‘A STRIPE FOR FRAZER’ (TV)

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I love this animated ‘Dad’s Army’ episode! 🙂 ‘A Stripe For Frazer’ is sadly one of the missing TV episodes of ‘Dad’s Army’ from Series 2. The episode has yet to be found, but thankfully the BBC decided to do an animation version of this episode, based on the surviving TV soundtrack on audio that’s still in existence.

The animation version of ‘A Stripe For Frazer’ is similar in style to the animation episodes of ‘Doctor Who’ for some of the black-and-white TV stories from the 1960s. This included stories like ‘The Invasion’, ‘The Reign of Terror’, ‘The Ice Warriors’, ‘The Tenth Planet’, ‘The Moonbase’ and ‘The Power of the Daleks’.

I’m pleased that the BBC did an animation version of ‘A Stripe For Frazer’. It’s also good that ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker’ and ‘Under Fire’ have been animated lately. I first owned ‘A Stripe For Frazer’ via BBC Store. Then I had episode on Amazon Prime Video. Now I have it on ‘The Missing Episodes’ DVD.

The animation for this ‘Dad’s Army’ episode is pretty good. There are a few errors I noticed in the animation, but I still enjoyed it. The animation for the characters like Captain Mainwaring, Sergeant Wilson, Lance Corporal Jones, etc., is very good. The animation matches quite well to the TV soundtrack.

In the episode, Private Frazer receives a promotion to be a Lance Corporal alongside Jonesy. A competition is put in place where Mainwaring had to decide whether to promote Jones or Frazer as a full corporal. Err, wouldn’t it make sense to have Jones be a full corporal and Frazer be a lance corporal?

The comedy ensues when Frazer tries too hard to impress Mainwaring in winning the full corporal title. This includes issuing many members of the platoon on charge sheets. There are lots of comedic moments in this episode. I greatly enjoyed the opening platoon line-up scene, even in animation.

The guest stars include John Ringham as Captain Bailey, who informs Mainwaring that he can make up another lance corporal. There’s Geoffrey Lumsden who returns and gets the new rank of Corporal-Colonel Square. There’s Gordon Peters as the Police Officer and there’s Edward Sinclair as the Verger.

‘A Stripe For Frazer’ is definitely worth checking out in its animation form. I’m very pleased that the BBC have re-released ‘A Stripe For Frazer’ in the ‘Dad’s Army: The Missing Episodes’ DVD along with the rest of the animation Series 2 episodes. It’s great to check them out and I’m happy that the gaps in Series 2 have been filled.

‘A Stripe For Frazer’ (TV) rating – 8/10

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‘A STRIPE FOR FRAZER’ (AUDIO)

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‘A Stripe For Frazer’ is the eighth episode transmitted in the ‘Dad’s Army’ radio series. It was also my first encounter of this missing ‘Dad’s Army’ TV episode before I saw the animation episode. As I re-listened to it, I recalled familiar lines said in the animation episode that correlated in the radio version.

The radio version of this episode features John Laurie as Frazer, James Beck as Walker and Ian Lavender as Pike. Arnold Ridley doesn’t make an appearance as Godfrey in the episode. Thus, all the lines intended for Godfrey are given to Pike. Godfrey’s dropping his rifle on parade is also omitted in this.

One notable aspect of this radio episode is that it was the last to feature James Beck as Private Walker. This would be his last work on ‘Dad’s Army’ before he sadly died in 1973. Walker would reappear in the radio series in ‘The Showing Up Of Corporal Jones’, only to be played by a different actor.

Geoffrey Lumsden makes a return appearance as Corporal-Colonel Square in the episode. There’s also Michael Knowles playing Captain Bailey in the radio version of the episode instead of John Ringham as on TV. The Police Officer and the Verger characters don’t appear in the radio version of the episode.

In both the TV/animation and radio versions of ‘A Stripe For Frazer’, I noticed there was a scene between Mainwaring, Jones and Frazer that would feature in the 1975 ‘Dad’s Army’ stage show. It’s a scene where Mainwaring uses chairs to demonstrate how to tackle a Nazi attacker ‘like a lion tamer’.

A notable thing to mention is that both the TV/animation and radio versions of this episode have the introduction of Mainwaring’s new officer cap. I’ve also noticed that the ‘ceiling painting materials’ featured in the TV/animation version isn’t featured at all in the radio version of ‘A Stripe For Frazer’.

In both TV/animation and radio versions of this episode, I found it funny when Mainwaring found out Walker harboured whiskey in his gas-mask bag. It was very funny in the radio version when Mainwaring also discovered that Walker had his cigars for him before Wilson asked if he should add his name to the list.

The radio version of ‘A Stripe For Frazer’ is good. It’s a shame the original TV episode is still missing by this point, but I’m glad we have the animation and radio versions. They do well to strengthen Frazer’s character, although it would’ve been nice if Jonesy was a corporal and Frazer was a lance corporal.

‘A Stripe For Frazer’ (Audio) rating – 7/10

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‘A STRIPE FOR FRAZER’ (2019) (TV)

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The second of the ‘Dad’s Army’ lost episodes 2019 remake is of course ‘A Stripe For Frazer’. This was an interesting one, since the episode didn’t need to be remade. It was already animated in 2015 with the original TV soundtrack intact. But I suppose for completion’s sake, it had to be remade in live-action.

I mean with ‘Doctor Who’, the missing TV story ‘The Faceless Ones’ has been totally animated for DVD and Blu-ray. It’s fair to say I knew ‘A Stripe For Frazer’ well as an episode, having seen the animation episode and heard the radio episode several times. Thus, I knew what to expect in the 2019 remake.

With that said, I don’t think the 2019 remake is as good as the animation and radio versions of the episode. This is mostly due to the delivery of the lines said by the actors playing the characters. This isn’t anyone’s fault. The actors are decent and the approach to remake the episode is of a different perspective.

In terms of how Frazer is portrayed by David Hayman, he doesn’t exactly match to how John Laurie played him in the TV series. In my humble opinion, I would’ve preferred it if Ralph Riach, who played John Laurie in ‘We’re Doomed! The Dad’s Army Story’, to play Frazer in the 2019 remake lost episodes.

In terms of the episode’s guest cast, David Horovitch plays Corporal-Colonel Square instead of Geoffrey Lumsden as in the original. I’ve seen David Horovitch as Inspector Slack in the ‘Miss Marple’ BBC TV series with Joan Hickson. I found him very convincing as Square watching him in the remake episodes.

The episode also features William Andrews as Captain Bailey instead of John Ringham as in the original. There’s Jack Barry as the Police Officer instead of Gordon Peters as in the original, and there’s John Biggins as the Verger, who I don’t think quite matches to Edward Sinclair as the Verger as in the original.

Here’s an observation I’ve made in comparing the animation episode to the 2019 remake. In the 2019 remake, Jones makes out he’s using a poker to threaten Walker acting as a Nazi stormtrooper instead of three chairs stuck together. The ‘three chairs stuck together’ moment was in the animation episode.

I wonder why the ‘three chairs stuck together’ moment wasn’t in the 2019 remake as it was in the animation episode. Was it not in the original script? Mind you, the animation episode could’ve taken its cue from what Jones did in the 1975 ‘Dad’s Army’ stage show, according to Nationwide. Overall, I found this a decent remake.

‘A Stripe For Frazer’ (2019) (TV) rating – 7/10

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