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Meet Frank Spencer, an eager young man trying to find his way in the world. He's enthusiastic, well-meaning... and disaster-prone.
“Before MR. BEAN there was Frank Spencer... the original Master of Disaster.”
1973
Frank is newly married and is living with his mother-in-law who is frustrated by him constantly breaking things. His latest attempt to ""help"" involves losing the door to the coal shed. Betty buys him a new briefcase and Frank attends an interview for a sales rep of a wholesale ironmongers. Before he even enters the building he causes chaos by giving a frightening bug-eyed grin to an assistant setting up a window display, causing the assistant to fall over and destroy the display. Frank then gets stuck in the lift for several hours. Once released, the interview with the manager of the company proceeds with Spencer breaking an expensive bathroom thermometer by demonstrating his door-knocking technique and causing a heavy metal cupboard to collapse with him under it. His patience worn thin, the manager gets short-tempered and shouts at his staff and they resign in protest. Frank leaves, confident of the outcome of the interview, only to get stuck in the lift for a second time!
Frank and Betty have moved out of Betty's mother's house and are now staying with Betty's brother, George. George is a very futuristic designer who has filled his house with weird remote-control gadgetry. They are expecting an important visit from Mr Fletcher, the head of a large building firm, who is interested in a demonstration of the mechanical devices in the house, so Frank is on his best behaviour(!) Whilst trying to use the mechanical toilet, Frank accidentally breaks the flushing mechanism. As you'd imagine, his attempts to repair this soon lead to the toilet brush, a ballcock and his slippers becoming wedged in the pan. By now water from the leaking cistern is seeping through the house and finding its way down to the control room in the cellar, where as you'd guess electrical controls are! The others attempt to prevent Mr Fletcher noticing the various mounting problems, but Frank is already at work trying to repair things. His efforts cause a major short circuit of the house's
After being sacked from his job with the water board for getting stuck down a sewer!, Frank attends a public-relations course. On his first evening, Frank joins the other students in an automated canteen which dispenses food from a machine. Frank gets a plate of baked beans by mistake and attempts to stuff them back inside the machine, causing the machine to malfunction and cover everybody in food. Later, Frank bursts his hot-water bottle and accidentally manages to squirt the contents over an aggressively militant person on the course. The angry person retaliates by emptying the rest of the water over Frank's bed. However, he has got the wrong bed and a fight ensues! The following morning, the students are nursing their wounds as the first session begins. Frank is selected to take a part in a role-play exercise but starts an argument when he uses insulting phrases - picked up from the aggressive person the night before -against the course instructor. Convinced the instructor is a quac
Frank and Betty are going on a second honeymoon. Frank is in the station toilet and (as you'd expect) manages to miss the train. He ends up running for it and grabbing hold of the back of the train. After being dragged along the platform for several minutes, he is eventually pulled inside by an angry guard and returned to Betty. After arriving at their somewhat run-down guest-house, Frank manages to tear the flimsy bedroom lino whilst moving the bed. While trying to disguise this, he manages to destroy most of the contents of his room. He decides to swap his broken wardrobe, dirty bedspread and torn mat with those in the opposite room. The room is occupied by a somewhat effeminate psychic who is convinced the strange disappearance of the contents of his room are an attempt by his dead grandfather to contact him! After a long struggle, Frank and Betty are eventually ready to go to bed. However, the floorboards under the bed are rotten and the bed collapses. Luckily, Frank has given the
Betty is ill in hospital and Frank intends visiting her. He stops off at the greengrocer's to buy her some fruit. After much confusion with money, the shop assistant gives Frank the fruit free of charge in order to get rid of him, although he manages to cause an avalanche of oranges before he finally leaves the shop. Returning home, Frank finds the back door is stuck and has to climb in through the window. Magically, the back door finally opens and hits Frank's head, as he is crouching by the side of it! Frank then cooks his dinner - pudding. Even Frank gets this wrong and makes it explode, bringing down most of the kitchen shelves with it. At the hospital, Frank manages to spill some fruit squash on Betty's bedspread. He tries to swap this with another one in the same ward, but is mistaken by a doctor as the uncaring husband of another woman patient who has not been visited for many weeks. The doctor gives Frank a stern talking to and crossly tells him to take ""his"" wife home and care
Frank has once again lost his job as a fireman after continually missing the fire-engine. He is depressed about this and convinced that he is a failure so Betty suggests that he goes to see a psychiatrist. As part of the session with the psychiatrist, Frank relates how he first met Betty at a riding school where he had been tossed from his horse into a pond. Frank and Betty's first proper date didn't go too well either - Frank become trapped in the mechanism at a bowling alley before managing to tear the letter-box off his front door in an attempt to sneak Betty indoors without his aunt hearing. Betty's mother's first meeting with Frank was also unsuccessful, with her mistaking him for a repair-man for her cooker. After demolishing the cooker, Frank managed to fall down her stairs, taking the carpet and banisters with him. These unhappy stories make the psychiatrist convinced that Frank really is a failure and that he can't offer any help. His initial beliefs confirmed, Frank leaves th
When the new employment exchange manager Bradshaw insists that everyone can be helped, veteran Hooper gladly passes on the hopeless case of Frank Spencer. Both his serial disaster-record and 'qualification' (25 meter breaststroke, after 'attending' many schools, till age 11, no actual classes) support Hooper's point amply. Yet Frank acts indignant, and Bradshaw insists on trying - betting he'll keep a job for a week. The only way to win is to employ Frank himself, but this proves far more costly and dangerous for everyone and everything.
1973
Disaster-prone Frank manages to find a job as salesman for farm products, and with the job goes a car...and when they go for a picnic on a seaside cliff-top...
Today, Frank attends his RAF reunion & the hidden story of his short but eventful spell in the service unfolds in flashback - of how the massed forces of the RAF were mobilized to get him out!
Frank loses another job, this time he was working in the sewers. Betty encourages him to go back to work at the prison but he doesn't think they will take him back after he was fired for assisting a prison breakout. A search of the newspaper comes up with a Public Relations course that will lead to a high paying career. Frank goes away to attend the 5-day course. On the first night Frank accidentally starts a fight in the cafeteria. A leaking water bottle causes friction between Frank and one of his roommates which leads to a brawl among all of the roommates but Frank. While role playing in class Frank causes the instructor to blow his stack which causes the entire class to leave.
Betty reveals that she's pregnant. Frank goes off to a holiday camp for an interview as a ""bluecoat."" Frank runs through his act as a ventriloquist, using a dummy called Marvin the Monkey. Unfortunately, Marvin's head gets damaged, so Frank replaces it with a doll's head. The manager wants a singer, so Frank gives him an awful rendition of ""Early One Morning"". He finishes his act (and his chance of getting the job) by accidentally setting off a firewaorks display from the back of his coat.
When Frank goes to the Fathers' Clinic, his usual bad luck causes absolute mayhem!!
It's the moment that Frank has been waiting for as Betty gives birth to his daughter... but the usual bedlam remains...
1978
Frank is thrilled when his grandfather offers to pay for flying lessons so that he can help on his vast Australian sheep farm. He sees himself as a flying cowboy of the sheep ranges. Betty is not too happy about the idea, but she at least stays on the ground.
Frank is followed home by a stray dog. He talks Betty into letting him keep it. Mr Harris, from the insurance company, comes to assess the damage done to the Spencers' furniture during the move. He offers them 40 pounds for the lot.
Frank and Betty now belong to a local Scottish dancing group. One of them has to stay at home to babysit Jessica, so they take it in turns to attend. Mr. Quincy, the lodger from next door, is the organiser of the group. He is organising a display in honour of a visit by the local Liberal Party candidate, Mr. MacDougall. He wants Betty to appear, but doesn't have a place for Frank.
Frank, working on a demolition gang, nearly gets flattened by a falling chimney. A letter arrives from Frank's grandfather, saying that he's coming over from Australia. He wants Frank and Betty to move to Australia to help him to run his sheep farm.
Frank has a new job as a motorbike dispatch rider. He has to take a motorbike test. The examiner tells him to drive around the block and stop when he gets the signal. Frank takes a wrong turning and the examiner steps out in front of the wrong motorcycle. He ends up in hospital, while Frank rides around for hours looking for him.
Frank is takeing elocution lessons so that he'll be able to communicate with all of the ""upper crust types"" he thinks he'll meet when he starts taking flying lessons. Frank has to go to Australia House to discuss his emigration application. The emigration officer, Mr Lawrence, finally approves Frank's application in order to get rid of him. Frank has put a card in a shop window advertising his services as a gas fitter. He gets a phone call asking him to look at a gas boiler. He goes round and blows up the cutomer's house.
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Michael Crawford
Frank Spencer
Michele Dotrice
Betty Spencer
