Classic TV

Classic shows that have almost been forgotten, as well as shows that should probably have been forgotten

Classic TV

Rubbish old series: Raven (1992-93)

20 January 2011 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Raven with Jeffrey Meek

Let’s make this one brief, because as much fun as it was to watch the fight scenes, the show itself was pretty dreadful:

When Jonathon Raven was 12 years old, his parents were killed by the Black Dragon. He trained with them for many years in the deadly martial arts with the hopes of learning and mastering their lethal skill and then using it against them for vengeance. Although he succeeded in infiltrating them, the Black Dragon are many in number, and are now bent on destroying Raven’s bloodline.

His one true love, a beautiful Japanese woman named Aki, becomes pregnant with their son at the same time the Black Dragon clan is after Raven’s life. Aki unfortunately dies shortly after giving birth to their son, but before she passes away, she realizes that her son’s life is in danger. Jonathon learns of his wife’s plan of hiding their son from imperilment, but sadly never gets to see him or attain the knowledge of his location.

Later on, he joins the U.S. Special Forces and becomes one of their top assassins under a man named Nick Henderson. After many complications and regrets, Raven leaves the Special Forces and continues his search for his long-lost son. His search eventually leads him to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he believes his son may be. Raven is on a life-long journey in search of his son, and is willing to risk his life along the way to find him and ensure the safety of his life, with the aid of his old military buddy – a drunken private investigator named Herman “Ski” Jablonski.

Suffice it to say, Raven had three things – and only three things – going for it:

  1. Jeffrey Meek – best known as Remo in the pilot episode of Remo Williams, who’s a black belt in tae kwon do and aikido so actually made the fight scenes look good
  2. Lee Majors, who played “Ski”
  3. Hawaii, which is awfully pretty

That’s it. But the title sequence is awfully silly, so I thought I’d include it this week.

Classic TV

Old Gems: Automan (1983)

13 January 2011 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Since there was something of a Tron thing going on last month, it seems appropriate that we should delve into one of wunderkind producer Glen A Larson’s little 80s projects that absolutely in no way was influenced by Tron – Automan.

This saw mild-mannered police computer programmer Walter Nebicher (played by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s son, Desi Arnaz Jr) get all creative in his home hours and write ‘Automan’, a computer program that could not only think and solve crimes, it could also create its own holographic body that looked human(ish), despite being largely a glowing mass of blue.

Automan (played by musical theatre star Chuck Wagner) also had a little polyhedral sidekick called Cursor that he could communicate with and that could draw him all manner of objects, including clothing, and forms of transport, ranging from cars (a Lamborghini Countach usually) to futuristic helicopters, aeroplanes and motorcycles. Being a hologram as well, the car could turn at 90º, but being a special kind of hologram, it was actually possible for it to be solid or pass through things as Automan desired. Weirdly, Walter could actually enter inside either Automan or his car, and become equally solid or intangible.

Automan’s only weaknesses? He needed an awful lot of power so he could usually only come out at night when people weren’t using their toasters and other household gadgets. Oh, yes – and video game guns.

All sounds very plausible and scientific, doesn’t it?

Assisting Walter, Automan and Cursor was Roxanne (Heather McNair), Walter’s co-worker and long-time crush who eventually becomes his girlfriend when she finds out about Automan and helps them to solve a few crimes together. At the same time, his other co-workers couldn’t be trusted so although Walter was out there solving crimes, he couldn’t tell anyone, not even top cop Jack Curtis (Robert Lansing – best known for his work on The Equalizer and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues) and particularly not his technophobe boss played by Gerald O’Loughlin.

Automan, himself, was a curious personality who was best buds with Pacman and Donkey Kong, but needed to learn about human behaviour as well, despite being programmed with the complete works of Sherlock Holmes, amongst other things. Unfortunately, his learning often went wrong, with one episode dealing with an unfortunate case of soap opera overload.

Now, vehicles that move at 90º? A guy who’s a computer program and largely glowing blue? A polyhedral sidekick that communicates in computerese? Hmm. That does sound a bit like Tron, doesn’t it? Why didn’t the network, ABC, get sued for that, Tron having coming out the year before Automan? Oh yes, because they hired two of Tron‘s producers,  Donald Kushner and Peter Locke. Can’t sue yourself, can you?

The show ran for 12 episodes from 1983 to 1984, a 13th episode having been made but not aired. There was actually a surprising variety of stories in that run, with Automan doing everything from pretending to be a vigilante cop to helping a girl group to joining a motorcycle gang along the way. As you might have guessed the tone was quite light, with everyone being as cheesy as hell and most episodes seeing Automan’s naivety and Dudley Doright qualities exploited for laughs, and the day saved by Automan’s breaking of the laws of physics at every turn.

Anyway, I liked it when I was a kid. Here’s the pilot episode in case you missed it – weirdly, it’s not an ‘origins’ episode, but just more or less leaps into the narrative after a voiceover explanation of the plot, which was also used in subsequent episodes. You can watch more on YouTube, but unfortunately you can’t get it on DVD. Enjoy!

Classic TV

Old Gems: The Red Hand Gang (1977)

6 January 2011 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

The Red Hand Gang

As much as we like to think our TV is great in Britain – and it is, or can be anyway – somehow, US TV was always that much more exciting. Case in point: The Red Hand Gang. Although British TV has had its fair share of children detectives, including The Famous Five and The Secret Seven, somehow The Red Hand Gang – a motley collection of American street kids – was just that much more exciting and dynamic. You could argue it’s a street thing, with The Famous Five and co painfully middle class and “good for you” while The Red Hand Gang with its relatively diverse cast was much more fun. But that didn’t work in the Blue Peter v Magpie wars of the 70s, so who knows? Maybe it was just “exotic” because it’s foreign.

Or maybe it was the insanely catchy theme tune and that kid and his stupid red banana harmonica.

Either way, The Red Hand Gang – so called because they left red handprints on fences wherever they went – saw our intrepid gang of kids fight jewel thieves, kidnappers and more. The gang were:

  • Frankie – the leader
  • JR – the athlete
  • Doc (played by the wonderfully named James Bond III) – the brains
  • Joanne – the girl
  • Lil’ Bill – Frankie’s younger brother
  • Boomer – the dog. Bizarrely, he went on to get his own show, Here’s Boomer.

Unlike a lot of shows, The Red Hand Gang was episodic, with its 12 episodes split into three stories. However, back in America, NBC cancelled it halfway through its run so many kids didn’t even get to see that much.

Shame, because it’s indelibly printed on many a 30/40-something British person’s mind.

And yes, if you’re very good, maybe someone will buy it for you on DVD.

Classic TV

Old Gems: The Box of Delights (1984)

23 December 2010 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

The Box of Delights

Well, it’s Christmas so what would be more appropriate for the last Old/Lost Gem before we all start our marathon mince-pie fests than to look at the Old Gem that is The Box Of Delights, a spookier piece of Christmas cheer for kids you’d be hard-pushed to find.

Starring Patrick Troughton, Robert Stephens and the might of the then-new Quantel Paintbox, The Box of Delights was a six-part adaptation of John Masefield’s book of the same name that saw young Kay Harker returning from boarding school for the Christmas holidays. Along the way, he gets involved in a battle between magical peoples who want the ‘box of delights’, a wondrous creation that can not only help the possessor shrink, fly and travel in time, but also contains all manner of things inside.

And here’s the equally magical title sequence.

Continue reading “Old Gems: The Box of Delights (1984)”

Noseybonk
Classic TV

Lost Gems: Jigsaw (1979-1984)

16 December 2010 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Back in the 80s, there was a man who was legendary in kids’ TV: Clive Doig. A producer of Vision On and creator of Puzzle Trail, The Deceivers, Eureka, Beat The Teacher, The Album, Abracadabra, Johnny Ball Reveals All, Eat Your Words and See It Saw It, he was also the man behind the Trackwords puzzles in Radio Times (if you don’t remember them, they’re were 3×3 squares of letters from which you had to make as many words as possible). A talented man, I’m sure you’ll all agree.

But he’s probably best known as the creator of Jigsaw, an especially surreal piece of kids TV that ran from 1979 to 1984.

Jigsaw cast

Hosted initially by Janet Ellis – who went on to host Blue Peter – it combined puzzles, comedy sketches and just about any weird shit that came into Doig’s mind, including the supposedly fun but actually terrifying Mr Noseybonk (pictured above) who would run around parks a lot (nothing suspicious about that), the O-Men (Sylvester McCoy and David Rappaport), who could be summoned by words containing double-o letters

The O-Men

Pterry the Pterodactyl (a puppet), Biggum the giant (a blue-screened foot) and Jigg, the talking jigsaw piece.

Jigsaw

It also featured mime artist Adrian Hedley, who – as well as playing Mr Noseybonk – didn’t say a single word for the entire first series, despite being Ellis’s co-host.

Throughout the show, the presenters and supporting characters came together to solve a number of puzzles. These puzzles would then contribute to one larger conundrum that would be revealed at the end of the show. The viewer was encouraged to take part and solve the puzzles at home.

That’s the description but it really doesn’t do the show justice, so here’s an actual episode, complete with marvellous theme tune. And for you, trivia fans, note that Janet Ellis is pregnant in this episode, so this is technically one of the first on-screen appearances of pop star Sophie Ellis-Bexter. Oh, and that I won a Jigsaw book in a competition when I was seven.