10 Best TV Shows That Were Never Made
6. Utopia Was Pulled Because The BBC Was Afraid To Offend
Younger readers may not know the name Spike Milligan, but his influence on British Comedy through his radio troupe The Goon Show - particularly Monty Python - is fairly significant. Co-starring a young Peter Sellers, the absurdist, subversive comedy bled into other areas of Milligan's work, including poetry, theatre, novels and eventually television.
The Melting Pot was a step too far for the BBC. Starring Milligan as "Mr. Van Gogh" (in brownface), an illegal Pakistani immigrant who winds up in a boarding house with a diverse group of people in similar situations, it ran only one episode before the BBC pulled the plug, leaving the other seven filmed unaired. Milligan would reuse some of the situational comedy in his novel The Looney, but most people agree the show was too racially insensitive tor run.
Milligan's legacy, even if it's just a footnote in Peter Seller's ultimate biography, deserved better. He and the Goons were the enfant terribles of British radio - so perhaps sticking through some of the less than politically correct work to find at least something amusing.