TV Shows / Films That Nobody Else Seems to Remember?!

[petethemole]

30 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

Which bit of Southampton?

The incident I described was in either Cranbury Avenue or Denzil Avenue two adjacent streets.  I don't remember which one Will lived in.  Without seeing clips I wouldn't be able to remember any other areas, but ISTR the Newtown/Nicholstown area generally.

[jonny777]

3 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

That has rather obliquely reminded me of the Whirlybirds, <snip>

 

Excellent. I had completely forgotten that series. 

[Free At Last]

3 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

That has rather obliquely reminded me of the Whirlybirds,

I remember embroidering my own Whirlybirds badge and sewing it to my blazer pocket.

[wombatofludham]

"Spearhead" had a recent re-run on Squawking Pictures, who have acquired the rights to a number of Southern TV programmes.  One interesting pair of episodes was filmed locally to me on Cader Idris and in Tywyn, but as Robin Davis ("Carrot" from Catweazle) played Corporal Box in the series and was born in Tywyn, I do wonder if that might have explained the outing to Snowdonia!

[steve1]

54 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

Excellent. I had completely forgotten that series. 

 

Whirlybirds was mentioned 3 or 4 pages ago. The problem with this thread is becoming the amount of repeats...

 

steve

[simontaylor484]

31 minutes ago, steve1 said:

 

Whirlybirds was mentioned 3 or 4 pages ago. The problem with this thread is becoming the amount of repeats...

 

steve

Sounds just like tv though

[Ray Von]

Bill the Minder, anyone? Very strange but oddly relaxing animation circa 1984? Had Heath Robinson style contraptions as I recall and a seemingly endless walk through the countryside....

[jonny777]

1 hour ago, steve1 said:

 

Whirlybirds was mentioned 3 or 4 pages ago. The problem with this thread is becoming the amount of repeats...

 

steve

 

Sorry. I forget which pages I have read and which I haven't. 

[Kickstart]

7 hours ago, Darius43 said:

...which reminds me of a particularly bad episode of the US TV series “JAG” in which the protagonists visit Belfast.  The Belfast scenes were clearly filmed in the US and the visits to an Irish pub was made all the more authentic for the US audience because someone is always playing Irish music and everyone is wearing pullovers.

 

So no stereotyping there at all...

 

Cheers

 

Darius

I remember that episode. Not sure they got anything right in it!

 

All the best

 

Katy

[joppyuk1]

7 hours ago, 62613 said:

On the Wagon Train/Laramie/Rawhide theme was another western series, called Wells Fargo (I think!) I remember the name Have Gun, Will Travel.

There was also 'Range Rider' and Tenderfoot. At one time it seemed that there was a western on every night of the week.

[Darius43]

There was a US police series in the 1970s called “Dog and Cat” which starred a young Kim Basinger.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[figworthy]

Another series that I don't remember repeated was (I think) called "The Engineers".  Sometime back in the late 70s, probably BBC2.  Half a dozen or so documentaries each one featuring a different aspect of engineering.  Three that stick in the mind, one where the featured engineer also had a steam roller which he used to repair his drive, another one where they were developing a new type of airship and the third was the development of the electronic caliper.

 

Adrian

[Darius43]

...and another US series where secret agents used camera rings linked back to a control centre.

 

just looked on Google and found it was called “Search”.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[DIW]

A children's programmme I used to endure was Zokko. It was introduced  and linked by a robot-like entity called Zokko, which looked  like what I later recognise as a pinball machine - the Wikipedia compiler also described it as such. The reason I watched this rubbish every week was that there was the occasional episode of 'Felix the Cat' - that (to me) was a charming cartoon.

[Steamport Southport]

There's only one problem with Felix The Cat and many other cartoons such as Woody Woodpecker....

 

Half of them are banned from television for being too violent or some kind of "-ist"! 

 

 

 

But look at YouTube as most of them are on there.

[PatB]

Then there are all the one-off dramas and plays that (mainly) the BBC were rather good at. One in particular that I remember greatly enjoying was an adaptation of a sci-fi short story by someone quite prominent (though I forget who) about the world telephone system becoming sentient and making something of a nuisance of itself. It was titled Crossed Line or Wrong Number or something equally telephonic, and struck an excellent balance between creepiness and wittiness. 

[Steamport Southport]

Yes. It's something which has largely disappeared from TV in the last thirty years or so, the play. Proper stage style plays with decent acting.

 

If it's not a big budget production then they don't want to know. Or some awful musical thing full of Z list celebrities.

[Classsix T]

Well quite, everyone knows of Abigail's Party because, rightly, it's been held up as a quality piece. I'm having trouble thinking of another comparible TV play that has been embedded into the public consciousness. 

 

I do remember one episode of East Enders that was literally just Dot and Ethel in one room reminiscing for 25 minutes. Superb acting and writing, unfortunately the exception to the rule as far as Soaps go. 

 

C6T. 

[Northmoor]

2 hours ago, Classsix T said:

I do remember one episode of East Enders that was literally just Dot and Ethel in one room reminiscing for 25 minutes. Superb acting and writing, unfortunately the exception to the rule as far as Soaps go. 

 

We watch Holby City but ignore all the other soaps; however when my wife used to watch 'Enders there was one episode I remember which focussed on Billy Mitchell, stuck on a Tube train trying to get to his wife in hospital.  The realistic sense of people getting increasingly frustrated, claustrophobic, aggressive and eventually realising it was the anniversary of the London bombings, was actually very impressive.  

 

As for one-off dramas (not just plays), does anyone remember the series of ghost stories from the early 90s, which I think included The Lorelei and Govan Ghost Story?  They were superb, spooky by what wasn't shown rather than because of what was.  Outside our remit here but the "Fear on Four" series on Radio 4, also in the early 90s, were incomparable as ghost stories go.  Listening to them in a darkened room genuinely put you on edge.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

3 hours ago, Classsix T said:

Well quite, everyone knows of Abigail's Party because, rightly, it's been held up as a quality piece. I'm having trouble thinking of another comparible TV play that has been embedded into the public consciousness. 

Personally I preferred Nuts in May.

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, PatB said:

Then there are all the one-off dramas and plays that (mainly) the BBC were rather good at.

 

Those were in the days before big budgets came in and you'd get one or perhaps two expensive drama series with location shooting and big name performers per year.  The rest were studio bound new plays written for TV or adaptations of stage plays, though filmed and creatively edited rather than the live productions of earlier years.  It wasn't just Dr Who which had  "cardboard" sets flapping around!

 

One of the reasons that the BBC in particular don't do relatively inexpensive productions like that nowadays is that they were required by terms of government imposed Licence Fee agreements over the past few decades to farm output to external production companies to enhance competition in the broadcast sector and had their studios, etc cut back because they weren't using them any more.  Of course, handing off stuff to outside companies makes things more expensive to buy in in the long run...

 

 

[John Harris]

Does anyone else recall a BBC (probably BBC2) programme from the 60s about a Victoria / Edwardian gent who was a bit of an amateur inventor and his long suffering family.  It wasn't a drama, but neither was it a tradition 'sit com', though it was dramatised.   He was into even new innovation for the home, so there was much steam related in the show.  I think it was a series and in black & white.

 

jch

[45568]

A couple I remember from the 6.30 pm time slot in the late 1950s..

Colonel March Investigates

The World of Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective with 'numbah one son'...!

Cannonball, American truckers who seemed to get into fight with various baddies about an hour into their journey.

Later on I remember a series called 'Six Proud Walkers', but cannot remember what it was about or who was in it!..

 Mickey Dunne..a series starring Dinsdale Landen as MD, a small time criminal who never seemed to end up on top, very similar to 'Budgie', which starred Adam Faith as Budgie in a similar role.

I wonder if they would have the same appeal now?

Cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

[melmerby]

13 hours ago, joppyuk1 said:

There was also 'Range Rider' and Tenderfoot. At one time it seemed that there was a western on every night of the week.

Tenderfoot was the UK name for Sugarfoot, later it was repeated as Sugarfoot

[Northmoor]

28 minutes ago, 45568 said:

 

The World of Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective with 'numbah one son'...!

 

Now you've reminded me of The Chinese Detective; David Yip driving around early 80s Liverpool in a Morris Traveller.

 

Also, Call Me Mister with an Austalian actor as a private detective in 80s London.  Drove a red Mini if I remember right.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Northmoor