text:
I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again

I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (often abbreviated as ISIRTA) was a BBC radio comedy programme that was developed from the 1964 Cambridge University Footlights revue, Cambridge Circus., as a scripted sketch show. It had a devoted youth following, with the live tapings enjoying very lively audiences, particularly when familiar themes and characters were repeated; a tradition that continued into the spinoff show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

The show ran for nine series and was first broadcast on 3 April 1964, a pilot programme having been broadcast on 30 December 1963 under the title "Cambridge Circus", on the BBC Home Service (renamed BBC Radio 4 in September 1967). Series 1 comprised three episodes. Subsequent series were broadcast on the BBC Light Programme (renamed BBC Radio 2 in September 1967). Series 2 (1965) had nine episodes, series 3 (1966) and series 6 through 8 (1968 through 1970) each had thirteen episodes, while series 4 (1966–67) and 5 (1967) both had fourteen episodes. After a three-year hiatus, the ninth and final series was transmitted in November and December 1973, with eight episodes. An hour-long 25th anniversary show was broadcast in 1989, comically introduced as "full frontal radio".

The title of the show derives from a phrase commonly used by BBC Announcers in the age of live radio, following an on-air flub: "I'm sorry, I'll read that again." Basing the show's title on the phrase used to recover from a mistake set the tone for the series as an irreverent and loosely produced comedy show.

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, an unscripted comedy panel game which is a spin-off from ISIRTA, was first produced in 1972 (invented by ISIRTA regular Graeme Garden, who was anxious to develop a comedy format that didn't involve a script deadline each week).

Cast

 * Tim Brooke-Taylor (later one of the three members of The Goodies). He wrote humorous books on subjects including cricket and golf. He was a member of the cast of the television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman, and later appeared in Feldman's television comedy series Marty. He acted in many other television sitcoms, and appeared in the 1970s BBC radio sketch show Hello, Cheeky! with John Junkin and Barry Cryer, later translated to ITV. He also appeared in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in the uncredited role of the computer scientist.  Brooke-Taylor died in April 2020, aged 79.
 * John Cleese (later part of Monty Python and star of Fawlty Towers) formed his own production company Video Arts in the 1970s to make business training films, which contained much Python-esque/Basil Fawlty-style humour, and also made films including A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. On the 25th anniversary ISIRTA show, he performed his silly walk and sang "The Ferret Song". He appeared in At Last the 1948 Show in 1967 with Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman, and was co-writer with Graham Chapman of several episodes of the Doctor in the House television comedy series. In later series, Cleese was often absent, due to his appearances in Monty Python; in the sleeve notes to the BBC's re-issues of the shows on cassette, his absences were explained as "[having] ranting commitments elsewhere".
 * Graeme Garden (also one of the three members of The Goodies). A qualified medical doctor, Garden was co-writer with Bill Oddie of several episodes of the medical comedy Doctor in the House on ITV (appearing in the episode "Doctor on the Box" as a television presenter). He also appeared as Commander Forrest in the Yes Minister television episode "The Death List". He was a member of I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again from the start.  At the same time, he was studying medicine in London. Because he did a midwifery medical course in Plymouth, he was unable to be a member of the cast of ISIRTA during the third series, due to the distance between London and Plymouth which made commuting to record the shows impossible. However, Graeme kept sending scripts for the radio show by mail - and rejoined the cast upon his return to his medical studies in London.
 * David Hatch (who was appointed to executive positions within the BBC, including Controller of BBC Radio 4), as was common in BBC radio at that time, served both as the show's announcer and as a cast member (similar to Douglas Smith's role in Round the Horne; Hatch however did give his roles some characterisation, in contrast to Smith's totally deadpan style). Hatch's announcements were frequently lampooned or interrupted by other cast members. In the 25th Anniversary special, Hatch invited the audience to join them again in 25 years time - ironically, by 2014 Hatch, who died in 2007, was the only cast member to have died.
 * Jo Kendall (a radio actress in many straight dramas subsequently; also appeared in the radio comedy series The Burkiss Way). She also guest starred (as the voice of The Queen) in The Goodies 1980 episode "Goodies and Politics". Kendall died in January 2022.
 * Bill Oddie (also one of the three members of The Goodies). He has written many books, and has been an important spokesman on wildlife and ecological issues since the 1980s. Bill Oddie wrote and performed a daft but well-crafted song in the middle of most ISIRTA programmes. He was co-writer (with Graeme Garden) of several episodes of the Doctor in the House television comedy series.
 * Humphrey Barclay was the producer of ISIRTA until 1968; from April that year the task was shared by David Hatch and Peter Titherage. In 1973, production was shared by David Hatch with John Cassels (for six episodes) and with Bob Oliver Rogers (for two episodes).
 * Music for the links and songs was provided by Dave Lee and his band. In keeping with the tradition of the Goons, the band featured at the end of each show after the (brief) sign-off song, however unlike the Goons there was no regular second spot during the show, furthermore rather than a live performance of a jazz standard, the tune at the end was a recording of them playing an up-tempo jazz piano trio number, composed by Lee specifically to act as a signature tune for the show.

Influence
As well as giving rise to The Goodies team, ISIRTA shows the roots of the Monty Python team very clearly, with Cleese, Chapman and Eric Idle all regular script contributors. The show's creator Humphrey Barclay went on to create the TV show Do Not Adjust Your Set, featuring the rest of the Python team, as well as Idle.

ISIRTA's roots can be traced back to classic radio comedies like It's That Man Again and The Goon Show. As with Round the Horne, the cast's adventures would sometimes be episodic with cliff-hanger endings each week as with "The Curse of the Flying Wombat" (3rd series), and "Professor Prune And The Electric Time Trousers" (7th series). Christmas specials normally included a spoof of a traditional pantomime (or several combined). They had few qualms about the use of puns – old, strained or inventive – and included some jokes and catchphrases now considered politically incorrect. Garden's impressions of the rugby league commentator Eddie Waring and the Scottish TV presenter Fyfe Robertson, Oddie's frequent parodies of the game-show host Hughie Green, and Cleese's occasional but manic impressions of Patrick Moore (astronomer and broadcaster).

As the only woman on the show, Jo Kendall voiced all the female characters (with the exception of Brooke-Taylor's oversexed harridan, Lady Constance de Coverlet) and occasionally extended into having conversations with herself in different voices. (In one episode of the serial "The Curse of the Flying Wombat", not only did Kendall play two characters in the same scene but so did Tim Brooke-Taylor, resulting in a four way conversation between the two actors). Kendall also wrote some of her own material.

The show ended with an unchanging sign-off song, which Bill Oddie performed as "Angus Prune" and was referred to by the announcer as "The Angus Prune Tune". Spoof dramas were billed as Prune Playhouse and many parodies of commercial radio were badged as Radio Prune.

Repeats and spinoffs
Several cast members appeared in the radio comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, a spinoff from ISIRTA that has outlived it by decades. Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor continued as regulars on the show.

All series of ISIRTA have been rebroadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra (available on digital television, DAB digital radio and the web), though some episodes (series 8 episode 2, and series 9 episodes 5 & 6) were not transmitted due to potentially offensive content. Listeners in Australia occasionally find ISIRTA in the 5.30am vintage comedy timeslot on ABC Radio National (available on the web to overseas listeners).

The official story of ISIRTA was published in The Clue Bible by Jem Roberts, in 2009.

In 2015, plans were announced for a live "Best Of" homage show, using material by Garden and Oddie reworked by Barnaby Eaton-Jones, Jem Roberts and Dirk Maggs, performed by Hannah Boydell, David Clarke, Barnaby Eaton-Jones, William KV Browne and Ben Perkins The show was a sell-out success at The Bacon Theatre, Cheltenham in February 2016 and a tour was licensed by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie to the same company, the Offstage Theatre Group. In February 2017, it was announced that the British tour would take place later in the year, with guest appearances by Garden, Oddie, Taylor and Jo Kendall. In 2019 four new episodes with the slightly modified title "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again... Again" were recorded and broadcast on Radio 4 Extra with some original cast including Tim Brooke Taylor, together with newer performers such as Barnaby Eaton-Jones.

Catchphrases

 * "I'm sorry, I'll read that again" – a frequent interruption to mock news broadcasts on the show – the line often reads "Here is the news. I'm sorry, I'll read that again: Here are the news."
 * "Rhubarb tart?" A delicacy much loved by all the cast members and often used as a bribe during sketches. David Hatch leaves the University of the Air during a Julius Caesar spoof lecture after Bill Oddie's flip remarks, only to be coaxed back with offers of rhubarb tart. It is also Angus Prune's favourite dish. In the "Ali Baba" sketch in the 3rd series, Cleese appears as Omar Khayyam; he remarks to Ali Baba, played by Brooke-Taylor, "Surely you've heard of the Rhubarb Tart of Omar Khayyam?" There were also two "Rhubarb Tart" songs, one sung by Cleese, which he also sang in At Last the 1948 Show, and one sung by Oddie, which became "The Custard Pie Song" in the TV series The Goodies.
 * The Tillingbourne Folk and Madrigal Society. A recurring parody of English a cappella folk music (madrigal). The Society performed a range of songs from a medley of football chants through to the never-ending folk song "There was a Ship that put to Sea all in the Month of May." They also presented a version of "House of the Rising Sun", with Graeme Garden singing a fairly straight version of the song and the rest of the group providing highly mannered interjections, such as "tiddly-pom" and "whack-fol-riddle-me-o". Yet, despite the whimsy, it was clear that the cast members were very capable singers.
 * "I'm the king rat!" Generally said very over-dramatically by John Cleese, on which the rest of the cast would reply, "Oh, no you're not!" This was later referenced in a Monty Python sketch at a "hospital for over-actors".
 * "The Angus Prune Tune". Written by Bill Oddie and performed by Bill Oddie (often with considerable audience involvement), this was the sign-off song for the series. In a retrospective show called I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, Again broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in March 2013 to celebrate 50 years of ISIRTA, Bill Oddie said that the lyrics which were added later had been written by Humphrey Barclay. The full text runs as follows:
 * My name is Angus Prune
 * and I always listen to I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again
 * (You Don't!)
 * My name is Angus Prune
 * and I never miss I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again
 * (Get Away!)
 * I sit in my bath
 * And I have a good laugh
 * Cause the sig tune is named after me
 * (Tell us yer name!)
 * My name is Angus Prune
 * And this is my tune
 * It goes I-S-I-R-T-A
 * I'm Sorry I'll Read That AGAIN!'
 * Beethoven's Fifth. The opening bars of the symphony are constantly used in the series, usually in inappropriate settings; their first appearance was in the first sketch of the pilot programme in 1963, and during an Opportunity Knocks spoof in the 3rd series Bill Oddie tries to tap-dance to them in what sound like hob-nailed boots. David Hatch once introduced the cast: "with another of their sallies forth – (GRAMS: 'Da-da-da-dummmmm') – or Beethoven's Fifth –" On another occasion, the pre-show teaser was Beethoven, played by Brooke-Taylor, trying to get Bill Oddie, playing a stereotypically Jewish-sounding music publisher, to market the tune. After hearing the tune, Oddie says: "That's a load of old rubbish!" and then twists the melody to form the opening sig. The closing bars of the final movement of the symphony were used to introduce a 'promenade concert' that featured "There was a Ship that put to Sea all in the Month of May" – Hatch says solemnly in his best BBC voice: "That was the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler. Now, while they're getting up ..."
 * "The Ferret Song". John Cleese has an obsession with ferrets throughout the show, including his performance of "The Ferret Song". This song begins with the line "I've got a ferret sticking up my nose." The line is repeated, then: "How it got there I can't tell, but now it's there, it hurts like hell and, what is more, it radically affects my sense of smell," – and promptly gets even worse. The song, written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman, was included in The Fairly Incomplete and Rather Badly Illustrated Monty Python Song Book, accompanied by a picture of Cleese with a Terry Jones-shaped ferret up his nose.
 * The Silly Roll Call. During many of the longer adventures, the cast engage in the Silly Roll Call, where a series of words (sometimes appropriate to their adventure) are turned into people's names in the vein of an inverted knock-knock joke. The "Jack the Ripper" story involves criminals such as "Mr. and Mrs. Ree ... and their son ... Robby Ree ... and his cousin from the Far East, Ahmed Robby Ree; Mr. and Mrs. Nee, their Swedish son Lars Nee .. and his sister Betty Lars Nee; and Mr. and Mrs. Sittingforimmoralpurposes...and their son...Solly Sittingforimmoralpurposes". In "Jorrocks", the Hunt Ball features appearances by "Lord and Lady V'syouyeahyeahyeah and their daughter Sheila V'syouyeahyeahyeah" as well as "Lord and Lady Umeeroffen and their son Duke Umeeroffen". Even the Ancient Greek world of Oedipus is not sacred – Socrates appears with Knobblyknees, Euripides with Iripadose, Antigone and Uncle-igone, and the treble of Aristophanes, Hoiteetoitees and Afternoonteas (as well as a barrage of rotten fruit). The idea of the Silly Roll Call was revived in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, the final game of the show often being some variant of the "Late Arrivals (at a society ball)" where the same sort of "silly names" would be announced by each of the players in turn.
 * The Gibbon. Often when a generic animal is required for a sketch, the team used a gibbon. Every mention of the gibbon usually raises cheers from the audience. This is often expanded to ludicrous lengths, such as a "Gibbon-Fanciers' Club". Edward Gibbon's work Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is rendered as "Decline and Fall of the Roman Gibbon, by Edward Empire". Stanley Gibbons' Stamp Catalogue became known as Stanley Stamps' Gibbon Catalogue. Later, The Goodies, Brooke-Taylor, Garden, and Oddie had a 1975 Top Ten hit with "Funky Gibbon", which reached #4, and they sang live on Top of the Pops, and the Amnesty International show A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick), and during The Goodies episode "The Goodies – Almost Live". In The Goodies episode "That Old Black Magic", Graeme Garden acts like an ape to the accompaniment of the Bill Oddie song "Stuff The Gibbon" — and in another Goodies episode, "Radio Goodies", the small boat above their pirate radio submarine is called "The Saucy Gibbon". A track on Soft Machine's Six album entitled "Stanley Stamp's Gibbon Album" is dedicated to Bill Oddie.
 * The Aardvark is another animal mentioned frequently, sometimes in connection with puns such as "How to make your aardvark soft again" or gibberish "Welsh" words such as "spotted aardvark pudding".
 * The Terrapin, which appears occasionally. In one show, after a particularly macabre John Cleese monologue, Hatch sends him packing, whereupon the rest of the cast defect with Cleese and form Radio Terrapin in competition to Radio Prune. In another show, Bill performs "The Terrapin Song", and on another show, Hatch announces a terrapin joke, as follows: (Garden) "Who was that Terrapin I saw you with last night?" (Brooke-Taylor) "That was no terrapin, that was our old school mistress – she tortoise (taught us)."
 * Bill Oddie's accent. Having a Birmingham accent (although born in Rochdale in Lancashire, he grew up in Birmingham) made Oddie the butt of many jokes, as well as leading him naturally towards many roles in sketches where someone was required to speak incomprehensibly. He got his own back in the "Lawrence Of Arabia On Ice" sketch, when he appeared as Nanook of the North, complete with a plethora of cod-Lancastrian patois ("ee bah goom", "black puddings", "ecky thump", etc.) This became the basis for an episode of The Goodies where "Ecky Thump" was a secret Lancastrian martial art, the episode parodying the then-popular TV show Kung Fu.
 * The Old Jokes Home. The old jokes, of which there were many (see script below) were sometimes sent to the Old Jokes Home.
 * 'Spot'. References to "a spot of brandy", "my favourite spot", etc., were usually followed by a canine yelp from Bill Oddie, attributed to "Spot the Dog". Spot became an audience favourite, and made at least one appearance in each episode.
 * OBE. Characters often have OBE added to the end of their name. It is also added to places, objects and names, as well as an interruption, e.g. in "The Angus Prune (OBE) Song". The cast occasionally ask for one ("Thank you ma'am, I'll take the OBE if it's offered") or decline one that's been offered ("No thanks, I'm trying to give them up"). On one occasion, Hatch introduced the team as "Tim Brooke-Taylor, O.B.E., John Cleese, O.B.E., Graeme Garden, O.B.E., David Hatch, O.B.E., Jo Kendall, O.B.E., and Bill Oddie, O.D.D.I.E." On another occasion, in a send-up of the Honours List, Hatch announces that a particular person has been made an earl, and also has been awarded the OBE; he therefore becomes an earlobe (this joke was also used in The Goodies series seven episode "Royal Command").
 * David Hatch was appointed a CBE in 1994 and was knighted in 2003, Bill Oddie was awarded the OBE also in 2003, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden were appointed OBE in 2011, but John Cleese declined a CBE in 1996. Jo Kendall did not receive any honour.

Episode and sketch titles
The episode titles (for shows from series 3 onwards) are unofficial and mostly come from the last sketch in each episode, which usually took the form of a short play. Figures in parentheses after each title are the Series and Episode numbers, where known. For example, '(S9E7)' refers to Series 9 Episode 7.

Regular characters of the radio show

 * The Director-General of the BBC
 * played by John Cleese. Continually sends memos to the ISIRTA team with the most ridiculous requests. One week, he decides that "Radio Prune" will become a music channel, a rival to Radio 1. His reason is "We at the BBC may be very, very silly, but we can write letters". He is constantly offended by the contents of the show.

 * North American Continuity Man
 * is a parody of Hughie Green usually played by Oddie, although on one occasion, in the 3rd series, he is voiced by Garden. His catchphrases include "Thank-you, Thank-you" and "Wasn't that just great?" Invariably, when he hands over to Kendall for details of the Prune Play of the Week, she refers to him by another personality's name – Simon (Dee), Jimmy (Young, or possibly Savile), David (Frost), or Eamonn (Andrews). On one occasion, after Kendall announces the title of the Prune Play of the Week Jorrocks: The Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (or a man-hunting fox....), by Stanley Stamps, author of Stanley Stamps' Gibbon catalogue, Bill/Hughie says to the audience, "So will you please put your hands together ... and pray ...."

 * Angus Prune
 * is a character adopted by Bill Oddie to sing the playoff.

 * Grimbling
 * A Bill Oddie character, Grimbling is a "dirty old man" who often appears as a groundsman, butler, or some similar profession. Due to the limitations of an audio-only medium, the true nature of Grimbling is never revealed, but he is greeted with universal revulsion by all bar the audience. He memorably introduces himself in the 25th anniversary episode "I am Grimbling, but don't worry, I'll clean it up later." In the same episode, Cleese asks him "Aren't you a little past it, old man?" with the response, "No, I'm a little dirty old man". In the "Robin Hood" sketch in the 3rd series, Grimbling is in the employ of the Sheriff of Nottingham (Garden), who tells him, "You have done well, Grimbling; take this tennis racquet for your services".

 * Lady Constance de Coverlet
 * is a ridiculous female character who was played by Tim Brooke-Taylor. Once the character had become more established, Lady Constance was usually introduced by a statement along the lines of "what is that coming towards us? – It's huge – It's a rhinoceros!" – "No, it's me!!!" and this was often accompanied by a rousing rendition of "Happy Days Are Here Again", and a thunderous reception from the audience. Her size is legendary; in the "Henry VIII" sketch, Katharine of Aragon and Lady Constance (masquerading as Anne of Cleavage) fight a duel to decide who is to be Queen.  Brooke-Taylor introduces her in the style of a boxing MC: "..and in the blue corner, at 15 hundredweight, your own, your very own – and there's enough to go round – twice -...".  In the "Dentisti" sketch, a parody on the 1960s TV series Daktari, Lady Constance plays (appropriately) an elephant; and in "Jack The Ripper", Lady Constance is invited to: "please, sit down anywhere ... or in your case, everywhere". In the "Radio Prune Greek Tragedy" sketch, she plays the mother of Oedipus Rex – according to the Oracle, she was hoping for a dog – and  she tells Oedipus: "Now let me get on with my housework, I've got a little behind .." (pause for the double-entendre to register) ".. oh all right, I've got a colossal behind!!"  In the "Colditz" sketch, the lads' escape route is through the plug hole of her bath, and Bill Oddie exclaims "She's like a ruddy great iceberg: one eighth above the water, 76 eighths below!". She also in her own way is a bit of a nymphomaniac – she's described in the 25th anniversary show version of "Jack The Ripper" as a steaming volcano of eroticism – and there are frequent references to unfulfilled sexual desire: in the "3.17 to Cleethorpes" sketch, she and the other players in the drama are adrift on a raft in the ocean; Lady Constance offers to take all her clothes off and use them for a sail, and when Hatch says, "Yes, and then what?", Lady Constance replies, "Well, that's rather up to you ...."

 * Mr Arnold Totteridge
 * Another recurring character, Arnold Totteridge (played by Garden) is a doddering old man who gets lost in the middle of his sentences. He invariably begins with: "How do you do, do you do, do you do...do you?" and after rambling incoherently for a few minutes returns to where he started. In the 25th anniversary episode, he has been appointed "The Dynamic new-de-oo-do-de-oo-do-de-oo Head of Radio-do-do-de-do Comedy"

 * John and Mary
 * John Cleese and Jo Kendall frequently performed poignant – almost romantic – dialogues as the respectable but dysfunctional couple "John and Mary", a forerunner of the relationship between Basil and Sybil in Fawlty Towers. They bear a passing resemblance to Fiona and Charles of Round the Horne.

 * Masher Wilkins
 * A kind-hearted simpleton (played by John Cleese), who often appears as an unlikely villain or henchman. He is prone to malapropisms: "I've been trailing you through this impenetrable ferret-- I mean 'forest'" - but these are often the intro to clever running jokes - in this case the line continues: "Oh no, not ferret, I mean stoat". "Stoat?" "Yes, 'stoatally impenetrable". At some point, a female character would often call out "Oh, Masher, Masher!" - followed by a chorus of "All fall down!" by the remaining cast. In one show, the topic on The Money Programme is fiscal policy and other matters monetary, and Masher asks some very abstruse questions about the Bank of England and its role in the economy. His last question, however is: 'An' wot's the combination o' de safe: oooh wot a giveaway!!'

Prune Plays
Writers and cast in order of appearance:

 * Robin Hood
 * Written by Graeme Garden and John Cleese
 * Story narration – sung by David Hatch
 * 'Curtain' – Tim Brooke-Taylor
 * Maid Marion – Jo Kendall
 * Friar Tuck – Bill Oddie
 * Robin Hood – Tim Brooke-Taylor
 * Alan 'a Gabriel – Graeme Garden
 * Will Scarlet – David Hatch
 * Little John – John Cleese
 * Sir Angus of the Prune – John Cleese
 * Grimbling (the Bailiff) – Bill Oddie
 * Sheriff of Nottingham – Graeme Garden
 * Master of Ceremonies for the 'Archery Competition' – John Cleese
 * Deputy Sheriff – Graeme Garden

 * The Curse of the Flying Wombat
 * Written by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie
 * 'King Lear' – John Cleese
 * Tim Brown-Windsor – Tim Brooke-Taylor
 * Mr. Hatch – David Hatch
 * Lady Fiona Rabbit-Vacuum (Jim-Lad) – Jo Kendall
 * Captain Cleese – John Cleese
 * 'Lookout' – Bill Oddie
 * Casey O'Sullivan – Bill Oddie
 * Masher Wilkins – John Cleese
 * Maisie Robinson (the International Temptress) – Jo Kendall
 * Grimbling (Butler to Tim's Aunt) – Bill Oddie
 * Lady Constance de Coverlet – Tim Brooke-Taylor
 * "Hurricane" Flossie (Lady Constance's identical twin sister) – Tim Brooke-Taylor
 * Slave-girl trader – Bill Oddie
 * Colonel Clutch-Featheringhaugh – David Hatch
 * Nosebone (the Great White Hunter) – Bill Oddie
 * Wong (the Supply-keeper) – Tim Brooke-Taylor
 * Wong Tu (his brother) – John Cleese
 * 'Armand' – Bill Oddie

ISIRTA songs
Comedy songs replaced traditional songs during episodes.

Commercial Releases
A vinyl compilation album of sketches was released on the Parlophone label in 1967, and later reissued on a double cassette by EMI in 1993 alongside the London recording of Cambridge Circus. Another compilation was released by BBC Records in 1978, reissued on CD in 2011 as part of the Vintage Beeb range.

Four volumes of compilation cassettes were released by the BBC Radio Collection between 1989 and 1997 containing complete episodes. These were re-released on CD in 2007 alongside a fifth volume.

A tie-in book of sketches was published by Javelin in 1985, illustrated by Graeme Garden.

title: I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again


text:
Transcontinental railroad

A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express. Transcontinental railroads helped open up interior regions of continents not previously colonized to exploration and settlement that would not otherwise have been feasible. In many cases they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks. Many of them continue to have an important role in freight transportation and some like the Trans-Siberian Railway even have passenger trains going from one end to the other.

East-west

 * There are several ways to cross Africa transcontinentally via connecting east–west railways. One is the Benguela railway, completed in 1929. It starts in Lobito, Angola, and connects through Katanga to the Zambia railways system. From Zambia several ports are accessible on the Indian Ocean: Dar es Salaam in Tanzania through the TAZARA, and, through Zimbabwe, Beira and Maputo in Mozambique. The Angolan Civil War has made the Benguela line largely inoperative, but efforts are being taken to restore it. Another west–east corridor leads from the Atlantic harbours in Namibia, either Walvis Bay or Luderitz to the South African rail system that, in turn, links to ports on the Indian Ocean ( i.e. Durban, Maputo).
 * A 1015 km gap in the east–west line between Kinshasa and Ilebo filled by riverboats could be plugged with a new railway.
 * There are two proposals for a line from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Guinea, including TransAfricaRail.
 * In 2010 a proposal sought to link Dakar to Port Sudan. Thirteen countries would be on the main route; another six would be served by branches.

North-south

 * A north-south transcontinental railway had been proposed by Cecil Rhodes, who termed it the Cape-Cairo railway. This system would act as a direct route from the northernmost British possession in Africa, Egypt, to the southernmost one, the Cape Colony. The project was never completed. During its development, a competing French colonial project for a competing line from Algiers or Dakar to Abidjan was abandoned after the Fashoda incident. This line would have had four gauge islands in three gauges.
 * An extension of Namibian Railways is being built in 2006 with the possible connection to Angolan Railways.
 * Libya has proposed a Trans-Saharan Railway connecting possibly to Nigeria which would connect with the proposed AfricaRail network.

African Union of Railways

 * The African Union of Railways has plans to connect the various railways of Africa including the Dakar-Port Sudan Railway.

East-west

 * Australia's east–west transcontinental rail corridor, consisting of lines built to three different track gauges, was completed in 1917, when the Trans-Australian Railway was opened between Port Augusta, South Australia and Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. This line, built by the federal government as a federation commitment, filled the last gap in the lines between the mainland state capitals of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Passengers and freight alike suffered from time-consuming breaks of gauge: a Perth–Brisbane journey at that time involved two standard gauge 1435 mm (4 ft 8$1/2$ in) lines, a broad gauge 1600 mm (5 ft 3 in) line, and three of 1067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge.
 * In the 1940s and 1960s, steps were taken to progressively reduce the huge inefficiencies caused by the numerous historically imposed breaks of gauge by linking the mainland capital cities with lines all of standard gauge.
 * In 1970, the route across the continent was completed to standard gauge and a new, all-through passenger train, the Indian Pacific was inaugurated.
 * An east–west transcontinental line across northern Australia from the Pilbara to the east coast – more than 1000 km (600 mi) north of the Sydney-Perth rail corridor – was proposed in 2006 by Project Iron Boomerang to connect iron ore mining in the Pilbara and coal mining in the Bowen Basin in Queensland, with steel manufacturing plants at both ends.

North–south

 * Australia's north–south transcontinental rail corridor was built in stages during the 20th century, leaving a 1420 km gap to be finished after the 828 km Tarcoola to Alice Springs section was completed in 1980. That final section, from Alice Springs to Darwin, was opened in 2004. The total length of the corridor, from Adelaide to Darwin, is 2975 km. Completion of the corridor ended 126 years of freight and passengers alike having to be transferred between trains on tracks of different gauges: the corridor is now entirely 1435 mm (4 ft 8$1/2$ in) standard gauge. The corridor is an important route for freight. An upmarket experiential tourism passenger train, The Ghan, operated by Journey Beyond, makes the journey once a week in each direction from Adelaide to Darwin, and the company's east–west Indian Pacific runs on the southernmost 727 km before heading west to Perth. There is no intermediate passenger traffic on the line.
 * In 2018, the Australian Rail Track Corporation started building a 1700 km standard gauge fast-freight railway from Melbourne to Brisbane, known as the Inland Railway., completion was anticipated in 2027.

Eurasia

 * The first transcontinental railroad in Europe, that connected the North Sea or the English Channel with the Mediterranean Sea, was a series of lines that included the Paris–Marseille railway, in service 1856. Multiple railways north of Paris were in operation at that time, such as Paris–Lille railway and Paris–Le Havre railway.
 * The second connection between the seas of Northern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, was a series of lines finalized in 1857 with the Austrian Southern Railway, Vienna–Trieste. There were before that railroad connections Hamburg–Berlin–Wroclaw–Vienna (including Berlin–Hamburg Railway, Berlin–Wrocław railway, Upper Silesian Railway and Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway). The Baltic Sea was also connected through the Lübeck–Lüneburg railway.
 * The Trans-Siberian Railway, completed in 1905, was the first network of railways connecting Europe and Asia. It connects Western Russia to the Russian Far East, and is the longest railway line in the world, with a length of over 9,289 km. The railway starts from Russia's capital Moscow, which is the largest city in Europe, and ends at Vladivostok, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Expansion of the railway system continues, with connecting rails going into Asia, namely Mongolia, China and North Korea. There are also plans to connect Tokyo, the capital of Japan, to the railway.
 * A second rail line connects Istanbul in Turkey with China via Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. This route imposes a break of gauge at the Iranian border with Turkmenistan and at the Chinese border. En route there is a train ferry in eastern Turkey across Lake Van. The European and Asian parts of Istanbul was linked 2019 linked by the Marmaray undersea tunnel, before that by train ferry. There is no through service of passenger trains on the entire line. A uniform gauge connection was proposed in 2006, commencing with new construction in Kazakhstan. A decision to make the internal railways of Afghanistan gauge potentially opens up a new standard gauge route to China, since China abuts this country.
 * The Trans-Asian Railway is a project to link Singapore to Istanbul and is to a large degree complete with missing pieces primarily in Myanmar. The project has also linking corridors to China, the central Asian states, and Russia. This transcontinental line unfortunately uses a number of different gauges,, , and , though this problem may be lessened with the use of variable gauge axle systems such as the SUW 2000.
 * The TransKazakhstan Trunk Railways project by Kazakhstan Temir Zholy will connect China and Europe with standard gauge . Construction is set to start in 2006. Initially the line will go to western Kazakhstan, south through Turkmenistan to Iran, then to Turkey and Europe. A shorter to-be-constructed link from Kazakhstan is considered going through Russia and either Belarus or Ukraine.
 * The Baghdad Railway connects Istanbul with Baghdad and finally Basra, a sea port at the Persian Gulf. When its construction started in the 1880s it was in those times a Transcontinental Railroad.

United States

A transcontinental railroad in the United States is any continuous rail line connecting a location on the U.S. Pacific coast with one or more of the railroads of the nation's eastern trunk line rail systems operating between the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers and the U.S. Atlantic coast. The first concrete plan for a transcontinental railroad in the United States was presented to Congress by Asa Whitney in 1845.

A series of transcontinental railroads built over the last third of the 19th century created a nationwide transportation network that united the country by rail. The first of these, the 1928 mi "Pacific Railroad", was built by the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad, as well as the Western Pacific Railroad (1862-1870), to link the San Francisco Bay at Alameda, California, with the nation's existing eastern railroad network at Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa — thereby creating the world's second transcontinental railroad when it was completed from Omaha to Alameda on September 6, 1869. (The first transcontinental railroad was the Panama Railroad of 1855.) Its construction was made possible by the US government under Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862, 1864, and 1867. Its original course was very close to current Interstate 80.

Transcontinental railroad
The U.S.'s first transcontinental railroad was built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. Its construction was considered to be one of the greatest American technological feats of the 19th century. Known as the "Pacific Railroad" when it opened, it served as a vital link for trade, commerce, and travel and opened up vast regions of the North American heartland for settlement. Much of the original route, especially on the Sierra grade west of Reno, Nevada, is currently used by Amtrak's California Zephyr, although many parts have been rerouted.

The resulting coast-to-coast railroad connection revolutionized the settlement and economy of the American West. It brought the western states and territories into alignment with the northern Union states and made transporting passengers and goods coast-to-coast considerably quicker, safer and less expensive. It replaced most of the far slower and more hazardous stagecoach lines and wagon trains. The number of emigrants taking the Oregon and California Trails declined dramatically. The sale of the railroad land grant lands and the transport provided for timber and crops led to the rapid settling of the "Great American Desert".

The Union Pacific recruited laborers from Army veterans and Irish immigrants, while most of the engineers were ex-Army men who had learned their trade keeping the trains running during the American Civil War.

The Central Pacific Railroad faced a labor shortage in the more sparsely settled West. It recruited Cantonese laborers in China, who built the line over and through the Sierra Nevada mountains and then across Nevada to their meeting in northern Utah. Chinese workers made up ninety percent of the workforce on the line. The Chinese Labor Strike of 1867 was peaceful, with no violence, organized across the entire Sierra Nevada route, and was carried out according to a peaceful Confucian model of protest. The strike began with the Summer Solstice in June, 1867 and lasted for eight days.

Land Grants
The Transcontinental Railroad required land and a complex federal policy for purchasing, granting, conveying land. Some of these land-related acts included:

 * One motive for the Gadsden Purchase of land from Mexico in 1853 was to obtain suitable terrain for a southern transcontinental railroad, as the southern portion of the Mexican Cession was too mountainous. The Southern Pacific Railroad was completed in 1881.
 * The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 (based on an earlier bill in 1856) authorized land grants for new lines that would "aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean".
 * The rails of the "first transcontinental railroad" were joined on May 10, 1869, with the ceremonial driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit, Utah, after track was laid over a 1,756 mi gap between Sacramento and Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa in six years by the Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad. Although through train service between Omaha and Sacramento was in operation as of that date, the road was not completed to the Pacific Ocean until September 6, 1869, when the first through train reached San Francisco Bay at Alameda Terminal, and on November 8, 1869, when it reached the terminus at Oakland Long Wharf. Later, November 6, 1869, was deemed to be the official completion date of the Pacific Railroad. (A physical connection between Omaha, Nebraska, and the statutory Eastern terminus of the Pacific road at Council Bluffs, Iowa, located immediately across the Missouri River was also not finally established until the opening of UPRR railroad bridge across the river on March 25, 1873, prior to which transfers were made by ferry operated by the Council Bluffs & Nebraska Ferry Company. )
 * The first permanent, continuous line of railroad track from coast to coast was completed 15 months later on August 15, 1870, by the Kansas Pacific Railroad near its crossing of Comanche Creek at Strasburg, Colorado. This route connected to the eastern rail network via the Hannibal Bridge across the Missouri River at Kansas City completed June 30, 1869, passed through Denver, Colorado, and north to the Union Pacific Railroad at Cheyenne, Wyoming, making it theoretically possible for the first time to board a train at Jersey City, New Jersey, travel entirely by rail, and step down at the Alameda Wharf on San Francisco Bay in Oakland. This singularity existed until March 25, 1873 when the Union Pacific constructed the Missouri River Bridge in Omaha.

Subsequent transcontinental routes

 * Almost 12 years after Promontory Summit, the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) constructed the second transcontinental railroad, building eastwards through the Gadsden Purchase, which had been acquired from Mexico in 1854 largely with the intention of providing a route for a railroad connecting California with the Southern states. This line was completed with milestones and ceremonies in 1881 and 1883:
 * March 8, 1881: the SP met the Rio Grande, Mexico and Pacific Railroad (a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway) with a "silver spike" ceremony at Deming, New Mexico, connecting Atchison, Kansas, to Los Angeles.
 * December 15, 1881: the SP met the Texas and Pacific Railway (T&P) at Sierra Blanca, Texas, connecting eastern Texas to Los Angeles.
 * January 12, 1883: the SP completed its own southern section, meeting its subsidiary Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway at the Pecos River in Texas, and linking New Orleans to Los Angeles.
 * In Colorado, the 3-foot gauge Denver & Rio Grande (D&RG) extended its route from Denver via Pueblo across the Rocky Mountains to Grand Junction in 1882. In central Utah, the D&RG acquired a number of independent narrow gauge companies, which were incorporated into the first (1881-1889) Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway (D&RGW). Tracks were extended north through Salt Lake City, while simultaneously building south and eastward toward Grand Junction. The D&RG and the D&RGW were linked on March 30, 1883, the extension to Ogden (where it met the Central Pacific) was completed on May 14, 1883, and through traffic between Denver and Ogden began a few days later. The break of gauge made direct interchange of rolling stock with standard gauge railroads at both ends of this bridge line impossible for several years. The D&RG in 1887 began rebuilding its mainline in standard gauge, including a new route and tunnel at Tennessee Pass. The first D&RGW was reincorporated as the Rio Grande Western (RGW) in June 1889 and immediately began the conversion of track gauge. Standard gauge operations linking Ogden and Denver were completed on November 15, 1890.
 * The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad completed its route connecting the AT&SF at Albuquerque, New Mexico, via Flagstaff, Arizona, to the Southern Pacific at Needles, California, on August 9, 1883. The SP line into Barstow was leased by the A&P in 1884 (and purchased in 1911); this gave the AT&SF (the A&P's parent company) a direct route into Southern California. This route now forms the western portion of BNSF's Southern Transcon.
 * The Northern Pacific Railway (NP) completed the fifth independent transcontinental railroad on August 22, 1883, linking Chicago with Seattle. The Completion Ceremony was held on September 8, 1883, with former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant contributing to driving the Final Spike.
 * The California Southern Railroad (chartered January 10, 1882) was completed from National City on San Diego Bay via Temecula Cañon to Colton and San Bernardino in September, 1883, and extended through the Cajon Pass to Barstow, a junction of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, in November, 1885. In September, 1885, the line of the Southern Pacific from Colton to Los Angeles, a distance of 58 mi, had been leased by the California Central with equal rights and privileges thus allowing the Santa Fe's Transcontinental route to be completed by the connection with the California Southern and A&PRR. The SP grade was used until the completion of the California Central's own line between San Bernardino and Los Angeles in June, 1887, a distance of 62.84 mi, which was part of the old Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad, which had been acquired by purchase. In August, 1888, the California Central completed its Coast Division south from Los Angeles to a junction with the California Southern Railroad near Oceanside, a distance of 80.90 mi, and these two divisions comprised the main line of the California Central, forming, in connection with the California Southern, a direct line between Southern California and the East by way of the Atlantic and Pacific and Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroads.
 * The Great Northern Railway was built, without federal aid, by James J. Hill in 1893; it stretched from St. Paul to Seattle.
 * The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific reached Santa Rosa, New Mexico, from the east in late 1901, shortly before the El Paso & Northeastern arrived from the southwest. The two were connected on February 1, 1902, thus forming an additional link between the Midwest and southern California. Through passenger service was provided by the Golden State Limited (Chicago—Kansas City—Tucumcari—El Paso—Los Angeles) jointly operated by the Rock Island and the Southern Pacific (EP&NE's successor) from 1902 to 1968.
 * The San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad completed its line connecting Los Angeles through Las Vegas to Salt Lake City on May 1, 1905. Through passenger service from Chicago to Los Angeles was provided by Union Pacific's Los Angeles Limited from 1905 to 1954, and the City of Los Angeles from 1936 to 1971.
 * The Western Pacific Railway (WP), financed by the Denver & Rio Grande on behalf of the Gould System, completed its new line (the Feather River Route) from Oakland to Ogden in 1909, in direct competition with the Southern Pacific's existing route. Through passenger service (Oakland-Salt Lake City-Denver-Chicago) was provided by the Exposition Flyer 1939 to 1949 and its successor, the California Zephyr 1949 to 1970, both jointly operated by the WP, the D&RGW and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy.
 * In 1909, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul (or Milwaukee Road) completed a privately built Pacific extension to Seattle. On completion, the line was renamed the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific. Although the Pacific Extension was privately funded, predecessor roads did benefit from the federal land grant act, so it cannot be said to have been built without federal aid.
 * John D. Spreckels completed his privately funded San Diego and Arizona Railway in 1919, thereby creating a direct link (via connection with the Southern Pacific lines) between San Diego, California and the Eastern United States. The railroad stretched 148 mi from San Diego to Calexico, California, of which 44 mi were south of the border in Mexico.
 * In 1993, Amtrak's Sunset Limited daily railroad train was extended eastward to Miami, Florida, later rerouted to Orlando, making it the first regularly scheduled transcontinental passenger train route in the United States to be operated by a single company. Hurricane Katrina cut this rail route in Louisiana in 2005. The train now runs from Los Angeles to New Orleans.
 * For a time in 1997 and 1998, Amtrak effectively operated the Washington-Chicago Capitol Limited and Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief as a single train.

The Gould System
George J. Gould attempted to assemble a truly transcontinental system in the 1900s. The line from San Francisco, California, to Toledo, Ohio, was completed in 1909, consisting of the Western Pacific Railway, Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, Missouri Pacific Railroad, and Wabash Railroad. Beyond Toledo, the planned route would have used the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad (1900), Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway, Little Kanawha Railroad, West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway, Western Maryland Railroad, and Philadelphia and Western Railway, but the Panic of 1907 strangled the plans before the Little Kanawha section in West Virginia could be finished. The Alphabet Route was completed in 1931, providing the portion of this line east of the Mississippi River. With the merging of the railroads, only the Union Pacific Railroad and the BNSF Railway remain to carry the entire route.

Canada

The completion of Canada's first transcontinental railway with the driving of the Last Spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia, on November 7, 1885, was an important milestone in Canadian history. Between 1881 and 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) completed a line that spanned from the port of Montreal to the Pacific coast, fulfilling a condition of British Columbia's 1871 entry into the Canadian Confederation. The City of Vancouver, incorporated in 1886, was designated the western terminus of the line. The CPR became the first transcontinental railway company in North America in 1889 after its International Railway of Maine opened, connecting CPR to the Atlantic coast.

The construction of a transcontinental railway strengthened the connection of British Columbia and the North-West Territories to the country they had recently joined, and acted as a bulwark against potential incursions by the United States.

Subsequently, two other transcontinental lines were built in Canada: the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) opened another line to the Pacific in 1915, and the combined Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTPR)/National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) system opened in 1917 following the completion of the Quebec Bridge, although its line to the Pacific opened in 1914. The CNoR, GTPR, and NTR were nationalized to form the Canadian National Railway, which currently is now Canada's largest transcontinental railway, with lines running all the way from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast.

South and Central America
There is activity to revive the connection between Valparaíso and Santiago in Chile and Mendoza, Argentina, through the Transandino project. Mendoza has an active connection to Buenos Aires. The old Transandino began in 1910 and ceased passenger service in 1978 and freight 4 years later. Technically a complete transcontinental link exists from Arica, Chile, to La Paz, Bolivia, to Buenos Aires, but this trans-Andean crossing is for freight only.

On December 6, 2017 the Brazilian President Michel Temer and his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales signed an agreement for an Atlantic - Pacific railway. The construction will start in 2019 and will be finished in 2024. The new railway is planned to be 3750 km in length. There are two possible tracks in discussion: Both have an Atlantic end in Santos, Brazil but the Pacific ends are in Ilo, Peru and Matarani, Peru.

Another longer Transcontinental freight-only railroad linking Lima, Peru, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is under development.

Panama
The first railroad to directly connect two oceans (although not by crossing a broad "continental" land mass ) was the Panama Rail Road. Opened in 1855, this 48 mi line was designated instead as an "inter-oceanic" railroad crossing Country at its narrowest point, the Isthmus of Panama, when that area was still part of Colombia. (Panama split off from Colombia in 1903 and became the independent Republic of Panama). By spanning the isthmus, the line thus became the first railroad to completely cross any part of the Americas and physically connect ports on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Given the tropical rain forest environment, the terrain, and diseases such as malaria and cholera, its completion was a considerable engineering challenge. The construction took five years after ground was first broken for the line in May, 1850, cost eight million dollars, and required more than seven thousand workers drawn from "every quarter of the globe."

This railway was built to provide a shorter and more secure path between the United States' East and West Coasts. This need was mainly triggered by the California Gold Rush. Over the years the railway played a key role in the construction and the subsequent operation of the Panama Canal, due to its proximity to the canal. Currently, the railway operates under the private administration of the Panama Canal Railroad Company, and its upgraded capacity complements the cargo traffic through the Panama Canal.

Guatemala

A second Central American inter-oceanic railroad began operation in 1908 as a connection between Puerto San José and Puerto Barrios in Guatemala, but ceased passenger service to Puerto San José in 1989.

Costa Rica

A third Central American inter-oceanic railroad began operation in 1910 as a connection between Puntarenas and Limón in gauge. It currently (2019) sees no passenger service.

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title: Transcontinental railroad


text:
Bill Haley & His Comets

Bill Haley & His Comets was an American rock and roll band formed in 1947 and continuing until Haley's death in 1981. The band was also known as Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets. From late 1954 to late 1956, the group recorded nine Top 20 singles, one of which was number one and three that were Top Ten. The single "Rock Around the Clock" was the best-selling rock single in the history of the genre and maintained that position for several years.

Band leader Bill Haley had previously been a Western swing performer; after recording a rockabilly version of Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm's "Rocket 88", one of the first rock and roll recordings, Haley changed his band's musical direction to rock music. They went on to record hit versions of "Crazy Man, Crazy", "Shake, Rattle & Roll", the aforementioned "Rock Around the Clock", "Dim, Dim the Lights", "Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie", "Razzle-Dazzle", "See You Later, Alligator", "The Saints Rock 'N' Roll" and "Rip It Up". In 1956, the group appeared in two early rock and roll movies with disc jockey Alan Freed: Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock.

Though the group was considered to be at the forefront of rock and roll during the genre's formative years, the arrival of more risqué acts such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard by 1956 led the more clean-cut Haley and his Comets to decline in popularity. Haley would remain popular in Europe and go on to have a comeback as a nostalgia act in the 1970s, along with many of his contemporaries. Following Haley's death, no fewer than seven different groups have existed under the Comets name, all claiming (with varying degrees of authority) to be the continuation of Haley's group. As of the end of 2014, four such groups were still performing in the United States and internationally.

Early history
In around the mid-1940s, Bill Haley performed with the Down Homers and formed a group called the Four Aces of Western Swing. The group that later became the Comets initially formed as "Bill Haley and the Saddlemen" c. 1949–1952, and performed mostly country and western songs, though occasionally with a bluesy feel. The group was also the first to record a cover version (in July 1951) of Rocket 88, originally a jump blues song by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. He did so for the Philadelphia-based Holiday Records label, in what is now recognized as a rockabilly style. It sold well and was followed in 1952 by a cover of a 1940s rhythm and blues song called "Rock the Joint" for Holiday's sister company, Essex Records.

During those years however, Haley was considered one of the top cowboy yodelers in America. Many Saddlemen recordings were not released until the 1970s and 1980s, and highlights included romantic ballads such as "Rose of My Heart" and western swing tunes such as "Yodel Your Blues Away." The original members of this group were Haley, pianist and accordion player Johnny Grande and steel guitarist Billy Williamson. Al Thompson was the group's first bass player, followed by Al Rex and Marshall Lytle. During the group's early years, it recorded under several other names, including Johnny Clifton and His String Band and Reno Browne and Her Buckaroos (although Browne, a female matinee idol of the time, did not actually appear on the record).

"Rocket 88", "Rock the Joint", and their immediate follow-ups were released under the increasingly incongruous Saddlemen name. It soon became apparent that a new name for the group was needed to fit the new musical style. A friend of Haley's, making note of the common mispronunciation of the name Halley's Comet to rhyme with Bailey, suggested that Haley call his band the Comets. This event is cited in the Haley biographies Sound and Glory by John Haley and John von Hoelle; Bill Haley by John Swenson; and in Still Rockin' Around the Clock, a memoir by Comets bass player Marshall Lytle.

The new name for the group was adopted in the fall of 1952, before the 1953 release of "Crazy Man, Crazy" which had some elements of rock and roll and rockabilly music. Members of the group at that time were Haley, Johnny Grande, Billy Williamson and Marshall Lytle. Grande usually played piano on records but switched to accordion for live shows as it was more portable than a piano and easier to deal with during musical numbers that involved a lot of dancing around. Soon after renaming the band Haley hired his first drummer, Earl Famous. Displeased with the lineup, Haley sought out Dick Boccelli (also known as Dick Richards), who turned down the job but recommended a young drummer Charlie Higler. Soon after, Haley asked Richards again, who then accepted the role. During this time (and as late as the fall of 1955), Haley did not have a permanent lead guitar player, choosing to use session musicians on records and either playing lead guitar himself or having Williamson play steel solos.

Even before the release of more successful records, the group had achieved greatness in some respects: "No one had blended country and R&B on a single before the Comets' "Rock the Joint". No one had scored an American Top 20 hit with anything that could really qualify as rock'n'roll before their single "Crazy Man Crazy" in 1953".

National success and "Rock Around the Clock"
In 1953, Haley scored his first national success with his original song, "Crazy Man, Crazy", a phrase Haley said he heard from his teenage audience, again released on Essex. Haley later claimed the recording sold a million copies, but this is considered an exaggeration. Some sources indicate that the recording—a blend of R&B, western and pop music—is a contender for the title of "first rock'n'roll record" while others state that it was merely "the first rock and roll song to be a hit on the pop charts". It was also said to be the first rock'n'roll recording to be played on national television in the United States (in an episode of Omnibus (American TV program) in 1953).

On their last release from Essex, new band member Joey Ambrose is heard on the B-side, "Straight Jacket."

In the spring of 1954, Haley and His Comets left Essex for New York-based Decca Records, where they were placed under the auspices of veteran producer Milt Gabler, who would produce all of the band's recordings for the label and who had been involved in creating many proto-rock and roll recordings by the likes of the Andrews Sisters and Louis Jordan dating back to the 1940s. One of Jordan's records, Saturday Night Fish Fry (1949), is considered to be a contender for the title of "first rock'n' roll record. Gabler later commented that "all the tricks I used with Louis Jordan, I used with Bill Haley".

The group's first session, on April 12, 1954, yielded "Rock Around the Clock", which would become Haley's biggest hit and one of the most important records in rock and roll history. Sales of "Rock Around the Clock" started slowly, since it was the B-side of the single, but it performed well enough, that a second Decca session was commissioned.

"Shake, Rattle and Roll" followed, a somewhat bowdlerized cover version of the Big Joe Turner recording released earlier in 1954. The single was one of Decca's best-selling records of 1954 and the seventh-best-selling record in November 1954.

In 1954, Anita Gordon starred in Round Up of Rhythm, a film short in which she, and Disc Jockey Bill Delzell, played ' Straight Jacket ' and 'Shake Rattle and Roll', which the group are seen playing.

In March 1955, the group had four songs in Cash Box magazine's top 50 songs: "Dim, Dim the Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere)"; "Birth of the Boogie"; "Mambo Rock"; and "Shake, Rattle and Roll."

Haley's "Shake, Rattle and Roll" never achieved the same level of historical importance as "Rock Around the Clock" but it predated it as the first international rock and roll hit. It did not attain the Number 1 position on the American charts, but it became Haley's first gold record. Elvis Presley recorded the song in 1956, combining Haley's arrangement with Turner's original lyrics, but his version was not a substantial hit. Late in 1954, Haley recorded another hit, "Dim, Dim The Lights", which was one of the first R&B songs recorded by a white group to cross over to the R&B charts. Johnnie Ray had reached Number 1 with "Cry" in 1952.

The belated success of "Rock Around the Clock" is attributed to its use in the soundtrack of the film Blackboard Jungle, which was released on March 19, 1955. The song was re-released to coincide with the film and shifted to the single's A-side. Haley's recording became an anthem for rebellious 1950s youth and reached Number 1 on the pop charts, remaining there for eight weeks, and went to Number 3 on the R&B chart. According to The Guardian, the group was "the first rock'n'roll band" and the song was particularly "important because it was the first rock'n'roll record heard by millions of people worldwide".

Ambrose's acrobatic saxophone playing, along with Lytle on the double bass – literally on it, riding it like a pony, and holding it over his head – were highlights of the band's live performances during this time. Their music and their act were part of a tradition in jazz and rhythm and blues, but it all came like a thunderclap to most of their audience. In late 1954, Haley and His Comets appeared in a short subject entitled Round Up of Rhythm, performing three songs. This was the earliest known theatrical rock and roll film release.

In 1955, Lytle, Richards and Ambrose quit the Comets in a salary dispute and formed their own group, the Jodimars. Haley hired several new musicians to take their place: Rudy Pompilli on sax, Al Rex (a former member of the Saddlemen) on double bass, and Ralph Jones on drums. In addition, lead guitarist Franny Beecher, who had been a session musician for Haley since Danny Cedrone's death in the spring of 1954, became a full-time Comet and Haley's first performing lead guitarist (Cedrone had played the guitar solo on the original recording of "Rock Around the Clock" and died shortly after the recording session for "Shake, Rattle and Roll" in the summer of 1954). This version of the band became more popular than the earlier manifestation and appeared in several motion pictures over the next few years.

Other hits recorded by the band included "See You Later, Alligator" in which Haley's frantic delivery contrasted with the Louisiana languor of the original by Bobby Charles, "Don't Knock the Rock", "Rock-a-Beatin' Boogie", "Rudy's Rock" (the first instrumental hit of the rock and roll era), and "Skinny Minnie."

Bill Haley and the Comets performed "Rock Around the Clock" in an a cappella and a lip-synched version on the NBC television program Texaco Star Theater hosted by Milton Berle on May 31, 1955. Berle predicted that the song would go to Number 1, calling the band "A group of entertainers who are going right to the top." Berle also sang and danced to the song, which was performed by the entire cast of the show. This was one of the earliest nationally televised performances by a rock and roll band and provided the new musical genre a much wider audience.

Bill Haley and the Comets were the first rock and roll performers to appear on the CBS television musical variety program The Ed Sullivan Show, or Toast of the Town on Sunday, August 7, 1955, in a broadcast from the Shakespeare Festival Theater in Stratford, Connecticut. They performed a live version of "Rock Around the Clock" featuring Franny Beecher on lead guitar and Dick Richards on drums. The group made a second and final appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, April 28, 1957, performing "Rudy's Rock" and "Forty Cups of Coffee."

Bill Haley and the Comets appeared on American Bandstand hosted by Dick Clark on ABC television twice in 1957, on the prime-time show on October 28 and on the regular daytime show on November 27. The band also appeared on Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show (also known as The Dick Clark Show), a prime-time TV series from New York on March 22, 1958, during the first season (performing "Rock Around the Clock" and "Ooh, Look-a There, Ain't She Pretty") and on February 20, 1960 (performing "Rock Around the Clock" and "Tamiami").

In 1956, the group appeared in two of the earliest full-length rock and roll movies with Alan Freed: Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock. The Platters were co-stars in the first movie, and Little Richard appeared in the second. Rock Around the Clock was produced by Sam Katzman (who would produce several Elvis Presley films in the 1960s) and directed by Fred F. Sears.

Decline in popularity
The band's popularity in the United States began to wane in 1956–57 as sexier, wilder acts such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard began to dominate the record charts (although Haley's cover version of Little Richard's "Rip It Up", released in direct competition with Little Richard's original recording, outsold the original). After "Skinny Minnie" hit the charts in 1958, Haley had little further success in the United States, although a spin-off group made up of Comets musicians dubbed The Kingsmen (no relation to the later group of "Louie, Louie" fame) had a hit with an instrumental, "Weekend", that same year.

Overseas, however, Haley and his band continued to be popular, touring the United Kingdom in February 1957, when Haley and his crew were mobbed by thousands of fans at Waterloo station in London at an incident which the media dubbed the "Second Battle of Waterloo". The group also toured Australia in 1957, and in 1958 enjoyed a successful (if riot-dominated) tour of the European mainland. Bill Haley & His Comets were the first major American rock and roll act to tour the world in this way. Elvis, who was on military duty in Germany, visited them backstage at some shows. On a free day in Berlin they performed two songs in the Caterina Valente movie Hier Bin ich Hier Bleib Ich (Here I Am Here I Stay).

Back in the U.S., Haley attempted to start his own record label, Clymax, and establish his own stable of performers, notably Sally Starr (the hostess of a Philadelphia television children's program) and the Matys Brothers. Members of the Comets were commissioned to work as session musicians on many of these recordings, many of which were written or co-written by Haley and members of the Comets. The Clymax experiment only lasted about a year. In 1959, Haley's relationship with Decca collapsed; after a final set of instrumental-only recordings in the fall, Haley announced he was leaving Decca for the new Warner Bros. Records label, which released two more albums in 1960, which were moderately successful. In 1960 Franny Beecher and Rudi Pompilli left the Comets to start their own record label. Replacing Beecher was a 20-year-old guitarist, Johnny Kay, from Chester, Pennsylvania. Beecher later returned briefly to play with the Comets, when his record label failed to take off, sharing guitar duties with Kay. Kay left the band in 1966 but returned in the early 1970s for an aborted world tour. He appeared in the Wembley show, which was filmed and released as the London Rock and Roll Show.

Mexico and the late 1960s
In 1961–1962, Bill Haley y sus Cometas (as the band was known in Hispanic America) signed with the Orfeón label of Mexico and scored an unexpected hit with "Twist Español", a Spanish-language recording based on the twist dance craze, which was sweeping America at the time. Haley followed up with "Florida Twist" (#3 MEX, according to Billboard Hits Of The World 04.21.62), which was for a time the biggest-selling single in Mexican history. Although Chubby Checker and Hank Ballard were credited with starting the twist craze in America, in Mexico and Latin America, Bill Haley and His Comets were proclaimed the Kings of the Twist. Thanks to the success of "Twist Español" and "Florida Twist", among others, the band had continued success in Mexico and Latin America over the next few years, selling many recordings of Spanish and Spanish-flavored material and simulated live performances (overdubbed audience over studio recordings) on the Orfeon label and its subsidiary, Dimsa. They hosted a television series, Orfeon a Go-Go, and made cameo appearances in several movies, lip-synching some of their old hits. Haley, who was fluent in Spanish, recorded a number of songs in the language, but most of the band's output during these years was instrumental recordings, many utilizing local session musicians playing trumpet. There was also some experimentation with Haley's style during this time; one single for Orfeon was a folk ballad, "Jimmy Martinez", which Haley recorded without the Comets.

In 1966, the Comets (without Bill Haley) cut an album for Orfeon as session musicians for Big Joe Turner, who had always been an idol to Haley; no joint performance of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was recorded, however. In a 1974 interview with BBC Radio, Haley said Turner's career was in a slump at this time, so he used his then-considerable influence with Orfeon to get Turner a recording session. The Comets' association with Orfeon/Dimsa ended later that year.

By 1967, as related by Haley in an interview with radio host Red Robinson in that year, the group was "a free agent" without any recording contracts at all, although the band continued to perform regularly in North America and Europe. During this year, Haley—without the Comets—recorded a pair of demos in Phoenix, Arizona: a country-western song, "Jealous Heart", on which he was backed by a local mariachi band (similar in style to the earlier "Jimmy Martinez"), and a late-60s-style rocker, "Rock on Baby", backed by a group called Superfine Dandelion. Neither recording would be released for 30 years. In 1968, Haley and the Comets recorded a single for the United Artists label, a version of Tom T. Hall's "That's How I Got to Memphis", but no long-term association with the label resulted. In order to revive his recording career, Haley turned to Europe.

Revival
By the late 1960s, Haley and the Comets were considered an "oldies" act. The band's popularity never waned in Europe. The group signed a lucrative deal with Sonet Records of Sweden in 1968 and recorded in a new version of "Rock Around the Clock", which hit the European charts that year. The band recorded a mixture of live and studio albums for the label over the next decade.

In the United States in 1969, promoter Richard Nader launched a series of rock and roll revival concert tours featuring artists of the 1950s and 1960s. At one of the first of these shows, held at the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Haley received an eight-and-a-half-minute standing ovation following his performance, as Nader related in his recorded introduction to Haley's live album Bill Haley Scrapbook, which was recorded a few weeks later at the Bitter End club in New York.

The band appeared in several concert films in the early 1970s, including The London Rock and Roll Show (for which Haley's 1960–66 lead guitarist, John Kay, briefly rejoined the band) and Let the Good Times Roll. After 1974, tax and management problems prevented Haley from performing in the United States, so he performed in Europe almost exclusively, though he also toured South America in 1975. The band was also kept busy in the studio, recording numerous albums for Sonet and other labels in the 1970s, several with a country music flavor. In 1974, Haley's original Decca recording of "Rock Around the Clock" hit the American sales charts once again, thanks to its use in the film American Graffiti and for two years, on the television program Happy Days.

Late career
In February 1976, Haley's saxophone player and best friend, Rudy Pompilli, died of cancer after a nearly 20-year career with the Comets. Haley continued to tour for the next year with a succession of new sax players, but his popularity was waning again, and his 1976 performance in London was critically lambasted in the music media, such as Melody Maker. That year, the group also recorded an album, R-O-C-K at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio for Sonet Records. According to one source, "he had conflicted feelings about fame, was extremely private, suffered chronic alcoholism, and troubled relationships". Having admitted to an alcohol problem in a 1974 radio interview for the BBC, Haley continued to battle alcoholism into the 1970s. In early 1977, Haley announced his retirement from performing and settled down at his home in Mexico. According to the John Swenson biography of Haley, the musician was quoted as saying that he and Pompilli had an agreement that if one died, the other would retire.

The Comets continued to tour on their own during this period.

In 1979, Haley was persuaded to return to performing with the offer of a lucrative contract to tour Europe. An almost completely new group of musicians, mostly British, including saxophonist Pete Thomas, were assembled to perform as the Comets. Haley appeared on numerous television shows and in the movie Blue Suede Shoes, filmed at one of his London concerts in March 1979. A few days later, a performance in Birmingham was videotaped and aired on UK television; it was released on DVD in 2005. During the March tour, Haley recorded several tracks in London for his next album for Sonet, completing the work that summer in Muscle Shoals; the album, Everyone Can Rock & Roll, issued later in 1979, was the last release of new recordings by Haley before his death.

On November 26, 1979, Haley and the Comets performed for Queen Elizabeth II, a moment Haley considered the proudest of his career. It was also the last time he performed in Europe and the last time most fans saw him perform "Rock Around the Clock".

Haley made his final performances in South Africa in May and June 1980. Just before the South African tour commenced, Haley's health was reportedly failing, and he was reportedly diagnosed with a brain tumor; a planned tour of Germany in the autumn of 1980 was subsequently cancelled. The tour was critically lambasted, but surviving recordings of a performance in Johannesburg show Haley in good spirits and good voice. Nonetheless, according to the Haley News fan club newsletter and the Haley biography Sound and Glory, planned concerts (such as a fall 1980 tour of Germany) and proposed recording sessions in New York and Memphis were cancelled, including a potential reunion with past members of the Comets.

Despite his illness, Haley started compiling notes for possible use as a basis for either a biographical film based on his life, or a published autobiography (accounts differ), and there were plans for him to record an album in Memphis, Tennessee, when the brain tumor began affecting his behavior and he returned to his home in Harlingen, Texas. The October 25, 1980, issue of German tabloid Bild reported that Haley had a brain tumor. Haley's British manager, Patrick Malynn, was quoted as saying that "Haley had taken a fit [and] didn't recognize anyone anymore." In addition, a doctor who examined Haley said that the tumor was inoperable. Haley's widow Martha, who was with him in these troubling times, denied he had a brain tumor, as did his close friend Hugh McCallum. Martha and friends related that Haley did not want to go on the road anymore and that ticket sales for that planned tour of Germany in the fall of 1980 were slow. McCallum said, "It's my unproven gut feeling that that [the brain tumor] was said to curtail talks about the tour and play the sympathy card."

Haley returned to his home in Harlingen, Texas. At this time, Haley's alcoholism appeared to be worsening. According to Martha, by this time, she and Haley fought all the time, and she told him to stop drinking or move out. Eventually, he moved into a room in their pool house. Martha still took care of him and sometimes, he would come in the house to eat, but he ate very little. "There were days we never saw him," said his daughter Martha Maria. In addition to Haley's drinking problems, it was becoming evident that he was also developing serious mental health issues. Martha Maria said, "It was like sometimes he was drunk even when he wasn't drinking." After being picked up by the police in Harlingen several times for alleged intoxication, Martha had a judge put Haley in the hospital, where he was seen by a psychiatrist, who said Haley's brain was overproducing a chemical, like adrenaline. The doctor prescribed a medication to stop the overproduction, but said Haley would have to stop drinking. Martha said, "This is pointless." She took him home, however, fed him and gave him his first dose. As soon as he felt better, he went back out to his room in the pool house, and the downward spiral continued until his death.

Media reports immediately following his death indicated that Haley displayed deranged and erratic behavior in the final weeks of his life. According to a biography of Haley by John Swenson, released in 1982, Haley made a succession of bizarre, mostly monologue late-night phone calls to friends and relatives toward the end of his life in which he was semi-coherent. His first wife has been quoted as saying, "He would call you and ramble, dwelling on the past..." The biography also describes Haley painting the windows of his home black, but there is little other information available about his final days.

Haley died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on February 9, 1981, at the age of 55, at his home in Harlingen, Texas. He was discovered lying motionless on his bed by a friend who had stopped by to visit him. The friend immediately called the police, and Haley was pronounced dead at the scene. Haley's death certificate gave "natural causes, most likely a heart attack" as the cause of death. Following a small funeral service attended by 75 people, Haley was cremated in Brownsville, Texas.

In April 1981, Bill Haley & His Comets returned to the British musical charts once again when MCA Records (inheritors of the Decca catalogue) released "Haley's Golden Medley", a hastily compiled edit of the band's best-known hits in the style of the then-popular "Stars on 45" format. The single reached Number 50 in the UK but was not released in the United States.

In 1987, Bill Haley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At that time, supporting bands were not also named to the Hall of Fame. This policy was subsequently changed, and in 2012 a special committee of the Hall of Fame inducted the Comets. Bill Haley and His Comets were also inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In June 2005, Bill Haley And His Comets were inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame. In July 2005, the surviving members of the 1954–55 Comets (see below) represented Haley when Bill Haley and His Comets were inducted into Hollywood's Rockwalk, a ceremony also attended by Haley's second wife and youngest daughter. The Comets placed their handprints in cement, leaving a space blank for Haley.

The Comets
More than 100 musicians performed with Bill Haley & His Comets between 1952 and Haley's death in 1981, many becoming fan favorites along the way. Several short-lived Comets reunions were attempted in the 1970s and 1980s, including one contingent (organized by Baltimore-based piano player Joey Welz, who played piano for the Comets from 1962 to 1965 ) that appeared on The Tomorrow Show, and another run by an Elvis Presley impersonator, Joey Rand (this group later lost a legal action over the right to use the Comets name). Only one group was sent out to perform by Haley himself and his management and production company, consisting of musicians who had played with Haley throughout the 1960s and 1970s—lead guitarist "Nick Masters" (Mathias Nicholas Nastos), bassist Ray Cawley, singer Ray "Pudge" Parsons, and drummer Buddy Dee—and who had continued to perform as the Comets between gigs and during Haley's retirement. This group rerecorded "Rock Around the Clock" for the television series Happy Days.

The Comets, featuring musicians who performed with Haley in 1954–1955, reunited in 1987 and are still touring the world as of 2007, playing showrooms in the United States and Europe. They have also recorded a half-dozen albums for small labels in Europe and the United States. This version of the group has also been credited as Bill Haley's Original Comets and, in circumstances in which the use of the Comets name is in dispute, A Tribute to Bill Haley and The Original Band. The basic lineup of this group from 1987 to May 2006 was Marshall Lytle (bass), Joey Ambrose (sax), Johnny Grande (piano), Dick Richards (drums) and Franny Beecher (guitar). British singer Jacko Buddin augmented the group on vocals during most of their European tours, with Lytle taking over on vocals for US and Canadian tours beginning in 2000 and full-time in Europe in the mid-2000s. Since they connected with Klaus Kettner's Rock It Concerts (Germany) in 1991, they have played hundreds of shows all over Europe and have appeared on dozens of television shows. In March 2007 they opened the Bill-Haley-Museum in Munich, Germany.

Two additional groups claim the name Bill Haley's Comets and have extensively toured in the United States since forming in the 1980s: one originally led by Haley's 1965–68 drummer John "Bam-Bam" Lane, the other run by Al Rappa, who played bass for Haley off and on between late 1959 and early 1969. (The 1959 album "Strictly Instrumental" on Decca was Rappa's first recording session with Bill Haley & His Comets. Haley had used Rappa as a fill-in player on live gigs for several years prior to that.) Both these musicians claim trademark ownership of the name "Bill Haley's Comets"; this dates back to Lane and Rappa (during a period when they worked together as one band) winning a trademark infringement lawsuit against the aforementioned Joey Rand group in 1989. Both Rappa's and Lane's bands have, from time to time, recruited other former Comets for their lineups (for example, in 2005, Rappa joined forces with Joey Welz), but for the most part the bandleaders are the only regular members who have worked with Bill Haley directly. Lane died in 2007, but his group continues to perform, led by bandleader Lenny Longo, who has no direct connection with Bill Haley. Rappa incorporated numerous professional musicians from the southern Indiana area (Guitarist Warren Batts, Joe Esarey, Dave Matthews, Joe Denton, saxophonist John Urbina, bassist Jody Hamilton Miley (previous bassist with the George Jones Show), and others) to make a full band. Rappa performed his Upright Bass show before thousands in audiences all over the country. Members of Rappa's "Comets" went on to form the LocoMotion Showband and continued touring the United States without Rappa adding Galen Deig (Drums) and Jimmy Baze (Bass) before eventually disbanding. Esarey went on to graduate from Cedarville University and Luther Rice Theological Seminary. He has since pastored churches and produced his own saxophone instrumental albums. Several of the members are now active in a very popular Southern Indiana 50's / 60's band called The Duke Boys.

In March and July 2005, the members of the 1954–55 group, now billed as simply the Comets after decades of controversy over the use of the name, made several high-profile concert appearances in New York City and Los Angeles organized by Martin Lewis as part of celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of rock and roll, the release of Blackboard Jungle, the 50th anniversary of "Rock Around the Clock" hitting Number 1, and the 80th birthday of Bill Haley. During a concert at the Viper Room in West Hollywood on July 6, 2005, the Comets were joined on stage for one song by Gina Haley, the youngest daughter of Bill Haley; at a similar appearance in March they were joined by Haley's eldest son, John W. Haley. The 1954–55 Comets were also joined on stage by Bill Haley Jr. during several appearances in 2005 at Bubba Mac's in Somers Point, New Jersey, and at a 2005 concert recognizing the tenure of Bill Haley and the Saddlemen at the Twin Bars in Gloucester City, New Jersey.

In 2006, the 1954–55 Comets spent much of the year in residence at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Missouri. Meanwhile, the John Lane edition of Bill Haley's Comets recorded an album in Tennessee in early 2006, which has yet to be released.

On June 2, 2006, Johnny Grande, keyboardist with the 1954–55 Comets and a founding member of the band, died after a short illness. The following month, 85-year-old guitarist Franny Beecher announced his retirement, though he was at one point announced as participating in an early 2007 tour of Germany. The three remaining original Comets (Lytle, Richards, and Ambrose) continued to perform in Branson with new musicians taking over the keyboard and lead guitar positions. During September 2006, PBS in the United States aired a series of programs videotaped in Branson during the spring of 2006; these shows include the last recorded performances of the complete Original Comets lineup, including Grande. Lytle died in 2013, Beecher in 2014. The last remaining members of the 1954–55 Comets, Dick Richards and Joey Ambrose, continued to perform as the Comets as of mid-2018, sometimes augmented by 1970s-era Comet Bill Turner on lead guitar.

John "Bam-Bam" Lane died on February 18, 2007 but his edition of Bill Haley's Comets is expected to continue touring, with the 2006 recordings to be released in Lane's memory.

On October 27, 2007, ex-Comets guitar player Bill Turner opened the aforementioned Bill-Haley-Museum in Munich, Germany. He will also join the New Comets during their Remember Bill Haley Tour 2011 with Haley's daughter Gina Haley.

Several bands patterning themselves after the Comets are also active in Europe, including Bill Haley's New Comets in Germany.

In 2011, Haley's son Bill Jr. formed the band Bill Haley Jr. and the Comets, and created a "Rock 'N' Roll History Show."

On July 12, 2019, drummer Dick Richards died at age 95 in Ocean City, New Jersey. He was born Richard Marley Boccelli on February 12, 1924, in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.

On May 24, 2020, ex-Comet bassist, Albert 'Al Rex' Piccirilli, died.

Al Rappa died on July 25, 2021, aged 94.

Original saxophone player Joseph Frank D'Ambrosio (stage name Joey Ambrose) (March 23, 1934 – August 9, 2021), played on the hit recording of Rock Around the Clock in 1954 but from September 1955 was replaced long-term by Rudy Pompilli until Rudy's death 20 years later. Joey Ambrose remained a musician and was the last Comet to pass away, at 87, on August 9, 2021.

Guitarists

 * Bill Haley - vocals, rhythm guitar (September 1952–1977, 1979); occasional lead guitar (September 1952–1955)
 * Franny Beecher - lead guitar (August 1955–1960, 1961–1962) (part-time from August 1954)
 * Johnny Kay - lead guitar (1960–1966, 1972–July 1974)
 * Bill Turner - lead guitar (July 1974–December 1976)
 * Nick Masters - lead guitar (1970s)

Steel guitarists

 * Billy Williamson - steel (Hawaiian) guitar (1952–1963)
 * Nick Nastos - pedal steel guitar (1964–1965, 1968–1974)
 * Fritz Riddell - pedal steel guitar (1966–1968)

Pianists

 * Johnny Grande - piano, accordion (September 1952 – early 1963; died 2006)
 * Joey Welz - piano (early 1963–1966)

Bassists

 * Marshall Lytle - bass (1952–September 1955; died 2014)
 * Al Rex - bass (September 1955–1958; died 2020)
 * Al Pompilli - bass (1958)
 * Al Rappa - bass (1959–1966; died 2021)
 * Louis Torres - bass (1967–1968)
 * Ray Cawley - bass (1969–1974)
 * Dave "Chico" Ryan - bass (1979)

Drummers

 * Earl Famous - drums (September 1952 – March 1954)
 * Dick Richards - drums (March 1954 – September 1955; died 2019)
 * Don Raymond - drums (September 1955 – November 1955)
 * Ralph Jones - drums (November 1955–1960; died 2000)
 * John Lane - drums (1965–1968; died 2007)
 * Buddy Dee - drums (1970–July 1974)

Saxophonists

 * Joey Ambrose - tenor saxophone (early 1954 – September 1955; died 2021)
 * Rudy Pompilli - tenor saxophone (September 1955–1960, 1962–1976; died 1976)
 * Al Dean - tenor saxophone (1960–1961)
 * Pete Thomas - saxophone (1979)

Studio albums

 * 1954 – Rock with Bill Haley and the Comets (compilation)
 * 1955 – Shake, Rattle And Roll  (compilation)
 * 1955 – Rock Around The Clock  (compilation)
 * 1956 – Rock 'n' Roll Stage Show (Decca 1945)
 * 1957 – Rockin' the Oldies (Decca 1969)

 * 1958 – Rockin' Around the World (Decca 1992)
 * 1959 – Bill Haley's Chicks (Decca 1921)
 * 1959 – Strictly Instrumental (Decca 1964)
 * 1960 – Bill Haley and His Comets (Warner Bros. 1978)
 * 1960 – Haley's Juke Box (Warner Bros. 1991)
 * 1961 – Twist (Dimsa 1955)
 * 1961 – Bikini Twist (Dimsa 8259)
 * 1962 – Twist Vol. 2 (Dimsa 8275)
 * 1962 – Twist en Mexico (Dimsa 8290)
 * 1963 – Rock Around the Clock King (Guest Star 1454)
 * 1963 – Madison (Orfeon 12339)
 * 1963 – Carnaval de Ritmos Modernos (Orfeon 12340)
 * 1964 – Surf Surf Surf (Orfeon 12354)
 * 1966 – Whiskey a Go-Go (Orfeon 12478)
 * 1966 – Bill Haley a Go-Go (re-recordings) (Dimsa 8381)
 * 1971 – Rock Around the Country (Sonet 623); issued in North America by GNP-Crescendo (LP 2097) and as Travelin' Band on Janus (JLS 3035)
 * 1973 – Just Rock 'n' Roll Music (Sonet 645); issued in North America by GNP-Crescendo (LP 2077)
 * 1979 – Everyone Can Rock and Roll (Sonet 808)

Grammy Hall of Fame
"Rock Around the Clock" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, a Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

title: Bill Haley & His Comets


text:
René Dumont

René Dumont (13 March 1904 – 18 June 2001) was a French engineer in agronomy, a sociologist, and an environmental politician.

Biography
Dumont was born in Cambrai, Nord, in the north of France. His father was a professor in agriculture and his grandfather was a farmer. He graduated from the INA P-G, as an engineer in agronomy. First sent to Vietnam (1929) at the end of his studies, he was disgusted by colonialism and returned to Paris to spend most of his career as a professor of agricultural sciences (1933–74). René Dumont started his career as a promoter of the use of chemical fertilizers and mechanisation. He wrote articles in La Terre Française (Pétainist weekly journal), favoring agricultural corporatism. However, he was one of the first to denounce damages from the Green Revolution ("Révolution Verte") and to fight agricultural productivism. He was an expert with the United Nations and FAO, and wrote about 30 books. He traveled widely and had a good understanding of farming issues in underdeveloped countries.

He advocated:
 * demographic control
 * energy savings
 * international cooperation to help poor nations
 * soil quality preservation and remediation

He considered development not to be so much a question of money, fertilizer, or seeds, but a careful balance of the three. He advocated relations between humans and their fields that relied foremost on relations between humans themselves, social relationships being the basis for proper agricultural and industrial development. Finally, he believed the basis for good social relationships between humans was good relationships between men and women, thus arguing demographic control relied on female emancipation.

Ahead of his time, the most famous French agronomist, well known for his red-pullover, surprised French people by showing on TV an apple and a glass of water, telling them how precious these natural resources were, and predicting the future price of oil. Dumont was one of the first to explain the consequences of what was to be called globalization, demographic explosion, productivism, pollution, shantytowns, malnutrition, rift between northern and southern countries. He was also one of the first to use the term "développement durable" (sustainable development).

He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt a Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

He ran for President in 1974 as the first ecologist candidate, and won 1.32% of the votes. His campaign director was Brice Lalonde. That election opened the way to political ecology. The French political ecology was founded by Dumont and is under-developed countries oriented, against war, against capitalism and for solidarity. Some consider it not sufficiently rooted in deep ecology.

Dumont is considered to be the forefather of the French Green Party. In a statement, France's Green Party called Dumont "the man who made it possible to bring environmental policies in a direct and natural manner into the political world".

He wrote a best-selling book, L’Afrique noire est mal partie (1962).

Dumont was a founding member of ATTAC.

Writings (selection)

 * Cuba, Socialism and Development, Grove Press, 1970
 * Cuba, ¿es socialista? Editorial Tiempo Nuevo S.A., Venezuela, 1970
 * Voyages en France d'un agronome, Nouv. éd. rev. et augm., Paris: Génin, 1956
 * Révolution dans les campagnes chinoises, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957
 * Terres vivantes, Paris: Plon, 1961. English translation Lands Alive, London: Merlin Press, 1964
 * L’Afrique noire est mal partie, 1962. English translation False Start in Africa, New York: Praeger, 1966; London: Earthscan, 1988.
 * Nous allons à la famine, 1966. English translation The Hungry Future, New York: Praeger, 1969
 * Types of Rural Economy: Studies in World Agriculture, London: Methuen, 1970
 * Notes sur les implications sociales de la "révolution verte" dans quelques pays d'Afrique, Genève, 1971
 * La campagne de René Dumont et du mouvement écologique: naissance de l'écologie politique; déclarations, interviews, tracts, manifestes, articles, rapports, sondages, récits et nombreux autres textes, Paris: Pauvert, 1974
 * l'Utopie ou la Mort, 1973. English translation Utopia or Else ..., Universe Pub, 1975
 * Agronome de la faim, Paris: Laffont, 1974
 * Chine, la révolution culturale, Paris: Seuil, 1976
 * L'Afrique étranglée, 1980, Nouv. éd., rev., corr. et mis à jour: Paris: Seuil, 1982. English translation Stranglehold on Africa, London: Deutsch, 1983
 * (with Nicholas Cohen), The Growth of Hunger: a new politics of agriculture, London: Boyars, 1980 - This book is based on René Dumont's ideas as contained in the 1975 publication La croissance de la famine.
 * Finis Les Lendemains Qui Chantent
 * T.1 : Albanie, Pologne, Nicaragua, Paris: Seuil, 1983
 * T.2 : Surpeuplée, Totalitaire, La Cnine Decollectivise, Paris: Seuil, 1984
 * T.3 : Bangladesh-Nepal, "L'Aide" Contre Le développement, Paris: Seuil, 1985
 * Pour l'Afrique, j'accuse: le journal d'un agronome au Sahel en voie de destruction, Paris: Plon, 1986
 * Un monde intolérable: le libéralisme en question, Paris: Seuil, 1988
 * Démocratie pour l'Afrique: la longue marche de l'Afrique noire vers la liberté, Paris: Seuil, 1991
 * La culture du riz dans le delta du Tonkin, Paris: Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1995

Secondary literature

 * J.-P. Besset, René Dumont, une vie saisie par l’écologie, Paris: Stock, 1992
 * Marc Dufumier (dir.), Un agronome dans son siècle. Actualité de René Dumont, Association pour la création de la Fondation René Dumont/Éditions Karthala/INA P-G, coll. « Hommes et Sociétés », Paris, 2002
 * « René Dumont, un agronome d'exception » in: Ingénieurs de la vie : la revue des ingénieurs de l'INA P-G, Mazarine, Paris, 2005
 * René Dumont, citoyen de la planète Terre, a documentary by Bernard Baissat, co-production La Lanterne/France 3, 105 minutes, 1992 more information

title: René Dumont