Archive for the ‘1980′s tv’ Category:
John Craven’s Newsround
Good old John Craven. I’m not quite sure how he did it, but somehow he took the most boring programme on TV (the news) and turned it into something kids wanted to watch. Maybe it was his snazzy selection of jumpers, or perhaps his teacher like demeanour, or perhaps it was just because John Craven’s Newsround only lasted for about five minutes, so you didn’t have time to get bored?
John Craven’s Newsround first came on air in 1972, and from then until 1989 the legendary sweater wearer John Craven told kids what was going on in the world in a clear and straight forward way. It was never really dumbed down though, just told without a load of jargon, waffle and conjecture. John gave you the facts of the story, and it was up to you to decide what you thought about it.
Newsround, as it is now called since Craven left the series, is still airing today, and has gone through a succession of presenters including Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who now hosts Channel 4’s evening news and Juliet Morris, who went on to read BBC Breakfast News before going on to present a number of other shows. You can still see Mr. Craven on TV though, as he hosts the BBC countryside show Countryfile.
Of course, the stories chosen were usually ones that were more likely to appeal to children in the first place, such as the near endless stream of stories about Giant Pandas, but you did get real news too. In fact, Newsround (as it became known since John left) was the first British news programme to report on the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, and was also first with news of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.
There are three more things that Newsround will always be remembered for though. One was the way the day of the week was repeated on the wall behind John Craven, the second was that intense theme song, and the third was the old rectangular phone sat on the desk behind John. Boy, how you wished that phone would ring, just once!
The Red Hand Gang
In the days before dedicated kids TV channels, The Red Hand Gang was one of those US TV shows that the BBC always pulled out of the archives to fill in gaps in their children’s TV schedules in the afternoons and during school holiday mornings. Being the BBC though, it was, of course, quality filler material!
The show was an American take on the Enid Blyton Famous Five tales, where a group of kids get together to solve mysteries which they just happen to stumble upon. In this case though we swap the English middle class boarding school kids and the seaside setting for a group of every day inner city kids.
There were five kids in The Red Hand Gang. Frankie was the leader, whilst J.R. was the athletic one, Doc was the clever one, Joanne was the tom-boy, and Li’l Bill was the youngest, and brother of Frankie. They were also accompanied by their dog, Boomer, who even ended up getting his own TV show later on!
The gang got their name from the fact that they used to leave a red hand print on walls to mark where they had been. That was perhaps a bit naughty for the Beeb, but the rest of the show was fairly innocent stuff, with the kids tracking down clues, discussing plans in their clubhouse and they bringing the villains to justice.
The show sadly only managed half a full season before it was cancelled, and to all accounts appears to have had a bigger following in the UK than it did in the States. The thing I will always remember it for though is the title sequence, with the kids bouncing it from all angles (presumably on a trampoline) with the “la-la-la-la-la” theme tune playing in the background.
Oh, and the fact that Doc was played by an actor named James Bond III!
Amazon.co.uk Widgets Buy The Red Hand Gang at Amazon.co.uk
Search for The Red Hand Gang items on eBay
Tags: 1980's tv
80′s revival – GMTV
 GMTV |
80's revival
GMTV Britain is going through an eighties revival with 25 million Brits saying they still enjoy music and culture from the decade, according to new research. ... |
Sunday 31 August 1986
So we came to the last day of August. It was no different to any other day in August (BORING!) but at least we were able to watch Paul McGann's portrayal of Percy Topliss, aka the Monocled Mutineer. As part of my (ultimately futile) attempts to become a TV critic, my copy on this one was erudite in the extreme - 'man, just love the swearing!' So that was that. Now for September and the start of the Academic Year.
Step Back In Time With 1980′s Fashion
The 1980's were good times on both sides of the pond. When we think back to the 80's we think of new wave, big hair, Pacman, Dallas, Reagan & Thatcher, Charles & Diana, FGTH, Wham!, Back To The Future, Ghostbusters, and the list goes on....
If you are feeling a bit nostalgic for those days - you can hardly deny it, you're reading this, LOL! - why not tog yourself up with some classic 1980's fashion? Of course Madonna was probably the hottest (female) pop star of that decade and today you can buy 80's Madonna costumes that are perfect for when you attend or throw a 1980's theme party.
There are some awesome 80's T shirts that are on the market today that feature some of the other big acts from back then including AC/DC, Iggy Pop, U2, Prince, Michael Jackson, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, another list that just goes on... Who can forget Bob Geldof the charity rock concerts, watched by millions of thousands of fans worldwide? Concerts such as Live Aid, Band Aid and USA for Africa were historical and monumental events.
Then there's television series, again The Racoons, The Dukes Of Hazzard, Diff'rent Strokes, The A Team (all American I notice), yet ANOTHER never ending list...
£9.99
1980′s TV – Johnny Ball
There aren't a great many television presenters who could make maths and science cool. Johnny Ball is one of them. From 1977 right the way through the 1980's, up to about 1990, this man probably was children's television in the UK.
He seminal show has to be Think of a Number. Starting on BBC1 on 12 April 1977 right up until 31 October 1984, there were a total of 36 shows, spread equally over 6 series. Running in parallel was Think Again, which ran from 9 January 1981 until 15 October 1985 with a total of 29 shows over 5 series.
Looking back on it, the guy just oozed class. If you want a comparison, he did maths and science in an OU (clothing) stylee for kids, but made it interesting, exciting, beguiling, fascinating. My best memory is when he took a cut out of the British mainland and proved that the centre of gravity of Britain was somewhere around Blackburn. Of course, this took no account of the height of Ben Nevis and the rest of the Scottish Highlands, but who cares? We didn't, cos we wuz kidz...
He would dress up to portray famous mathematicians / scientists from history, from Galileo, thru Newton and Einstein to John Napier (the inventor of logarithms) and beyond. He also used to love the odd pun, such as 'Why is the nose in the middle? Because it's the scenter!' They didn't ever get any better than that!
Of course, there was a very wide range of topics, from energy, the body, materials, wealth, time, odds and probability, planes, gravity etc etc... It was great stuff, and a very important part of my childhood. Thank you Johnny Ball!
1980′s TV – Cheggers Plays Pop
This complete load of old nonsense was an absolute blast from start to finish. The show started in 1978 and ran until 1986, with some 70 episodes and 4 Christmas specials (1980 - 1983). This was madcap Cheggers at his very best. After the preliminaries (i.e. the theme tune), the show would start with our hero dashing out to centre screen and going 'Yerrrsss!'
Then the fun would really start, two teams of school kids, a red one and yellow one, would answer all sorts of pop trivia, jump round on inflatable things, get covered in foam and stuff, generally have a whale of a time, then there'd be a musical interlude from one current pop colussus or another, more jumping around and then time to go home. Or in Keith's case, out on the lash... allegedly, possibly...
1980′s TV – TISWAS
Like it's counterpart on the Beeb, Multi Coloured Swap Shop, TISWAS actually started in the seventies. In fact it started in 1974, then as an ATV (Midlands) only show. It went (almost) national in 1977 - the year after Swap Shop started - did the ITV bosses have some strange inkling that this was what they needed to face up to the smug beardy git on the other side?
Chris Tarrant was the main protagonist of TISWAS, ably assisted by... wait for it boys... SallyJames, 'marshalling' a gang that included at various times Bob Carolgees, Spike Milligan, Jasper Carrott, Lenny Henry, Bernard Manning, Frank Carson and many more.
There was the Phantom Fan Flinger, (an alliterator's dream), the buckets of water, The Cage, the being-pulled-up-by-your-ears-from-under-The-Desk, The Dying Fly and much much more.
Unfortunately, TISWAS didn't last for very long into the 80's, being finished by ITV in 1982 - ratings were on the slide and perhaps the anarchic nature of the show was a little too near the knuckle for them. Telly execs eh? Anyway, as I mention on my post about Swap Shop, this was the only TV issue that I really remember my mum putting her foot down and telling us what we were going to watch. So perhaps my memory of TISWAS is not the best, but what I do remember, was very funny.
In a final, tenuous, attempt to up my TISWAS creds, I did know a girl at University (well, a girlfriend of a friend) who had appeared from under The Desk. I don't think that this really counts though does it? No, I thought not.
1980′s TV – Multi Coloured Swap Shop
Ok, ok. It started in 1976, but I don't remember watching it when I was only six. It was an 80's phenomenon alright! Having said that, it gave way in 1982 to Saturday Superstore - Mike 'Auntie' Read taking over the mantle (surely cudgel) from Noel 'Tidybeard' Edmonds.
But enough of this, what about Swap Shop? Well for a kick off, it wasn't TISWAS. Featuring Edmonds (never really liked him, mesel'), Keith 'Cheggers' Chegwin, Maggie Philburn and John Craven, Multi Coloured Swap Shop bestrode Saturday mornings in my formative years, as I yearned, nay ached for the chance to get up and turn over to watch Tarrant and the guys on the other side. Sadly, this was the one time when me mum put her foot down and told us what we were going to watch. Boo hoo.
I can still recite the now defunct telephone number - 01-811-8055 - wouldn't it be cool if BT could allow us to dial the number and leave us a message on answering, something like, 'Hi there, you've got through to Multi Coloured Swap Shop, unfortunately, you're 27, 28, 29... years too late.' But they don't, probably. Perhaps you could try it and let me know?
Anyway, one of the first times I saw it, I though that I had seen a ghost. No I really did. A girl from our school had recently died and Maggie Philburn was an absolute spit for her. It shook me for a while, I can tell you. Cheggers was his manic self, wind, rain, snow, sea spray, you name it, he was out in it. I think that he was the nearest thing that they ever got to what was going on over on ITV, but even that was in a controlled, BBC kind of way. And John Craven was, er, John Craven. Enough said, he presents Countryfile now...
1980′s TV – Grange Hill
OMG! If there was ever a must watch television prgramme for me then this was it. It started in 1979 when I was still a couple of years away from Secondary school. It was the ultimate in cool at the time, I don't think that there can be much debate on that. I remember that me mum tolerated it, although if he was ever at home at the time it was on - very rarely - the old chap would insist that the TV went off.
The first icons delivered by Grange Hill were of course Peter 'Tucker'Jenkins and his gang, Benny (Green) and Alan (Humphries). Then there was Mrs 'Ma' McCluskey and Bullet Baxter, not to mention Trisha Yates and Cathy Hargreaves. And these were just the first lot!
I guess that the Grange Hill characters who I most closely identified with were the likes of 'Zammo' McGuire, Ziggy Greaves and 'Jonah' Jones. Later, I was quite into the Luke 'Gonch' Gardner gang too. Of course I will never forget the 'Gripper' Stebson and Roland Browning axis, Gripper, proving that ben Elton in The Young Ones was right, 'Oh, come on, sir. We're the only kids in Britain who never say ffffffffff...' And who can ever forget, 'Danny Kendall... dead!'
For me, the secret of Grange Hill was the seamless introduction of new faces. As evidenced by the list of my favourite characters, they didn't all appear together, but the are all but indistinguishable in terms of their era. Phil Redmond, Grange Hill's creator, could devise a hundred more television series. but he'll never come up with anything quite like Grange Hill.
