POP is mentioned in the episode "Once Upon a Time." Number 2, Leo McKern, seemed to hold it in some significance asking if it meant - Protect Other People - like it was a code name or an operational name.
“Protect Other People” in … oh i see someone’s already posted this. Man, Mitch- these are great! The Prisoner was a Summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers here in the States. I was familiar with his work on Scarecrow of Romney Marsh and first saw The Prisoner when I was 10 in 1967. Went to a PortmeriCon in 2003 and met Vincent Tinsley. When I arrived I met this guy Ian running cables for tannoys near No. 6’s place and volunteered to help. Ian had the run of the place and he took me up the bell tower. It was unbelievable.
The Prisoner was actually a summer replacement show for The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS. My family and I watched it every Sunday night in the Summer of '68.
Watched 'The Prisoner' when it aired as a mid-season summer replacement series on CBS in the U.S., 1968. I was 5, and though many elements were far beyond my comprehension, it was a must-watch every week. Rover was terrifying. I never forgot about the series, and when the local PBS affiliate began airing the show in the late 1970s, once more it was must-see TV.
There was the behind-the-scenes making of / lore The Prisoner (and later Danger Man) magazine series that had a DVD on the cover of the episode that particular issue was about. (One of an absolute glut of similar mags around 1999 or so). In it, it stated that POP was intended to be short for 'Protect Other People'.
Credit to you for having a video blow up the way your first did! It’s how I found your channel, so I’m glad you did a follow-up. I used to be a small UA-camr and it’s always a great feeling when one of your videos takes off. Be seeing you! o7
I had the entire series on VHS years ago, including the alternate version of "Chimes of Big Ben." It was very strange watching that episode with the different music.
Hi Mitch, thanks for this fun video and sending me time traveling back to 1967 my good lady and self married in August 67 and we lived with Sue's parents. I inflicted the Prisoner show on my poor father-in-law that fall. He henceforth referred to any strange tv show as "one of those Bennett shows". We all moved to Canada in the seventies but Sue and I managed to finally get to Portmeirion in 2019 an absolutely fascinating place. So as I now watch my DVD's I can gloat and say I've walked the village :o)
As someone who hugely enjoys you talking about stuff I know just a little about, this is just a treat! And who would dare to guess Youtoob algorithms, even the dart players who assembled them have no idea, they were blindfolded (but, on the whole, very _very_ good…) - but I digress… I always loved the way the Prisoner did not make sense throughout. To me, it seemed totally determined, McGoohan may have been a stuck-up Catholic but I thunk he also was trying to break molds and making some things contradict each other seems to me something that may have been totally on purpose. A bit like Gene Wilder as Wonka, losing his stick and falling - and then jumping up: unsettle everyone and make them doubt everything? Well, whichever way… Bless YT for giving you the chance to live out L’esprit d’escalier here, and bringing me joy! Thank you!
I thought the Village was like an Esher drawing when it came to walking around it or in a taxi or ambulance and that the Village that Number 6 wakes up in each day may not be the Village he went to sleep in. . I think that the episode of the General was meant to be shown before A,B & C because Colin Gordon in the General says he's the new Number 2 while in A,B & C he says "I am Number Two" Now where did I leave my Deck Shoes and Anorak.
patrick says in interviews the penny farthing is a symbol for progress moving too fast and that he thinks progressing too fast will destroy the earth like via nuclear falloutttttt, that’s the alt end credit explained
I was thinking, "Pop! goes the earth!" Nuclear Armageddon is a clear explanation. The final episode was even partly set inside a nuclear missile silo, so we know this was an issue weighing heavily on McGoohan, etc.'s mind.
Great video, Mitch. Thank you . “The Prisoner” never ceases to intrigue me. A couple of points spring to mind. Firstly, No 6 (or at least his mind) also leaves the Village to track down Professor Seltzman in the mind-transfer episode “Do not forsake me oh my darling” when No 6 is portrayed by that great actor Nigel (Dr Watson) Stock. I understand the purpose of the episode was to cover McGoohan’s unavailability when he was away filming “Ice Station Zebra”. McGoohan himself appears only very briefly in the episode and only then mainly in clips from other episodes that are supposed to be flashbacks. I’ve always thought that No 6 was a very brave man to drive all the way to Austria in a Lotus 7 whatever body he was inhabiting! I also understand that McGoohan himself vehemently denied that “The Prisoner” was in any way related to John Drake/ Danger Man/ Secret Agent as he didn’t want to land up in copyright problems.
I've gotta figure that "Many Happy Returns" has to be after other episodes, especially "Free For All," as there are mentions of elections and the town council, but then maybe not. That's the fun of it all. h, and if you are a fan and can get to Portmerion, GO.. I got hooked on the show at the age of (yes) 6 in 1968, when it was on CBS, and only last year (2023) made my way to Portmerion, at the insistence of my son. I was so much fun to walk around and just visualize various scenes from the show. The following night, my son and I had made our way to Oxford and watched Arrival in the hotel room. What a blast.
Haha I'm currently 5 miles up the road having been to Portmeirion today for the second day in a row after not having been since the age of about 7/8 1978ish 😄
...aand here I am to watch your second Prisoner video. Great stuff. It's actually really nice to have this much-debated, beloved production pop into my middle age and feel fresh, like a brand new show. Although I'm only on episode 4, my unshakeable belief is that they decided to make it as surreal and wacky as possible, refuse to explain or resolve it, and let the fans (and the passage of time) confirm it as a work of inscrutable, interminable genius. When in reality, it's just batshit crazy. And that's a genuinely genius move in itself.
Maybe there were multiple 'villages' around the world but identical brick for brick. One scene I thought would be Number 6 about to make a unique mark on a wall for identification, but someone had beat him to it. Or did they? Enjoyed your passionate rant :-) Be seeing you @
I wasn't allowed to watch 'The Prisoner' in 1967 - I was four, and my parents decided that it was a bit too weird. I was allowed, however, to watch 'The Avengers' (which I loved, and had the Corgi car set for), which as any fan will know, was not weird in any way, shape or form... I did, however, watch, and was utterly thrilled by, 'The Prisoner' when it was repeated by Channel 4, in 1983, when I was 20, which is the perfect age to 'get' the show. When I left my first job, in 1987, to move away to another job, part of the leaving present given to me by the staff, was a large, and expensive, book about the show. That the staff knew how much I loved the show, pleased me greatly. I recently acquired the action figures, and they are superb. Yes, also, I did open them. 😆😆😆
A lot of the Prisoner Village sets were recycled from MGM Borehamwood. They were mainly from the Donald Pleasence/David Niven/Sharon Tate/Deborah Kerr folk horror Eye of the Devil, then used in the Dirty Dozen, and the church is also in Casino Royale 67 (again, a film a lot of people compare to the Prisoner, and hey they use the same sets plus some cast IIRC). Also, I think they're also in Inspector Clouseau (1968). The irony is, if we like some nuts, include Ice Station Zebra cos McGoohan playsa mysterious British spy, that was shot in MGM CULVER CITY, which Borehamwood was effectively an annexe to, down to some fairly similar looking backlot sets (I believe when they did the Miniver Story in 1950 at Borehamwood, they had to reproduce sets from Culver City to add some continuity from Mrs Miniver). And that uses the MGM Culver 'Dutch village' to play somewhere like Dunoon or Sandbank, and it looks surprisingly convincing. But in my head, that's like an honorary Borehamwood film.
I'm generally inclined to believe that Number 6 was John Drake, and not confirmed as such for legal (royalty payment) reasons. I keep meaning to watch all of Danger Man then The Prisoner to see if there's some sense of continuation.
Interesting that you mention both Patrick and Jim's as devout christians who refussed to do intamcy scenes, Neal McDonach (DC's Legends...) got prertty much black listed for the same, and I think Kevin Sorbo suffered some backlash too.. so it's not that uncommon...
Did the song/nursery rhyme ''Pop Goes The Weasel'' not show up in at least one episode? As soon as you mentioned it that was what sprang to mind. It's been a while since I saw the series so I may be mistaken.
Indeed that tune does appear in at least three episodes. As I recall It starts a bit heavy on the big drum then becomes mainly the piano & flute for the second half. My recall was it was used when Number 6 first played chess with the Admiral in Arrival. And twice in Chimes of Big Ben and lastly once in Checkmate. But my memory of the episodes may be incorrect.
Person of Interest is a good show with Jim C but you start realizing he’s upsetting the cast and crew as they start to film stuff without him and even have to change the dog as he was mistreating the first dog.
I first became aware of the Prisoner when the science fiction short story author Harlan Ellison did one of his weekly segments on the new sci-fi channel here in the States, he spoke so very glowingly of it that I knew I would have to seek it out and discovered that it was on the cable channel A&E. I watched the whole thing and then purchased the box set DVD's which I still have to this day. My favorite EP is one Ellison recommended himself "A.B.&.C", and a few years later when Ellison was a consultant on Babylon 5 the plotters at the end of the first season all do the "Be Seeing You" motion to each other to prove their loyalty. Simply a wonderful show and it has inspired much that I admire. Also, just watched the video haha, the actor Neal McDonough who played Lt Compton in band of brothers also has refused to do love scenes his whole career because of his religious beliefs but he's taken much more of the McGoohan approach to it and unlike cavezel you pretty much never here about it.
Portmeirion was not finished until 1975 , well after the “The Prisoner” was filmed, so the present layout of Portmeirion does not exactly match “The Village” of the tv series. Of course, the production team also took many liberties in regard to the structure of Portmeirion when shooting in the studio, that is the studio shots frequently did not match what is actually at Portmeirion. The house in which No. 6 was supposed to live is a prime example.
Reason why your video has blown up is because The Prisoner, is being featured in many people’s feed on Amazon Prime 2009 very was…disappointing…big let down.
I could talk about the prisoner all day and listen to someone else talking about it all day.
POP is mentioned in the episode "Once Upon a Time." Number 2, Leo McKern, seemed to hold it in some significance asking if it meant - Protect Other People - like it was a code name or an operational name.
“Protect Other People” in … oh i see someone’s already posted this. Man, Mitch- these are great! The Prisoner was a Summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers here in the States. I was familiar with his work on Scarecrow of Romney Marsh and first saw The Prisoner when I was 10 in 1967. Went to a PortmeriCon in 2003 and met Vincent Tinsley. When I arrived I met this guy Ian running cables for tannoys near No. 6’s place and volunteered to help. Ian had the run of the place and he took me up the bell tower. It was unbelievable.
The Prisoner was actually a summer replacement show for The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS.
My family and I watched it every Sunday night in the Summer of '68.
Watched 'The Prisoner' when it aired as a mid-season summer replacement series on CBS in the U.S., 1968. I was 5, and though many elements were far beyond my comprehension, it was a must-watch every week. Rover was terrifying. I never forgot about the series, and when the local PBS affiliate began airing the show in the late 1970s, once more it was must-see TV.
The Prisoner was a summer replacement show for The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS in 1968
Want to know why it’s blown up?
It’s on Amazon and being featured in some people’s suggestions.
There was the behind-the-scenes making of / lore The Prisoner (and later Danger Man) magazine series that had a DVD on the cover of the episode that particular issue was about. (One of an absolute glut of similar mags around 1999 or so). In it, it stated that POP was intended to be short for 'Protect Other People'.
Credit to you for having a video blow up the way your first did! It’s how I found your channel, so I’m glad you did a follow-up.
I used to be a small UA-camr and it’s always a great feeling when one of your videos takes off. Be seeing you! o7
I had the entire series on VHS years ago, including the alternate version of "Chimes of Big Ben." It was very strange watching that episode with the different music.
Hi Mitch, thanks for this fun video and sending me time traveling back to 1967 my good lady and self married in August 67 and we lived with Sue's parents. I inflicted the Prisoner show on my poor father-in-law that fall. He henceforth referred to any strange tv show as "one of those Bennett shows". We all moved to Canada in the seventies but Sue and I managed to finally get to Portmeirion in 2019 an absolutely fascinating place. So as I now watch my DVD's I can gloat and say I've walked the village :o)
As someone who hugely enjoys you talking about stuff I know just a little about, this is just a treat! And who would dare to guess Youtoob algorithms, even the dart players who assembled them have no idea, they were blindfolded (but, on the whole, very _very_ good…) - but I digress…
I always loved the way the Prisoner did not make sense throughout. To me, it seemed totally determined, McGoohan may have been a stuck-up Catholic but I thunk he also was trying to break molds and making some things contradict each other seems to me something that may have been totally on purpose. A bit like Gene Wilder as Wonka, losing his stick and falling - and then jumping up: unsettle everyone and make them doubt everything?
Well, whichever way… Bless YT for giving you the chance to live out L’esprit d’escalier here, and bringing me joy! Thank you!
I thought the Village was like an Esher drawing when it came to walking around it or in a taxi or ambulance and that the Village that Number 6 wakes up in each day may not be the Village he went to sleep in.
.
I think that the episode of the General was meant to be shown before A,B & C because Colin Gordon in the General says he's the new Number 2 while in A,B & C he says "I am Number Two"
Now where did I leave my Deck Shoes and Anorak.
patrick says in interviews the penny farthing is a symbol for progress moving too fast and that he thinks progressing too fast will destroy the earth like via nuclear falloutttttt, that’s the alt end credit explained
Right.
I was thinking, "Pop! goes the earth!" Nuclear Armageddon is a clear explanation.
The final episode was even partly set inside a nuclear missile silo, so we know this was an issue weighing heavily on McGoohan, etc.'s mind.
Great video, Mitch. Thank you . “The Prisoner” never ceases to intrigue me. A couple of points spring to mind.
Firstly, No 6 (or at least his mind) also leaves the Village to track down Professor Seltzman in the mind-transfer episode “Do not forsake me oh my darling” when No 6 is portrayed by that great actor Nigel (Dr Watson) Stock. I understand the purpose of the episode was to cover McGoohan’s unavailability when he was away filming “Ice Station Zebra”. McGoohan himself appears only very briefly in the episode and only then mainly in clips from other episodes that are supposed to be flashbacks. I’ve always thought that No 6 was a very brave man to drive all the way to Austria in a Lotus 7 whatever body he was inhabiting!
I also understand that McGoohan himself vehemently denied that “The Prisoner” was in any way related to John Drake/ Danger Man/ Secret Agent as he didn’t want to land up in copyright problems.
I've gotta figure that "Many Happy Returns" has to be after other episodes, especially "Free For All," as there are mentions of elections and the town council, but then maybe not. That's the fun of it all.
h, and if you are a fan and can get to Portmerion, GO.. I got hooked on the show at the age of (yes) 6 in 1968, when it was on CBS, and only last year (2023) made my way to Portmerion, at the insistence of my son. I was so much fun to walk around and just visualize various scenes from the show. The following night, my son and I had made our way to Oxford and watched Arrival in the hotel room. What a blast.
Haha I'm currently 5 miles up the road having been to Portmeirion today for the second day in a row after not having been since the age of about 7/8 1978ish 😄
...aand here I am to watch your second Prisoner video. Great stuff. It's actually really nice to have this much-debated, beloved production pop into my middle age and feel fresh, like a brand new show. Although I'm only on episode 4, my unshakeable belief is that they decided to make it as surreal and wacky as possible, refuse to explain or resolve it, and let the fans (and the passage of time) confirm it as a work of inscrutable, interminable genius. When in reality, it's just batshit crazy. And that's a genuinely genius move in itself.
Many thanks Mitch - enjoyed the first video, and this one too, and great to be reminded of what has always been one of my favourite TV shows.
POP: Protect Other People. This is brought out in 'Once Upon a Time'. In the series there are times when No. 6 acts to protect an innocent person.
I just saw that episode tonight... in the chaotic scene with mind control, he keeps saying "POP!" "POP" "POP" as answers.
Maybe there were multiple 'villages' around the world but identical brick for brick. One scene I thought would be Number 6 about to make a unique mark on a wall for identification, but someone had beat him to it. Or did they? Enjoyed your passionate rant :-) Be seeing you @
I wasn't allowed to watch 'The Prisoner' in 1967 - I was four, and my parents decided that it was a bit too weird. I was allowed, however, to watch 'The Avengers' (which I loved, and had the Corgi car set for), which as any fan will know, was not weird in any way, shape or form...
I did, however, watch, and was utterly thrilled by, 'The Prisoner' when it was repeated by Channel 4, in 1983, when I was 20, which is the perfect age to 'get' the show. When I left my first job, in 1987, to move away to another job, part of the leaving present given to me by the staff, was a large, and expensive, book about the show. That the staff knew how much I loved the show, pleased me greatly. I recently acquired the action figures, and they are superb. Yes, also, I did open them. 😆😆😆
More good points.
Be seeing you.
A lot of the Prisoner Village sets were recycled from MGM Borehamwood. They were mainly from the Donald Pleasence/David Niven/Sharon Tate/Deborah Kerr folk horror Eye of the Devil, then used in the Dirty Dozen, and the church is also in Casino Royale 67 (again, a film a lot of people compare to the Prisoner, and hey they use the same sets plus some cast IIRC). Also, I think they're also in Inspector Clouseau (1968). The irony is, if we like some nuts, include Ice Station Zebra cos McGoohan playsa mysterious British spy, that was shot in MGM CULVER CITY, which Borehamwood was effectively an annexe to, down to some fairly similar looking backlot sets (I believe when they did the Miniver Story in 1950 at Borehamwood, they had to reproduce sets from Culver City to add some continuity from Mrs Miniver). And that uses the MGM Culver 'Dutch village' to play somewhere like Dunoon or Sandbank, and it looks surprisingly convincing. But in my head, that's like an honorary Borehamwood film.
I'm generally inclined to believe that Number 6 was John Drake, and not confirmed as such for legal (royalty payment) reasons.
I keep meaning to watch all of Danger Man then The Prisoner to see if there's some sense of continuation.
Nice thank you! 👍🙏
In 'The General' Number 2 says 'Number 6 and I are old friends' - implying that 'A,B,and C' is the prior episode?
Excellent video!! Be seeing you! 😅👌🏼
EP 18 Nobdy's fool with patrick troughton number 2
Any revamp would pointedly end with de-pop...
POP. = Protect Other People? (Once Upon a Time.)
Interesting!
Interesting that you mention both Patrick and Jim's as devout christians who refussed to do intamcy scenes, Neal McDonach (DC's Legends...) got prertty much black listed for the same, and I think Kevin Sorbo suffered some backlash too.. so it's not that uncommon...
Did the song/nursery rhyme ''Pop Goes The Weasel'' not show up in at least one episode? As soon as you mentioned it that was what sprang to mind. It's been a while since I saw the series so I may be mistaken.
Indeed that tune does appear in at least three episodes. As I recall It starts a bit heavy on the big drum then becomes mainly the piano & flute for the second half.
My recall was it was used when Number 6 first played chess with the Admiral in Arrival. And twice in Chimes of Big Ben and lastly once in Checkmate.
But my memory of the episodes may be incorrect.
Yes- the incidental music has a disjointed version of it.
@@gregnikoloff5488 and in "once upon a time" - see the comment above about Protect Other People (POP)
Apparently, after the end of "Season One" McGoohan was exhausted, so he was pretty burnt out for the "second" season...
Person of Interest is a good show with Jim C but you start realizing he’s upsetting the cast and crew as they start to film stuff without him and even have to change the dog as he was mistreating the first dog.
So could I
I wonder why
Wasn’t McGoohan also anti-firearms?
I believe that he was, which was also played upon in the episode "Living in Harmony."
I first became aware of the Prisoner when the science fiction short story author Harlan Ellison did one of his weekly segments on the new sci-fi channel here in the States, he spoke so very glowingly of it that I knew I would have to seek it out and discovered that it was on the cable channel A&E. I watched the whole thing and then purchased the box set DVD's which I still have to this day. My favorite EP is one Ellison recommended himself "A.B.&.C", and a few years later when Ellison was a consultant on Babylon 5 the plotters at the end of the first season all do the "Be Seeing You" motion to each other to prove their loyalty. Simply a wonderful show and it has inspired much that I admire. Also, just watched the video haha, the actor Neal McDonough who played Lt Compton in band of brothers also has refused to do love scenes his whole career because of his religious beliefs but he's taken much more of the McGoohan approach to it and unlike cavezel you pretty much never here about it.
You know I still don't think ive seen every episode 😬
1969 -1970 2 meetings
1982 -1979
Wrong 1984
I visited Port Merrion, and have to say i was underwhelmed, as thanks to editing and camera work, the viiage isn't really like The Village....
Portmeirion was not finished until 1975 , well after the “The Prisoner” was filmed, so the present layout of Portmeirion does not exactly match “The Village” of the tv series. Of course, the production team also took many liberties in regard to the structure of Portmeirion when shooting in the studio, that is the studio shots frequently did not
match what is actually at Portmeirion. The house in which No. 6 was supposed to live is a prime example.
Know as shout
Prisoner or Prophet?
Wrong Grender Shore and beach
Wrong Lude Grade and Lord Run Shore com obe Orber Ent
Reason why your video has blown up is because The Prisoner,
is being featured in many people’s feed on Amazon Prime
2009 very was…disappointing…big let down.