Memes Archives - Page 8 of 8 - Innocent Loverboy

Ever since I was very young, I’ve always loved stuffed toys. For reasons which remain nebulous to this day, my family has always referred to them as “Fellahs” – presumably a mispronunciation of “fellows”, and more specifically, probably mine since I’m the eldest – but I’ve never really questioned it. They are Fellahs, and that’s the end of it, really.

My favourite Fellahs have stayed with me through multiple house moves (while the rest are in a toybox in my parents’ attic). My squashy, cuddly rabbit who I got for my 19th birthday still lies next to my bed for when I need him. The little handmade (by me) Knightmare creature celebrated his birthday the other day (or, he would have, but we couldn’t quite find him…). We have a collection of little plushies – mostly rabbits, I like rabbits – plus Pinkie Pie, Magikarp and, of course, the huge IKEA BLÅHAJ shark which I bought my girlfriend for Christmas last year.

Blåhaj is heavenly soft. You can fall asleep while holding him. He is, without a doubt, the best gift I’ve bought anyone. Ever.

You’re wondering about what the title of this post means, aren’t you?

In my earlier teens, while I was at least interested in sex, I wasn’t really obsessed. My refusal to discuss the subject – nervous about it as I was – and the fact that I wasn’t really interested in masturbating resulted in my sexuality manifesting in weird ways, often things that made me frightened and victimised, and – more often than not – disgusted with myself after some sort of gleeful indulgence. Nowadays, of course, I’d call that a kink. Back then, it was a shame.

One of the toys I had was an oversized Dizzy Devil whom I won at a school fête. I was a big fan of Tiny Toon Adventures and, while Dizzy wasn’t my favourite character, I was pleased to have her. She was a very big Fellah, in fact, about half my height at least, and wide enough too.

The more astute of you will have noticed that I’m using the female pronouns for a Fellah based on a canonically male character. The reason for this, of course, being that after a couple of years I stopped seeing her as Dizzy. If I closed my eyes very tight, worked through a situation in my head (often something from soft porn or similar) and slipped my erection between her legs, I could hump back and forth and do something which I assumed, at the time, was similar to sex.

At the time, I didn’t care that it was Dizzy Devil. I didn’t really mind who, or what, I was having a sex fest with (yes, I genuinely used the term “sex fest” in my head while doing it; it helped me get hard), as long as it was a firm, unyielding body I could lie on top of. There wasn’t a hole for me to go in, of course – I’m not that sort of plushie, although I find that fascinating – but, as I rationalised, this was something. And something was better than nothing.

It hurt, though. Of course it did – I was effectively rubbing my penis between the hard, rough fabric of a giant Fellah who wasn’t designed to be soft. I didn’t even have an end goal in mind – I wasn’t going to come, as that wasn’t even an option; all I would do was hump for a few seconds and then… well, finish doing so, I guess, in case anyone walked in or something. I even established a kind of routine, insofar as I’d do it after watching Robot Wars, but I wouldn’t call it a kind of key part of my sexual awakening.

And it hurt. Sex isn’t meant to hurt.

Eventually I gave Dizzy away. Despite the fact that we’d been shagging, I wasn’t particularly close to her, and the fact that we had to give away a large Fellah at another school fête presented the opportunity (the little spinny thing at the top of her cap had come off at this point too…). I’ve acquired other Fellahs since then – and even had relationships with girls who adore them, ranging from KoЯn dolls to floppy, soft kitties to rabbits called “Rabbit” – but the concept of using one for sex has long since passed.

I’ve got a healthy relationship with Fellahs. They are my friends, and never will be anything else. But maybe, just maybe, once or twice to an early teen ILB, one of them may just have been my lover.

Welcome to a completely unwarranted, shockingly unheralded new meme from someone who’s unqualified to talk about this sort of thing.

The history of sex in film is complicated and it’s hardly as rigid as any of the documentaries and books on the subject would have you believe. In the “above-ground” sex film realm, though, there was something of a shift, in various places internationally, after the decline in popularity of nudie-cuties from the ’60s. American sexploitation began to rear its ugly head, as did Japanese pink film and mainland European “art porn” – the first Emmanuelle came along in 1974.

British film, typically coy and unassuming, started to make its own contribution with smutty comedies – a mixture of slapstick mirth and (often female) nudity: even featuring sex, although in a very different fashion from what one might term as soft porn. I’ve seen a few of these (okay, a lot of these) and, now that quite a few of them are available on Amazon Prime…

…yes, really…

…maybe it’s time for ILB to write far too long blog posts about them.

SO HERE WE GO!

Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976)
Director: Stanley Long
Starring: Barry Evans, Judy Gleeson, et al.

I last saw this when I was a teenager, so although I kind of thought I knew what this was about – I remember a snake and a kidnapping plot – I wasn’t entirely sure about the details. I didn’t remember any sex happening, but that isn’t really the point of a British sex comedy.

Badly drawn cartoon — Doesn’t say much.
Like the film itself, really…

The main idea of this flick is that Joe (Barry Evans), who acts as both the protagonist and narrator (he talks in asides to the camera), is a taxi driver who picks up beautiful women. That’s basically it. There’s nothing else to the film. It opens, and this I didn’t remember, with a very British opening narration (by a different actor) about how wonderful taxi drivers are, laid over a montage of “ironic” clips featuring taxis cutting off other vehicles, drivers giving V-signs and stopping to pick up women while avoiding old couples and single men.

Britain!

Joe also had a weird family (because they all do) including his layabout, thieving tearaway brother Peter (Marc Harrison) and domineering but drippy fiancée Carol (Adrienne Posta), but they make occasional and seemingly random appearances. The first hour, at least, acts as a checklist of “what to do in a sex comedy” things, which can be summarised thus:

(i) needlessly gratuitous bum and thigh shots, often close-ups when women bend over or something ✔
(ii) carelessly sexist dialogue, often referring to women as “birds” or “a bit of crumpet” ✔
(iii) occasional nudity, often female ✔
(iv) people in unhappy relationships – double points if it’s a young, attractive women married to a much older man ✔
(v) random double entendres that hit like a ton of bricks ✔
(vi) very little actual sex (but some, or at least a hint thereof) ✔
(vii) genuinely famous actor making their first appearance (in this case, Robert Lindsay) ✔
(viii) love interest who shouldn’t be a love interest (Judy Gleeson as Nikki) ✔
(ix) “amusing” naked caper-type scenes ✔
(x) incredibly posh older lady (Prudende Drage as Mrs Barker) ✔

If this all seems relatively un-amusing, that’s because that’s what it is. This film can’t decide what it’s trying to be. There are a few things which makes it more unique, such as

Snake sex: Nikki has a snake (a real one) named Monty, who accidentally stimulates someone Joe is trying to seduce (which sounds funnier than it is)

Visible dick: during the naked caper bit, where Joe has to make his way back to his taxi with no clothes, and then picks up a nun to deliver to a convent (also not funny)

Extra kidnap crime plot: tacked on an hour into the film itself, and also comes to nothing!

Emmanuelle reference: one of the cinemas he drives past in central London is showing Emmanuelle, which suddenly made me want to watch a better film

Attractive blonde woman who's probably got somewhere else to be — She can do better.

but, in actual fact, they all add very little to the plot, and all the jokes miss. There’s even a really transphobic bit (in before your “but the ’70s!” protests; it’s still transphobia) with a “female impersonator”, which made me cringe so hard my face resembled a topographical map of Snowdonia. It’s awful, and the fact that the film is trying very hard to get you to like Joe (whereas he is an unlikeable, unattractive, sexist git) just makes it worse.

There’s a switch which comes in so fast that it’s alarming late in the day when suddenly a crime caper happens – something to do with stolen jewellery, but by this point I’d zoned out so much I couldn’t quite work it out. It doesn’t even work here, either, as there’s been no build-up to it, nor is there any particularly appropriate pay-off. It just sort of… ends.

The worst couple since Brangelina — Joe and Carol.
Horrible, isn’t it?

It’s strange, after the drubbing I’ve just given Adventures of a Taxi Driver), to think of how successful it was. Because it was – and it even spawned a couple of sequels, so there’s a whole series to get through (groan!) It relatively shamelessly takes its cue from the Confessions series of a similar ilk, but it has none of the cheeky charm of the Robin Askwith films, and is so episodic in its execution of all the invidual skits that it makes me wonder if this was filmed in a bit of a hurry.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m being unfair.

No, I’m not. It’s the film that’s wrong.