episode in 1960 Vera Lynn appeared in one episode in 1959 Surviving episodes Most of the show's episodes are missing, presumed lost. Six of the original black-and-white episodes are known to exist today; from the colour revival series of the early 1970s, only one is known to have survived. Only 7 episodes exist in the BBC TV archives, with 3 (out of the 6 remaining B&W episodes) having been rediscovered in December 2016. TBA Series 3 episode 5 (21 October 1958) Series 5 episode 4 (1 December 1959) Series 6 episode 4 (3 June 1960) Series 7 episode 1 (22 November 1960) Series 7 episode 5 (20 December 1960) Series 8 episode 2 (4 December 1971) Theme of School Corporal Punishment TV comedy historians have written that the central theme of Whack-O! and Bottoms Up! was corporal punishment and specifically the caning of boys’ backsides. This however was largely absent from the revived series in 1971, as by that time corporal punishment was becoming less acceptable in Britain and was eventually banned in state and many independent schools in 1986. Whack-O! tended to glorify a ritualised form of punishment that had been an accepted practice in British schools, but by modern standards the popular humourizing of corporal punishment is an anathema, and it may seem somewhat perverted in the way it was featured in the series. The comedy of the series was built around whether boys would be caught and punished for minor misdemeanours, and the size and effectiveness of canes and the building of caning devices. In one episode a device and long cane was made so six boys could be punished together. In another a device was made so the teacher carrying out the caning did not see the boy, and it turned out that all the backside seen to be caned were that of deputy headmaster Pettigrew (when played by Arthur Howard). A feature of Edwards carrying out punishment was the clear enjoyment he exhibited. Both Jimmy Edwards and Arthur Howard were gay men and Anthony Slide, a biographer of Edwards with "Wake Up at the Back There! It’s Jimmy Edwards (BearManor, 2018)", has written: "I know I’m a little perverse, but I cannot find it anything but fascinating and decidedly weird that two gay men were starring in a BBC series involving the use of a cane on the bottoms of young boys." Biographer of Jimmy