Rob Grant, creator of Red Dwarf, has died | Hacker News Reader

Rob Grant, creator of Red Dwarf, has died

beyondthejoke.co.uk

288 pointsnephihaha93 comments

My random claim to fame; I was the support act (juggler) for Norman Lovett (the red dwarf ships computer), for one night only in the Welsh town of Bangor.

What a life I’ve lived.

Yes, I remember him. He briefly had his own show called "I Lovett" or something like that. Also spent time in Bangor back in the mid nineties.

I still spend time in Bangor

One drunken night in the company of Norman Lovett was enough for me :-)

Speaking of which I remember Chris Barrie (who played Rimmer) lamenting some of the filming of Red Dwarf and how he struggled to and gave up on hanging out with Craig Charles (Lister) and Danny John-Jules (Cat) because he'd be tired and ready for bed and they'd just be getting started. And then they'd show up sometimes straight from the clubs to shooting the next morning, or sometimes drunk still, or hungover.

Craig Charles nicked my lighter in Oscar's nightclub in Plymouth in roughly 1991. I wouldn't have minded but it was my Dad's Zippo (RAOC, 7th/11th Armoured Brigade). He asked for a light, wandered off with it and then vanished, whilst I was distracted ahem.

This is a perfect Tommy Saxondale story.

Hmmm. OK.

Chris Barrie's (Rimmer in Red Dwarf) old man was in the (British) army and I remember my parents mentioning they met him at one of their mess dinners.

I could go on 8)

That was probably fine for portraying Listers character to be fair.

As an American, Red Dwarf along with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy created a deep appreciation both for British humor and funny sci-fi in my adolescent self. I now own the box set on DVD and even have a random Red Dwarf novel I got at a yard sale (I forget which one of them wrote it though).

RIP Rob! Will be having a vindaloo, lager, and maybe some fish (Fish! Fish! Fish!) later in your honor

(EDIT: 100% talking about the UK version here, had no idea or forgot there _was_ an American version)

Maybe it was written by:

> Grant Naylor is a gestalt entity occupying two bodies, one of which lives in north London, the other in south London. The product of a horribly botched genetic-engineering experiment, which took place in Manchester in the late fifties, they try to eke out two existences with only one mind. They attended the same school and the same university, but, for tax reasons, have completely different wives.

> The first body is called Rob Grant, the second Doug Naylor. Among other things, they spent three years in the mid-eighties as head writers of Spitting Image; wrote Radio Four's award-winning series Son of Cliche; penned the lyrics to a number one single; and created and wrote Red Dwarf for BBC television.

> They have made a living variously by being ice-cream salesmen, shoe-shop assistants and by attempting to sell dodgy life-assurance policies to close friends. They also spent almost two years on the night shift loading paper into computer printers at a mail-order factory in Ardwick. They can still taste the cheese 'n' onion toasties.

> Their favourite colour is orange.

Haha I went and actually looked and yep, that's it...no wonder I couldn't remember

Yeah the first two novels were credited to their "Grant Naylor" partnership, and they're both excellent.

After that, they each wrote an additional Red Dwarf novel individually / separately. Personally I've never come across those last two novels, although I always check for them whenever visiting a used book store. Maybe they were only released in the UK. They're available on Amazon in the US, but I haven't quite given up hope on stumbling across them naturally yet...

I’ve read both. It’s been years but Grant’s, Backwards, was notably better than Naylor’s, Last Human.

Backwards spent the first section of the book in the backwards universe, over years. It’s has an interesting exploration of the implications of that universe. By comparison Last Human wraps that up in a few pages and spends most of its time dealing with android assassins.

Somehow enough fragments of that stayed in my brain since 2004 to google it. My first and last real-life encounter with the word 'gestalt'.

Memory is such an odd thing: not having thought of it in years, I recalled that Gestalt was a Mac feature to allow it to know its own capabilities:

https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Gestalt

I associate gestalt with a form of psychotherapy although I have never encountered anywhere that actually offers gestalt therapy round here!

I can't remember why I opened a cupboard door, although I recently came across Cerulean blue in an art shop which after much googling got me to the X files episode that I can't have seen since it first aired. memory is indeed weird

In my head 1 sold left shoes, the other right shoes...

Red Dwarf is an absolute classic, but I think people of all nations can agree that the American version was better off cancelled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mlnntKi2no

Even the second attempt at it, with Star Trek DS9's Terry Farrell (as Cat), was a bad idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfJsViD9SjM

The original was lightning in a bottle.

I have watched the American pilot, and one thing I found curious was that the two female characters were the most interesting (Cat and the Computer played by Terry Farrel and Jane Leeves who were both in major series - Deep Space Nine and Frasier). Holly/Computer has been female for much of the British series and Cat did work as a female character. Contrast with the British show which was very male except for computer (sometimes) and Kochanski when she became a regular character (Chloe Annette didn't really work. I wish Clare Grogan had been a regular instead.)

I agree, Clare Grogan is still who I picture when I think of Kochanski tbh, I loved her energy

Clare Grogan is definitely who I think of. I couldn't really see Chloe Annette being Kochanski, she was miscast and I don't think she got good scripts.

I just don’t think it makes sense having Kochanski as a regular character. Lister’s yearning for a (largely imagined) version of her works so much better.

I agree with you. Kochanski was meant to be a fun loving girl who ended up working on a mining ship and made the best of it, not a stuck up snob who liked to crack bad jokes about the second city of Vietnam. If Kochanski had been the genius that Chloe Annette played then she probably would have found work elsewhere. They did fix CA's version of the character a bit later on.

RIP, thanks for the memories.

No sci fi effect has ever given me the same sense of wonder that I got from the shot of the camera slowly travelling over the gigantic ship in the Season 1/2 intro.

Btw: @dang : Grant was the co-creator, alongside Doug Naylor, who is still kicking

The intro was actually strangely eerie/bleak. I felt sorry for Lister (I think it is) out there painting the ship. There was kind of a sadness because he had lost pretty much all his friends and you could feel the vastness of space.

Intentional.

I know.

The practical effects in the early seasons were truly fantastic. It was never quite the same after they switched to cgi.

I've said elsewhere on the "Babylon 5" discussion that Kubrick's "2001" has aged better in many ways than Hyams' "2010" which came out many years later. In the same vein, CGI has a nasty habit of aging more quickly than practical effects. There is stuff from the nineties which looks worse than the seventies as a result.

In the case of "Red Dwarf", the genius was in having the ship be an ugly industrial environment in the vein of "Dark Star", "Alien", "Outland" etc. That allowed for sets to be built easily and cheaply. I think some of it was even filmed in a BBC canteen/cafeteria.

I think the main issue with CGI is that it makes it easy to have big space battles, so everything is.

You see this with TNG v DS9. TNG would have one alien ship in an episode at best. It forces you to write story. Come DS9 and you can have 50 bajillion ships on screen so they write a story to make that happen. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, DS9 and B5 are good shows, but I miss the days when Captain Picard would mull over the implications of the prime directive with a cup of tea.

Oh, I think they admitted (a YouTube interview I saw) that the entire premise of "Red Dwarf" was inspired by "Dark Star"—not just the ship.

Oh yes. I remember them talking about the script and how low budget everything was. Like even the script was written to try to convince BBC it wouldn't cost much money. I think (paraphrasing) things like:

"We open on the corridor of a space ship. Space Odyssey this is not, no high tech serenity here. No, the is very much an ordinary, boring corridor. It could even have been a corridor in a TV studio..."

It's cold outside

There's no kind of atmosphere

I'm all alone

More or less

Let me fly Far away from here

Fun fun fun

In the sun sun sun

I want to lie

Shipwrecked and comatose

Drinking fresh

Mango juice

Goldfish shoals

Nibbling at my toes

Fun fun fun

In the sun sun sun

Fun fun fun In the sun sun sun

As fresh immigrant to USA, watching it on local PBS on the gigantic back projection jumbotron TV someone offloaded on us back in mid-90es, it made a huge impact with its absurdity and silliness. I sing "Drinking Fresh Mango Juice" every time I get it out of the fridge, and when my wife and I visited Egypt and got room service with fresh mango juices, it was in heavy rotation. And every time I leave and it's cold outside, I tend to sing "It's cold outside!". RIP

I loved the piano chord progression..

and then there's tongue tied https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3t3IKlXqFU (great bassline too)

Howard Goodall did it.

Thanks I didn't know him :)

For a brief period there it was fashionable to have fish nibbling at your feet (in the 2010s?). Not goldfish shoals although that is probably what Lister wanted to farm in Fiji.

If Fiji was under water by then, wasn't his plan to give the sheep snorkels? There's a hazy memory from 30 years ago.

"Right you arr, Farmer Lister!"

One of my favourite happy happy songs.

> Shipwrecked and comatose

is how I have often felt.

That would look good on a headstone.

There was nothing like Red Dwarf on TF (British or American) back then - a laugh-tracked show that could be simultaneously the most hilarious dry wit, not-so-dry bawdy humor, and a compelling and thought-provoking sci-fi action-adventure all at the same time.

I fell off it after they had that comeback season roughly in 2000 where the whole ship got revived. Then I saw a few clips from a later season where everyone was pretty schlubby. I'll need to track down some way to re-watch the whole thing.

Very on topic: Rob Grant left the show after the sixth series. I think the lack of his influence was immediately apparent, a lot of the depth was lost. Like how the transition from series 2 to series 3 got a lot more action-y, 6 to 7 started to lean more on established tropes etc (IMO).

Also of note: Grant and Naylor wrote a series of Red Dwarf novels that were surprisingly good. They really fleshed out a lot of the character behind Lister and Rimmer. One novel goes deep on the concept of Better than Life, a one episode throwaway in the show but expanded to true horror in the novel.

They split (same time as they split on the show) and wrote separate novels in different continuity in the end. IMO Grant’s was notably better.

I read the books as a young teenager in highschool before watching the TV show. I loved the books!

Actually, I realised I lie, I did occasionally watch a few of them in primary school. I remembered being absolutely terrified of Polymorph.

A bit ironic that one of the reasons to leave the show is as he expressed "a wish to have more on his tombstone than just Red Dwarf"

He was involved with Spitting Image back in the day as was Steve Coogan. One of the best British comedy shows in the eighties.

I watched the whole lot thanks to lockdown. I used to like up until series six or so, but had a look at the later ones. Yes, the actors certainly all look more "lived in" nowadays.

The later series/seasons are very uneven, which surprised me. I stopped watching originally around when Chloe Annette's Kochanski was introduced but I was surprised that instead of a steady decline that the quality was very up and down.

I rewatch it a lot and the only season I skip is 9. There are a couple bad later episodes I'll skip but there are more than a few bangers in the later seasons.

Ditto here, season 9 ("Back to Earth") is the only one I have no desire to rewatch.

Season 12 is particularly good though. In my opinion, the first and last episodes of that season are among the funniest they've ever done!

IIRC that was the one with the absurd "Photo Enhance" scene for which I think the episode more than justifies itself?

Yes. Kryten had definitely been at the pies

Robert has a whole set of youtube channels on electric vehicles and other renewable technology. It’s quite impressive what he does now but I always see Kryten in him, strange.

https://youtu.be/TUi03zA4DAM?si=F55U2fbHjGcksHaK

He's done a lot of things, but for my money the "Scrapheap Challenge" show was his best.

(This is a show where two teams are left inside a scrapheap and given a day, or so, to build a contraption/device.)

He was just so enthusiastic about all the teams, and seemed genuinely interested in both the design, the building, and the performance of whatever it was they were being challenged to build.

Didn't it move to the US as Junkyard wars with Henry Rollins?

I just searched wikipedia and saw that it did:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapheap_Challenge

But I can't say I've ever heard of that before, or seen any. I used to watch the UK series while having lazy breakfasts every Sunday morning with my then-partner.

That was always a nice treat for us both.

Anyone else read Rob Grant's book Colony[0]?

It's a pretty funny sci-fi book, similar dry wit.. I picked it up at a yard sale only because it said "from the creator of Red Dwarf" even though I mostly only knew of the show through others..

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(Grant_novel)

He's dead Dave. At least he went peacefully in his Jeep.

They’re all dead, Dave! What a great franchise.

Peterson isn't, is he?

I used to stay up late to watch Red Dwarf. [dark reference to the show incoming] Maybe he's moved on to somewhere Better Than Life.

My wife and I look at each other and laugh really hard every time we order Gazpacho. If you know, you know...

Mr Flibble sends his regrets.

Stoke me a Clipper... I'll be back for Christmas!

Er. I may be missing something here, but isn't it smoke me a kipper?

You are. It's Arnold's first attempt at being/becoming Ace. He stumbles over the phrase, and the "old" Ace tells him he was once like him too, and "there's an Ace inside you, too" (Lister/Cat, I can't remember which: "Yeah, so deep he's been buried..." or something to that effect).

Did Ace ever meet Lord Flash Heart? Now that would have been a Comic Relief crossover.

Aha! Gotcha. I feel like such a smeghead now...

Loved the show back in its heyday. From what I remember, the novels are pretty good too

I'll pour out a lager and grab some chicken vindaloo in his memory.

Of course! Lager, the only thing that can kill a vindaloo.

Kryton is one of the greatest characters to ever grace a tv screen.

Robert Llewellyn is just a lovely person in general. He now produces a YouTube/TV show about electric cars, but his outtakes from Red Dwarf are delightful. He stays mostly in character during the outtakes (perhaps that's easy in the suit) and he's very funny.

Some random Red Dwarf outtakes: https://youtu.be/l6VTzq5N0Mo

Not seen that. Thanks!

Ps/ Which episode was Kryton wearing the red tellytubby suit in? I don't think I've seen it.

It terrifies me sometimes that I can see aspects of both Lister and Rimmer in myself despite them being polar opposites.

I don't relate to Cat as much, although his character is great too.

“It’s a banana. It always has been a banana and always will be a banana. It’s a yellow fruit you unzip and eat the white bits. It’s a banana!“

Smeeeeeeeeg head

> Working together under the name "Grant Naylor", the creators of the series collaboratively wrote two novels. The first, Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, was published in November 1989, and it incorporates plot lines from several episodes of the show's first two series. The second novel, Better Than Life, followed in October 1990, and it is largely based on the second-series episode of the same name. Together, the two novels provide expanded backstory and development of the series' principal characters and themes.

If you haven't read the books, please do yourself a favour. They are far far better than the series, have much more depth and have not dated as badly. I loved Red Dwarf when it was on TV (jesus, I was 12 years old..) but I find it a little hard to watch now. Some parts are still great though.

Wow 2 in one day with Dan Simmons :(

Rest in peace.

Smeg

RIP with the calculators.

Silicon heaven .. hopefully free of talking-toasters.

Not now, not ever. No toast.

Or crumpets.

Fab show, great memories! Thanks for the laughs Rob, RIP.

Oh, piss.

An excellent plan sir, with just two minor drawbacks…
one: what you created was amazing and we will miss you; and

two: you are dead.

— after RG/DN

Damn. Guess I’ll be smoking some kippers in his memory.

Can we get a black bar?

On second thoughts, that would mean changing the CSS.

Ah, there are so many jokes like that which still make me smile. I'm grateful Red Dwarf and his books were part of my childhood.

> On second thoughts, that would mean changing the CSS.

Bravo.

Dammit Kriten, I want the black bar.

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