Child Of The 1980’s

When I was but a child my Mum would only buy us fizzy drinks when there was a special occasion like Christmas or a birthday party. One reason for this was the cost, as fizzy drinks tended to cost a lot more (in relative terms) than they do now, and supermarkets didn’t often have their own brand pop at this time. The other reason was because Mum always said it would blow us up. Of course, I always thought the blowing something up meant a big BOOM and an explosion, so whenever Mum said this I thought it was odd that you would be allowed to drink something that could potentially be explosive. Of course, what she really meant was that it might make us burp a lot…

The introduction of a Sodastream to our household was seen by my sister and myself as a wonderful thing, meaning we now had access to all the Cola, Cherryade and Dandelion and Burdock we could drink. The Sodastream was a big plastic device in which a gas cylinder full of carbon dioxide was inserted. You then filled one of the supplied bottles with water, added some concentrate for the drink you desired, put it in the machine, and pressed the magic fizz button on the top a few times. Voila! When you took the bottle out there was a freshly made fizzy drink just waiting to be slurped through one of the crazy wiggly straws.

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I used to love the public safety announcement adverts that would sometimes air during kids TV programmes. The Charley Says ones were my favourites, but a close second were the ones about being careful near electricity sub stations and pylons. Whilst they did perform their intended role well, I couldn’t help but find them amusing at the same time.

The best one was the really dramatic one about the kid called Billy who loses his frisbee over the fence of a electricity sub station. The electricity gubbins inside the fence had several large insulating discs on it, which looked similar to Billy’s frisbee, which of course had got lodged between two of them.

Billy tells the girl he is playing with that he saw some kids break in the other week, and knocks a fence panel aside with a piece of wood to gain entry (doesn’t say much for the security of these places, does it?). In he goes, despite his friends warnings, and climbs up to get his frisbee. He touches the wrong part though, sparks fly and he falls, with his young friend left screaming “Biiillllly!!!” at the top of her voice.

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The Charley Says public information adverts were actually created during the 1970’s, but they were still regularly shown during the 1980’s at times when children would be watching, especially Saturday mornings. They were about a little boy (apparently called Dominic, though I had to look that up!) and his pet cat Charley (allegedly voiced by Kenny Everett). Charley usually kept a lookout for Dominic and would warn him about potentially dangerous situations, although sometimes it would be Charley himself who got into trouble.

The adverts were generally short and to the point, with Dominic narrating the animated tale to let us know what was going on. In all there were a total of six adventures for the boy and his ginger cat, which were:-

Falling in the Water - Charley takes a big jump over a puddle and nearly drowns in the river when he leaps in by mistake. The scary music as Charley floats along underwater was a bit dramatic, but luckily he is caught on a fishermans line and reeled to safety.

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Paddington Bear was the brainchild of Michael Bond, who created the little brown bear from darkest Peru way back in the late 1950’s. The idea for the character came from a toy teddy bear that Michael Bond had bought for his wife on Christmas Eve 1956, because he saw it sat all alone on the shop shelf and felt sorry for it. Since they lived closed to Paddington railway station in London, he named the bear Paddington.

Paddington first appeared to the public in 1958 with the book “A Bear called Paddington”, with the Brown family finding him sat alone at Paddington station with a label saying “Please look after this bear“. However, this post is primarily concerned with the TV series made during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, which is how I best remember Paddington.

The show had a unique look, with Paddington being a stop motion animated puppet, dressed in a blue duffel coat with a massive black hat perched on his head. All the background sets were very plain though, being two dimensional white cardboard cutouts, which meant that Paddington was always clearly visible. The human characters were also just two dimensional animated cutouts, though they were eventually allowed a splash of colour as well. I say eventually, as I’m sure they were originally black and white like the backgrounds, but this may be my memory failing me, as I’ve not been able to find any evidence of this!

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I distinctly remember Um Bongo being launched whilst I was still at primary school, as everybody would sing the TV advert jingle at the drop of a hat. Um Bongo the drink is a tasty tropical fruit blend containing 9 different types of fruit, and you can still buy it today. I must admit with the politically correct attitudes of today I’m surprised someone hasn’t found the name Um Bongo to be offensive and have it banned.

The TV advert itself featured a group of animated brightly coloured jungle animals creating and packaging the drink, and was accompanied by the most infuriating catchy jingle, which went like this:-

Way down deep in the middle of the Congo,
A Hippo took an apricot, a guava and a mango,
He stuck them altogether and he danced a dainty tango,
The Rhino said, I know, we’ll call it Um Bongo.
Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo.

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TRRRIIIIIIIII-O! TRRRIIIIIIII-O! I want a Trio and I want one now!

So went the TV advertising campaign for Jacob’s Trio, a chocolate biscuit bar which was still available until fairly recently, when it suddenly disappeared from our supermarket shelves. The Trio got it’s name from it’s three constituent parts, a shortcake biscuit, thick solid toffee flavour creme and a thick coating of chocolate. To add futher to the three theme, each bar was split into three bite-sized chunks. It came wrapped gold foiled paper, with a bright red paper label with “Trio” emblazoned on it in big white letters. I’ve searched high and low for a picture, but to no avail, so you’ll have to make do with my artists impression!

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