TV Cream
Creamup this month is looking at 1987
Thought some of you would be interested in this
__________________________________________________________________
THE ALL-NEW TIME TUNNEL
The sights, the sounds and possibly even the smells of... JUNE 1987
This was the month that all sorts of people announced in startled
amazement
that "It was twenty years ago today" that a song containing those
actual
words was released - well it had to happen one day, didn't it? The
Conservatives found themselves voted back into power for a third
successive
term and THE LENNY HENRY SHOW contained an ill-focused spoof of DOCTOR
WHO
(as did, of course that year's series of DOCTOR WHO). On a more
personal
note, Creamup Ed spent his 14th birthday money on the "Marvel Try Out
Book",
while his brother purchased the "Frank Miller Chronicles". All this
the day
before robotic tennis ace Ivan Lendl defeated Mats Wilander 7-5, 6-2,
4-6,
7-6, as part of one of several ultimately doomed attempt to win
Wimbledon.
----------------------
TELEVISION
The top ten rated programmes that month:
1) EastEnders (BBC1) - 19.4m
2) EastEnders (BBC1) - 19.1m
3) Coronation Street (ITV) - 13.6m
4) Coronation Street (ITV) - 13.4m
5) Strike It Lucky (ITV) - 11.5m
6) Emmerdale Farm (ITV) - 11.2m
7) That's Life! (BBC1) - 10.7m
8) Mastermind: The Final (BBC1) - 10.7m
9) If Tomorrow comes (ITV) - 10.4m
10) Crossroads (ITV) - 10.4m
EASTENDERS IN DETAIL...
"Let's all go round the Square". So the question is does 1987 find us
still
in the middle of imperial phase Easties? Well of course it was the
year of
the Dagmar, one of the first in many failed EASTENDERS attempts to
"do"
Yuppies. They also "did" gays with the arrival of Colin and Barry.
Thankfully, their characterisation was rather more successful, and
Creamup
has fond memories of attending the BBC tent at the Three Counties farm
show
where Michael Cashman was interviewed and then gave away a load of
those
paper hats that no one seems to produce anymore. Undoubtedly though,
the
best EASTENDERS storyline in 1987 centred round the Walford Prowler.
Off
the top of our heads we can't really remember any other serial
attacker /
murderer storylines cropping up in a soap, wherein the perpetrator was
someone unknown to the viewers. Anyway, in particular there was the
fantastic episode in which Prowler suspect Pete Beale was humiliated
in the
Queen Vic after he turned up dressed as a lady in the belief that
there was
a drag party ongoing. He cried hot tears that night, as did Creamup.
Definitely still imperial phase, then.
AND BUBBLING UNDER...
THAT'S LIFE! was also cracking along reasonably well in 1987. The
June
Nancy gang consisted of Gavin "rumours at the time suggested he liked
to
indulge in cross-dressing holidays" Campbell, Doc "universally
referred to
as Doc Cock", Cox Adrian "Editoareal Offeethay" Mills and Grant
"Public
Permission to throw a bucket of water over his head" Baynham. The 28
June
edition was a particular highlight, given it included an investigation
into
"what is bonking", more on the interminable campaigns against Guar Gum
and
Bai Lin Tea, Esther getting herself arrested for causing an
obstruction,
plus a revealing investigation revealing the little known fact that
hot
water can easily scald or burn children. You'd didn't get any of this
on
THAT'S ESTHER did you? Well actually you did, but it was never as
much fun.
----------------------
POP
The top ten best-selling singles
1) The Firm - Star Trekkin'
2) Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)
3) Johnny Logan - Hold Me Now
4) George Michael - I Want Your Sex
5) Bruce Willis - Under The Boardwalk
6) Pet Shop Boys - It's A Sin
7) Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
8) John Farnham - You're The Voice
9) U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
10) Samantha Fox - Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now
"STAR TREKKIN'" IN DETAIL...
Detail? You want details of this? I'm sure that waxing lyrical about a
number one single bought purely by pressured parents for kids or
catatonically dull sci-fi patheticos wasn't in the contract. Talk
about
suffering for one's art. Right then, it was an animated video, all
potatoes
and plasticine (and Smartie tubes for the Enterprise, undoubtedly made
by an
over-keen cub scout), depicting the members of the crew "under Captain
Kirk"
who apparently only boldly went forward because the reverse gear was a
bit
spongey. That staff pecking order in full then: - Lieutenant "there's
kling-ons on the starboard bow" Uhura; Mr "it's life Jim but not as we
know
it" Spock; Dr "it's worse than that, he's dead Jim" McCoy; Captain
"ah, we
come in peace, shoot to kill" James T. Kirk; and Mr "ye cannae change
the
laws of physics" Scott. Each new verse was followed by those already
uttered, then the chorus of tropical psoriasis irritation factor would
break
it up. A multi-echoed tannoy system would announce each new crew
member as
it went along and ultimately there'd be an explosion to end the
torture.
Not very funny, but clever and well aware of the niche it was chasing.
A
million copies were sold worldwide and it managed a fortnight at #1 in
the
UK and even got closing track status on the year's Hits album.
The Firm was the brainchild of John O'Connor, already known for THE
MINDER
tribute Arthur Daley "E's Alright", who subsequently flogged the Star
Trekkin' idea to every record company going. They, anxious to maintain
some
form of credibility even for the novelty-songed flood that was the
80s, all
said no. O'Connor pressed almost a thousand copies from his own pocket
and,
in traditionally heart-sinking manner, the public cottoned on and
bought
them all. Demand grew, and it entered at #13, enjoying one of the
chart's
highest ever leaps to #1 a week later. For an insufferable reminder of
the
whole sorry experience, try this link: -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE - and don't ever ask me to
write
about it again...
AND BUBBLING UNDER...
See "BUT WE WERE BIGGER IN EUROPE!"/Eurovision superstar wins hands
down
again for Ireland and increases that debt just a little more/"and now,
special guest producer Kenny Dalglish will indecipherably
announce...On This
Day In History"/"hey Bruno!"/a rare treat as Neil and Chris produce a
song
which was an obvious #1 from the opening bars, first time you heard
it/Mannequin was rubbish. and Phil Norman himself told me that/one
failed
album away from a Home & Away cameo/"you're not going to climb
mountains or
swim the sea for anyone - not unless you're a traithlete" - Rich
Hall/folk
must have thought they were buying #7.
----------------------
FILMS
THIS EVENING'S MAIN FEATURE... The just-for-laughs sequel to the
original
Video Recordings Act victim, EVIL DEAD II, had it all. Scary camera
zooms,
grisly dismemberments, shite Hemingway puns, a stag's head laughing by
itself and *that* tooling-up montage - OK, we know a) the 1001 homages
by
the Simon Peggs of this world have tarnished its brilliance just a
tad, and
b) you'll get more grisly horror these days in five minutes of
TIKKABILLA,
ho ho, but at the time... well "revelation" isn't too strong a word to
use
here, we feel. Plus, for Midlands-based insomniacs, this coincided
with the
time CENTRAL WEEKEND LIVE went a bit Whitehouse, and in short
succession did
special programmes on Raimi and co (the phrase "raped by a tree"
parroted by
various WI members with varying degree of both indignation and
Brummidge in
ther voices), Page 3 (Claire Short and Jilly Johnson at loggerheads
while
John Stapleton tries desperately to look models in the eye); and best
of all
top notch latex-costumed grindcore outfit GWAR (cue the deputy mayor
of
Stourbridge shouting indignant accusations about prosthetic penises to
fully-costumed members Sleazy P Martini and The Sexecutioner). Heady
times...
ALSO SHOWING... As with all summer season warm-ups, June 1987 was not
exactly a month of quality control. True, Timothy "Sextette" Dalton
was
manfully braving the rotten tomatoes in surprisingly unshabby
Mooreless Bond
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, and Danny DeVito knocked out the excellent THROW
MAMMA
FROM THE TRAIN, but for every chink of light like THREE AMOGOS! there
was an
OVERBOARD or four. Remember, this was a time when a "birthday treat"
could
legitimately consist of a trip to the local fleapit to watch POLICE
ACADEMY
4: CITIZENS ON PATROL, no questions asked. On the "notable" front,
WITHNAIL
AND I was making its first, tentative steps towards flopdom, only to
be
"rediscovered" as a "cult classic" about ten minutes later, and Emily
Lloyd
was showing us her Readers' Wives arse in WISH YOU WERE HERE.
So much for the British film industry. In the rubbish comedy stakes,
you
might find yourself tossing a coin in the lobby to decide between
Shelley
Long's post-CHEERS resurrectioncom HELLO AGAIN and misguided,
Jasper-Carrott-associated attempt to resurrect a wartime comic strip
that
really should have been left to rot in peace JANE AND THE LOST CITY.
The
arty crowd, meanwhile, were flipping a Peruvian nose flute to choose
between
ten-director operatic portmanteau pile-up ARIA (best segment, believe
it or
not, Ken Russell's) and Alex Cox's interminable workers'
playtime-style
Pogues/Joe Strummer/Courtney Love/Ed Tudor-Pole/Grace Jones/"...and
introducing Elvis Costello as Hives the Butler" spag western pisstake
STRAIGHT TO HELL. Unedifying choices, both.
There was fun to be had in June, mind, but you had to look at the
short film
market to find it. THE BLACK TOWER has almost painfully arty
credentials -
made by John Smith, member of postmodern gadabouts The London
Film-maker's
Co-op - but it's actually a nifty, and pretty funny, tale of a bloke
haunted
by a giant black water tower in the environs of Leytonstone, while
subsisting on a diet of Strawberry Mivvies from an ice cream van. Like
a
cross between a high-class horror portmanteau story and a HANCOCK'S
HALF
HOUR monologue, this is the sort of film Chris Morris dreams of
making.
Better yet, Aardman put some of those AMAZING ADVENTURES OF MORPH
millions
behind the burglary-themed GOING EQUIPPED, one of those "lip-synching
to
documentary soundtrack" efforts that pay re-watching a hundred times,
so
spot-on are the gestures. The following year, a certain glittery
bow-tied
Prestonian would "cute up" the format with steak and chips and lions
and
stuff, and the rest is "just a tiny amount" of history...
date: Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:09:03 +0100
author: Lister
|
