Child Of The 1980's

Is there a word that adequately describes a biscuit/chocolate bar such as a Jacob’s Club or Trio?  You know, the kind that come in packs of around six and are completely covered in chocolate.  I don’t like using the word biscuit to describe them as that always conjures up an image of Digestives or Bourbons to me, whilst chocolate bars are something like a Mars or Twix.

Anyway, I wrote about Jacob’s Club a little while ago so this week I’m interested to find out which flavour of Jacob’s Club was (or indeed still is) your favourite.

The Krypton Factor ran from 1977 to 1995 and was a great example of a TV game show that actually made the contestants work for their prize. I guess it was ITV’s answer to the BBC’s ever popular Mastermind show, but it took things a little further as it didn’t just test the intellect of the contestants but their physical abilities too. The show was hosted by Gordon Burns, and presumably took its name from Superman’s home planet, given that the title awarded to the eventual winner was Superperson of the Year.

A series normally consisted of a number of groups of contestants. Each week four contestants from the current group would compete against each other, with the winners going on to a group final. The winners of the group finals then went on to the grand final. Normally the highest scoring runner up from each group also got a place in the group final, and the final member of the grand final line up was the highest scoring runner up from the group finals.

Each programme was split into a number of different rounds entitled Mental Agility, Observation, Physical Ability, Intelligence, General Knowledge and Response. In each round (except General Knowledge) the winner was awarded 10 points, then 6, 4 and 2 points after that, to be added to their “Krypton Factor”, or score to you and me.

Read more…

I was never a particularly big fan of colouring books as a child. I always found it a bit tedious having to colour in such large areas with a coloured pencil, and felt tip pens or water colours always bled through the paper ruining the drawing on the other side.

I was not all that fond of painting either, as that generated too much mess to be tidied up afterwards. I could never get all the paint out of the brush bristles, a problem I still find today when doing DIY!

The answer to my prayers came in the form of the Magic Painting book. Thanks to the gift of chemical reactions, these books allowed you to colour in images using only a paint brush and some water.

A special invisible substance was printed onto the drawings which when water was applied would mysteriously change colour in front of your very eyes. Using a paintbrush was much faster than colouring pencils, and the pages of these books were slightly thicker so the water didn’t tend to soak through the paper very much either.

In order to indicate which areas of the drawing were specially coated the pictures were often filled with different repeating patterns that indicated which colour would appear when you painted it. Obviously any choice of what colour to make the drawing had been taken from you, but half of the fun was in trying to predict what colour would appear when you applied some moisture.

Search for Magic Painting Books items on Amazon.co.uk

If you want to relive your childhood with the minimum of fuss then look no further than the excellent Box of Childhood Nostalgia that has been put together by the people at the Seven Again web store. They also stock a wide variety of items from modern day versions of board games you might have had as a child to penny sweets and classic 1980′s movies, but the nostalgia box is a bit good as it brings a collection of old favourites together for a shade under fifteen quid.

Here’s a list of what you get for your cash.

• Classic Kids TV DVD – featuring episodes of Jamie and the Magic Torch, Chorlton and the Wheelies, Dangermouse, Rainbow, Button Moon and Count Duckula.
• A Slinky – the only time you were allowed to play on the stairs!
• Some Play Doh – I remember my Mum used to make play dough herself. I wonder if she still has the recipe? Anyway, this is a much easier way to go clay modelling again than messing about in the kitchen.
• A couple of Penny Racers – pull back and watch ‘em go.
• A Polystyrene Glider – I loved these, and they fly surprisingly well.
• Read more…

Sitting awkwardly somewhere between a novelty record and a true pop song, Toni Basil’s Mickey is one of those songs that immediately goes hand in hand with memories of the 1980′s. If you buy one of those compilation CD sets of the decade chances are Mickey will feature on there, granted probably towards the end of the last disc along with The Chicken Song and Agadoo, but it will be there. It’s one of those songs that it just isn’t cool to admit to liking, but yet everybody will at least know the chorus line and sing along with it…

Oh Mickey, what a pity, you don’t understand.
You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand.

…and so on. The Mickey referred to by the title of the song is supposed to be Mickey Mouse, although the lyrics never mention big black ears, red shorts with two white buttons or oversized white gloves with only three fingers. However, given that Toni was dressed as a cheer leader for the duration of the song I suppose you could say it was something along the lines of a homage to the sort of songs they used to sing on the Mickey Mouse Club TV show.

Read more…

Michael J. Fox may have become a household name thanks to Back To The Future, but I think that Teen Wolf also played a part in his early success as well. The film is about teenager Scott Howard who when we first meet him is a pretty average kind of guy, reasonable at his school work and a member of the school basketball team, but not the star player by any means. In fact, the entire basketball team aren’t really up to much if it comes to that.

Scott’s hum drum life starts to change when he literally starts to go through strange changes himself. He starts to grow more hair, and his voice deepens, and he’s already been through puberty once. Turns out the Scott is actually a werewolf, and the ability to change from man to wolf-man is something that runs in his family. This is hilariously revealed when Scott undergoes a full transformation one evening, and in a panic locks himself into the bathroom. His father comes to check on him, and Scott panics further, telling his father he his fine despite all the groans and moans he is uttering due to the transformation process. Eventually Scott has to open the door to see his father standing before him, also in full werewolf mode, although his hair is a little greyer than Scott’s. His father had never mentioned the family affliction before because it sometimes skips a generation.

Read more…

Last weekend, to mark the penultimate episode of the current series of Doctor Who (it was a real cliffhanger, wasn’t it?) I asked which of the actors who have portrayed the Doctor was your favourite.  David Tennant appears to be doing very well indeed, although Tom Baker narrowly made it into second place, which didn’t really surprise me.  I expected him to do a bit better to be honest…

Anyway, the thrilling conclusion airs tonight (can’t wait!) and since the best known of enemies the Daleks feature, I thought we’d stick with the Timelord theme this week and ask which of the Doctors enemies had you cowering behind the sofa the most as a child, or indeed still have you cowering today!  Of course there are far too many enemies to choose from, so we’ll boil it down to the obvious two!

There have been a great many different dolls over the years that try to mimic the actions of a real baby, some more successfully than others. It’s a given that most dolls have the weighted eyes that shut when they are put in a lying down position, but there have been attempts at emulating the sounds of a baby crying, gurgling and burping, wetting its nappy and even nappy rash! However, by far the most popular of these many dolls must certainly be the Tiny Tears doll.

As the name suggests, Tiny Tears special feature was that she could be made to cry. This was achieved by feeding her with a bottle of water, and then placing a dummy in her mouth once she had drunk her fill. Pressing hard on her tummy (note to kids – this isn’t recommended with real babies) would cause tears to stream from her eyes. No wonder at it, as I don’t think I’d like being punched in the guts after I’d just finished feeding either. Water also emerged from her other end too, yielding a wet nappy.

The first iteration of the doll was released in 1965 by Palitoy and was 16 inches in height and made from vinyl. The following year a smaller 12 inch version was also released, called Teeny Tiny Tears. Tiny Tears was quite a realistic looking doll, although the shock of blonde hair she sported was rather more than the average baby might have. This original version didn’t actually cry though, and it wasn’t until the early 1970′s that this feature was added after a redesign of the face of the doll, which was made to have softer looking features than before.

Read more…