Talk:Oswald (Moving Pictures)

This annotation made no sense to me, so I removed it - rather then deleting it completely though, i'll just put it in here for safe keeping.

And, of course, in passing to what the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band referred to as A wonderful performer and always here... J.Arthur Rank on Gong!"

JaffaCakeLover 13:50, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Elucidation.

Apologies, I didn't fill in all the necessary blanks... At the beginning and end of every film released by the British Rank Organisation's studios, the studio icon (like MGM's roaring lion or paramount's mountain and stars)was a giant, muscular, man in a loin-cloth artistically striking a large Chinese gong with a very big hammer. (parodied by Pratchett in the climactic scenes of Moving Pictures, where the troll Detritus strikes the gong with the hammer to awaken "Oswald").

J.Arthur Rank was the mogul who founded and ran the studio, a Britsh answer to Goldwyn and Meyer.

The Bonzo Dog Doodah Band were a group of skilled musical parodists, led by Neil Innes and Vivian Stanshall, who had a career mercilessly sending up musical styles and conventions. They worked with the Beatles in the film "Magical Mystery Tour", and Neil Innes was widely regarded as the seventh member of the Monty Python team - providing original music and occassional sketches.

One of their more subtly funny numbers was the "Intro and the Outro", a merciless send-up of the musical convention that says the lead singer, at some point during the gig, has to namecheck and thank all the members of the band on stage with him. This is taken to absurdist levels - looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes, and digging General de Gaulle on accordion

The track ends on the line A wonderful performer and always here... J.Arthur Rank on Gong!"

(apropos of nothing, "Rank" is also a word used to signify "outstandingly awful", as many Rank films were¹, and in Cockney rhyming slang, a "J.Arthur (Rank)" is an act of self-abuse...)

hoping this helps!--AgProv 23:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, I didn't fill in all the necessary blanks...

¹ A pretty tough critic; check the list --Old Dickens (talk) 01:38, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The other Oswald

It would appear that there is no page for the other character of this name, Miss Level's ghostly housekeeper from A Hat Full of Sky.

Amazing (again)! Every so often one of these big obvious holes shows up after going unnoticed for years. Oswald isn't even listed in A Hat Full of Sky although he does show up in Ghosts, incorrectly linked to here. I'll fix those two, for a start. --Old Dickens (talk) 21:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

...but apparently I didn't (pause for flagellation). This is a right cock-up: the guardian of Holy Wood has no name, he was only said to resemble someone's Uncle Osbert or Oswald or Osric. Oswald is the name of the ondageist from A Hat Full of Sky, who still has no page, but then what should this article be titled? I'll try to work it out before another year. --Old Dickens (talk) 03:30, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation page, I guess. --Old Dickens (talk) 19:22, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Is Sharlee's fanfic in the final paragraph really useful? I have no particular argument, but it seems very speculative. Old Dickens (talk) 04:26, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

Agree. But I've moved the paragraph here so it's not lost to wikihistory. Moishe Rosenbaum (talk) 01:13, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

"Alternately, Oswald/Osric/etc may be an example of a Disc-bound god, either manifested spontaneously from the long-ago Academy Awards ceremonies of ancient Holy Wood, or purpose-built a la Mrs. Gogol's techniques to guard the Cthinema against the Dungeon Things. In which case, the rituals of Deccan Ribobe and his predecessors constituted the necessary worship that kept him conscious, and Ribobe's passing caused him to revert to a normal statue, much as the Great God Om became a normal tortoise outside of Brutha's proximity. He revived anew when Victor Tugelbend and Ginger demonstrated sufficient faith in his protection to return to the Cthinema and sound the gong."