Father Ted Cuban Priest

completedit

I never got the point of this scene. He hands Ted a VCR and based off Ted's reaction he is pretty impressed. This was 1996 so I imagine VCR's were still a luxury good here in Ireland. But I don't understand, the guy is from communist Cuba. Why does he have access to such a system when the one thing we think of communist countries is shortages and a lack of capitalist luxury goods like VCR players. Is the point the Catholic church is corrupt so the priest has access to such a high tech good?

Have I missed something?

unhappys10

completedit wrote: »

I never got the point of this scene. He hands Ted a VCR and based off Ted's reaction he is pretty impressed. This was 1996 so I imagine VCR's were still a luxury good here in Ireland. But I don't understand, the guy is from communist Cuba. Why does he have access to such a system when the one thing we think of communist countries is shortages and a lack of capitalist luxury goods like VCR players. Is the point the Catholic church is corrupt so the priest has access to such a high tech good?

Have I missed something?

Taken you 24 years to realise you missed something?

completedit

It's always puzzled me. Never got the scene. Want to get to the bottom of it.

CSSE09

Ah it was a very basic model though

SEPT 23 1989

Is there a bad batch going around?

completedit

CSSE09 wrote: »

Ah it was a very basic model though

Was that the point? I'm too young to know what type of VCR would have been in at the time? The way the priest had a bit of a swagger I just assumed he was wealthy.

Blaze420

completedit wrote: »

I never got the point of this scene. He hands Ted a VCR and based off Ted's reaction he is pretty impressed. This was 1996 so I imagine VCR's were still a luxury good here in Ireland. But I don't understand, the guy is from communist Cuba. Why does he have access to such a system when the one thing we think of communist countries is shortages and a lack of capitalist luxury goods like VCR players. Is the point the Catholic church is corrupt so the priest has access to such a high tech good?

Have I missed something?

Does the video not turn out to be Bishop Brennan chasing his kid around the beach??

Just to point out as well that VCR was already dying in 1996, DVD had just appeared. So no, owning a player wasn’t a luxury at that time

completedit

Hahah I must have just been poor. Didn't get a DVD player till 2003.

That explains it. I thought the VCR was a much later mass produced product.

Blaze420

completedit wrote: »

Hahah I must have just been poor. Didn't get a DVD player till 2003.

That explains it.

I had a dvd in 2001 but was still recording things from the tv on VCR up to 2003. Hour long videos of Kerrang and the music channels on sky

Ha Long Bay

completedit wrote: »

I never got the point of this scene. He hands Ted a VCR and based off Ted's reaction he is pretty impressed. This was 1996 so I imagine VCR's were still a luxury good here in Ireland. But I don't understand, the guy is from communist Cuba. Why does he have access to such a system when the one thing we think of communist countries is shortages and a lack of capitalist luxury goods like VCR players. Is the point the Catholic church is corrupt so the priest has access to such a high tech good?

Have I missed something?

Dougal got the VCR player. Ted got the fertility statue.

branie2

completedit wrote: »

I never got the point of this scene. He hands Ted a VCR and based off Ted's reaction he is pretty impressed. This was 1996 so I imagine VCR's were still a luxury good here in Ireland. But I don't understand, the guy is from communist Cuba. Why does he have access to such a system when the one thing we think of communist countries is shortages and a lack of capitalist luxury goods like VCR players. Is the point the Catholic church is corrupt so the priest has access to such a high tech good?

Have I missed something?

It's a joke scene!

EmmetSpiceland

Ah, here's the new Packard we've been hearing so much about!

Rothko

DVDs may have started in the mid-90's but they certainly weren't popular here until the early 2000's

Akrasia

It was actually a deeply political and nuanced attack on the global political hegemony

The V stands for Vichy, the French government standin during WW2, the C for Communism and the R for Revolution

The choice of a Cuban to deliver this message is a clear statement that while communism might not be the best system for rapid technological advancement, it does deliver what the people need and would be happy to accept, even if it only has a 3 week pre-record function

L1011

Taking a world with such things as the age of the 'new' car, the pissant amounts of money Ted bets and acts like the world has ended if he loses and so on, a VCR would be a very generous gift. It also set up a plotline anyway.

Rothko wrote: »

DVDs may have started in the mid-90's but they certainly weren't popular here until the early 2000's

By 1998 when we got a (massive, clonky, unreliable Philips) DVD player they were already taking up a significant amount of space in Xtravision locally - and remember they use less space than VHS tapes. VCRs held on for home recording for many years but DVD was already popular by '98 and probably dominant by 2000 for new purchase and rental. DVD recorders were only on the market affordably later than that, and realistically crap, which is why VHS held on until DVRs.

riffmongous

It's got a 3 week timer for recording iirc, I think ours didn't even have a date setting

The voiceover in that scene still cracks me up every time I hear it

Loafing Oaf

completedit wrote: »

It's always puzzled me. Never got the scene. Want to get to the bottom of it.

You're way overthinking this. The (pretty rudimentary) gag is the bit about a 'simple example of Cuban handicraft.'

The bit I never got was:

MRS. DOYLE: You do like pheasant, don't you Father?
TED: Pheasant? I love pheasant.
MRS. DOYLE: Well there's a little clue. The thing you'll be eating likes pheasant as well.

L1011

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

You're way overthinking this. The (pretty rudimentary) gag is the bit about a 'simple example of Cuban handicraft.'

The bit I never got was:

MRS. DOYLE: You do like pheasant, don't you Father?
TED: Pheasant? I love pheasant.
MRS. DOYLE: Well there's a little clue. The thing you'll be eating likes pheasant as well.

Fox, I'd assume. But its an utterly obscure reference and even more so if they didn't mean fox.

I see sheep

Should we have a thread for each joke in every sit com father?

Austria!

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

You're way overthinking this. The (pretty rudimentary) gag is the bit about a 'simple example of Cuban handicraft.'

The bit I never got was:

MRS. DOYLE: You do like pheasant, don't you Father?
TED: Pheasant? I love pheasant.
MRS. DOYLE: Well there's a little clue. The thing you'll be eating likes pheasant as well.

When she asks does he like pheasant you think the meal she'll be serving is pheasant. Then in the next line you find out it isn't.

Badly Drunk Boy

completedit wrote: »

Was that the point? I'm too young to know what type of VCR would have been in at the time? The way the priest had a bit of a swagger I just assumed he was wealthy.

Have you considered staying away from humour? Or human contact?

Quantum Erasure

unhappys10 wrote: »

Taken you 24 years to realise you missed something?

Those women were in the nip!

DS86DS

Love the Father Jack's selective hearing skit.

Woke Hogan

L1011 wrote: »

Taking a world with such things as the age of the 'new' car, the pissant amounts of money Ted bets and acts like the world has ended if he loses and so on, a VCR would be a very generous gift. It also set up a plotline anyway.



By 1998 when we got a (massive, clonky, unreliable Philips) DVD player they were already taking up a significant amount of space in Xtravision locally - and remember they use less space than VHS tapes. VCRs held on for home recording for many years but DVD was already popular by '98 and probably dominant by 2000 for new purchase and rental. DVD recorders were only on the market affordably later than that, and realistically crap, which is why VHS held on until DVRs.

DVDs didn’t take off until the release of The Matrix and the PlayStation 2, at least in Ireland anyway.

Macdarack

The last VCR was made in 2016. 20 years after that episode imagine the pre record facility on that wan, and probably auto tracking ! Although, there's nothing better in live than taking the time out to watch a cleaning tape in action. The sweet smell of cleaning fluid too... Hmmmm

Homelander

DVD was fairly common by around 1999/2000, I stopped renting and buying VHS at that point. I remember my parents continued to rent VHS for a while as we only had a DVD player in the PC.

One of my friends had a DVD player from very early on, maybe 1997 or so, it was huge - actually bigger than a VHS player.

king size mars bar

"And for you Ted I have somthing very special"

Woke Hogan

I'm surprised to see so many people misremembering the prevalence of DVDs in Ireland. Very few people outside of the techheads or wealthy middle class ponces in Dublin used them before late 2000.

JohnnyFlash

Woke Hogan wrote: »

I'm surprised to see so many people misremembering the prevalence of DVDs in Ireland. Very few people outside of the techheads or wealthy middle class ponces in Dublin used them before late 2000.

You strike me as the sort of fellow who picked one up 2nd hand from Donedeal circa 2009 along with 6 black bags of DVDs which were sold by the kilo.

antodeco

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

You strike me as the sort of fellow who picked one up 2nd hand from Donedeal circa 2009 along with 6 black bags of DVDs which were sold by the kilo.

I also heard that instead of ears he has four arses

Woke Hogan

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

You strike me as the sort of fellow who picked one up 2nd hand from Donedeal circa 2009 along with 6 black bags of DVDs which were sold by the kilo.

So I didn't watch DVDs until 2009 but I did buy stuff from the internet at that time? I think you're a little bit confused, DVDs were far more mainstream than ecommerce back then.

Anyway I actually do still watch VHS tapes from time to time. I taped a few episodes of Bracken when TG4 repeated it back around 2000.

B.A._Baracus

Rothko wrote: »

DVDs may have started in the mid-90's but they certainly weren't popular here until the early 2000's

Spot on.
It wasn't until the PlayStation 2 (2000) that DVDs took off everywhere.

At the time if you wanted to play DVDs you'd have to spend several hundred pounds (talking 600 pounds here) so the idea of having something that was cheaper and could play not only DVDs but games too was a big selling point for the PS2 (Launch price of PS2 was 300 pounds)

The PS2 was a massive success at launch. Instantly flooding the market with dvd players and other standard dvd players started to come down in price. Can't remember the exact hear but xtra vision started to expand their dvd rentals at this point too.

Hector Savage

completedit wrote: »

I never got the point of this scene. He hands Ted a VCR and based off Ted's reaction he is pretty impressed. This was 1996 so I imagine VCR's were still a luxury good here in Ireland. But I don't understand, the guy is from communist Cuba. Why does he have access to such a system when the one thing we think of communist countries is shortages and a lack of capitalist luxury goods like VCR players. Is the point the Catholic church is corrupt so the priest has access to such a high tech good?

Have I missed something?

Yeah I always wondered how a Nazi war criminal was hiding out in a priests basement on Craggy Island ... eh wait, this is Father Ted - not Better Call Saul, there is no reason to explain anything on that show

matchthis

Video plus, long play and short play, taping over tabs on bottom of cassettes so I can record over tango and cash. Great times

Akrasia

matchthis wrote: »

Video plus, long play and short play, taping over tabs on bottom of cassettes so I can record over tango and cash. Great times

Trying to pause the tape on the nude scene in Under Seige. Our vcr had a toggle wheel where you could scroll forward and back frame by frame

Inside the cake.. coming out of the cake.. back into the cake... and out again

Mad_maxx

completedit wrote: »

Hahah I must have just been poor. Didn't get a DVD player till 2003.

That explains it. I thought the VCR was a much later mass produced product.

we got a VCR in 1992 and that was very late

we used to rent them for special occasions before that which was madness when you think about it

completedit

Hector Savage wrote: »

Yeah I always wondered how a Nazi war criminal was hiding out in a priests basement on Craggy Island ... eh wait, this is Father Ted - not Better Call Saul, there is no reason to explain anything on that show

It just doesn't make sense. There's a reason the handing over the vcr is meant to be funny, I think he prefaces by saying "I know it's not much" but the way he says it to me indicates it's an impressive gift to give to someon for the time.

C__MC

Those Protestants up to good as usual

HildaOgdenx

Considering the banjaxed state of everything in the house they lived in, 'shoddy, Ted, shoddy', the video player was a luxury indeed.

branie2

Heh! heh! heh!

branie2

Mouth Breather wrote: »

How did Dougal and Ted get in the qualifying round for the Euro Song thing?

How did they even record their track?

These are questions that need answering.

In the book, Father Ted, the Scripts, a deleted scene is mentioned with Ted and Dougal recording the song in studio.

Riddle101

Maybe i'm wrong about this but my first impression of that scene is that maybe the Cuban Priest was into some shady stuff and was trying to give Ted a knockoff VCR or even a stolen one. He seemed to have a bit of swagger about him which gave me the impression of someone who might have been involved in organised crime or had connections or something.

branie2

It was great tool for Ted and Dougal in the end

B.A._Baracus

Riddle101 wrote: »

Maybe i'm wrong about this but my first impression of that scene is that maybe the Cuban Priest was into some shady stuff and was trying to give Ted a knockoff VCR or even a stolen one. He seemed to have a bit of swagger about him which gave me the impression of someone who might have been involved in organised crime or had connections or something.

Think you hit the nail on the head.
Looking back he comes off as some don (or something) with his big coat and cigar haha.

blade1

Rothko wrote: »

DVDs may have started in the mid-90's but they certainly weren't popular here until the early 2000's

Takes the sheen of luxury status when everyone has one.

Cuba was absolutely broke in the 90s after the collapse of the USSR.

Part of the joke is playing on this, what he considered a basic gift from supposedly broke country was a good gift in the broke but supposedly wealthy capitalist west.

kowloonkev

Pretty sure DVD players became popular with the release of 'Independence Day' on DVD. Probably 1997.

Agricola

The VCR scene had two functions as I see it. The luxury item itself and the general swagger of Fr Hernadez firstly demonstrates how the Catholic Church, even in a poor country like Cuba, is basically a racket to allow a select bunch of men to live it large off the sweat of poor people who fund them. Fr Hernandez's gift to Ted of a fertility statue is a another swipe by the writers at the hypocrisy of celibate priests secretly engaging in sexual relationships.

Secondly, as a callback device. It gives Ted and Dougal a method of blackmail over Bishop Brennan as they can now watch the videotape of the Bishop cavorting on a beach with his lover and lovechild in America. This nicely ties up the episode as the audience is now aware that the duo won't be assigned to new parishes in Suriname and the Philippines.

Woke Hogan

Woke Hogan wrote: »

I'm surprised to see so many people misremembering the prevalence of DVDs in Ireland. Very few people outside of the techheads or wealthy middle class ponces in Dublin used them before late 2000.

Late 2000 or the late 2000’s?

I brought my first DVD player about 2002- video shops were still about 80:20 video:DVD
2003 it was about 70:30 and by 2004, DVDs were starting to take over the majority of space in video stores- long before late 2000s and a good while after the year 2000

Hector Savage

Akrasia wrote: »

Trying to pause the tape on the nude scene in Under Seige. Our vcr had a toggle wheel where you could scroll forward and back frame by frame

Inside the cake.. coming out of the cake.. back into the cake... and out again

And that was considered top top stuff in my day too ...


young fellas don't know how good they have it for **** material nowadays..:D

whisky_galore

Hector Savage wrote: »

Yeah I always wondered how a Nazi war criminal was hiding out in a priests basement on Craggy Island ... eh wait, this is Father Ted - not Better Call Saul, there is no reason to explain anything on that show

Just a demented old Nazi, nothing mentioned about he being a war criminal.