entitled Whoops Apocalypse: The Complete Apocalypse. (Rights issues were simplified by the fact that both LWT and ITC Entertainment productions were by this time owned by Granada Television).
In March 2022 the series was made available for streaming on BritBox.
The series details the weeks leading up to the Apocalypse. It features a chaotic and increasingly unstable global political situation in which nuclear alerts are accidentally triggered by malfunctioning Space Invaders machines. The naïve and highly unpopular Republican U.S. President Johnny Cyclops (a Ronald Reagan parody, played by Barry Morse) is advised by an insane right-wing fundamentalist security advisor, called The Deacon, who claims to have a direct hotline to God. The Deacon was so named because of the previous role of the actor who played him (John Barron) as a Cathedral Dean in the sitcom All Gas and Gaiters; the writers claimed not to know at the time that Alexander Haig, Reagan's first Secretary of State, was known as The Vicar in the White House.
In the Eastern Hemisphere, things are similarly unstable. Soviet Premier Dubienkin (Richard Griffiths) is in fact a series of clones, who keep dying and being replaced. Meanwhile, the deposed Shah of Iran, Shah Massiq Rassim (Bruce Montague), led by his advisor Abdab (David Kelly) who is always blindfolded to avoid looking upon the Shah's magnificence, is shunted around the world in search of a refuge, spending most of the series in a cross channel ferry's toilet.
The main danger is the Deacon's development of a new super-powerful American nuclear weapon. This is originally called the Johnny Cyclops Bomb; later, when the President vetoes the name, it is renamed the Quark Bomb (Formerly Known As The Johnny Cyclops Bomb After The President of the Same Name). The Deacon arranges for Lacrobat (John Cleese), a disguised international arms smuggler nicknamed The Devil (a parody of Carlos the Jackal), to steal a Quark Bomb and take it to Iran, to help the Shah in his counterrevolution. The Soviets get word of this and decide to invade, gaining control over the world's oil supply.