Steptoe and Son

'You twit! You stupid, wrinkled, dirty, toothless, brainless old twit!'. The story of the strained father/son relationship between two rag and bone men, Steptoe and Son first aired on BBC television (as a pilot episode) in January 1962. Over a decade later, the show was still in production and had become a global TV phenomenon. As much drama as comedy, Steptoe and Son was a sitcom unlike any other sitcom before it. Blackly tragic and melancholy at its core, it was nonetheless one of the funniest BBC comedy series of all time - beloved by tens of millions of viewers every week. The first to bring kitchen sink grit to UK comedy, the show's lead characters were the frustrated dreamer, Harold (Harry H. Corbett) and his manipulative human biohazard of a father, Albert (Wilfrid Brambell) - the pair trapped in a loveless crumbling family home, that doubled as a junk-yard. Clocking up a run of 59 television episodes (including four Christmas specials; 52 radio episodes; two feature films and a stage play, Steptoe and Son changed the look and feel of the British TV sitcom for decades to come. (2 Entertain Video)