The Chuckle Brothers
Comedians
Barry and Paul Chuckle (aka Elliott), were born and brought up in Rotherham, the youngest in a northern showbiz family of eight. They started out in show business at a very early age, putting on performances for the rest of the family. I have had a very good nosy but somehow for boys, they seem very coy about their ages. There were three older brothers Jimmy, Brian (see Patton Brothers below) and Colin, but I haven't found out anything about their sisters.
Lots of visitors and Chuckle Brothers fans have asked me if I can send them signed photographs, arrange for the Brothers to meet them, or open their fetes, galas and charity events. Rotherham The Unofficial Website is sorry but we don't know the lads personally so we can do none of these things.
Barry, the older brother (whose birthday is on Christmas Eve but whose don't ask which year - as if we can't count up the lines) was part of the all singing comedy act 'The Singing Scholars' which included a young Freddie Starr. The Chuckle Brothers were formed as soon as younger brother Paul was old enough to leave school.
There were the usual years on the on the variety circuit flogging dead horses whilst honing their own brand of humour. The brothers won the TV talent show New Faces in the first series of 1974, and everything went downhill from thereon.
The boys finally got their BBC break in 1985 when 'The Chucklehounds' came to a television near you. Then the dread 'Chucklevision' was born and came to our screens in 1987. To prove how popular it is, a new series has been commissioned! These programmes are transmitted during children's viewing hours, but I am led to believe that the humour and story-lines are aimed at everyone, from two to ninety two year olds. The show regularly has audiences of over three million viewers and is screened for thirty weeks a year. I have watched it, once, in the spirit of research - nuff said. Since then, they've done summer season, panto, clubs, cabaret, circus, even an ice show.
Other credits
For those of you who have never had the delight of seeing the Chuckle Brothers the following is a short description of their type of humour.
The pair appear as a slapstick bungling duo, always on the lookout for work - as odd job men often coming up against an authority figure. They make a great play of amateurishness which is accentuated by the fact that the two grown men pedal their Chucklemobile around (it's a kind of tandem, with the bikes side-by-side). Barry does the pedalling, Paul puts his feet up! Plotlines include working on a holiday camp, running a sedan chair taxi service, organising conferences, being lollipop men and, of course, getting into trouble as decorators - always a good comedy cypher. Problems they encounter often lead to that other well known phrase "Oh dear Paul"
, followed by "Oh dear, oh dear!
"
Their truly annoying catchphrase "to me, to you"
is heard in real life wherever hod carriers are throwing bricks to each other, amongst other phrases.
In the years that I have been maintaining these pages there have been at least four or five Chuckle Brothers websites, some of which have only been available to subscribers which really is the pits as far as web designers, the internet and the World Wide Web are concerned. Looks like the Ritalin has run out again as the last one went down in December 2008. Back in the Chuckwagon - The Official Chuckle Brothers website www.thechucklebrothersontour.co.uk.
The Patton Brothers
On the very reasonable grounds that these pages are called 'Famous People from Rotherham' and I had never heard of the Patton Brothers, I am appending these details to the Chuckle Brothers' page.
The Patton Brothers, Jimmy and Brian, are the two of the elder brothers of The Chuckle Brothers. Their father was comedian Gene Patton and they began their career as a double act in 1954. Jimmy Patton started his panto career in 1946, and was joined by Brian in 1956 for Aladdin at the Wimbledon Theatre. Jimmy and Brian have made many appearances in Chucklevision with their younger brothers, Jimmy taking the moniker 'No Slacking' due to the catchphrase that he constantly has to relay to the Chuckle Brothers. "And remember - No Slacking!"