History Creator / WillieRushton

* ScantronPicture: In his book ''Pigsticking'', Rushton explained that the old British Football Pools were a sort of lottery predicated on the number of drawn matches on any Saturday's football fixtures. Competitors bought "lines" or "permutations" depending on making crosses on a grid next to the fixtures. If any one line of crosses coincided with scoredraws, it won a variable amount of cash from the pool. Effectively, the Pools form was an early form of scantron: at first manually checked at a central office, later on computerisation took the manual labour out of it. [[note]]The Pools hardly exist today, superseded both by the National Lottery and by the demands of satellite television: not all that many games kick off at three on a Saturday these days. The competition relied on all the games on the card kicking off simultaneously on a Saturday afternoon.[[/note]] Rushton used to design his permutations so that the crosses on the scantron sheet, read top-to-bottom, spelt out '''OH SHIT!''' He visualised the look on the face of the girl checker in Liverpool, later in the week...

* IntercontinuityCrossover: ''W.G. Grace's Last Case'' is set a few years after the Martian invasion from ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'', and has the real cricketer Grace investigating a murder with the help of Doctor Watson, who is at a loose end after Sherlock Holmes fell down the Reichenbach Falls. Along the way they meet Doctor Jekyll and a whole host of Mister Hydes.
* ItIsPronouncedTropay: The murder victim in ''W.G. Grace's Last Case'' is Castor Vilebastard (pronounced Vilibart).

* RaceFetish: Rushton's love and devotion for the Japanese women's Olympic volleyball team was a RunningGag going through the whole of ''Pigsticking''. WordOfGod was that it was only partly in jest.

* ''The Filth Amendment''(1981)

* PrecisonFStrike: Rushton maintained, in ''The Filth Amendment'', that his biggest problem with the word "phuck" was that only ever having heard it spoken in TheFifties, he had no idea how to spell it. His innocent childlike question in the car on his way back from boarding prep school, aged about eight, nearly caused his father to crash.

* ''The Filth Amendment''

* BallsGag: Rushton wrote an idiosyncratic overview of sporting pursuits called ''Pigsticking - A Joy For Life''. He notes that he has managed to get halfway through the book without mentioning a certain piece of equipment even ''once'', and chooses to kick off Part Two with a full-page cartoon about Royal Tennis - in which a courtier faces a glowering Henry VIII and announces '''Balls, my liege!'''

* ScantronPicture: In his book ''Pigsticking'', Rushton explained that the old British Football Pools were a sort of lottery predicated on the number of drawn matches on any Saturday's football fixtures. Competitors bought "lines" or "permutations" depending on making crosses on a grid next to the fixtures. If any one line of crosses coincided with scoredraws, it won a variable amount of cash from the pool. Effectively, the Pools form was an early form of scantron: at first manually checked at a central office, later on computerisation took the manual labour out of it. [[note]]The Pools hardly exist today, superceded both by the National Lottery and by the demands of satellite television: not all that many games kick off at three on a Saturday these days. The competition relied on all the games on the card kicking off simultaneously on a Saturday afternoon.[[/note]] Rushton used to design his permutations so that the crosses on the scantron sheet, read top-to-bottom, spelt out '''OH SHIT!''' He visualised the look on the face of the girl checker in Liverpool, later in the week...

* DidTheEarthMoveForYouToo: From ''Series/ThatWasTheWeekThatWas'' (TW3). Sometime around 1962, Rushton was seen getting into bed with an impossibly glamorous actress/model type. Amid giggling and sighing, foreplay ensues. The camera then cuts to stock footage of waves crashing against rocks, tall chimneys falling, train going into tunnels, et c. We cut back to Willie Rushton and girl, who are still in bed - but soaked through from the waves, covered in brick dust and rubble from the chimney, and smothered in soot from the steam-train. She is screaming. He is wide-eyed with panic.
--> ''Every bloody time we try something, all that bloody lot happens!''

* ScantronPicture: In his book ''Pigsticking'', Rushton explained that the old British Football Pools were a sort of lottery predicated on the number of drawn matches on any Saturday's football fixtures. Competitors bought "lines" or "permutations" depending on making crosses on a grid next to the fixtures. If any one line of crosses coincided with scoredraws, it won a variable amount of cash from the pool. Effectively, the Pools form was an early form of scantron: at first manually checked at a central office, later on computerisation took the manual labour out of it. [[note]]The Pools hardly exist today, superceded both by the National Lottery and by the demands of satellite television: not all that many games kick off at three on a Saturday these days. The competition relied on all the games on the card kicking off simultaneously on a Saturday afternoon.[[/note]] Rushton used to design his permutations so that the crosses on the scantron sheet, read top-to-bottom, spelt out '''OH SHIT!''' He visualised the look on the face of the girl checker in Liverpool, later in the week...
* TalkingToHimself: Rushton voiced all the characters on ''WesternAnimation/TheTrapDoor''. And on early animations based on ''ThomasTheTankEngine''.

* BallsGag: Rushton wrote an idiosyncratic overview of sporting pursuits called ''Pigsticking - A Joy For Life''. He notes that he has managed to get halfway through the book without mentioning a certain piece of equipment even ''once'', and shooses to kick off Part Two with a full-page cartoon about Royal Tennis - in which a courtier faces a glowering Henry VIII and announces '''Balls, my liege!'''
* DidTheEarthMoveForYouToo: * From ''Series/ThatWasTheWeekThatWas'' (TW3). Sometime around 1962, Rushton was seen getting into bed with an impossibly glamorous actress/model type. Amid giggling and sighing, foreplay ensues. The camera then cuts to stock footage of waves crashing against rocks, tall chimneys falling, train going into tunnels, et c. We cut back to Willie Rushton and girl, who are still in bed - but soaked through from the waves, covered in brick dust and rubble from the chimney, and smothered in soot from the steam-train. She is screaming. He is wide-eyed with panic.

* MenCantKeepHouse: * Subverted by Rushton, who wrote a book called ''Superpig'' that manages to be both funny and informatively useful at the same time. ''Superpig'' is a manual for how a single man, single by either inclination or circumstance, can live his life without reverting to a porcine or caveman state. The book teaches about domestic skills such as cleaning, cooking, and keeping house for the average man, so that any women in his life, perhaps one looking for a HouseHusband, might be both surprised and pleasantly pleased.

William George Rushton (18 August 1937 – 11 December 1996) was an English cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor, author and performer who co-founded the satirical magazine Magazines/PrivateEye. He was a contemporary, at Shrewsbury School, with people like Richard Ingrams and Creator/PeterCook. He was a mainstay of radio comedy show ''Radio/ImSorryIHaventAClue'' right up until his early death in 1996.

* TalkingToHimself: Rushton voiced all the characters on ''WesternAnimation/TheTrapDoor''.

*

William George Rushton (18 August 1937 – 11 December 1996) was an English cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor, author and performer who co-founded the satirical magazine Magazines/PrivateEye. He was a contemporary, at Shrewsbury School, with people like Richard Ingrams and Creator/PeterCook.

* TalkingToHimsdelf: Rushton voiced all the characters on ''WesternAnimation/TheTrapDoor''.

!!Tropes present and given the satirical treatment during the life of Willie Rushton, and indeed pig-stuck, include