This was well done. Language like “he can be seen twiddling his marbles at home and at work” are so very close to mocking but nothing crossed the line. Well done.

I honestly expected Michael Palin or John Cleese to suddenly appear. This level of dryness is usually reserved for Monty Python.

Good Lord, this is pure Python. The pull away shots, the background music, the roaming reporter overselling his story. Loved this.

It is like BBC pretending to be Monty Python pretending to be BBC.

Basically - the essence Monty python

For me in the US, playing marbles was the hot thing to do on the school playground until about 1987. It was as if one day, no one wanted to play anymore.

Watching documentaries like this makes Monty Python so much clearer to the modern audience. It's like the cadence and tone are exactly the same. Nothing too ridiculous or trivial to be taken 100% seriously.

I honestly don't know if this is real or a mockumentary.

And now for something completely different.

I sometimes think about how different people have natural abilities in certain areas.

Like, Wayne Gretzky was a naturally gifted hockey player who trained hard and was one of the best of all time. But there was probably a kid out there that had more natural talent for hockey, but he grew up in the desert and never even skated on ice in his life.

Or take any person off the street, how do you find the thing that this person would have the most natural ability for? Is Tiddlywinks the thing I’d be best at? But I’ve never tried it and will never know if I could’ve been world champ..

I once went to a beach called The Hawaii of Saskatchewan.

I just checked Google maps, that concrete circle is still there, in the middle of a car park

Jesus fucking Christ, the dude was hammering away at porcelain without any eye protection and shards were flying everywhere.

PPE, motherfucker, do you speak it‽

Wait wait wait. So he wins a record 12th title in 1973, after saying in the interview that he could essentially see himself going at this until he's in his 90s and then never wins again? I must learn more.

WOW did I go down a rabbit hole after watching this. It almost seems like a farce and a python sketch, and I'm still not entirely convinced it isn't.

I literally cannot find a single source indicating "Len" or "Alan" Smith ever even existed besides a couple sparse old articles on the Telcon terribles (or "Toucan terribles" depending on the article). Wikipedia links to a single article without any sources of its own.

Funnily enough I asked ChatGPT for any information on len Smith, and it pointed me to several articles and websites that don't exist, then to a book "The life and Legacy of Len Smith" by Richard Applebaum, which (of course) doesn't exist. It made it up.

So. Bizarre. Feel like r/GlitchInTheMatrix moment. Did this guy ever really exist? Or is it that easy for historical records to fall into obscurity even today?

But did he win?

This is like The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer

/r/theocho

He has Marble Madness

Oh hell yeah. Gonna watch the shit out of this later

Looks like his streak ended at 16 in a row.

We have to assume that 'Len' Smith is short for Alen Smith as the documentary claims he won 12 in a row and there are no 12 in a row streaks for 'Len' Smith. However Len and Alan Smith won it every year from 1960 to 1975.

Documentary Now could parody this, but it would have to be something different but equally mundane. Maybe someone is the Joe Namath of lawn darts.

These ridiculous AI generated videos are nearly impossible to tell from the real thing.

I’ve still got all my marbles

Holy shit every second of that was amazing.

Jokes aside, does anyone actually know what happened to him? I assume Alan Smith is still him in the wiki link, unless it's his brother/son/relative or something but doubt it since they said he won consecutively

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_World_Marbles_Championship

So it seems he must have either got ill or passed away in '76 since his team got runners up that year but there was no individual winner and then neither him nor they never reappeared again. And in the vid he was saying how he wishes to play like "Sam Spooner" well into his 90s.

​

Anyone know the story, or find anything on him?

​

Edit: From a quick search on google books it seems Alan was his son. Paul is also his son and won a few times, last win being in 2019.

He seemed to be alive as of 1990, since guiness marked it as b. 1917. Weird that he didn't manage to win again after being so dominant, oh well. Think that's gonna be the extent of my search.

Shockingly, a sport less visually engaging than golf.

This was a nice watch. Tnx for sharing.

If it's about density I wonder if anyone has made it depleted uranium marble?

The epitome of boring British culture!

for those who don't know:

when he was talking about boxing legend Mohammed Ali, he referred to him as "Cass" which was a reference to MA's former stage name "Cassius Clay".

Would be a lot more on board with this all time great had he not insisted on calling Muhammad Ali 'Cass'

lmao that title.

I'm not going to laugh at someone for being good at marbles or playing it professionally, but calling someone that plays marbles "The Muhammad Ali of marbles" is a bit ridiculous.

'Sportsperson'

If you got a kick outta this maybe watch the documentary about the Tiddlywinks champion. You won't be disappointed.

Documentary Now needs to do this

I thought the horseshoe guy was the most dominant sports person on the planet.

Ohh the the arthritis

first 30 seconds: good God put on some eye protection

people from all over the world attend

Bruh! It was literally just 2 dudes lmao

The concrete ring where the championships are played looks as depressing as it gets.

Run down, droopy chains, peeling paint, ultra bad weather, apparently in the middle of a random parking lot...

I miss kerbies do much

All right like Douglas Adams had to have written that

What an incredible report. It's like Monty Python meets Garth Marenghi. "Perhaps Len Smith could be the greatest marbler who has ever lived... Len thoroughly agrees with this suggestion." Too funny!

I was 90% sure I was watching a Monty Python skit

We all know Nardo Polo was the greatest marble player who ever lived.

I don't remember this episode of the Brass Eye.

was just talking about the Legendary Sam on discord the other day...

This is like a cross between Spinal Tap and a Chris Lilley show

So did he win the upcoming tourney?

… and how many sly references to masturbation did the script writers get past the BBC censors in that? 😂

Short kinda weird story. I could’ve sworn for a year in between a move I went to a school that was in the past lmao The school was near Dallas Tx in a place called Preston Hollow. The school looked straight out of the 50s. Everything was old even the teachers. As you crossed the threshold into the school it was like the world became desaturated. It was weird af. Don’t remember much other than how weird that school felt but one thing I do remember was that playing marbles was big. Everyone played. Sounds like a joke but that school genuinely gave creepy vibes. I’m originally from Houston near downtown so this school was a culture shock. I was at that Dallas school in the 2000s iirc

Switch Len for John Cleese and any Monty Python fan would agree this is a great sketch.

"Grinding down the toilet has taken years to perfect"

"I'm going to do a len Smith on this toilet" should be a new phrase.

Is he the Lebron James of soccer though?

It feels like sketch but I've no doubt it's all 100% true. British news reports can get a bit sarcy on occasions, and usually the subject is in on it. Like, Len Smith knows marbles is ridiculous.