
Frank and Nuke prepare for a gunfight with The Riviera Kid in The Last Chance Saloon
Frank and Nuke were patrons of the Last Chance Saloon.
Appearance[]
When Kryten hallucinated a western town called Existence, populated by frontier settlers and with himself as their sheriff, he frequently visited the Last Chance Saloon. The patrons of the saloon treated him with contempt for being a drunkard. One of those men was Jimmy, who taunted the sheriff and tried to induce him to draw his guns. Kryten backed down, earning him greater scorn.
When Lister, Rimmer and The Cat projected themselves into Kryten's dreamscape, they found themselves defending Kryten from another of Jimmy's taunts. After Jimmy had been humiliated by Lister, he called for two of his cronies to shoot Lister dead. Those two were Frank and Nuke.
Frank and Nuke were rough-looking cowboys with six-shooters. As they stood up, the other patrons either stood aside or ducked down out of the line of fire. The Cat stepped forward and introduced himself as The Riviera Kid. Jimmy was not intimidated and told him to show his shooting skills. Frank and Nuke drew their weapons and fired at The Cat, who drew his own pair of revolvers and fired back. There were two mid-air flashes and the bullets fell to the floor - The Cat had shot their bullets out of the air.
Frank and Nuke then joined other patrons in attacking the Dwarfers, but they were repelled by the bare-fist fighting skills of Rimmer's character, Dangerous Dan McGrew. ("Gunmen of the Apocalypse", Series VI)
Behind the scenes[]
Nuke was played by stuntman Gerard Hocks while Frank was played by an unknown stunt player.
In the book, The Making of Red Dwarf, Danny John-Jules stated that the two actors playing Frank and Nuke were very quick on the draw. He added that if it had been a real gunfight, he would have got shot in the head. As it was, he was peppered by the blanks from across the room.
There was another scene written for the show that had Lister use soapy water and his throwing knives to shave off Nuke's beard and cut his hair. The script for this scene, that was cut from the final draft, can be found in The Making Of Red Dwarf.