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Showing posts from 2021

Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future

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I never thought I would be writing about this TV movie made by Channel 4 in the eighties. Not because it is actually lost (although you will read it is lost on the internet) but because I couldn't remember its name! I never saw it the first time round but had the book of the film. The book was simply called Max Headroom so I didn't know the real name of the film and it's taken until now for me to think of just the right thing to Google to find it. To steal a useful summary from a review of the book I had: Max Headroom was, arguably, the first forced meme before the existence of the internet. The wisecracking, glitchy proto-computer-generated talking head was saturation bombed on the public from 1985 to 1988 in a way that would guarantee subsequent apathy, mockery and derision -- meant to be a symbol of rebellion and edginess while at the same time made a mascot for the ultimate in normie shilldom, as an ad man for Coca-Cola. His guilt-by-association tie to a failed product,

How's Your Father: Help

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I have somehow neglected to write a blog post about any of the shows featuring the much-loved Harry Worth and so that omission must be remedied instanter. Worth started off his working life as a miner, but started performing while in the forces in World War 2. I'm slightly shocked writing this because this sounds so long ago, he was personally endorsed by Laurel and Hardy and yet was only two years older than my own father. His TV break came in the sixties and his confused and confusing character came to be well loved. There is literally nothing cruel in his humour at all, nothing unkind, and the joke is always on the situation. How's Your Father is Worth's last series in which he plays a bereaved father (bearing a strong resemblance to himself) who lives with his two children, played by Giles Watling and Debby Cumming. In this episode he takes on a 'daily', and the show is all about the difficulties of finding and hiring someone, complicated by the interference of

UFO: The Cat With Ten Lives

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I have avoided writing about this show before and I'm going to be upfront about the reasons to clear the air at the beginning of this post. One of the reasons is that I think it is entirely fair to say that this show is something of a hot mess, but I have been unsure how to say that and also make it clear that I think it is great. It has some really enthusiastic fans, but I think is somewhat neglected in the blogosphere for this same reason. A show commissioned in the wake of the relative failure of Joe 90, by a man famous for puppet shows for children, yet with real actors and intended for adults, is never going to be comfortable for the public. Add that it's set a bare ten years into the future and is therefore futuristic in the most blatantly seventies stylistic way possible, and it's not going to sit well with future generations. Thus far it's just a show which takes some effort to appreciate, but add in that it is definitely a hot mess and there's a whole layer

A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

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I bet nobody else in the cult TV blogosphere is blogging about this show by the wonderful  Mischief Theatre  behind  The Play That Goes Wrong  and who have Dame Diana Rigg starring with them. I have blogged about their  Goes Wrong Show  here before and series 2 of that show will be available on DVD shortly if it isn't already. The background to this Christmas Carol is this: Blacklisted by the BBC, the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society do not take their ban lying down and force themselves back on the BBC by hijacking a production of A Christmas Carol. With a little help from Sandra’s aunt, Dame Diana Rigg, the Cornley gang try to make the show work on television, but they soon realise they are completely out of their depth, with no idea how to direct a live studio or handle the special effects. Worse still, their internal rivalries are revealed on television, while an angry professional cast tries to get back into the studio.  Source And you know what, it's wonderful. They fight

Dr Who: Fury from the Deep Part 2

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I blogged about the first part of this adventure four months ago, although I rather got off the subject onto praising the Loose Cannon reconstructions, and you can see that post  here . Since I'm obviously going to keep returning to it at long spaces of time, I have given Fury from the Deep  its own label  to enable people to find the posts. Now watch me grind to a halt on this one! This Who adventure perfectly demonstrates a major motivation behind my writing this blog from the beginning: to make me delve deeper into what is going on in my favourite TV programmes so as not to watch them passively. This adventure is probably one of the most visually iconic of the early ones - the scene on the beach, the sea forts, the iconic appearance of Mr Oak and Mr Quill, and the famous first appearance of the sonic screwdriver. It made me reflect further on the way the doctor enters different worlds and situations, does his thing and leaves. I'm not going to beat about the bush about this

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle-Horn

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I am sure that readers are familiar with  The Goon Show , despite its being a radio show. There were several attempts to translate its humour to other media - TV in this case and a film called  Down Among the Z Men  spring to mind. There were a couple of TV series - I'm thinking of doing a series of posts on orphaned episodes, in which case A Show Called Fred will definitely appear.  This isn't strictly speaking TV, but for the sake of this post I am going to stretch the definition of TV to anything you sit and watch, and this was originally a supporting short for the cinema. It's also something I know will appeal to people who like cult TV so I think it can be allowed. Mukkinese Battle-Horn also to my mind feels like a TV programme, but that may be because of its short length. It also feels like a TV show because one of my heroes, the comic legend Dick Emery, replaces Harry Secombe in The Goons line-up. The plot is a parody mystery taken from the files of Scotland Yard. Yo

Sykes and a Following

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I have a few comedy shows I've been thinking of posting about and this episode of Sykes And A... is the first. Actually Eric Sykes is a fascinating person and if you want to know about his tragic and talented life you can't do much better than his obituary in  The Independent . His work can only be described as prolific and he frequently partnered, as here, with the legendary Hattie Jacques, who also led a fascinating  life . I am usually put off when a show is described as a sitcom, because I feel it prepares you to expect monotonous scripts, scenarios built on conflict between friends, and exactly the sort of ennui I watch TV to avoid. Sykes and a... is, however, a sitcom which is a dream and ran from 1960 to 1965. Its quality can be gauged by the writers who in addition to Sykes himself, include Johnny Speight, John Antrobus and Spike Milligan. According to Wikipedia its preservation status is patchy - I believe there have previously been commercial releases on VHS but if yo

The Tomorrow People: A Rift in Time

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Back to the Tomorrow People, for a trip to Roman times with Sigmund Freud. I was prompted to post on this episode by reading  The Gay Guide to the Tomorrow People  and while I don't usually really go for queer coding I just think it's fairly obvious in this adventure and of course there are many occasions in other part of the show which could be interpreted in a sexual way - very much in line with the dodgy underage sex which is said to have been so common in media at the time. I'm told that there are people who have a thing about slavery, and the gladiatorial setting gives the show an aura of a sword and sandals film with muscle-bound men and lots of physical stuff going on. Ahem. Even in the commentary the cast comment about dreaming about boys in chains! The seventies were just so strange. It is also notable that unless my eyes deceive me there is little or no reference to heterosexual relationships or sexuality. This really is a very gay adventure indeed! I'm not su

The Goodies: Invasion of the Moon Creatures

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I have had the box set of The Goodies for some time - it replaced the previous Network individual discs - and have been prompted by a comment on Instagram to crack it open. I have chosen this episode because it is totally barmy - there doesn't seem to be that much on the internet about it, so let's loud pedal it. The Goodies were incredibly popular when the show was broadcast in the seventies, and I see they achieved up to 15 million viewers. I like the humour a lot - it is more like, say, Monty Python, than the more cynical alternative comedy of the eighties, which I also like. I like that it feels very much like young intelligent people just coming up with jokes and making a TV show out of them! Of course the Goodies were university friends of the Pythons, and in fact parodied the show a number of times. However if it comes to a competition we would have to go for The Goodies because it has the ultimate Pythonesque accolade of having someone  die laughing while watching it.

(White Jaguar TV) Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense/Fox Mystery Theater: Black Carrion

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As you all know I have a policy that shows I think are absolute duds will not appear here, and for most of my first viewing of this show I was thinking that I would have to comment that Black Carrion wouldn't appear here if I wasn't going through the appearances of the famous white Jaguar. In fact I have noticed that opinions about it on the internet tend to be very divided. Don't get me wrong, the majority opinion is very clearly that Black Carrion is utter dross. However there is also a solid phalanx of people who really appreciate it. I think that may be because this show draws on the mythology and folklore of the possibly abandoned or cursed village where people don't go and if they do they don't come back. The village in this case is even believed not to exist, but there are many real life examples of this.  Dode in Kent  would be an example,  Kuldhara in India  would be another. Sometimes these villages, or their inhabitants, vanish completely, such as  this o

(White Jaguar TV) The Adventurer: Icons are Forever

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Another show I have rather avoided writing about here. I am going to be completely upfront with the reason, which is the rather superficial one that the actor Gene Barry plays the lead character, Gene Bradley. I have even had to check that three times while writing it, and I just find the similarity of those names very confusing. Barry was of course American, in true ITC fashion and Bradley is of course the archetypal ITC hero, millionaire, sophisticated, and all over the continent like a rash. And this episode has a very classic plot around inheritance and control related to marriage, which is very solid and a real contrast with the exotic Jason King. The Jaguar footage is used in a quite low key way to show the demise of an associate of Bradley's, who has already gone to the castle housing the titular icon. If you have the Network DVD box set there is a featurette on disc 4 called Icons Aren't Forever, which of course I had to watch in preparation for this post, in which Barr

(White Jaguar TV) Jason King: Toki

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It's been a while since I've watched a Jason King and I'm suffering from some culture shock, so perhaps I'd better start with a disclaimer that it's very unlikely this blog post will be very serious. Because, well, Jason King. When I started this blog I made a conscious decision to minimize pure description of shows, because it gets so wearing reading the same stuff all over the internet. However I am going to make an exception for this episode because how otherwise am I going to reference   Jason King's Groovy Pad ? Original ITC Synopsis (contains spoilers) Jason King falls in love with a gangster's girl friend - and finds that the arrows of love can lead to death. Olivier  (DAVID BUCK)  is a man with a mission. He wants to steal one million franc's worth of emeralds from Paris' Orly Airport. And he needs the help of gang leader Jean le Grand in order to carry out the raid. But le Grand  (KIERON MOORE)  knows that Olivier would very much like to ste

(White Jaguar TV) Department S: Who Plays the Dummy?

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Department S is one of my all-time favourite shows, simply because the plots are insane and the characters wild. It is as if they looked at every other show, dropped a few LSD and started writing what they saw. I have really noticed the difference coming from other ITC shows for these posts, and have also realised that the comparison of different shows is another thing we miss out on with the tendency to binge watch box sets. On the other hand this one has been so confusing. The moral is, if you have two or more cars written off during the course of a show, don't make two of them white. It makes it terribly confusing to Google five decades later. Even the internet movie car database, which is otherwise scarily precise, seems to have got confused. Anyway as far as I can tell the first white car to crash, which is driven by a dummy, is a first generation Chevrolet Corvair (don't tell me if it isn't!). I went to the trouble of finding out because I was interested by its transa

(White Jaguar TV) The Saint: The Queen's Ransom

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I'm afraid I have got out of sync with these posts and this one should chronologically come before the last, so we make a brief return to the sixties. I am delighted to find, on reading round for this post, that  Grant's  son, despite not being old enough to remember this the first time round and probably the only one in his friendship group to watch quality TV like this, has the discernment to recognise that if you get into a white Jaguar you are going to die. This is the sort of memory which becomes very special as you get older. I have no idea whether Mark 1 and Mark 2 Jaguars exist in the US but when you come across one in later life it brings back your childhood viewing with Dad. I see that this is the first time I have written about this TV series here. There is a very simple reason for this: The Saint was one of the series I watched and loved as a child, and while I have several box sets, I have rather avoided blogging about it to leave my fantasies intact. You see I wan

(White Jaguar TV) Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased): It's Supposed to be Thicker than Water

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We arrive at shows broadcast in the seventies and still using the white Jaguar footage (although this show was actually made in 1968). I am not even going to pretend to do a full discussion of this show but will purely focus on what interests me - simply because it has already had very full discussion on the internet, especially the page on the Randall and Hopkirk Deceased website linked below. I actually love this one, purely because I love the classic film set up where a family come together at an isolated house (with or without the reading of a will), all loathe each other and then the bodies start piling up. It was virtually impossible to get through this series without using that plot at some point! As always when I watch this show I have unresolved questions about Randall's work and finances. Most obviously how he manages to afford a flat decorated in up to the minute seventies decor, despite never having any money. This episode brings up another question and I honestly don&#

(White Jaguar TV) The Champions: The Final Countdown

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Very classic ITC territory here, Nazi war criminals intent on world domination, unexploded bombs and only The Champions standing between them and their ambition. At this point I realise that I really could do with watching all the way through the ITC series again, because I am completely certain that these themes are recurring ones, but couldn't particularly tell you which shows. From memory, I am certain there is another Champions where they deal with a Nazi who has been hiding out for twenty years and (somewhat incredibly) thinks the war is still going on, and there is a Department S with a Nazi theme. In true Department S style it is treated much more as a backdrop of Nazi memorabilia, and to be fair you have to be a bit theatrical in that show because otherwise Jason King might appear unreal. And we can't have that, can we. Actually I have also literally just realised the sheer number of shows at this time with Second World War themes. I was hoping to have a short, pithy re

(White Jaguar TV) The Baron: Time to Kill

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Caution: there is a possible plot spoiler in this post. It is below the line. Our second show where the white Jag gets it and our second episode of The Baron. This one may even have some tenuous connection to the antiques trade, because as you all know, a cameo brooch is heavily involved. I'm liking this Baron very much because it is very firmly out of the ITC stable and yet is a solid mystery. It is set in Spain, which gives it its ITC sophistication. For the main part it is also visually very ITC, however I think many props are used to set up the mystery in a way very characteristic of The Avengers. What I mean by this is the amount of 'antique' (reproduction in reality) furniture and other props. I would suggest that ITC usually would be more likely to go for a modern look. If you put this clobber in an episode of The Avengers, it would spell out that a great old English family has gorn to the dogs.  Here the old family set up is contrasted with the modem set up of the l

(White Jaguar TV) The Baron: Something for a Rainy Day

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I mooted several possible linked posts plans in my last post. As you can see I have gone for the idea of a series of posts on the episodes of shows featuring the famous ITC white Jaguar plummeting over the cliff. You can read more about the making of this  here  which is also the list I'm going by for my posts. I hope I can complete this, however I might have difficulty with the final appearance on the list, an episode of Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense. My first thought about the use of these Jaguars is that it was relatively economical to shoot this footage once and reuse it. I imagine nowadays it could be done virtually and I see new Jaguars cost between £30,000 and £65,000 so at current prices it would be very expensive! Nor were the cars new at the time: they used a mixture of Mark 1 (1955 to 1959) cars and Mark 2 (1959 to 1967) cars. You won't see them on the road here now -as far as I can see the numbers remaining of both models are down to the hundreds, not least b

The Professionals: Long Shot

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High time we had some Professionals again. I've picked this one for unusual reasons for me - apart from the interest of the episode itself I have taken an interest in the familiar guest actors. Perhaps I should just say that I have never claimed to be consistent! This was the second Professionals episode ever made, although originally shown late in the first series. It required some reshooting of parts with some different actors, and as a result you can find a number of difficulties documented on t'internet with things like continuity. The wonder for me is that despite it being filmed so early, the Professionals thing is pretty much established. The relationship between Bodie, Doyle, and Cowley is already what it would be for succeeding series. Their attitude towards the female agent is already set in stone.,. and so on. For a series to be up and running so early is quite something. No matter that there are plot holes (notably that we are let in too quickly on what's happen

The Avengers: Look - (Stop Me if You've Heard This One) but There Were These Two Fellers...

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I really don't think this Avengers is a favourite with the fans and I'm not going to beat about the bush, I can see why. It lurches too far into the realm of slapstick for most people, has a plot which can only be described as labyrinthine, and includes enough gimmicks for three normal episodes. I'm not going to try to redeem it but as is my wont, have a few opinions to pass. Right at the beginning when the secretary drives off the grey car she drives off in is a significant part of British motoring history. It is badged as a Morris 1100 with a 1965 registration and is part of the  ADO16  range produced by the British Motor Corporation and later British Leyland. These were the best selling cars in Britain for most of the 1960s and in the Fawlty Towers episode where Basil gives the car a damn good thrashing, it's an ADO16 he does it to. Bizarrely they were designed by Sir Alec Issigonis who came up with this clunky design despite also designing the permanently curvaceous