During the Scottish referendum, the comedian Kevin Bridges did a stand up routine on TV which really ridiculed the disgraced entertainers Rolf Harris and Jimmy Savile.
Acknowledging in retrospect that both were creepy characters at the height of their fame, the Glaswegian comic wondered aloud about Savile: "Was everybody smoking crack back in the day?"
"F**kin' look at him! If I was to draw a paedo.. If someone was to say: 'Any chance you could draw a wee paedo there, Kev'- big paedo glasses, big paedo cigar there.. big paedo teeth.."
Lookin back on it, it's incredible how Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris and Gary Glitter were able to gaslight a nation, openly flaunting their creepiness while denying the real truth.
However it is the extent of Savile's crimes and his ability to mesmerise the Establishment that most appalls.
Rowan Deacon's two part Netflix miniseries 'Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story' is a chilling two part examination of the Yorkshireman's life and crimes.
Interviewing public figures who encountered him like Ian Hislop, Selena Scott and Andrew Neill and those who thought they knew him like the 'Jim'll Fix It producer Roger Ordish and his officiak biographer Alison Bellamy, it is a horrific cautionary tale about the risks of a nation buying too much into celebrity image.
It also uses hindsight and archive interviews to understand the mindset of an abuser who got away with his crimes and often gloated about his lifestyle.
Deacon's documentary charts Savile's rise as one of the pioneers of BBC Radio One and his expert harnessing of the power of television.
Its first episode shows Savile to be an extremely savvy manipulator of his TV image - standing out from the pack as a cheeky north of England chappy.
A natural broadcaster, unlike others he rarely wore a suit and dressed flamboyantly.
Savile also carefully constructed an image as a big hearted champion of good causes like Stoke Mandeville Hospital and Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Savile made great play of his eccentricity and altruism, boasting about working in his spare time as a hospital porter in Leeds Infirmary and running marathons to raise money for a range of deserving causes.
We now know that was all a smokescreen, that he sexually abused vulnerable patients - women, men, girls and boys from the ages of 5 to 75, including those who were paralysed and mentally handicapped.
He flaunted a public image of himself as a ladies man and continued to do so even when journalists tried and failed to nail evidence that he had a predilection for underage girls.
Raised in a Catholic family in Leeds, he also wasn't averse to talking publicly about his faith.
It is this which provides one of the most interesting insights in Deacon's documentary from the broadcaster and critic Mark Lawson.
Also raised a Catholic in Yorkshire, Lawson recalls seeing Savile flaunting his faith in his home city of Leeds.
He offers a compelling argument that all the work for good causes was an insurance policy by Saville against all his sexual misdeeds, that it was aimed at ensuring on the Day of Judgment his good deeds would dwarf his sins.
This is underlined in a clip from a youth show in which Savile talks about facing St Peter at the Pearly Gates and countering a list produced of all his sins.
Early on in Deacon's two part documentary, former BBC secretary Tina Davey notes how Savile was very intuitive at reading people and knew instinctively how to exploit his celebrity.
"He was a very, very clever man,"she recalls.
"He knew that fame brought power. His level of fame gave him every door open."
Her observation reverberates throughout the documentary.
The extent of Savile's influence in the upper echelons of British society was breathtaking.
It is revealed that Prince Charles regularly sought his counsel, with the broadcaster drafting remarks for him and the other Royals and providing public relations advice.
Even towards the end of her Premiership Margaret Thatcher lobbied for him to receive a knighthood, admiring his entrepreneurial approach to fundraising as opposed to demanding the state should splash cash at the causes he was highlighting.
During his visit to Britain, Pope John Paul II also conferred on him a Papal knighthood.
Alison Bellamy and Roger Ordish recall a "Friday Morning Club" which saw him entertaining senior officers in the West Yorkshire Police in his Leeds penthouse.
And on the back of his carefully co structed image an avuncular Santa Claus style public figure who could made kids dreams come true on the popular BBC1 Saturday night show 'Jim'll Fix It,' he was afforded the status of national treasure.
Adored in his home city, he was accorded something close to a state funeral in Leeds when he died.
Members of the public could pay tribute to him as his coffin was put on public display.
In his later years, he also enjoyed being feted as a cult figure, with appearances on 'Have I Got News For You,' the Ricky Gervais Show and in Peter Kay's star studded Comic Relief video of 'Show Me The Way to Amarillo'.
Deacon's documentary puts many of its more famous interviewees through the humiliation of watching footage of them indulging Savile's cheeky chappy persona.
Selena Scott, Ian Hislop, Andrew Neil and the reporter Martin Young, in particular, squirm as they watch Savile gaslight them in archive footage.
Neil admits the failure to expose Savile was a failure of journalism as well as a failure of a nation that was too easily seduced by the public image.
Investigative reporter Meirion Jones, who took his programme that exposed Savile to ITV after the BBC ordered his team to stop working on it, catalogues the failure of the Corporation to face up to an uncomfortable truth.
Dominic Carman, the son of the much feared QC Sir George Carman, has some telling anecdotes about his father's observations of Savile.
Forensic psychotherapist Carine Minne makes a telling observation about Savile's feeling of invincibility, his sick enjoyment of hiding in plain sight by hinting he was up to no good, while Michael James, former head of the National Paedophile Unit, tees up how Savile was able to avoid rigorous police scrutiny.
Stoke Mandeville Hospital medical secretary Sylvia Nicol just struggles to reconcile the picture that emerged of Savile after his death with the image of the tireless champion of good causes.
Ultimately, though, it is the interview with one of Savile's victims Sam Brown that hits home the hardest.
In graphic detail, she bravely recounts how he assaulted her 20 times in Stoke Mandeville Hospital between the age of 11 and 15.
She expresses the confusion, terror and self loathing that victims of predators like Savile often feel, admitting even as a 50 year old she still blames herself.
It is a terrifying glimpse into the misery Savile caused over 400 victims.
'Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story' is a stomach churning documentary even for those who are familiar with his crimes.
It is yet another wake up call in this era of TV celebrities and social influencers about the double life some public figures lead and why we should not be taken in.
Saville got away with duping a nation and committing sexual abuse on an industrial scale because he could.
It really is a horrific tale.
Here's hoping we have really learnt the lesson.
('Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story' was made available for streaming on Netflix on April 6, 2022)
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