Showing posts with label damon's private hell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label damon's private hell. Show all posts
Monday, August 06, 2007
No emotion
How? Just how the fuck am I supposed to reflect and broadcast my 'current mood' when there is no drop-down box or list to choose from on this blog? Am I supposed to fucking well use words or something? Well how old fucking fashioned and fucking useless. Not even so much as a fucking 'status line'. I'm fucking off to Facebook.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
nostalgic tv blast
The Oddball Couple. Fleabag
robotic stooges
Baggy Pants and the Nitwits
haleys' comets
Oh no! I'm experiencing rapid cycling of old remembered TV shows this morning. Lisa, if you're reading this, you want to thank your lucky starts you won't have to listen to me today wittering on about ...
Baggy Pants and the Nitwits -- Do you remember this? I think it was on air in the UK around 1978 or 1979. It was two cartoons shove together in one double bill. Baggy Pants was a Chaplin-esque cat who waddled around a lot and did silent movie type prat falls with his blank unfathomable little cat face. The Nitwits starred Tyrone, a retired superhero who solved mysteries with the help of his walking cane, Elmo, and his handbag-wielding wife Gladys. From the web it looks like this was a derivative too, maybe from the Laugh In. A half hour cartoon. The Nitwits was the main show for me, very funny, quite dry for a toon aimed at kids if I recall.
The Robotic Stooges -- bizarre cartoon version of The Three Stooges: Larry, Curly and Mo. They had extendable robotic limbs like Inspector Gadget. Huh? The link here will take you through to a show that aired in America called The Skatebirds - for, apparently, it is from this Banana Splits-like mid 70s show that the toon came from before it was spun out on its own. Why did this cartoon ever come into being?
The Oddball Couple -- Again, doubtless based on classic sitcom The Odd Couple, this starred a cat and a dog in business together - or did they live together, I forget. The cat, Spiffy, was suited and booted whereas the dog, Fleabag, was a bit of a scruff. Oh just think of those cat and dog / class war antics? Sing with me: "Oh the oddball couple are a couple of a couple of oddballs - eggballs"
Other stuff? Do you remember a weekly show on BBC1 for kids called Going Places? It urged people to write in for fact sheets about stuff going on around the UK that kids should go out and do. Could it have been presented by Su Ingle and Peter Pervis? Or was Su Ingle only on Wildtrack with Tony Soper? The following link is to a page on TV Cream featuring Going Places and Wildtrack - though here they call it We're Going Places which I think might be wrong. But what do I know.
Brilliantly on the above page I came across the quote: "DIFFERENCE OF OPINION HERE, GEOFF". Can you remember where you heard that? Answer at the bottom of this blog ... but you'll need to turn the screen upside down to read it. Geoffrey Wheeler, not just a quiz show voiceover, but also the man who urged us to get our Come and Praise hymn books out while listening to 'A service for schools' on Radio 4 on a Thursday morning. I learnt from that show about how the Soviets persecuted Christians and people hid their bibles and everything! Sing: "jet planes meeting in the air to be refueled are the things I know so well". Wheeler was also on Songs of Praise later - funny how he had time to fit in a show based on gambling around his christian commitments. Dig my biting topical satire 30 years on? I'm really getting up to speed at 36. STOP PRESS, this website reveals that he invented Winner Takes All too. Oh I've given away the answer. I love that there is a Wikipedia page about it. Most depressed to see that the talentless Bobby Davro did a version of the quiz for Challenge TV in 1997.
Aww, it's going round in my head now: "Autumn days when the grass is jewelled and the silk inside a chestnut shell"
Rapid cycling. Mark Curry was in Bugsy Malone. He played the producer ... and the ginger haired girl who pushed Blousie out of the way to do an outrageous audition was Bonnie Langford!
Finally this morning. I discovered in my web wanderings today that The Beatles had an animated series from 1965 to 1969 in the US. I'm sure it must have been shown in the UK? I've never seen it - though obviously have seen Yellow Submarine and it's ridiculous swirly colourful trumpet-nosedness. And, in another name blast from the past, I discover that Lance Percival did the voices for Paul and Ringo. I vaguely remember his flopppy blonde hair? Have I got the right guy? From panel shows in the 70s? I dunno, maybe from that afternoon gameshow The Cartoonists that had Bill Tidy, Willie Rushton and others being funny. Rapid rapid cycling. Lance: could be a twin of Tony Hart?
Question: who else had a little crush on Tiger from The Double Deckers? And what film do I remember The Double Deckers crossing over into?
Gotta go now. Is anyone on my wavelength?
robotic stooges
Baggy Pants and the Nitwits
haleys' comets
Oh no! I'm experiencing rapid cycling of old remembered TV shows this morning. Lisa, if you're reading this, you want to thank your lucky starts you won't have to listen to me today wittering on about ...
Baggy Pants and the Nitwits -- Do you remember this? I think it was on air in the UK around 1978 or 1979. It was two cartoons shove together in one double bill. Baggy Pants was a Chaplin-esque cat who waddled around a lot and did silent movie type prat falls with his blank unfathomable little cat face. The Nitwits starred Tyrone, a retired superhero who solved mysteries with the help of his walking cane, Elmo, and his handbag-wielding wife Gladys. From the web it looks like this was a derivative too, maybe from the Laugh In. A half hour cartoon. The Nitwits was the main show for me, very funny, quite dry for a toon aimed at kids if I recall.
The Robotic Stooges -- bizarre cartoon version of The Three Stooges: Larry, Curly and Mo. They had extendable robotic limbs like Inspector Gadget. Huh? The link here will take you through to a show that aired in America called The Skatebirds - for, apparently, it is from this Banana Splits-like mid 70s show that the toon came from before it was spun out on its own. Why did this cartoon ever come into being?
The Oddball Couple -- Again, doubtless based on classic sitcom The Odd Couple, this starred a cat and a dog in business together - or did they live together, I forget. The cat, Spiffy, was suited and booted whereas the dog, Fleabag, was a bit of a scruff. Oh just think of those cat and dog / class war antics? Sing with me: "Oh the oddball couple are a couple of a couple of oddballs - eggballs"
Other stuff? Do you remember a weekly show on BBC1 for kids called Going Places? It urged people to write in for fact sheets about stuff going on around the UK that kids should go out and do. Could it have been presented by Su Ingle and Peter Pervis? Or was Su Ingle only on Wildtrack with Tony Soper? The following link is to a page on TV Cream featuring Going Places and Wildtrack - though here they call it We're Going Places which I think might be wrong. But what do I know.
Brilliantly on the above page I came across the quote: "DIFFERENCE OF OPINION HERE, GEOFF". Can you remember where you heard that? Answer at the bottom of this blog ... but you'll need to turn the screen upside down to read it. Geoffrey Wheeler, not just a quiz show voiceover, but also the man who urged us to get our Come and Praise hymn books out while listening to 'A service for schools' on Radio 4 on a Thursday morning. I learnt from that show about how the Soviets persecuted Christians and people hid their bibles and everything! Sing: "jet planes meeting in the air to be refueled are the things I know so well". Wheeler was also on Songs of Praise later - funny how he had time to fit in a show based on gambling around his christian commitments. Dig my biting topical satire 30 years on? I'm really getting up to speed at 36. STOP PRESS, this website reveals that he invented Winner Takes All too. Oh I've given away the answer. I love that there is a Wikipedia page about it. Most depressed to see that the talentless Bobby Davro did a version of the quiz for Challenge TV in 1997.
Aww, it's going round in my head now: "Autumn days when the grass is jewelled and the silk inside a chestnut shell"
Rapid cycling. Mark Curry was in Bugsy Malone. He played the producer ... and the ginger haired girl who pushed Blousie out of the way to do an outrageous audition was Bonnie Langford!
Finally this morning. I discovered in my web wanderings today that The Beatles had an animated series from 1965 to 1969 in the US. I'm sure it must have been shown in the UK? I've never seen it - though obviously have seen Yellow Submarine and it's ridiculous swirly colourful trumpet-nosedness. And, in another name blast from the past, I discover that Lance Percival did the voices for Paul and Ringo. I vaguely remember his flopppy blonde hair? Have I got the right guy? From panel shows in the 70s? I dunno, maybe from that afternoon gameshow The Cartoonists that had Bill Tidy, Willie Rushton and others being funny. Rapid rapid cycling. Lance: could be a twin of Tony Hart?
Question: who else had a little crush on Tiger from The Double Deckers? And what film do I remember The Double Deckers crossing over into?
Gotta go now. Is anyone on my wavelength?
When was stuff invented?
I have this idea that absailing was invented somewhere around 1979. And I'm sure this is because Blue Peter did an item about it. There seemed to be a proliferation of absailing items on TV at the time as producers thought it'd be visually interesting to get their presenters to slide down a geared rope thing.
I wonder if it existed before then? That was when it hit my radar / landscape.
Anyhoo, the point is that because I learnt about it in 1979, in my head it was new, that's when I date it back to - even if the Romans were absailing off their big white buildings.
Equally I date the invention of the word 'shit' to about 1977 - the first time I heard it in the playground and went home and said it to my mum. How was I to know? I was surprised my Mum was angry because as far as I knew, it was just some cool new thing the older boys said. How did she know what the kids at Iwade County Primary School were inventing?
Went to see Grease, the musical, at the cinema in 1978 when it came out. It was a birthday treat. My sister and I were obsessed with the songs afterwards and Mum and Dad got the cassette and we played it in the car all the time.
Shocked was I when I listened a little closer to the track Greased Lightning and heard John Travolta sing, "You know that it ain't shit when you're getting lots of tit".
"Mum," I shouted through from the back seat, "Do you think John Travolta knows that's a swear word?" The sexual bit re: 'tit' bypassed me for a few years more.
How had I not come across that word until 1977? It's like the fug of childhood and brain development cushioned me. I'm sure they didn't say words like that on TV around that time - no not even the Sex Pistols. Well they certainly didn't on Jackanory anyway, I can tell you that.
I wonder if my Nephew Cameron knows the word yet at 7. I wonder if my sister will be angry if I ask him. "Hello Uncle Damon, are you still weird today? Are you going to start talking about polar bears again?"
"Cameron. Just wondering. What does S H I T spell?"
Am I sounding like Dennis Norden? Trust me, in 2025 I'll be hosting a new version of Looks Familiar on daytime ITV - if TV exists then. TV, I'm sure, will be de-invented soon.
I wonder if it existed before then? That was when it hit my radar / landscape.
Anyhoo, the point is that because I learnt about it in 1979, in my head it was new, that's when I date it back to - even if the Romans were absailing off their big white buildings.
Equally I date the invention of the word 'shit' to about 1977 - the first time I heard it in the playground and went home and said it to my mum. How was I to know? I was surprised my Mum was angry because as far as I knew, it was just some cool new thing the older boys said. How did she know what the kids at Iwade County Primary School were inventing?
Went to see Grease, the musical, at the cinema in 1978 when it came out. It was a birthday treat. My sister and I were obsessed with the songs afterwards and Mum and Dad got the cassette and we played it in the car all the time.
Shocked was I when I listened a little closer to the track Greased Lightning and heard John Travolta sing, "You know that it ain't shit when you're getting lots of tit".
"Mum," I shouted through from the back seat, "Do you think John Travolta knows that's a swear word?" The sexual bit re: 'tit' bypassed me for a few years more.
How had I not come across that word until 1977? It's like the fug of childhood and brain development cushioned me. I'm sure they didn't say words like that on TV around that time - no not even the Sex Pistols. Well they certainly didn't on Jackanory anyway, I can tell you that.
I wonder if my Nephew Cameron knows the word yet at 7. I wonder if my sister will be angry if I ask him. "Hello Uncle Damon, are you still weird today? Are you going to start talking about polar bears again?"
"Cameron. Just wondering. What does S H I T spell?"
Am I sounding like Dennis Norden? Trust me, in 2025 I'll be hosting a new version of Looks Familiar on daytime ITV - if TV exists then. TV, I'm sure, will be de-invented soon.
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