Spitting image jeremy beadle biography

As always happens when someone famous dies, it came as a shock to hear the sad news about Jeremy Beadle.

If you're old enough and like me, you consider TV to be a good friend, then Beadle was often around mine in the 80s and 90s.

Things like Harry Hill's TV Burp would probably not have existed, if Beadle hadn't paved the way for looking at video clips and laughing at them.

He was the original face for You've Been Framed - back when it actually was funny and people did seem to genuinely get caught out.

Surprisingly refreshing

I don't remember that many details about Game for a Laugh but I do remember watching it each Saturday night with my parents and sister and finding it hysterically funny.

That may be because I was a kid - but there are some clips knocking about on YouTube that still made me laugh. Somehow those old clips seem less contrived than a lot of today's versions which is surprisingly refreshing.

I also like that the husbands/wives who volunteered their loved ones for jokes were often the ones that ended up in the worst/funniest situations.

It probably shouldn't make me laugh to see a random stranger dropped in a tank of gunk, yet it does.

Among my friends, wrong as it may be, it was an urban legend for ages that one of Jeremy's hands was smaller than the other.

That of course turned out to be true as he suffered from Poland syndrome, which stunted the growth of his right hand.

Beadle's best moments did seem to come at a time when health and safety wasn't such an issue.

Which is why on Beadle's About he could dupe a taxi driver into asking for help with his cat - only for a lion to be brought out. Genius.

Aliens have landed

I'd forgotten how elaborate the pranks could be. By simply swapping someone's car for an identical one - Beadle would make the poor owner believe their car really had exploded, or fallen into the sea.

I read that one time he made a lady believe that aliens really had landed in her back garden - amazing.

And all long before Ashton Kutcher did similar stunts on Punk'd.

Despite his TV success though, Jeremy Beadle did get a lot of flack.

He was often criticised for being annoying and said himself that people seemed surprised to find out he was actually an OK bloke to chat to.

It's a shame he dropped off our screens in recent years but leaves behind a rich TV legacy that's worth revisiting.