Knight Rider did it for cars, Airwolf did it for helicopters, and it was Street Hawk that did it for motorbikes. In the 1980’s we loved our shows about technologically advanced forms of transport, and the short lived Street Hawk was no exception.
It aired in 1985 and whilst it only managed to make it to 13 episodes it still holds a place in my heart. Amazingly, despite such a small episode count there were no less than four different versions of the bike made for the show, but the common specifications were that it could travel very fast (200mph, or 300mph with the computer assisted Hyperthrust mode) and that it featured weaponry such as lasers, missiles and machine guns.
The funniest feature was the anti-theft device though. Obviously KITT and Airwolf both had doors that could be locked, but a motorbike doesn’t have that luxury. Instead it had an ejector seat which was triggered if someone other than the designated driver tried to mount it. Authorisation to ride was provided via what essentially amounts to a bum imprint detection system! The rider had to have a special suit made which was moulded to their body shape - the mould being created by having them stand in a glass cylinder that filled up with foam!
A particularly popular style of US TV show in the 1980’s were the “big black high-tech vehicle” shows. Initially popularised by
Quite literally bouncing onto our screens during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s came Keith Chegwin, or Cheggers as he was nick-named, with his own pop music related quiz show for kids, Cheggers Plays Pop. The ever cheerful Cheggers would take two teams of school children through a number of challenges and quiz rounds set around the world of popular music.
In 1987 Sylvester McCoy (real name Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith) took over from Colin Baker as the seventh incarnation of Timelord Doctor Who. Sylvester first came to the public eye as part of the comedy act “The Ken Campbell Roadshow”, where he played the part of a stuntman called Sylveste McCoy (note the lack of an R in the first name), putting nails up his nose and ferrets down his trousers, among other things (perhaps playing the spoons - this was a favourite mannerism of his Doctor). A reviewer of the show believed that Sylveste McCoy was the actors real name, which prompt Percy to adopt it as his stage name. Later, when he realised that Sylveste McCoy contained 13 letters, and believing this to be unlucky, the R was added to become Sylvester.
Colin Baker took over the role of the Doctor from
With the new series of Doctor Who starting this weekend now seems a good time to reminisce about the Timelord as he was in the 1980’s. For many Tom Baker is often the most remembered incarnation of the Doctor, but given that he hung up his scarf and bag of jelly babies in 1981 after playing the character for seven years, I shall start with the fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, who incidentally also sang the theme tune to
Before he went grey and started hanging out with Fern Britton on This Morning,
Those good ol’ boys The Dukes of Hazzard burst onto our TV screens in 1979, and kept the police department of Hazzard County busy for 7 seasons, ending in 1985. The Dukes part of the title referred in the most part to the two lead characters, Beauregard Duke and his cousin Lucas Duke, which was a bit of a mouthful so they were known as Bo and Luke instead. They lived on a run down farm owned by their Uncle Jesse, and also yet another cousin, the pretty young Daisy Duke. With all these cousins it must have been a pretty big family, especially considering that Bo and Luke left for one series due to contract issues, and were replaced by two further cousins, Coy and Vance, the story being that Bo and Luke had left Hazzard to go NASCAR racing!