Alas Smith and Jones

Alas Smith and Jones
Title card from final opening sequence
Also known as	'Smith and Jones'
Genre	Sketch comedy
Starring	Mel Smith Griff Rhys Jones Chris Langham
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	10
No. of episodes	62
Production
Running time	30 minutes per normal episode
Production company(s)	BBC TalkBack
Distributor	FremantleMedia
Release
Original network	BBC2 (1984-1989) BBC1 (1989-1998)
Original release	31 January 1984 (1984-01-31) – 14 October 1998 (1998-10-14)
Chronology
Preceded by	Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979-1982)

Alas Smith and Jones is a British comedy sketch television series featuring Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones that ran for four series and two Christmas specials on BBC2 from 1984 to 1988, and as Smith and Jones for five series on BBC1 from 1989 to 1998. The show also had a brief run in the United States on A&E and PBS in the late 1980s, as well as on CBS in the early 1990s during their late night block.

The show's creation followed the ending of Not the Nine O'Clock News. Rowan Atkinson and Pamela Stephenson followed individual career paths, whilst Smith and Jones opted to form a double act.

The first post-Not... appearance as a duo was in a short sketch in the BBC1 comedy special The Funny Side Of Christmas in 1982, where Jones played a complete stranger annoying hospital patient Smith to the extent that Smith's character walks out in a rage, leaving Jones' character to enjoy Smith's Christmas gifts.

Shortly afterwards the BBC offered the pair their own show, with much of the material written by themselves with help from a large team of other writers. The show's title was a pun on that of the American television series Alias Smith and Jones, which was very popular in Britain.

The show continued partly along the same steps of Not... of using taboo-breaking material and sketches in questionable taste (as well as bad language), and also featured head-to-head 'duologues' between Smith and Jones. It shared several script writers with Not the Nine O'Clock News including Clive Anderson and , and used Chris Langham as a cast regular, while also using Andy Hamilton, which helped keep the show to a consistently high standard.

The head-to-head sketches were very much in the Pete and Dud mould - Smith was the idiot who knew everything, Jones the idiot who knew nothing. The format of the head-to-head with similar characters was used by Smith and Jones in a series of commercials.