Movies - Whoops Apocalypse

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	Movies - Whoops Apocalypse

Whoops Apocalypse was originally a six-part 1982 sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 movie with almost completely different characters and plot, although one or two of the original actors returned in different roles.

Some have used the saying as a description of general incompetence or insanity in political events. (e.g. "In these Whoops Apocalypse times...")

John Otway also recorded a song called Whoops Apocalypse, which was used as the theme song for the film. He occasionally performs it live.

Series

The series detailed the weeks leading up to the Apocalypse. It featured a chaotic and increasingly unstable global political situation in which nuclear alerts are accidentally triggered by malfunctioning Space Invaders machines, the naive U.S. President Johnny Cyclops (an obvious Ronald Reagan parody) is advised by an insane right-wing fundamentalist security advisor, called The Deacon, who claims to have a direct hotline to God. The Deacon was so named because of the previous role of the actor who played him (John Barron) as a Cathedral Dean in the sitcom All Gas and Gaiters; the writers claimed not to know at the time that Alexander Haig, a security advisor to Reagan, was known as The Vicar in the White House.

The Soviet Premier, Dubienkin, is in fact a series of clones, which keep dying and being replaced. The situation is further complicated by the development of a new super-powerful American nuclear weapon. This is originally called the Johnny Cyclops Bomb; later, when the President vetoes the name, it is renamed the Quark Bomb, Formerly Called the Johnny Cyclops Bomb.

Meanwhile the deposed (and fictional) Shah of Iran, Shah Massiq Rassim, led by an advisor (Abdab) who is always blindfolded to avoid looking upon the Shah's magnificence, is shunted around the world in search of a refuge (spending most of the series in a ferry's toilet). At the same time Lacrobat, an eccentric international arms smuggler and master of disguise, nicknamed The Devil (a parody of Carlos the Jackal), has stolen a Quark Bomb and is on his way to Iran, to help the Shah in his counter revolution. We later learn that this was part of an elaborate plan set up by The Deacon as the new authorities in Saudi Arabia plan on cutting off the US oil supply. The Soviets get word of this (via Rassim's parrot) and decide to invade, gaining control over the world's oil supply. At the same time the British Prime Minister, Kevin Pork of the fictional Social Demoncratic Alliance (SODEMALL, a parody of the Social Democratic Party) has gone insane and believes himself to be Superman. Later on, the British foreign secretary is persuaded (read blackmailed) by the Soviets to join the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets are also holding two elderly American tourists captive, convinced they are secretly CIA spies, and they are constantly tortured by Commissar Solzhenitsyn (no relation to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn). Ironically it turns out to be true, but they are killed in a bungled CIA rescue operation. To further complicate matters, Cyclops is despised (his popularity is just below that of Charles Manson) and is trying to run a re-election campaign. The Deacon stages an assassination attempt in order to help Cyclop's flagging popularity, but it is damaged further when the ambulance carrying Cyclops to the hospital accidentally runs over his main opponent. By the end of the series we're told he's less popular then the Boston strangler.

Eventually the Quark Bomb is accidentally detonated in Israel when Lacrobat's attempt to prevent it being incinerated goes horribly wrong, destroying the country. Not only does Pork think he's Superman, but later two of his party members don Green Lantern and Hawkman costumes. Meanwhile the Shah, who has temporarily been given sanctuary aboard a space shuttle, manages to crash it into Moscow (more specifically the Moscow Kremlin). Believing it to be a bomb, the Russians launch their weapons at America. In the final scene Soviet missiles are on their way to obliterate the United States and President Cyclops has to decide whether to retaliate. The title sequence already showed the aftermath of the decision, Earth reduced to a nuclear wasteland.

The show also features satire on the media, in particular news broadcasting. There is a topless newsreader, and during the middle of a bulletin an advertisement for underwear appears on screen. Some of the most strident satire was on forms of Fundamentalism. The new ruler of Iran orders several people to be executed; one who unicycled into a mosque, one who kept a picture of Ernest Borgnine in his Koran, one who walked the streets of Mecca dressed as Aquaman, one who was caught miming to a Joe Cocker record during Ramadan and another who called Muhammad "Spitz" in a sermon. Abdab also wears the blindfold due to what was written in a holy text; and there is The Deacon who spouts dialogue such as, "If the lord had meant us to be optimistic, he wouldn't have given us life insurance."

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