Welcome to the Jungle

Part of me feels bad about doing this.  But it’s only a really small part; about as big as my little toe nail.  The other part (about me-sized… minus one toe nail) thinks this is funny.

Here, look at this:

Deserts of Central Asia.

Or, how about this:

 

The jungles of India?

Or this:

A hottie in Hawaii.

Being a fairly hirsute man I would like to say (a) Ha! I made you look at chest hair really, really close up, and (b) as far as man hair goes, tastes have really changed in the last thirty years.

The fashion now is for the hairless male body.  The hairless female body is gilding the lily a little, but the hairless male body is – in 95% of cases – a total work of fiction (and wax).  If they were making Magnum P.I. today would they wax Tom?  Tom Selleck?  One of only two men I can think of who looks sexy in a mo? (The other is Clark Gable.)

I loved Magnum P.I. when I was a kid.  The credit sequence is engraved in my memory.  It was written by Mike Post who is the guru of TV theme tunes.  It is my thesis (that’s right, I said thesis) that it was the credit sequence of early 80s TV shows that laid the foundation for good music videos in the era of MTV.  Magnum P.I. is a case in point.  That swooping helicopter and guitar riff are so perfectly matched I can’t separate them in my head.

In August of 1982 Magnum P.I. was playing on TV in New Zealand, and I was not doubt watching.  Drinking in the beaches, and bikinis and hair.  That’s what life could be like – I no doubt thought – life could be boat shoes, and Ferrari’s and afro combs for my chest.

Some of the Magnum P.I. dream has come true.  I live on an island in the Pacific. 

I have chest hair.

Play School

Like most people my age I watched Play School when I was a kid.  I mainly remember that it was dull, had soft toys, oddly shaped windows, and a catchy theme tune.

An article in an issue of the Listener of 1982 features the host.

It seems strange that I have no memory of this man, because based on this photo alone he appears to be fairly memorable.  He was Barry Dorking, and he had theatrical training…

 

Well, if you insist, but in my opinion there are a lot sillier things to be than a wicker basket.

The writer of the article notes that Play School is calmer than “frenetic buzz-slap-kapow style of Sesame Street.”  I was more of a sucker for the buzz-splap-kapow style as it turned out.  A while ago I was looking at the Listener from 1973 and Sesame Street was being discussed as a new and displeasing trend in television called “children’s television”.  Opinion among educational braniacs in New Zealand decided that children’s TV was a bad thing because it was passive and children could only learn by being active.  Thankfully educational experts are ignored as a matter of routine.  I myself watched countless hours of TV growing up and aside from an overwhelming desire to sit on couches doing nothing but stuffing my face with crap, and a very short attention span, there has been no major psychological damage to me (that cannot be treated with harmless sedatives). 

Stakeholders request a meeting

So, I was channel surfing last night and came across something very strange.  Something that gave me that exact same feeling as the Canadian chipmunk.

 

 

 

 

 

TV Week: Benson

Benson was on in the early evening after school.  Even when I was nine I knew it was crap.  Of course I watched it everyday.  Unlike The Greatest American Hero I can actually remember quite a wide range of characters and can recall a couple of scenes.  Not what anyone said, but the vague feeling of potted plants in bad sets, and a lot of talk in a kitchen.

In the opening credits I was always fascinated by the fact that the girl in the show was played by an actor called Missy Gold.  Who, I wondered, would  call their kid Missy?  Turns out she was Melissa Goldstein, and is now Dr. Melissa Gold a practising psychologist.

I used to watch these opening credits with the same pleasure as slipping into a well worn pair of slippers.  Each character intro was a familiar and reassuring stereotype.  The perky girl, the probably psychopathic German, the pompous slightly English sounding fool with the silly name.  I seemed to never tire of the Benson and the Clayton Endicott III tie gag.  Now I watch the credits and sort of wish Benson would get savaged by the dogs on the lawn.  Just once.

The Listener in March ran an interview with one of the stars of the show, Kraus the housekeeper who, it turns out, was American, and had been a star of the second rank on the stages of Broadway.

Regrettably Kraus never did fillet anyone.

This piece in The Listener reminded me that the show Benson was purely about predictable verbal sparring, and catchphrases, and that nothing ever really happened.  Benson and Kraus had an obligatory spar every episode.  The Governor meandered in between pot plants and a flimsy set and said something daft, absent-mindedly, and then wandered off again, Benson quipped with the pretty secretary and needled the officious male assistant.  Over and over and over again.

Why did I watch it? 

It was there.

It was there and we were living in an age in New Zealand when there were only two TV channels.  Benson was on at 5pm on TV Two.  God only knows what horror was on TV One at 5pm, but Benson was clearly better in the mind of a nine-year old boy in 1982 (which is a low critical bar to leap).

TV Week: Greatest American Hero

I have slowly been accumulating clippings on TV shows from 1982 but I don’t think I’ve written about any of them.  This week had better be TV week then, and what better place to start than here:

I have two memories of this show: the opening song and the fact that I  simply HAD to watch it when I was a kid because it was so cool.  What impresses me about this show now is that I can still sing the whole opening theme thirty years later, but I cannot remember a single scene from a single episode of the actual show.  I think I remember that he was really crap at flying and that this was pretty funny.  Other than that I’ve got nothing.  Still, cool song.

Is it the best song ever written for a TV show?  Probably not.  But anyone who was under the age of 18 in 1982 could sing you most of it in 2012 even if they never saw the show itself. 

The song purports to be by Joey Scarbury.  Who the hell is he?  Turns out he had an album in 1981, and it gets a very strong four and half star review on the All Music Guide website (you have to suspect a little too strong given that Sign O The Times, or Blue, for example, are only half a star better).  A superficial glance through Scarbury’s biography reveals that he was simply the voice on the track, and that the music was written by Mike Post. 

Mike Post is a name you and I must have seen a thousand times in the credit sequences of our favourite trashy American TV shows from the 80s.  Mike Post was probably as influential on my early musical tastes as Michael Jackson or Prince.  Here is a list of a few of his themes (I bet you can hum at least three):

• The Rockford Files
• Hill Street Blues
• LA Law
• The A-Team
• ChiPs
• Magnum P.I.
• Quantum Leap
• Simon and Simon

I still think the Magnum P.I. theme tune is one of the best ever written, and in 1982 the very memorable Hill Street Blues theme was in the New Zealand charts.  He certainly had a knack with the TV theme.  One website lauding Mr. Post notes that:

To achieve the unique sound of the NYPD Blue theme he used, among other effects, 1,000 Japanese men jumping up and down on a wooden floor.

Did it have to be Japanese men?  Would 970 Ukranian men have sounded wrong?

I have never been particularly attracted to superheroes.  I have two early memories connected with superheroes.  One was of going to a little suburban hall with my friend and seeing a Spiderman film.  Mainly I remember that it was very noisy because there were lots of kids and because it was the 70s all the parents were probably across the road smoking in a bar instead of hovering nearby and reading the nutrition breakdown on the side of the popcorn packets (nutrition=zero).  My other memory is of being at a girl’s house and wanting to be Wonder Woman.  I’m not sure how this conflict panned out.  Reviewing the content of my blog we can probably say not that well.

I know my mum took me to see a Superman movie as a kid and thoroughly enjoyed it, although I was less than enthused.  After that I think Superheroes and I parted company until The Incredibles came out.  Even watching the camp Batman on TV didn’t do much for me.  It may be fashionable to laugh at it in an arch way now, but at the time I saw it Batman was just a slightly weird TV show with special effects that made Dr Who look flash.

Maybe this explains why I can’t remember anything that happened in The Greatest American Hero.  Either that or it was a piece of crap.