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

I love the fact that a BBC employee had to sit there and write that.

To be serious, do we get much else these days? Today's most popular shows are the cheesy reality contests which aren't too far removed, talent-wise, from 1970s fare like 'Seaside Special'

Maybe we just don't feel guilty in numbers. I'm more embarrassed admitting that I like to watch obscure BBC4 documentaries.

Oh good lord. 'Seaside Special'. I think that a lot of rubbish television now is a lot more watchable than 70s rubbish television. I mean...I hate to say it but I can at least be in the same room when reality television is on. Whereas something like '3-2-1'...I mean how bad was that? The worst in singing, dancing and acting and it overturned the laws of logic on a regular basis.

There was also a lot of horrendous stuff that made you feel downright grubby, like 'The Comedians'. I seem to remember the 70s and 80s were very big on dancers as well. The Brian Rogers Dancers. And for a while awful sort of 1930s combos kept turning up - if it wasn't Wall Street Crash it was Stutz Bear Cats.

Blimey: suddenly 'I'm A Celebrity...' seems high-brow.

And Icy, a bit of a blanket statement but: those BBC Four documentaries are fantastic!

They must have had a quota for those dancers and 1930s combos. They would usually have a break in the middle of comedy shows (The Two Ronnies is a good example) when they would introduce the 'variety act' (maybe Barbara Dickson or Manhattan Transfer). It's the sort of thing you'd have expected in the middle of Bernard Manning's club act.

Yes! 'Miss Barbara Dickson' when it wasn't 'Miss Elkie Brooks'.

Television also seemed to support an untold number of magic shows. Can't say I miss 'em. Obviously the big one was Paul Daniels, but do you remember Paul Squires? Another one was Andrew O'Connor, who I was surprised to realise is the same Andrew O'Connor that produces Channel 4's 'Peep Show.'

I wonder what Maggie Moone's up to nowadays. 'Name That Tune' - now *there* was a format!

space 1999..........takes me back to sunday lunchtimes, in my late teens, just before I went to the pub for a pre-dinner drink.

I grew up in the era of dodgy sci-fi effects, dr who (in b+w), fireball XL5 thunderbirds etc. and these seem to have more "charm" than more sophisticated effects of today, off topic I know but I can remember watching the flowerpot men having a pillow fight and the feathers all stuck to the strings...that's live tv

Wife swap
Took years but one "reality show "did get a bit interesting to me.
I hate the term Reality Show- very annoying to have eaten my words and watched one more than once.

*********


Whinnie the Pooh
Yes, I know !
I am past the half century mark!
I never watched it as a kid.

Friends and the mutual acceptance of having different needs is very high on my list of must haves. Pooh and his friends are all about thatA good reminder at times.

A bit embarrasing when caught with my own copy running and no children around.

Magic Shows - Hah

Some of us remember David Nixon

Watching very late at night recently I came across a rerun of one of my all time favoutites

Ivor the engine

Yippeeeeee

Fish-t-cuff and Jones the steam.

*looks left, right, left again and whispers*

the waltons. sunday morning, large bar of dairy milk, a rug, (or afghan, ask psychocandy!) enormous (incredible hulk) mug of tea,
closely followed by omibus 5 episodes of hollyoaks.

if you tell anyone i'll 'ave yer.

H.R. Pufnstuf and Ultraman. Early on weekend mornings, with a bit of tea or coffee with lots of soymilk. Wrapping up in an afghan makes it even better.

is this a recent development psycho?
i dont think we have that anymore, HR Pufnstuf.. and never heard of ultra man?

It's a recent development only because it's too warm during summer to wrap up in anything. So it's more of a seasonal development.

Ultraman was one of three Japanese "monster" shows that ran on a local syndicated channel here when I was a kid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraman

The other two were The Space Giants and Spectreman. I've got them all on DVD for watching when in the mood for fun and cheesy.

(I've got Pufnstuf on DVD, too- so I get to watch when I want)

As for silly stuff that's actually running on TV, I don't watch much current programming. We don't have cable and there's not much of interest on network TV. But The Busy World of Richard Scarry is on Saturday mornings and I've been known to switch it on if we're running around that day instead of hunkering down to watch stuff we have on DVD.