nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

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?

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

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.

[Deleted User]

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.

[Deleted User]

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.

Hector Savage

kowloonkev wrote: »

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

Now I know I could google this but off the top of my head I think the 1st film on DVD was In the Line of Fire with Clint Eastwood - not 100% on that though.

I am 100% sure that the first audio CD was produced in 1984 and it was Born in the USA by the Boss.

You like the boss ?

You better like the boss ... the Boss and Coors ... I'd piss coors if I could - you believe that happy crappy ???

TherapyBoy

completedit wrote: »

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.

It’s a priest thing, you wouldn’t understand.

Hector Savage

whisky_galore wrote: »

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

By golly you're right!
I must start a thread on this on reddit, the debate should rage there for years, it could rival Kirk V Picard ...

Feisar

I think it was a statement about the church/priests feeding of the poor. He was more like a Godfather type than a priest. Ted and Dougal on the other hand are poor because the church doesn't have the same stranglehold in Ireland.

whisky_galore

Hector Savage wrote: »

By golly you're right!
I must start a thread on this on reddit, the debate should rage there for years, it could rival Kirk V Picard ...

Knock yourself out.

Feisar

Hector Savage wrote: »

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

Roadhouse was another goldmine. Boobs and roundhouse kicks, my first great loves!

Hector Savage

Feisar wrote: »

Roadhouse was another goldmine. Boobs and roundhouse kicks, my first great loves!

haha!! I watched that a few weeks ago, was on Netflix...

"Pain don't hurt"

elefant

It's a very simple gag about a 'simple example of Cuban handicraft' being a piece of fairly modern electronics.

He hands over a wrapped package, announces it's from the people of his village and then, after that vocal setup, instead of some sort of simple religious artefact you discover it's a VCR player once Dougal gets the paper off.

It's that straightforward.

blade1

TherapyBoy wrote: »

It’s a priest thing, you wouldn’t understand.

It would be an ecumenical matter

Hector Savage

blade1 wrote: »

It would be an ecumenical matter

YES!!!