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Kenny Everett (December 25 1944-April 4 1995) was
a popular British entertainer on
both BBC Radio and television.

==Early career and controversies==

Born Maurice Cole in Liverpool, Kenny came to
prominence in the 1960s on the pirate radio
station, Radio London. In 1967, the BBC started
its own pop music station, BBC Radio One|Radio 1,
and Kenny was among the first intake of new DJs
recruited from the pirates. Kenny developed a
unique style of humorous presentation from the
start, using zany characters and voices, along
with jingles, drop-ins and trailers of his own.
However, he soon got himself into trouble by
making an unguarded remark about the transport
minister's wife's inability to pass the driving
test, and was sacked in 1970. He was reinstated in
1972, but at that time, the government had
legislated for new commercial radio stations in
the UK, and the first of these, Capital Radio,
began broadcasting in 1973. Kenny was given his
own show on the new station, where he further
developed his own distinctive format.

==="Bohemian Rhapsody"===

During his time at Capital Radio, Kenny was given
a copy of a new single from Queen (band)|Queen by
the group's lead singer, Freddie Mercury, a good
friend. Kenny loved the song and began to play it
several times a night on his show, helping the
song — "Bohemian Rhapsody" — to go
quickly to number one in the British Top 40.

==Work on Television==

===Kenny Everett Video Show===

Besides the radio programmes, he had two
television series, The first, in 1968, was  a
production for Granada Television called Nice
Time, co-presented by Germaine Greer and Jonathan
Routh. In 1978, he started a new venture in
television, with his ground-breaking Kenny Everett
Video Show. This was a vehicle for Kenny's
characters and sketches, interspersed with pop
hits of the day, which were often presented
through the very risqué (for the time) dance
group, Hot Gossip (see also Sarah Brightman). It
also featured an animated cartoon version of his
popular radio spot, Captain Kremmen — a
thinly disguised Kenny travelling the galaxy with
his voluptuous sidekick Carla. Other memorable
characters created for this show or the later
version he did for the BBC were the giant-breasted
United States|American starlet Cupid Stunt ("all
done in the best PAAASSIBLE taste!") (see
spoonerism), the sexually frustrated businessman
Angry of Mayfair, the punks Sid Snot and Gizzard
Puke, and the France|French boulevardier Marcel
Wave. The Video Show, made by Thames Television,
ran for four series on ITV, and was incredibly
popular, being required viewing for any teenager
of the time. Kenny continued with Capital Radio
while also doing his television work.

===Move to the BBC===

Kenny fell out with Thames about the rescheduling
of the show against the BBC's Top of the Pops on
Thursday evenings, among other things, and his
show transferred to the BBC in the early 1980s.
This version, however, arguably never quite
captured the anarchic spirit of the ITV series. In
this incarnation it was called the Kenny Everett
Television Show and had a more conventional sketch
show format with a studio audience. His friend
Cleo Rocos was a regular. Guest stars included
Billy Connolly, Terry Wogan, Lionel Blair and
Joanna Lumley. Barry Cryer was a co-writer.
Initially Thames tried to claim Kenny's characters
as their copyright, forcing him to invent new ones
for the BBC show, such as Cupid Stunt and Gizzard
Puke. Ultimately, Thames's action failed and most
of the characters eventually made the transition
unchanged.  At the same time, Kenny returned to
BBC Radio, this time on Radio 2, presenting a
Saturday lunchtime show from 11am-1pm.  This ran
up until 1983.

==Political controversy==

In the 1983 electoral campaign, the Conservative
Party (UK)|Young Conservatives invited Kenny to
their conference in an attempt to attract the
youth vote. Bounding onto the stage, wearing
enormously oversized foam rubber hands, he shouted
slogans like "Let's bomb Russia!" and "Let's kick
Michael Foot's stick away!" (Michael Foot was the
elderly leader of the British Labour party|Labour
party.) His appearance at the conference and his
support for the Conservatives (which began in the
1960s when the Conservatives, in opposition,
criticised the heavy-handed way that the Labour
government dealt with the pirate stations)
alienated many of his more politically aware fans,
though he later admitted that he wasn't terribly
political, and greatly regretted the incident.

==Later career==

Kenny eventually returned to Capital Radio, and
after the station split its frequencies in 1988 he
was heard on Capital Gold.  The radio shows
continued in the same vein and were as popular as
ever, but by the late 1980s the TV show format had
run its course, and Kenny's personal life was
becoming increasingly complicated. His
homosexuality was something he never fully came to
terms with, and he suffered bouts of severe
clinical depression|depression. He died of an
AIDS-related illness in 1995.

==Trivia== 
*Kenny was also the announcer on the original
version of ATV's "big box game" Celebrity Squares
which ran on ITV1|ITV from 1976 to 1979.

* Everett also coined the term 'Auntie Beeb'
(often shorted further to simply 'Beeb') to refer
to the BBC, in reference to its perceived matronly
image.

* The July 1970 remark that resulted in Everett's
firing was an on-air suggestion that Mary Peyton,
wife of the then Minister of Transport, had passed
her advanced driving test by bribing the examiner.

==Quotes and catchphrases==

* "All done in the best PAH-SIBBLE taste!" --
regular punchline uttered by character Cupid
Stunt.

* "'Ello my little chickadees" (and variations, in
heavy French accent) -- introductory remark
uttered by character Marcel Wave.

* "Round 'em up, put 'em in a field, and BOMB THE
BASTARDS!" -- all-purpose solution to any
perceived social problem, declared by nameless
character of US General with huge shoulders.

* "Brotherly, brotherly, brotherly love!" --
gospel style sung introduction to
enormously-handed US minister Brother Lee Love,
whose frenetic sermons called for the
'congregation' to echo the last two syllables of
some sentences, with amusing (and occasionally
very rude) results.

* (Electronic rendition of Johann Sebastian
Bach|Bach's choral prelude Wachet Auf) -- musical
accompaniment to all sketches featuring Maurice
Mimer, parody of French mime artist Marcel
Marceau.