at the time, he was able to clear the streets while families gathered together to listen to the eagerly awaited episodes. His character changed slightly over the series, but even in the earliest episodes the key facets of "the lad himself" were evident. "Sunday Afternoon at Home" and "The Wild Man of the Woods" were top-rating shows and were later released on an LP record. As an actor with considerable experience in films, Sidney James became more important to the show when the television version began. The regular cast was reduced to just the two men, allowing the humour to come from the interaction between them. James's character was the realist of the two, puncturing Hancock's pretensions. His character would often be dishonest and exploit Hancock's apparent gullibility during the radio series, but in the television version there appeared to be a more genuine friendship between them. Hancock's highly-strung personality made the demands of live broadcasts a constant worry, with the result that, starting from the autumn 1959 series, all episodes of the series were recorded before transmission. Up until then, every British television comedy show had been performed live, owing to the technical limitations of the time. He was also the first performer to receive a £1,000 fee for his performances in a half-hour show. Hancock became anxious that his work with James was turning them into a double act, and he told close associates in late 1959, just after the fifth television series had finished being recorded, that he would end his professional association with Sid James after a final series. Hancock left others to tell James. His last BBC series in 1961, retitled simply Hancock, was without James. Two episodes are among his best-remembered: "The Blood Donor", in which he goes to a clinic to give blood, contains some famous lines, including "I don't mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint! That's very nearly an armful!"; in "The Radio Ham", Hancock plays an amateur radio enthusiast who receives a mayday call from a yachtsman in distress, but his incompetence prevents him from taking his position. Both of these programmes were re-recorded a few months later for a commercial 1961 LP, produced in the same manner as the radio episodes. Returning home with his wife from recording "The Bowmans", an episode based around a parody of The Archers, Hancock was involved in a car accident and was