Talk:Jimmy O'Dea

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Jimmy O'Dea and RTE---Railway Junction Box

Some long time ago, maybe in the 70's, RTE (Irish Radio and Television) made a short (maybe black and white) series of 15-minute sketches with Jimmy O'Dea and David Kelly as two railway employees in an old-fashioned junction box (sorry, I don't remember the name of the series--Help, Please). The sketches were masterpieces of Dublin humour; Kelly always addressed O'Dea as "Mister O," and each sketch ended with the duo making tea!

RTE, to its credit, has brought out DVD's of Hall's Pictorial Weekly and Wanderly Wagon. However, Jimmy O'Dea's contribution to Irish comedy is part of Ireland's--in particular, Dublin's-- cultural heritage. He was idolized by the people of Dublin, and may well have been Ireland's greatest, or at least best-loved, 20th century comedian. If anyone can remember more about the series, or persuade RTE to bring out DVD's, they will be doing a great service to that cultural heritage.--PeadarMaguidhir 10:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(I'm sorry--I cannot figure out how to do an Edit Summary! If anyone would like to do so, I'll be most grateful.)--PeadarMaguidhir 10:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was called "O'Dea's Yer Man". The microphone for the two of them was in a loaf of bread on the table. Viewers actually noticed this and wrote to RTE wondering why O'Dea and Kelly never ate the bread! Unfortunately some of the recordings were erased/destroyed when RTE ran out of film. I believe they had to re-use what they already had. An Ard Rí (talk) 00:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The junction box series was made in the early 1960s. RTE started TV broadcasts at the end of 1961 and O'Dea died at the start of 1965. So the time window is quite short for this series. The high cost of magnetic tape was indeed why many early TV performances were overwritten during that era. jxm (talk) 06:45, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Close family

O'Dea married Ursula Doyle ... Jimmy O’Dea had one child - Christine O’Dea - who married Ursula Doyle’s brother Noel Doyle.

Did Jimmy's daughter Christine really marry her Uncle Noel? No citation is provided for this improbable claim. It was added, without references, on 20 September 2018 by an anonymous IP in Dublin. Further grandchildren details were added, also without references, to the Personal Life section by a one-off editor, Dannysstuff, in January and February 2021. O'Dea (talk) 20:18, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]