TV - Comments by biffbampow

TV - Comments by biffbampow

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Member	Item		Review/Comment
biffbampow 13th May 2015		TV On The Buses (1969 - 1973)	The real stars for me were Blakey, Arthur and Olive. Doris Hare was much better as "Mum" as well and had some great moments. I can take and leave the two leading guys, they have their moments but it's the Arthur and Olive stuff and Blakey being... well... Blakey that makes me laugh. There's some good episodes and some bad ones... there seemed to be a few with union issues which get Jack doing his almighty "speaking as shop steward" bit which I find utterly tedious though of course that was a major issue at the time. Apparently when Reg Varney left, the viewing figures took a tumble which is a shame because I actually rather enjoy the few episodes they did after he left!
biffbampow 13th May 2015		TV Bottom (1991 - 1995)	I was kinda on the fence with this. I saw some of the first series on transmission and... it just didn't grab me at all... it felt like more of the same old same old that Rik and Ade had been doing for years and given Rik's wonderful portrayal of Alan B'Stard, I kinda felt it was a backward step for him. Despite that... it does have it's place and their style was unique (even if it borrowed heavily from the likes of The Three Stooges) and in recent years have begun to appreciate it for what it is - just manic mindless mayhem! Rik and Ade certainly were masters at what they did.
biffbampow 13th May 2015		TV Peppa Pig (2004 - Now)	And to think the BBC axed The Flowerpot Men because of the way they spoke...
biffbampow 13th May 2015		TV The Water Margin (1977)	This is one of those shows which I keep meaning to revisit but then when the opportunity arises, I begin having second thoughts! I did see it all when it was first shown - my family loved it, but these were the days before subtitles... I am partially deaf and I rely enormously on lip reading... so with a dubbed series like this, I found it completely unintelligible so I never ever had any clue what it was all about! I do remember finding it amusing and strange and that theme tune but otherwise, I can't recall anything else! Maybe one day I'll brave it and look at an episode or two again but what sort of memories it will bring back, goodness knows!
biffbampow 13th May 2015		TV Wired (1988)	I've heard of it, but have no memory of it nor can I recall ever seeing it.
biffbampow 13th May 2015		TV George & Mildred (1976 - 1979)	Yes, there's quite a few series which had shorter lifespans than one originally seem to recall. Maybe the fact that the characters had been part of "Man About The House" for a while before given this spin off adds to the illusion. Yootha Joyce was a great comic talent who was absolutely perfect here with that constant sexual frustration undercurrent which she captured beautifully. A shame about her drink problem which took her away too early.
biffbampow 13th May 2015		TV Roobarb (1974)	Henry's Cat... I too recall Bob Godfrey being the narrator... funny, I can just about hear his voice in my head thinking back since it had a distinct characteristic thing about it.
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Get Some In! (1975 - 1978)	5 series isn't a bad run, but I must admit, I've never heard of this series until now which goes to prove how it's ended up being buried.
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Rising Damp (1974 - 1978)	Another gem, a perfect showcase for Leonard Rossiter and his constant attempts at wooing Miss Jones were excellent comedy... one attempt I recall was when he tempts her with a Matt Monro album... which he puts on, starts trying to get down to business only for Miss Jones to point out the album was playing at the wrong speed!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Pardon My Genie (1972 - 1973)	Now this was brilliantly silly! Written by Bob Block, he would refine and change the idea a couple of years later when he started writing "Rentaghost" for the BBC which had the same kind of absurdist humour. I greatly enjoyed watching all these a year or so ago... just good daft fun with Roy Barraclough in fine form as the hapless victim of most of the Genies' fouled up spells. Hugh Paddick was definitely the better of the Genies but at least they could get away with changing the actor with some plausible enough reason rather than write off an entire series as a "dream" like they did with Dallas.
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV I'm Alan Partridge (1997 - 2002)	Alan Partridge! Great character and one that refuses to die since it's so bloody good. This was more of a sitcom following his life after the "disaster" that was his big TV chat show "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and gave us more of an insight into Alan's strange life and personality.
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Porridge (1974 - 1977)	Definitely one of THE classics. Wonderful characters and some great comical situations. Kenneth Williams saw an episode and wrote in his diary something like "I fail to see what's funny about a comedy set in a prison" but when you had Clement-LaFrenais as writers, Ronnie Barker on top form along with a great supporting cast (MacKay was ace and who couldn't fail to like dear Lennie Godber?) you had comedy Gold. Of course one of it's most memorable guest characters was the creepy Grouty - possibly Peter Vaughan's finest role yet he only appeared in 3 or 4 episodes at the very most yet some think he was in much more!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Roobarb (1974)	He he he... the thing I always remember about this was it's wibbly wobbly jelly styled animation! Great theme tune! They sure don't make 'em like this anymore!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Treasure Hunt (1982 - 1989)	One of the earliest hits on Channel 4! It was good fun and I'm sure helped the tourist trades in the areas it visited. "Spitting Image" sent it up, mainly focusing on little more than Anneka's wiggling arse! It was different for it's time and hit the spot until Anneka left and Annabel Croft came in and overnight, the show lost it's appeal as Annabel's inexperience as a TV presenter was clearly obvious and she didn't have the bright ever cheery optimistic nature that Anneka had which resulted in viewing figures falling and the show coming to an end. Have got a handful of these lurking around in my archives... will have to dig 'em out and see how it holds up... or not!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV The Banana Splits (1968 - 1970)	Yes... I too remember seeing this in the late 70's and loved it at the time. I saw an episode a few years ago and... well... definitely a product of it's time. Yes... it was shown a few times over the years into the 80's.
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Worzel Gummidge (1979 - 1981)	That's BRILLIANT! Given me a bloody good laugh! That was the thing about dear old Jon Pertwee and him having a lisp. One or two Doctor Who writers admitted many years later they deliberately wrote lines they knew he'd find awkward to recite like the "reverse the polarity" one - I think Terrance Dicks was one of the guilty culprits and chuckled about it in one of the DVD documentaries recalling it would get glares from Mr Pertwee! Actually nice to be reminded Charlotte Coleman was in that... now there was a great talent who was tragically taken way too early. She was brilliant as Marmalade Atkins and later on gave a great performance in "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit"
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Challenge Anneka (1987 - 1995)	Nice to know she's still around. Blimey, those hours are almost alien to me, hence why I didn't have a clue! lol!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV The Hitman & Her (1988 - 1992)	Very wise... we should all be digitising our old cassette tapes since it's surprising how some end up becoming almost unplayable or deteriorate sound wise!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Challenge Anneka (1987 - 1995)	I liked Treasure Hunt but this, which came after it since it made Anneka Rice a major name (whatever happened to her? Ages since I last saw sight or sound of her!) felt rather tacky thanks to the celebrity factor and was less endearing... which unfortunately was also the case for the last series of Treasure Hunt with Annabel Croft who tried her best but simply couldn't match Anneka in charm and sure enough most viewers felt likewise and that was the end of Treasure Hunt. Didn't realise this show ran for as long as 8 years!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Dance Energy (1990 - 1993)	Thank you. Will check it out... makes me even more bewildered I have no memory, so maybe the episode might help ring those ever fainter brain cells!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV The Crystal Maze (1990 - 2020)	Er... yes... the contestant hairstyles inevitably do place it into the era in which it was made! But it says a lot your son was able to enjoy it which is a sign of it's greatness.
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV The Hitman & Her (1988 - 1992)	I only saw one or two of these. Not my cup of tea but did derive some amusement from it. I do recall this show did help break a few hits into the charts. Blimey... these shows you're adding today Henry29 are taking me back... and I'm feeling my age! Argh! lol!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV Dance Energy (1990 - 1993)	This totally passed me by. I have zero memory of it! But I guess that's hardly surprising since I had no time for "dance" music so would have had no appeal to me at all, yet still odd I've no memory of it since I was always watching out for music shows. I'm presuming it was one of those late night shows on ITV?
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV The ITV Chart Show (1986 - 1998)	I seem to recall this being on around Saturday lunchtimes. I saw some over a couple of years but my dislike of pop videos ensured it was a show I didn't watch very often. Must be the earliest ones I saw since every time I watched it always seemed to have "Living On A Prayer" by Bon Jovi on it which I loathed with a passion!
biffbampow 12th May 2015		TV The Crystal Maze (1990 - 2020)	This was an excellent show that still holds up pretty well today. The notes are wrong - each crystal got you 5 seconds in the Crystal Dome... and there were 2 or 3 occasions when the team only had one crystal left! You had to get 100 gold tickets to win... once the silver ones had been deducted of course! The set was very elaborate and I recall cost an absolute fortune to construct and that it occupied an enormous warehouse, so was one of the most expensive game shows ever seen on TV. It was great fun... O'Brien's self depreciative sense of humour fitted well, yet he was always good and tried to be as helpful to the contestants as possible and there were times when the contestants were so dense, you could sense O'Brien hollering out clues or tips through gritted teeth! It had genuine tension too as they'd be down to the last ten seconds and the contestant had to get to that door in time, or else would end up being locked in and could only be released at the cost of a crystal. It's one of the only game shows where I'd often - depending on how decent the team were - be on the edge of my seat willing them on to win each of the games. Then there were those teams that were hapless and hopeless and they'd be just as fun to watch as yet another member dropped a clanger and/or got locked in. There were a handful of downright nasty games in that you really had to be an expert to stand any chance of ever winning it... the glass dome ones where you had to manouver steel balls into holes within 2 or 3 minutes were more or less impossible and I don't recall ever seeing anybody win any of those or get more than one ball into the hole. When O'Brien left, naturally it could never be quite the same but I did enjoy Eddie Tudor-Pole's version since he was just as eccentric in a more outgoing and flashy way. A great series... been slowly re-watching them all since I have about 95% of the episodes and they're still good fun now as they were when originally transmitted.
biffbampow 11th May 2015		TV Soap (1977 - 1981)	Classic! I hate to admit that I generally detest American sitcoms for a variety of reasons, mainly being they just don't make me laugh. The two that succeeded where most of the rest failed was "Police Squad" and this - "Soap" It was just utterly insane - the characters were genuinely mad and the situations grew ever more absurd and dafter as it went along. Jessica and Burt were utterly wonderful rich bonkers leading characters but the rest of the cast were just as good too. I always loved that guy who only ever spoke through his ventriloquist dummy... the way they'd sit there looking at each other reacting to the madness around them... brilliant!
biffbampow 9th May 2015		TV The White Room (1994 - 1996)	Whilst recalling "The Word" and some of the things that went on on there, I just suddenly had another flashback to what was probably the most notorious moment on "The White Room" - Iggy Pop... and his transparent trousers! Still, the best Iggy moment for me was when he turned up on a Roland Rat Christmas special which I'm not sure but might have been the show when he got a little intimate with a teddy bear, or began humping the TV camera... memory is getting hazier as one gets older but do remember him grabbing a TV camera and a side shot showed him humping the camera from below... it was from around that same era since he started popping up on a few shows promoting that "Real Wild Child" stuff.
biffbampow 9th May 2015		TV The Word (1990 - 1995)	I liked The Word, though like you I loathed "The Hopefuls" (the I-will-do-anything-to-be-on-telly sh*t) and the other scatalogical stuff they did (I was also the target audience I think). But the music was great and some of the chat show stuff was also great (the band you refer to was L7 by the way). Ah... "The Hopefuls" - I'd forgotten what that section was called but always used to think allsorts of unprintable things when they'd turn to the camera and declare "I will do ANYTHING to get on TV" once they'd done the stunt! L7... thanks for the reminder - I was struggling to remember what they were called! To it's credit it certainly was unpredictable and I do remember the Shabba Ranks incident which was one of the only times I thought Lamarr was on the case. I just seem to remember Terry Christian being the main target for abuse getting slapped or punched a few times. It was kinda like car crash TV. It certainly made an impact since it was very often in the news for something or other that had gone on and often Saturday nights in the boozer my mates would be talking about it.
biffbampow 9th May 2015		TV The Word (1990 - 1995)	OMG... if ever there was a TV show everybody loved to hate, this was it. I was of the age demographic they were aiming it at and the few times I watched it, I always cringed at how tacky and ghastly it was. I was naturally only really interested in the music content and there was not enough of it though it managed to showcase a good many acts. Unfortunately most of them were not my cuppa tea and the greatest moment is usually either regarded to be Nirvana or Oasis making their TV debut... oh... and there was that female band wasn't there who lifted up their skirts revealing they were wearing nothing underneath... I couldn't stand any of the hosts so loved it on the odd moments when guests or audiences would turn on them but I did fancy Dani Behr something rotten... ahem... cough... awful presenter but she looked great and floated my boat... er... um... lets move on shall we? And of course this was the show that gave us the infamous "I Will Do Anything To Get On TV" slot where some desperate idiot would be required to do something disgusting like lick the sweat out the belly button of a fat guy, snog a granny minus their dentures or step in sandals with freshly deposited animal dung... they're the ones I can remember... be amusing to read what other ones people recall. Then for just one series there was the unforgettable Huffty - a shaven headed Geordie Lesbian who spoke with the thickest Geordie accent to the degree that most of us found her unintelligible. Oh... and this was the show where they set up Oliver Reed secretly filming him in the dressing room sniffing out the alcohol then coming on with the most bizarre spectacle of him drunkenly performing "Wild Thing" which was funny in a perverse way but ultimately tragic given what a fine talent he had been before he ended up becoming a reliable "rentadrunk" on TV shows... and strangely enough, he was more than aware and happy to live up to it as his friends and family all expressed concern to him saying it was doing him no favours only for Reed to tell them all "Get stuffed... none of your business!"
biffbampow 9th May 2015		TV Hippies (1999)	I do remember the writers being optimistic about it at the time and the Ted connection ensured it got some coverage. I never saw any of the reviews and I can't remember anybody else I knew who actually watched it. It just came and went, obviously not making enough of an impact. It was all rather odd really... maybe had they made it a few years later and put it on BBC 3 it might had got a better reception and audience. It's strange... I'm trying my hardest right now to remember what I can... there was one episode where there was some sort of acid trip... I remember that because Sally Phillips' character was in full "come to bed with me" mode and I remember thinking "Cor... I wish!" lol!

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