So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

[Sad News] Geoffrey Perkins, who produced Douglas Adams' BBC Radio series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Channel 4's Father Ted, died Friday after injuries sustained in a London car accident.

Today, Britain is to comedy what France is to cooking, or Italy to shoes. But things weren't always that way, as evidenced every time KUED has a bad fund-raising year and is forced to fill its evening British-comedy slot with cheaply purchased, dreary, 40-year-old sitcoms.

The post-1970s British explosion of bizarre, incisive and compelling humor can be attributed to a generation of irreverent and forward-thinking men and women--among whom Perkins served as something of a visionary. Without Perkins, who produced the offbeat sketch series The Fast Show it's doubtful there could have been a Little Britain. Without Perkins, who advocated for Ben Elton The Man From Auntie, could there ever have been a Blackadder?

Perkins was 55 at his death.

Some Little Britain:



(Brandon Burt)