Mr. Mondo

TELEVISION MEMORIES 7: Rod Hull and Emu I have noticed in the ‘Radio Times’, that there is a new series of ‘Emu’ on the ‘CITV’ channel, that features Toby Hull and a brand new ‘Emu’ puppet. Even though this is a return to ‘Children’s ITV’ for the ‘bird’, I am guessing that the format of this new series will be nearer in tone to that of ‘Chucklevision’ than to the old ‘Pink Windmill’ show. However, even though I am at an age where I can remember Rod Hull and ‘Grotbags’ on the old CITV ‘Emu’ show, I do not know if he was always a children’s television entertainer or if his act was once more mainstream, especially when regarding the famous ‘Parkinson’ interview. In addition to this, does anyone remember what ‘Rod Hull’s’ favourite flavour of jelly was (from the comedy show ‘Lee & Herring’s Fist Of Fun’); was it ‘Purple Jelly’?

I have seen the films regularly, but I do not think that I ever sat down to watch the television series (the last one was broadcast in the early 1990s if I remember correctly). On the other hand, I do remember watching ‘Only When I Laugh’ a lot when I was younger, though I tend to give that show a miss now when it is repeated on TV. I do not think ‘Only When I Laugh’ has aged as well as ‘Rising Damp’ even though it has an equally impressive cast of actors.

That is one of the best of the ‘Carry On’ films, some great innuendo and in-jokes too. Also I think it was Peter Butterworth’s son Tyler who was the alien in ‘Mike & Angelo’.

Retro Beverages This morning on the radio, Terry Wogan was talking about the ‘Red Lemonade’ he used to have when he was a boy in Ireland. I was wondering if anybody knew what this drink was, whether it was simply a coloured lemon flavoured fizzy drink or was it actually what we call ‘Tizer’? In addition to this I was also wondering what other ‘Retro Beverages’, whether ‘soft’ like ‘Tab Clear’ or alcoholic like ‘Spoof’ did people enjoy and which drinks would people like to see again?

I think they have reformed, but I do not know if they are as theatrical as they used to be.

TELEVISION MEMORIES 6: ‘Eurotrash’ Last night I was watching ‘More4’, and the ‘Channel 4 at 25’ season, whereby iconic shows from the archives are repeated late at night, and ended up watching the first episode of ‘Eurotrash’ . Now you might remember that these early episodes were co-presented by the fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier and that this show was one from 1993 where a ‘Smurf’ broke into ‘EuroDisney’, however you might not know that Davina McCall was involved in the production of the programme. I was surprised to see her name on the credits and to see that it was actually Davina McCall, rather than Kate Robbins, who provided the additional voice-over for the dubbed ‘foreign language’ footage in these days.

Yes it was a great concept. Did they ever get round to releasing their album anywhere in the world? Re: Helen Terry. Can you remember her solo singles after she did ‘Culture Club’?

Not really, but that town is not far away. It is hard to say exactly because that mall was rebuilt in the 1990s and I think that store is now slightly further over, I think ‘Tescos’ would have been part of that store and where ‘Waterstones’ is.

I would not know as I thought it was just one singular store in Manchester that they were obsessed about.

This is just a quick side note to another thread for fans of Radio 1 in the mid 1990s. I was wondering if any fans of ‘Mark and Lard’ actually came to Manchester and searched out ‘Halon Menswear’ when they were here? I remember the shop getting quite a few acknowledgements over the air and I wonder if any other fans remember the shop.

Great show, I used to listen to them religiously back in the mid 1990s, those were the days, the days of ‘Halon Menswear’ and “Bigidy Bigidy Bong”.

‘Tesco’, ‘Fine Fare’, ‘Gateway’ and ‘Presto’ It is quite amazing how ‘Tesco’ has become the most powerful retailer in the United Kingdom under the management of Sir Terry Leahy and how the store’s fascia has become ubiquitous on the streets of this country, especially when thinking back to the 1980s. In those days, Jack Cohen’s supermarket group was a very downmarket affair, nearer in style to a discount retailer such as ‘Quality Save’ or ‘B&M Bargains’. There was no scope for all the healthy eating and luxury food ranges; and no ‘Clubcard’ either, though I remember my parents having a ‘Green Shield Stamp’ collection book that was never completed. I also remember never seeing one of the ‘out-of-town’ Tesco stores in those days, only the normal high street shops, which I remember from being in the centre of Sale and Stockport. In these days, the ‘Tesco’ stores were more like a poor ‘M&S’ in the way that they had a floor devoted to food shopping and a floor devoted to clothes. The floor devoted to clothes was usually upstairs and were sold for many years, until one day in the Stockport branch the stairs were blocked off as Tesco’s decided it would not sell any clothes any longer (though in the 2000s clothes came back into their massive ‘Extra’ store). The 1980s version of these massive ‘Tesco’ stores, were the ‘Fine Fare’ and ‘Shopping Giant’ hypermarkets, though I might be getting my ‘brands’ mixed up here as I think the ‘Fine Fare’ store morphed into ‘Food Giant’ at one point. I think that ‘Shopping Giant’ was a big ‘Co-op’ store that sold everything and had all services from funerals to watch repairs under one roof, whilst ‘Food Giant’ was a multi-coloured store that looked more like the set of Pat Sharp’s ‘Funhouse’ than Dale Winton’s ‘Supermarket Sweep’. In fact the design was migraine inducing, so much so, that you expected ‘Pee Wee Hermann’ and ‘Miss Piggy’ to work there on Saturdays. I am not sure who actually owned ‘Food Giant’ but I think it might have been the group who are now called ‘Somerfield’. Back then the majority of the ‘Somerfield’ stores were called ‘Gateway’, with my only memory of the ‘Somerfield’ name was when it was used for an upmarket store in the main shopping centre in Buxton. Another store which we thought to be more upmarket than the local ‘Liptons’ or ‘Lo-Cost’ was ‘Safeway’, especially when a brand new store was built in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Being an American firm we thought that the store was the height of supermarket sophistication from the ‘home of large shopping’ and in 1984 we thought the store was closer in style to ‘Waitrose’ than ‘W.M. Morrison’. However, this might have been only to our Northern minds as ‘Safeway’ had been located in the south since the 1960s and the format seemed an improvement over other store’s layouts.

If only for his radio shows. If you exclude the music, I do not think the radio side has dated at all, the presentation is still quite modern sounding and that ‘zoo’ format is what loads of other presenters are doing now.

It was a good job they found that ‘loop-hole’ in the BBC programme budgets guide, as without it the show may have just been the four of them in a room arguing without all the destruction and ‘stunts’.

25 YEARS OF RECORD COLLECTING: MUSICAL MEMORIES 1982 - 2007 16. ‘David Devant and His Spirit Wife’ One of the most amazing live bands ever to see in a small venue, the almost vaudeville ‘David Devant and His Spirit Wife’ blended theatrical art school performances with spiky indie tunes. In fact, people who just stayed at home listening to their music on CD missed something very special, as to catch them live, like I did on many occasions, was one of the most satisfying live band experiences you could have. Leading the group was the ‘be-quiffed’ singer ‘The Vessel’ whose shadow would be first seen by the audience back lit onto a screen placed in front of him. Once bursting out of the screen ‘the Vessel would sing songs such as ‘This Could Be Real’ whilst around him film stock would be projected on the venue’s dark walls (a la ‘the Human League’ and their slide show) and props would be brought on and utilised to illustrate the theme of the song. All in all, one of the most inventive bands you could ever see live, and with songs like ‘Ginger’, a great band to sing along to if you happened to be in an indie club with only a DJ providing the sounds. 25 YEARS OF RECORD COLLECTING: MUSICAL MEMORIES 1982 - 2007

Yes I was of a similar age too when I first started watching, but I think this is what makes it so great in my memories of the period. I think it was the characters and chaos that appealed, whilst the mild innuendo was something you could laugh at when you were about ten, which may have been also the age when I started watching ‘Spitting Image’.

Actually, I had forgotten that aspect about 1980s comedy shows, whereby all the latest chart acts would have their latest single slotted into the middle of the comedy sketches, due the fact that the shows had fallen under the ‘Light Entertainment’ banner at the BBC. I know that was the reason why ‘the Young Ones’ budget was increased from just being a ‘sit-com’ and I also remember Kirsty MacColl being on ‘French & Saunders’ every week singing songs from ‘Kite’, but I forgot that this would occur in almost every mainstream sketch show of the era. Also, with reference to the ‘Kenny Everett’ thread, do you remember when ‘ABC’ appeared on Kenny’s show dressed in their cartoon character outfits?

25 YEARS OF RECORD COLLECTING: MUSICAL MEMORIES 1982 - 2007 15. ‘Westworld’ “You got to go, where the action is, you got to go go go” ‘Derwood’, Elizabeth Westwood and Nick Burton played ‘Beatbox Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and, so the story goes, were signed after they broke into RCA’s head office and set up an impromptu gig for the head A&R person. Named after the famous film, they first hit the chart in 1987 with the amazing power-punk (and somewhat Sputnik-esque) riffs of ‘Sonic Boom Boy’, before being rendered as the punk ‘Flintstones’ in an animated video for the follow up, ‘Ba-na-na-bam-boo’. Not only that, they also provided the theme tune to Alton Tower’s very own ‘Snakes and Ladders’ quiz show ‘Hold Tight’ (however I cannot remember if it was still presented by Alistair ‘Razzmatazz’ Perrie at the time or if that was just earlier shows). This theme was called ‘Where the Action is’ and was also the title track of their only UK hit album. ‘Where The Action Is’ was a great album, and had fantastic cover art illustrated in a fashion which evoked 1950s pulp fiction novels and 1980s style comic art. Unfortunately for British fans of this band, the first single taken from their second album, an under-rated cover of ‘Everything Good Is Bad’, stalled at Number 72 and after another low charting single, ‘BMG Eurodisc’ decided to release this LP only in mainland Europe. However this was not the end for Westworld, as a final LP was released a few years later in 1991, before the band re-grouped without Burton under the new name of ‘Moondogg’. 25 YEARS OF RECORD COLLECTING: MUSICAL MEMORIES 1982 - 2007

This was a great film with excellent suspense and intrigue, and a film which was made even better by the casting of two of the greatest actors in modern American cinema. 4/5

Has anybody watched the new Jet Li film called ‘War’ yet? If so, is it a film worth watching?

Actually, I thought that this film was alright, even though it amounts to nothing more than a couple of car crashes and a great film soundtrack. Verbally, there was nothing to hit the heights of the French beef-burger ‘Royale with Cheese’ conversation between ‘Vince’ and ‘Jules’ from ‘Pulp Fiction’, though I did like the ‘butterfly and the wolf’ conversation between ‘Stuntman Mike’ and the girls in the first half of the film. I would say it is worth watching if these are the films that you like, though I think that the film will be rated closer to ‘Four Rooms’ than ‘Jackie Brown’ in the affections of his fans. 4/5

Essentially the film is about a brand new nuclear powered ‘bendy bus’ that someone wants to blow up. The bus manages to get a swimming pool and a bar on board; and in the end of the film the bus is shown dangling over a cliff edge in a way similar to the ‘Italian Job’.

TELEVISION MEMORIES 5: Kenny Everett This week the BBC has been celebrating forty years of ‘Radio 2’ by broadcasting a number of classic shows from the archives. One of the shows that were chosen for this celebration was a 1981 broadcast by the ‘Liverpudlian’ comedy genius Kenny Everett. Now, Kenny Everett was such a comedy hero of mine back in the early 1980s, that if I could have been the son of any celebrity I would have wished that Kenny would be the one to be my father (remember that this was the early 1980s, a few years before even ‘Section 28’ was thought about). As a young boy this opinion would have been formed by his television shows rather than his performances on the radio, as I did not live in London and ‘Radio 2’ was the kind of ‘comfy’, ‘Middle Of The Road’ station that only your parents listened to. However, looking back now, it is the radio broadcasts that show his genius rather than the Barry Cryer scripted sketch shows, which seem rather tame and unfunny in comparison. Actually this opinion might be slightly unfair as there are still some sketches in his television shows that still raise a smile when you watch them, such as ‘Reg Prescott’ the accident prone handy man and ‘Cupid Stunt’, the ‘glamour puss’, but I think they have dated more than other shows from that period such as ‘the Two Ronnies’ for example. In addition to his comedy shows you might also remember his primetime game show called ‘Brainstorm’ and his novelty records such as the one for his cartoon character/radio series ‘Captain Kremmen’

TELEVISION MEMORIES 4: ‘Knight Rider’, ‘Airwolf’ and ‘Street Hawk’ There is a ‘new’ digital television channel that has been launched this week called ‘Virgin 1’, which will feature a host of new American programmes in a ‘primetime’ slot. However, earlier on in the daytime schedules, the channel will be broadcasting not only ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ but also a re-run of the popular 1980s ‘techno-action’ series ‘Knight Rider’. ‘Knight Rider’ was just one of a number of similar shows that appeared in the 1980s, and is probably the most famous of them all. This is manly due to the continuing success of the show’s star, David Hasslehoff, his continued use of the iconic imagery of the ‘Knight Industries Two Thousand’ Pontiac in his pop videos and television shows; and the fact that for young people in the 1980s it was one of the television highlights of the week. Whilst ‘Knight Rider’ featured a character called ‘Michael Knight’ and had a technologically advanced car, ‘Airwolf’ featured a character called ‘Michael Archangel’ and had a technologically advanced helicopter. If I remember correctly ‘Archangel’ was the type of character that was part ‘Charlie Townsend’, part ‘Bosley’, and looked like he could have fitted into any number of 1960s fantasy shows with his trademark outfit of white suit and eye-patch. The main pilot of ‘Airwolf’ was ‘Stringfellow Hawk’ played by (the now infamous) Jan Michael Vincent whilst his main co-pilot was an older gentleman by the name of ‘Dominic’ who was played by Ernest Borgnine. Around the same time as ‘Airwolf’ there was another television show called ‘Blue Thunder’ which was basically the same idea of a Vietnam veteran who had taken up crime fighting in a ‘futuristic’ helicopter. I cannot remember much more about this show as the series did not last very long, and being more of a cult show in the territory of ‘Automan’ and ‘Manimal’ rather than an ‘A-Team’ ‘out-and-out’ cult success, I would expect more people to remember ‘Airwolf’ better, even though both shows were based on the main ‘Blue Thunder’ film. Actually the only other thing I know about ‘Blue Thunder’ is that one character was called ‘Clinton Wonderlove’, a name which should have been used for either the ‘Love Train’ at ‘the Ritz’ or the third film in the ‘Austin Powers’ series. The last show along these lines that people might remember is ‘Street Hawk’, though some people may get this show mixed up with Jan Michael Vincent’s ‘Airwolf’ character. This time, rather than a sports-car or a helicopter, a motorbike was the mode of transport that was used as a weapon in the fight against crime. I think the show was more successful than ‘Blue Thunder’ even though it was rated a long way behind ‘Knight Rider’ and ‘Airwolf’, if only for the fact that I always remember the bike before I remember the ‘Wonderlove’ machine. I cannot remember if there were any shows with planes or trains to go with the various automobiles, helicopters and motorcycles, though in the case of the former mode of transport there must be one that I am over-looking, as a 1980s television version of the film ‘Stealth’ seems such an obvious concept to me that it must have been broadcast on at one network. Finally whilst I am talking about various kinds of futuristic transport, some people might remember a film from the 1970s called ‘The Big Bus’. Even though it is not the same genre or decade as the previous shows, there might be some fans on here of this Irwin Allen disaster movie spoof. I know that I am always happy to see the film when it is put in the afternoon television schedules, and maybe there are other people who love the film as well.

A great mix of records. It is good to see that ‘Cud’, ‘the Definition of Sound’, FSOL’s ‘Stakker Humanoid’ and ‘the Fred EP’ are remembered as fondly as all the other choices.