A long-lost sketch featuring the late comedy legend Marty Feldman has been rediscovered by film preservationists, bringing visual life to a comedic bit that had existed only through surviving audio for decades. The sketch, dated to a 1968 BBC television show, was believed to have been destroyed after its initial broadcast.
Feldman, best known for his role as the hunchback Igor in Mel Brooks' 1974 film "Young Frankenstein," appeared in the rediscovered segment as an ancient Egyptian tomb carving. The sketch, titled "Egyptian Carvings," was part of the BBC series "Marty," starring Feldman himself and written by John Junkin, who also appears in the footage.
![Marty Feldman and John Junkin as 4,000-year-old carvings in the comedy sketch "Egyptian Statues."]( "Marty Feldman and John Junkin as 4,000-year-old carvings in the comedy sketch "Egyptian Statues." ")
In the rediscovered sketch, Feldman and Junkin, also depicted as hieroglyphic carvings, engage in a dialogue complaining about their millennia-long predicament of being forced to stare at each other. They comment on each other's attire and their inability to look away.
"It's a bit effeminate, isn't it, I mean, for a priest?" Feldman's carving asks Junkin's. "Well, I can't help it, I was carved like it, wasn't I?" Junkin replies.
The sketch also features a gag about a carving of an Anubis-like hybrid standing behind Feldman's character. "For the last 4,000 years I've had a feeling that there's something behind me, but I can't look 'round to see," Feldman's carving says. Junkin's carving responds, "Hard to say, really, half a duck and half a human!"
The group responsible for the find, "Film is Fabulous!," located a copy of the sketch on an old 16mm film reel. The reel had been assembled by a former BBC film editor at an unspecified time after the sketch originally aired. This discovery occurred nearly 60 years after the segment's initial broadcast.
Historically, television networks often erased and reused videotapes to save costs before the widespread adoption of reruns, leading to the loss of numerous historical broadcasts. However, lost footage occasionally surfaces from various sources, including the belongings of former studio employees and private collections, with groups like "Film is Fabulous!" actively seeking to recover and preserve such material.
"Film is Fabulous!" announced the discovery on its Facebook page, confirming the sketch's origin from the first series, fourth episode of "Marty." The recovered footage is set to be available to the organization's Patreon subscribers this week, with a public release planned for October.
Marty Feldman died in 1982 at the age of 48 following a sudden heart attack.