Rutland Weekend Television

Rutland Weekend Television was a television sketch show on BBC2, written by Eric Idle with music by Neil Innes. Two series, the first consisting of six episodes, the second of seven, were broadcast, in 1975 and 1976. A Christmas special also aired on Boxing Day 1975. It was Idle's first television project after Monty Python's Flying Circus run ended the previous year. The show was the catalyst for The Rutles. Rutland Weekend Television or RWT centred on "Britain's smallest television network", situated in England's smallest county, Rutland. The show's title alludes to the then ITV company... London Weekend Television . A Rutland TV station would be pretty small, so a Rutland Weekend Television would have to be ridiculously tiny. The joke was doubly meaningful as Idle had accidentally been granted a presentation budget instead of the more lavish budgets associated with light entertainment - so the weekly patter about their inability to buy props and sets was in fact quite real.
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