A 1980s Childhood (7 page)

‘G-G-Granville! F-fetch yer cloth!’ This comedy series was penned by Roy Clarke, who also wrote
Last of the Summer Wine
and
Keeping Up Appearances
, and featured Ronnie Barker as Albert Arkwright, the miserly shopkeeper with a stutter, and his nephew Granville, played by a young David Jason. Poor Granville was a wistful and philosophical errand boy whose sole aim in life was to have a meaningful relationship with a woman, but his attempts were usually frustrated by his mean-spirited and selfish uncle who made him work long hours and gave him little freedom. Much of Arkwright’s time was spent trying to persuade his voluptuous long-term fiancée, Nurse Gladys Emmanuel, to marry him. Twenty-six episodes were made in all with the last instalment in 1985.

If I ever hear anyone use the phrase ‘lovable rogue’, I immediately conjure up a mental image of Lovejoy dressed in a black leather jacket, white t-shirt, cowboy boots and sporting a horrific mullet/perm combo haircut. Ian McShane starred as the ‘lovable rogue’ Lovejoy who was a dodgy antiques dealer with a reputation for being a ‘divvie’, meaning one who has an almost magical ability to discern valuable items and to spot forgeries. Lovejoy embarked on roguish adventures which often involved burglary and forgery – but normally only in the course of justice, revenge or love. Lovejoy was sometimes assisted in his exploits by his alcoholic colleague Tinker and dim-witted friend Eric, and in some cases he was helped by his love interest, Lady Jane Felsham, or in later episodes by Charlotte Cavendish.

Ian McShane as lovable rogue and dodgy antique dealer Lovejoy. If you could see the rest of him in the picture, he would undoubtedly be wearing cowboy boots and an uncomfortably tight pair of stonewashed denim jeans.
(BBC)

Lovejoy’s unorthodox activities landed him in trouble on a number of occasions and he was even sent to prison at one point, although strangely it wasn’t for the crimes against fashion that he had committed.

The anarchic and satirical puppet show
Spitting Image
first aired in 1984 on ITV and featured a host of well-known politicians and celebrities caricatured as rubber puppets. Much of the show focused on Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and the British royal family, with Mrs T portrayed as a bullying macho tyrant who dressed as a man and used the male urinals. John Major’s puppet was always dressed in different shades of grey, skin included; Douglas Hurd had a Dalek-style voice with a Mr Whippy haircut; and the Queen Mum was usually shown holding a bottle of gin, a copy of the
Racing Post
and talking with a Beryl Reid voice.

In addition to the satirical sketches,
Spitting Image
produced a number of musical parodies, the most notable being
The Chicken Song
, which surprisingly made it to number one in the charts for three weeks and was a parody of the Black Lace song
Agadoo
. I can still remember most of the words to
The Chicken Song
thanks to its incessant repetition on the radio, in the school playground and at home on the record player:

Hold a chicken in the air,

Stick a deckchair up your nose,

Buy a jumbo jet,

And then bury all your clothes,

Paint your left knee green,

Then extract your wisdom teeth,

Form a string quartet,

And pretend your name is Keith.

Having been one of the numerous people who bought the vinyl record of
The Chicken Song
, I can tell you that the B side was an even more amusing, though highly offensive, song entitled
I’ve Never Met a Nice South African
, which was a savage indictment of the apartheid-ridden country.

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire … The A-Team.

I certainly could have used the help of the A-Team on a number of occasions but I could never find them, despite their distinctive black GMC Vandura van.

The A-Team
is undoubtedly one of the most iconic television shows of the 1980s, telling the story of four Vietnam veterans who escape from prison after being wrongly accused of robbing a bank. The team was led by John Hannibal Smith, played by George Peppard, and included Templeton ‘Face’ Peck, the ladies’ man, ‘Howling Mad’ Murdoch, the insane team pilot, and strongman B.A. Baracus, played by Mr T. Every episode featured gun fights, explosions and lots of exciting and violent action, but somehow people rarely got hurt, even the bad guys. The A-Team would often get captured by their enemies and end up fashioning an improbable weapon from whatever was lying around to help them make their escape, and Face would inevitably become attracted to whoever the female lead was in that episode.

The show became so popular that by the fourth season guest stars, including Boy George and Hulk Hogan, appeared as themselves and the numerous catchphrases used by the A-Team made their way into popular culture, such as ‘I love it when a plan comes together’ and ‘I ain’t gettin’ on no plane!’

I remember feeling very grown up watching
John Craven’s Newsround
since the news was something that adults watched. The ten-minute news programme presented by John Craven was aimed at 6- to 12-year-olds and comprised a brief, palatable summary of current affairs and world news. Most memorably,
Newsround
was the first programme in Britain to report the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger, with dramatic images of the disintegrating spacecraft shown during the opening titles.

Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker were, without a doubt, one of the funniest and most popular comedy double acts of all time, following closely on the heels of Morecambe and Wise. Their BBC1 sketch show,
The Two Ronnies
, attracted viewing figures of 20 million at its peak and ran for sixteen years over twelve series; it attracted numerous guest stars including Elkie Brooks, Elton John, Elaine Paige and Phil Collins, among others. The opening credits would feature the familiar theme music and a picture of two pairs of spectacles, representing those of Ronnie B and Ronnie C, before cutting to the ‘newsdesk’ where the Ronnies would take it in turns to read spoof news stories.

Perhaps the most famous
Two Ronnies
sketch is ‘Four Candles’ written by Ronnie Barker, who had a talent for wordplay humour. Ronnie Barker plays a customer in a hardware store with a shopping list; he asks for what sounds like ‘four candles’ but, after being given the candles, corrects the shopkeeper by explaining that he meant ‘fork ’andles, for garden forks’. The list continues with numerous other confusing items before the shopkeeper gives up when he is asked for ‘billhooks’, at which point you need to use your imagination to understand how that could be humorously mispronounced.

Both Ronnies seemed to enjoy dressing up in outlandish costumes for their characters, particularly Ronnie B, who spent a lot of time wearing ladies’ clothes, and the sketches sometimes turned into elaborate musical productions. Ronnie Corbett would always have a monologue at some point in the show when he would sit in a chair facing the camera attempting to tell a simple joke but continually getting sidetracked by other humorous reflections. The show closed with the ‘newsdesk’ again and a rapid fire of spoof news, before the Ronnies signed off with their catchphrase:

Corbett: So it’s ‘Goodnight’ from me.

Barker: And it’s ‘Goodnight’ from him.

Both: Goodnight!

Do you remember George the Hofmeister bear? He was the football-playing, beer-drinking, laddish equivalent of the Honey Monster. Well, my parents picked up a t-shirt at a jumble sale for me with a message on the front that read, ‘I’ve got a bear behind’, and on the back was a picture of George the Hofmeister bear, grinning, winking and giving a thumbs-up. I was 9. What were they thinking?

George the bear was just one of many characters created for television advertising purposes, and the next one that springs to mind is British Telecom’s Buzby, the fat yellow bird voiced by Bernard Cribbins who told us to ‘Make someone happy with a phone call’. Smash had the aliens, Sugar Puffs had the Honey Monster and Frosties had Tony the Tiger, but Hamlet cigars had Gregor Fisher with a dodgy comb-over. In each instalment of the Hamlet cigar ads, some calamity would befall the lead character who would immediately light up a cigar as consolation while the ‘Hamlet song’ was played on the piano. Gregor Fisher, better known as ‘that bloke who played Rab C. Nesbitt’, featured in one of the best-remembered Hamlet ads, taking the role of an overweight and unattractive middle-aged man with a Bobby Charlton comb-over. He takes a seat in a photo booth and arranges his wisp of hair to perfection, then he sits back and waits for the photo. Nothing happens so he leans forward to look at the machine; at that exact moment the flash goes off taking a picture of the top of his head. He tries again and the same thing happens, and on the third and final attempt the chair suddenly drops just before the photograph is taken. Cue the Hamlet music and a puff of smoke from a smiling Rab C. Nesbitt.

Perhaps my favourite advert of the 1980s is the famous Heineken ‘water in Majorca’ ad. A well-spoken young Sloane Ranger visits the School of Street Credibility, where Bryan Pringle plays a frustrated voice coach trying to teach his pupil how to speak in a cockney accent. After several posh-sounding attempts at reciting ‘The water in Majorca don’t taste like what it ought to’, an assistant brings the young lady a can of Heineken, and says, ‘Get yer larfin’ gear around that.’ After a sip of the beer the lady tries again and this time recites the words in a strong cockney accent, which gets even stronger after a second mouthful of the drink. The advert finishes with the slogan ‘Heineken refreshes the parts wot other beers cannot reach’.

Can you believe it’s time to leave the TV section already and move on to some of the movies of the eighties? Hey, there’s no need to yell at me, I know that I’ve barely scratched the surface of the TV shows but there really was so much good stuff in the eighties that it’s impossible to fit even a fraction of it in here. If you want to see a full list of my favourite TV shows from the eighties, skip straight to the end of the chapter. OK, ready to move on? Lights, cameras, action …

Michael J. Fox stars as teenager Marty McFly whose eccentric friend Doc Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) invents a time machine which he installs in a DeLorean car. The famous flux capacitor is at the heart of the machine and is activated when the car reaches 88mph, sending the occupant through time to the date entered in the console. In this case, Marty is sent back to 1955 where he visits his home town of Hill Valley and meets his parents as teenagers.

Marty’s young mother Lorraine rather disturbingly develops a crush on him, which leads to the possibility that she won’t fall in love with his father at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance where they are supposed to share their first kiss. Marty tries to matchmake his mother and father George while also trying to persuade the young Doc Brown to help him get back to the future that he belongs to: 1985.

Marty hatches a plan to make George look like a hero to Lorraine by staging a confrontation in the school parking lot. However, the plan goes awry when Biff Tannen, the school bully, makes an unexpected appearance and tries to force himself on Lorraine in the car. Marty’s dad George, not knowing it is Biff in the car and thinking it is part of the plan, confronts the assailant and, after some abuse, decides that he has finally put up with enough from the bully and punches him out cold.

Back to the Future
(1985), starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd.
(Universal)

George’s assertiveness makes Lorraine fall in love with him and secures a happy future for the McFly family. Doc Brown, in the meantime, figures out an elaborate scheme to harness the energy from a lightning bolt to send the DeLorean and Marty back to 1985.