Dead Ernest
television series
Dead Ernest is a 1982 British supernatural sitcom set in heaven, starring Andrew Sachs in the role of Ernest Springer. It was broadcast on ITV and first aired on 15 February 1982, lasting only seven episodes. It was the first sitcom made by then newly formed Central Television.
Plot
Ernest Springer, a teacher, wins half a million pounds on the football pools, while celebrating in the stands he is killed by a blow between the eyes from a stray champagne bottle cork. He subsequently ascends to heaven. Although the authorities in heaven admit that his death was an administrative error (he had been scheduled to die in his bed in Lyme Regis in 2007), as his kidneys have already been donated to a bus conductor he cannot go back down to earth.
The public source identifies “Dead Ernest” as television series. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dead, Ernest and television.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5245176. The first chronological checks are 1982 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dead Ernest” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.