https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/ en Thu, 25 Jun 2026 13:10:55 GMT vBulletin 60 images/misc/rss.png https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/ https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310113-rip-roger-cook-of-the-cook-report Tue, 16 Jun 2026 03:33:05 GMT
Cook was born in New Zealand in 1943 and in the UK he presented investiagtive journamism programmes for Radio 4 and also for Central Television, becoming one of the co-presenters of the Friday night, just-after-News-at-Ten series Central Weekend in 1986, where he also appeared on the show a couple of years after he ceased presenting, in a debate about cot deaths. A year later in July 1987 The Cook Report began which was almost a spin-off of the weekend show; it was pre-watershed lasted until as late as 1999, and Cook's experience of it was something that most people wouldn't even dream of. He presented as someone who, shall we say, had he have worked at London Zoo, he would have got into the lion's cage to feed the animals himself. He was so confrontational either delibately or incidently.

As a person who lived in inner-city Nottingham and went to school there in the 1980s and early 1990s, I was used to be bullied for being different, assaulted (punched in the face and stomach, and being kicked in the groin was the usual speciality, never mind the old sticks and stones situation), and God knows what, and I was also spat at in such a way that the late Roy Hattersley's Spitting Image puppet could never have done so. It seemed that the late Roger Cook had experienced identical if not the same reactions to an average inner-city person in the system who was being bullied at schoool during his stint working during his Cook Report programme. In an interview for a Sunday newspaper in the mid 1990s he had revealed that he had every bone in his body broken at least once, and that he was lucky that he had not ended up in a wheelchair or at least on crutches. On an edition of Have I Got News For You, the then permenant host Angus Deayton also made reference to Cook's assaults and the perceived "walked into a door" and so-called "swept under the carpet" accidents, and that Cook was "sick of being beated up". Deayton then suggested that he should have been replaced by Jeremy Beadle in his Beadle's About persona.

He was parodied, and even Benny Hill did a "Bentral Television" [sic] sketch for his show in the late 1980s just before his contract with Thames TV was terminated for being too sexist and misogynist. In 1993 Paul Merton did a series of Cook Report-alike parodies to advertise Imperial Leather soap. "For another ten quid we could have had Robert Hardy". Roger Cook is not to be confused with the British songwriter who is still with us in 2026 at the age of 85 and was born before the journalist was.

He had guts, that is what I can say about him. And he wasn't a wimp either.]]> Gone but not forgotten George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310113-rip-roger-cook-of-the-cook-report https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310105-rip-roy-hattersley Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:04:35 GMT
It made me think that most of the celebrities that Spitting Image portrayed in the 1980s as puppets have since passed away by now, being between 30 to over 40 years since they were first seen. Hattersley certainly put the spitting into Spitting Image for he showered his fellow party political colleagues every time he spoke on the show, and it's a wonder that his puppet didn't flood the House of Commons when he did so! They turned him from a politcian into a character. He was Member of Parliament for Birmingham Sparkbrook for nearly three decades. ]]> Gone but not forgotten George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310105-rip-roy-hattersley https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310006-anthony-head Sun, 07 Jun 2026 21:14:49 GMT RIP. He was best known for appearing in Maxwell House coffee ads, and for playing Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. :(
He was best known for appearing in Maxwell House coffee ads, and for playing Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ]]> Gone but not forgotten batman https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310006-anthony-head