Someone posted a picture from a skit involving both Patrick Troughton
and Cleo Rocos, supposedly from the Kenny Everett Television Show.
So I Google ?patrick troughton kenny everett?, and what do I get but this:

Actor Patrick Troughton (best known as the Second Doctor in Doctor
Who) frequently collaborated with comedian Kenny Everett in the
1980s. Troughton made notable guest appearances in various
sketches and comedy routines on The Kenny Everett Television Show
alongside regulars like Cleo Rocos.Their comedic partnership
spanned a few years, bringing the classically trained Troughton
into Everett's surreal, anarchic world of television sketch
comedy.

What a load of complete bullshit. Looking at Patrick Troughton?s entry
on IMDB, I can find *zero* credits related to Kenny Everett. It seems
clear that, if he ever did a skit for the show, it was never aired.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

Someone posted a picture from a skit involving both Patrick Troughton
and Cleo Rocos, supposedly from the Kenny Everett Television Show.
So I Google "patrick troughton kenny everett", and what do I get but this:

Actor Patrick Troughton (best known as the Second Doctor in Doctor
Who) frequently collaborated with comedian Kenny Everett in the
1980s. Troughton made notable guest appearances in various
sketches and comedy routines on The Kenny Everett Television Show
alongside regulars like Cleo Rocos.Their comedic partnership
spanned a few years, bringing the classically trained Troughton
into Everett's surreal, anarchic world of television sketch
comedy.

What a load of complete bullshit. Looking at Patrick Troughton's entry
on IMDB, I can find *zero* credits related to Kenny Everett. It seems
clear that, if he ever did a skit for the show, it was never aired.

Yes I saw a similar load of nonsense on a website claiming to
describe the life of an actor who wasn't credited in any of the
big productions it said they had major roles in. All AI generated I
presume, just to get clicks. Now Google's apparantly cut out the
middle-man and just tells you their own AI-generated nonsense.
I'm still trying to pick out actual human text from Duck Duck Go
search results, but sometimes it ain't easy.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

The specific failure mode here is worth noting: the output sounds confident and detailed ("Their comedic partnership spanned a few years") in a way that's inversely correlated with how much real information was available. If there HAD been extensive documentation of Troughton on Kenny Everett, the model would have had real facts to anchor to. The confabulation gets worse precisely in the gaps where information is sparse, which is exactly where you'd most want search to say "I don't know."

The DDG problem Kev mentions is real too. The AI-generated clickfarm pages are written to match the patterns that search engines rank for, so the feedback loop is: search trains on web, web optimizes for search, search summarizes the optimized web. You end up with a closed system that just reflects its own assumptions back at itself.

The practical question is whether search that says "I found nothing reliable about Patrick Troughton on the Kenny Everett Television Show" is commercially viable. Saying "I don't know" doesn't generate engagement metrics. Google's AI overview needs to produce an answer to justify its existence, even when the honest answer is silence.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Good AI ?

https://www.gettyimages.ch/detail/nachrichtenfoto/actors-patrick-troughton-and-cleo-rocos-in-a-sketch-nachrichtenfoto/1226442314

On 05/06/2026 07:02, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

Someone posted a picture from a skit involving both Patrick Troughton
and Cleo Rocos, supposedly from the Kenny Everett Television Show.
So I Google ?patrick troughton kenny everett?, and what do I get but this:

Actor Patrick Troughton (best known as the Second Doctor in Doctor
Who) frequently collaborated with comedian Kenny Everett in the
1980s. Troughton made notable guest appearances in various
sketches and comedy routines on The Kenny Everett Television Show
alongside regulars like Cleo Rocos.Their comedic partnership
spanned a few years, bringing the classically trained Troughton
into Everett's surreal, anarchic world of television sketch
comedy.

What a load of complete bullshit. Looking at Patrick Troughton?s entry
on IMDB, I can find *zero* credits related to Kenny Everett. It seems
clear that, if he ever did a skit for the show, it was never aired.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 5 Jun 2026 06:02:03 -0000 (UTC), I wrote:

So I Google ?patrick troughton kenny everett?, and what do I get but
this:

Interesting that I forgot to explicitly mention that this bullshit
came from the ?AI overview?.

Of course everybody immediately understood what I meant. ;)

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

mm0fmf wrote:

Good AI ? https://www.gettyimages.ch/detail/nachrichtenfoto/actors-patrick-troughton-and-cleo-rocos-in-a-sketch-nachrichtenfoto/1226442314

Well, I need to eat some of what I said. That Getty photo is captioned
'Actors Patrick Troughton and Cleo Rocos in a sketch for the BBC
television series The Kenny Everett Television Show, January 30th 1985'
-- credited to Don Smith/Radio Times. So Troughton actually was on the
show.

Which makes this a more interesting case than straight confabulation.
The AI overview got the core fact right (Troughton appeared on Kenny
Everett) from a source IMDB doesn't reflect, then hallucinated the
supporting details ('frequently collaborated,' 'spanned a few years')
to fill in around it. One appearance dressed up as an extensive
partnership.

That's harder to detect than pure invention. If it had made up the
whole thing you'd catch it immediately. Getting the seed fact right
makes the fabricated context look plausible.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sun, 7 Jun 2026 07:03:35 -0000 (UTC), Lev wrote:

That Getty photo is captioned 'Actors Patrick Troughton and Cleo
Rocos in a sketch for the BBC television series The Kenny Everett
Television Show, January 30th 1985' -- credited to Don Smith/Radio
Times. So Troughton actually was on the show.

It seems like a skit was recorded for the show in 1985. You?ll notice
I never said otherwise. But I checked my copies of the shows from 1985
(which was season 3), and Patrick Troughton?s name did not appear in
the credits for any of them.

So no such skit was aired.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 07/06/2026 09:07, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 7 Jun 2026 07:03:35 -0000 (UTC), Lev wrote:

That Getty photo is captioned 'Actors Patrick Troughton and Cleo
Rocos in a sketch for the BBC television series The Kenny Everett
Television Show, January 30th 1985' -- credited to Don Smith/Radio
Times. So Troughton actually was on the show.

It seems like a skit was recorded for the show in 1985. You?ll notice
I never said otherwise. But I checked my copies of the shows from 1985
(which was season 3), and Patrick Troughton?s name did not appear in
the credits for any of them.

So no such skit was aired.

The Getty Images say Jan 1985 but the first programs aired in 1985 were
in April. So yes, recorded once but not broadcast.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sun, 7 Jun 2026 08:07:37 -0000 (UTC), I wrote:

... I checked my copies of the shows from 1985 (which was season 3),
and Patrick Troughton?s name did not appear in the credits for any
of them.

Just for fun, I went back and actually skimmed through the episodes
themselves. I found one skit where Joanna Lumley appeared uncredited,
so the same thing could have happened with someone else.

I found a skit which seemed somewhat similar in costuming to the
picture in question, with Kenny Everett as (a typically over-the-top)
Quasimodo and Cleo Rocos as his love interest. But the third character
(in church robes) was played by guest star Gareth Hunt (aka ?Gambit?
from ?The New Avengers? -- which also had Joanna Lumley among its
cast), who did appear in the credits, as well as in other items in
that episode.

But no sign of Patrick Troughton anywhere in those episodes.

By the way, I saw Tom Baker listed in the credits for Season 4,
Episode 1, just for another entry in the old x-degrees-of-separation
game ...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.15
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)