Smashie and Nicey

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Mike Smash and Dave Nice were two characters played by comedians Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield respectively in the latter's early 1990s TV sketch show Harry Enfield's Television Programme.

"Smashie and Nicey" were two disc jockeys working at Radio Fab FM, a parody of BBC Radio 1. Quasi-Australian-accented aging rocker Dave (short for, it was eventually revealed, Davenport rather than David) Nice was an obvious parody of the then Radio 1 Rock Show presenter Alan Freeman (whose radio persona deliberately bordered on self-parody anyway), with elements of Dave Lee Travis. Mike Smash was loosely based on Tony Blackburn, though he bore more physical resemblance to Mike Read, and Whitehouse's vocalisation had a certain similarity to pop star Cliff Richard. Each sketch would involve the two "jocks" talking nonsense, reminiscing about their careers, modestly shrugging off their many works of "chairidee", and generally being bland and irrelevant, before putting on their favourite record, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

The sketches proved very popular, largely because they genuinely reflected the image that Radio 1 had at the time. Much of the station's output was widely considered dull and unchallenging, and the average age of both listeners and presenters had risen above thirty, an embarrassment for what was supposed to be a station for young people. When Matthew Bannister arrived at Radio 1 in 1993 with a mission to rejuvenate the station, he stated that his goal was to rid it of its "Smashie and Nicey" image. Whitehouse later expressed his unease after being congratulated by BBC Director-General John Birt for assisting this process stating that Birt was a greater menace than any of the DJs who were "harmless".

A final 1994 TV special, 'Smashie and Nicey: The End of an Era', reflected the events of Bannister's "revolution". The DJs were sacked from Fab FM, in a manner that deliberately mirrored Simon Bates' departure from Radio 1, and replaced with young, 'irreverent' DJs such as Chris Evans. Washed-up and unwanted, they were banished to "Radio Quiet" and left to reminisce about the good old days and try to pretend to themselves that they were still a powerful cultural force.

The special began in the 1960s, with Nicey presenting Blue Peter and dancing on stage with Freddie and the Dreamers in doctored footage of the band's appearance on the show performing "You Were Made For Me", interviewing The Beatles, and becoming a DJ on offshore station "Radio Geraldine" (based on Radio Caroline) where Smashie was initially his teaboy. It combined elements from the careers of several real DJs, with Smashie seen hosting a Saturday night TV show modelled on Noel's House Party, and having turned his show into a plea for his wife (named specifically as "Tessa") to come back after she had left him, repeatedly playing Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" (Tony Blackburn did precisely this in the mid-1970s when his wife, the actress Tessa Wyatt, left him). Similarly, Nicey was revealed to have advertised "Deptford Draylons", alluding to Alan Freeman's ads for Brentford Nylons, to have interviewed the Sex Pistols (in doctored footage of their famous interview with Bill Grundy) and to have fronted The Dave Nice Video Show, a parody of The Kenny Everett Video Show. Freeman himself made a cameo appearance, as did Blackburn and David Jensen.

Although the characters have now been retired, and Radio 1 was ultimately successful in shaking off the image that they represented, the terms "Smashie and Nicey" and "Radio Fab FM" have become part of the British vernacular, used as shorthand to describe any style of music radio or DJ-ing seen as bland, self-aggrandising and unchallenging. The term "Radio Quiet", used in the sketches to refer to Radio Fab FM's sister station (an obvious parody of BBC Radio 2), is also occasionally used to refer to Radio 2's former incarnation, before it modernised itself by hiring a number of former Radio 1 DJs and changing its music policy.

Smashie and Nicey came out of retirement by guest-hosting an edition of Pick of the Pops on BBC Radio 2 as part of the station's 40th birthday celebrations on 30 September 2007, Whitehouse and Enfield having been asked specially. Dale Winton made the opening announcement but was quickly evicted by Smashie and Nicey who proceeded to play the top 40 from 27 September 1967. During the show Nicey accidentally confessed to being gay (which was previously alluded to in the 1994 special). At the end of the show he emotionally begged the Controller of BBC Radio to give him a job, "even if it's only on Digital Radio 8" (a fictional station).