The TV and film ideas that Ireland pioneered

My friend Lou, who I enjoy winding up, just arrived in Belfast on holiday with her fiancé. I wrote on her Facebook the following slice of forgotten Irish television and film history.

If I was in Belfast, I would be rapping.

I pulled up to the house about seven or eight,
And I yelled to the cabby, ‘Yo mucker, smell you later!’
Looked at my kingdom, I was there at last
To sit on my throne as the prince of Bel Fast.

This is from the famous Irish sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel Fast. It’s set during the Troubles, about an Irish lad growing up in Bogside, a predominantly Catholic part of Derry City, being touted by gang elements. After getting into trouble playing football outside his school, his mother decides to send him to his uncle and aunt in a wealthy Protestant enclave in north Belfast. It was bittersweet, but entertaining nonetheless, and was later remade by the Americans as a vehicle for Will Smith.
   The Irish came up with the best television series over the years. There was, of course, the RUC detective who was partial to Oatfield’s toffee, and drove around in a gold Vauxhall Victor, solving crimes on both sides of the divide, O’Jack (later remade by the Americans as a vehicle for Telly Savalas). South of the border, in Éire, the film industry was best known for the political romantic comedy, Taoiseach’s Pet, where a journalism student goes undercover in the highest office in the land, initially to get a scoop, but winds up falling in love (later remade by the Americans as a vehicle for Doris Day and Clark Gable).

   I’m waiting for her to tell her fiancé’s family all about these.
   The French came up with some good ones, too, over the years, and I believe these have appeared on this blog in a similar vein (they are for Stella Artois).


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