The Dustbinmen

Main characters

Cheese and Egg, Heavy Breathing, Winston Platt and Eric were the crew of dustcart 'Thunderbird 3' of the Corporation Cleansing Department—the name obviously being an ironic reference to the aircraft in Thunderbirds. Also known as 'Number 3 Gang', throughout the day they collect dustbins and treat each other, or anyone else, with rudeness and disdain. Cheese and Egg, whose real name was C. E. Petty, is a fervent communist and the natural-born leader of the gang; with his knowledge, the gang can escape sticky situations if they are lucky. Heavy Breathing, "the one with the good looks", is obliged to spend much of his time pleasuring housewives—something he finds quite annoying when he would prefer to be resting. Winston Platt, a die-hard fan of Manchester City, viewed player Colin Bell as a god. Welsh Eric, the more sensitive Coronation Street-fan, spends most of time talking about television and saving to buy a colour TV for his mother.

Other characters

The Cleansing Department's inspector was always known as Bloody Delilah regardless of who he was. He kept the nickname because, according to Cheese and Egg in episode 2.1, "They're all bloody Delilahs". Another character, who appeared in all 20 episodes, was Smellie Ibbotson. He started as the scavenger on the tips but was later promoted to be Bloody Delilah's lapdog, reporting on who was skiving and what they were up to. Not everyone liked Smellie, not just because he was smelly, but also since he was difficult to understand (as he had no teeth).

Series 1 (1969)

Series 2 (1970)

Series 3 (1970)

Links with other programmes

The Dustbinmen has links with other programmes, many of which were also made by Granada Television. Coronation Street was mentioned a few times by Eric; Graham Haberfield, aka Winston once played Jerry Booth in the show. Julie Goodyear appeared in two episodes as a housewife; she later played Bet Lynch. Barbara Knox (at that time Mullaney) who later played Rita Littlewood/Fairclough/Sullivan/Tanner played a housewife who read tea leaves. Jill Summers (Phyllis Pearce) played a cleaner in one episode. Peter Dudley (Bert Tilsley) appeared as a man in a hospital corridor in one episode and Bryan Mosley (Alf Roberts) once appeared as a doctor. Furthermore, the opening and closing titles contain a recurring motif of a flower in a discarded beercan; "Newton and Ridley" (the Rovers Return brewers) is printed on this beercan.

Jack Rosenthal left the show to concentrate on developing another Granada sitcom, The Lovers, which co-starred Paula Wilcox. She appeared in two episodes of The Dustbinmen as Naomi, Winston's girlfriend.

There are links with Last of the Summer Wine too. Brian Wilde, who played the final Bloody Delilah, played Walter Foggy Dewhurst in the programme. John Comer who played Sid in the programme, once played a policeman in The Dustbinmen and Trevor Bannister has a recurring role as the golf club captain Toby Mulberry Smith. Also, Trevor Bannistor would later appear (1972-1979) in the classic Perry & Croft sitcom Are You Being Served?.

In 1988 Brian Wilde starred with Trevor Bannister in the BBC1 show Wyatt's Watchdogs, a short-lived sitcom about bickering neighbours trying to run a Neighbourhood Watch scheme.

Preservation and DVD release

In 2005 the sole surviving material was released on Region 2 DVD by Network DVD.

Trivia

The show was noted for its use of the "pseudo-profanity". Like the later show Porridge, its characters would be expected to swear frequently, but at the time most swear words were forbidden in scripts, especially sitcoms. The characters frequently used the word "piggin'" and the phrase "bog off", as an all purpose substitute for swearing, just as characters in Porridge used the word "naff". There was almost more controversy over this than over actual swearing, with accusations of cowardice on the one hand, and complaints about the "made up" swear words on the other.

In the closing credits of the television series, the Granada Television "G-arrow" logo appears in black on a light coloured background (later blue on yellow) before rapidly expanding, switching to its usual "negative" colours and returning to normal size. This would appear to be the only instance of the Granada logo being toyed with in this way, since Granada reportedly disapproved of anything that might appear to trivialise its corporate image.