When in Rome. It's the emperor's birthday, and he's demanding presents and a party - but treachery is afoot, and he may soon get more than he bargained for. Naturally, the silver spoon is in his possession, and Sally, T-Bag, and T-Shirt all need to do whatever they can to gain his trust and get on his good side. This episode was originally broadcast on Tuesday, 10th January, 1989.

With the first episode always the set-up for the series, the second is where the quest proper can begin - and begin it does, in great style. In fact, I think that my very favourite moment from the entire history of T-Bag is in this episode: the "dish with the fish" and "bowl with the mole" skit. Now, who's heard of the film The Court Jester? Well, it stars Danny Kaye, and it's the origin of the "Get it?"/"Got it"/"Good" catchphrase that we often hear. Some people may wonder whether that's purely coincidental, as it's the sort of thing that could be thought up twice independently - but a quick look at this will leave you in no doubt that the writers were definitely fans:

   • The Pellet with the Poison's in the V...  

Obviously the aforementioned is unquestionably an affectionate parody of that scene, but is made all the more hilarious by T-Shirt properly losing it and Tallulah being briefly stunned into speechlessness. I was absolutely cracking up at it, anyway. (The thing which makes it all doubly funny for me on a secondary level is that it's a fundamentally flawed mnemonic whichever way you look at it, as the bits that need to be remembered together don't rhyme with each other anyway. But that's not important.)

James Saxon, who I'm sorry to say is no longer with us, makes the first of his four T-Bag guest appearances in this one as the Roman Emperor. James went on to complete the Pressman/Cathro big three by later landing roles in Mike and Angelo and Spatz. You may know him as Roland Rat's agent D'Arcy De Farcy, but James was also a regular in Brass and did proper Shakespeare and all that in his time, too. Leon Greene, meanwhile, was a natural choice for Marcus Nastius, having previously been Captain Miles Gloriosus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I love the fact that he speaks like a stereotypical British bobby 2000 years ahead of time.

Look out for the Children's ITV continuity clips at the beginning and end, presented by Mark Granger. Do you ever get the feeling someone's missing, though?

Many thanks to Grant for providing this recording.

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