h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oooh! Miss Louise! I was in LOVE with Miss Louise! But always sadly crushed when she failed to see d'Elaphant in the magic mirror.

I watched reruns of HR Puffinstuff recently. It was absolutely dreadful, but I was a huge fan when I was 4, and had the 45s of "Oranges Smoranges" and the theme song.

I liked Romper Room too, but it sucked on our little black and white TV. The partents had the good one and me and my sister used the little old one. Hey, we felt lucky to have one at all, so it was a good thing.

You had two TVs?

I wonder if my mom still has my Romper Stompers. Or the one Romper Stomper - one was lost long ago, and pathetic child that I was I would stomp with only one.

I know what you mean, d'E. I always wanted Miss Louise to call my name too and wish me a Happy Birthday.

We had three TVs when I was in high school. The big one out in the den, one in my parents' bedroom, and one in mine. But mine, just like Marv's, was a crappy little b & w that my grandmother had owned. It was so old there was no remote. You had to get up, cross the room--o! horrors--and turn *the knob*.

*listens to the gasps of shock and amazement*

We had a remote that was attached to the cable box by a 30-foot cable. You would stretch it across the room, and then change channels by running a tab up and down a scale. It was a HUGE advance over the knob!

Goodness, that was a lot of blog....Let's see...

Congrats to Sol
Hi Snake
Sorry to hear about Spike...although I must say my recollection of him was a bit dim...
Chutes and Ladders -- played it last night, in fact. And lost.
Romper Room rocked. My romper stompers were pink and green. Did anyone else have them in gym class?
Marv, dear, did you say "your children"? I wasn't aware you had planned any!

FG, plans are set. 7:30. The lemon mousse will be on the menu!

Hi all.......been catching up on sleep


Congratulations to Sol

Hi to Snake!

Sadly mourning Spike Milligan........I was hoping he'd make it to 100!

One of my favourite Spike Milligan children's poems:

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain comes in
But the holes are small
That's why rain is thin.

Quite apt for the weather we've been having recently........

Red that comment was more in teh vein that no I do not have any kids now, but I intend to have them someday.

Luxury!

When I were child, we had a great big wooden console thingie taking up one wall of the living room, and on the front of this huge piece of furniture were two knobs and a little black and white screen. Colour TV hadn't been invented yet. We could get three channels by twisting the right-hand knob, and the left-hand one controlled on-off-volume.

I remember watching Barker Bill cartoons, stick mice and exclamation marks appearing over animals' heads. In the mornings it was Dave Garroway. Mom still listened to soap opera on the radio.

...I'm not going to stop this thread when we're having such interesting conversations.

The radio soap opera....now those were the days. Back when the world was all radio, that's when things started to get interesting!

There's a station up here that plays classic radio shows like that. I stayed out in my car after I drove home, because I didn't want to miss a second of The Shadow. Wish they played that program every night....

My parents had a b/w cupboard TV - always closed the doors to avoid dust on the screen... there were only 2 channels to choose from, with a big nob, but very difficult to find the correct position...

...there was only one news programme - TV-nytt (TV-news, original, huh?) and most of the children's stuff were Russian animated puppet shows...

Heres to Spike; picks up candle, picks up matchbox, takes out match, strikes match on bottom....... yeeeoowwhhh!

Amy. looking good in your DPM cassock, perhaps teh eqipment belt is slung at a rather too rakishly attractive hipster angle, but overall teh effect is definitely business like! And the special Ant size oakley shades are most awesome.

Caer, enjoy the City of lurve and dog sh**! Off to bed now after a hard 24hrs of wearing white cowboy hats and being a force for good. Watch out naughty people!

I remember watching on one of those huge piece of furniture TVs with doors and the like. My parents also had a huge radiogram that worked with valves (I think when one died they managed to get another then that died eventually) to listen to stuff like the Archers on. They still listen to the archers but on something more modern now.
There are certainly tapes of the radio Goon show avaliable so I'm sure CDs are out there as well.

I distinctly remember my parents having a huge (well to me as a child watching Playschool) wooden TV set, with big chunky buttons you pressed. I think we got one with a remote in the mid eighties somewhen. In our wee holiday cottage in Arran we had a black and white that you had to tune every time you changed the channel. Then we got a second one that had been in my grandparents caravan. Still black and white but it had the option of VHF or UHF reception!

My parents had a small black and white TV with four channels until I was about 14.

Then we had a small colour TV which, actually, they still have.

They bought a VCR about ten years after everybody else, because somebody gave my Mum some video of a programme she wanted to see.

They do not have a cd player, but do have a record player and very shonky cassette deck.

The speakers would make Boyfreind cry in distress, if he hadn't already passed out at the sight of the TV.

But I did have a zx81. This was our computer all the way through the 80s. So no computer games, either.

I had a deprived childhood.

But my favourite kids programme was on Sat morningd I think. Bananarama? I only liked it because of the title sequence which had a bunch of bannanas bumping through a feild in golf carts.

There was also a game show where teams got beamed up somewhere and had to wonder around a spaceship solving problems. I belived in it utterly. And still do The native inhabitants of spaceship (or planet, I can't remember) could appear as all sorts of things. Conveniently, they often appeared as humans. But one of them was stuck as a houseplant.

The holes in the sky above Yorkshire must be larger than average - they're letting through some very big flakes of snow today.

The earliest program I can remember watching was Andy Pandy. There was also The Wooden Tops - puppets made out of old-fashioned clothes pegs. In was non-PC even in those days - the BBC's last attempt to return us to the family values of the early 1950s before the sixties got a grip. The remake of the Flower Pot Men is brilliant. I'm glad that Weed is less of a victim than she was - the early version was yet another attempt by the BBC to keep women in their place. But they kept on trying even into the seventies with things like Hector's House.


*adjusts shades*

I'm glad you like the kit, PWM. I've been learning some new close combat techniques during a fact-finding mission to the fire ants. I'll demonstrate on this empty box .

*fits some special barbed false mandibles* bites the box* sting, pivot, sting* pivot sting*...

[PCT]

/* Gives Amy a little more elbow room */

Did anyone watch Wonderama, or was that just a local New York-area thing? Another dreadful show, but the theme song still rattles through my brain.


And though we're small
We understand
And try to lend helping hand.
Kids are people too.
(wacka doo wacka doo)

[Affy]

Sol, your thinking of The Adventure Game, with Uncle Aspidistra and Moira Stewart (now a news reader). Gronda, gronda.