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Post by helrunar on Apr 23, 2020 13:58:31 GMT
Richard, that's hilarious about the cardboard Magpie studio being more substantial than the real thing! Magpie is a series I've never heard of, nor Freewheelers.
On one of the Jon Pertwee era Dr Who DVDs, there's a really cool extra that is this documentary from the early Seventies. It involves a BBC presenter spending 24 hours in various studio spaces of the main television centre (or whatever it was called--I think it was the big rambling building that I read was torn down a few years ago). We get to see sets being dressed, disassembled and re-dressed. Both rehearsals and filming of an episode of the classic Margaret Tyzack serial adapting Balzac's Cousin Bette are shown. The host guy also goes into the BBC cafeteria and has lunch or dinner with an actor. The tech folk get interviewed and he visits the prop room (with a shot of the TARDIS model, protected by a large tag that reads DON'T TOUCH). Rehearsals and taping of a Blue Peter show are glimpsed. I think this was filmed in 1972.
Being the huge fan of Sixties and Seventies Brit TV that I am, this was really fascinating to watch. I realize that for many folks, it would be a snooze.
H.
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Post by ripper on Apr 23, 2020 14:31:10 GMT
Richard, that's hilarious about the cardboard Magpie studio being more substantial than the real thing! Magpie is a series I've never heard of, nor Freewheelers. On one of the Jon Pertwee era Dr Who DVDs, there's a really cool extra that is this documentary from the early Seventies. It involves a BBC presenter spending 24 hours in various studio spaces of the main television centre (or whatever it was called--I think it was the big rambling building that I read was torn down a few years ago). We get to see sets being dressed, disassembled and re-dressed. Both rehearsals and filming of an episode of the classic Margaret Tyzack serial adapting Balzac's Cousin Bette are shown. The host guy also goes into the BBC cafeteria and has lunch or dinner with an actor. The tech folk get interviewed and he visits the prop room (with a shot of the TARDIS model, protected by a large tag that reads DON'T TOUCH). Rehearsals and taping of a Blue Peter show are glimpsed. I think this was filmed in 1972. Being the huge fan of Sixties and Seventies Brit TV that I am, this was really fascinating to watch. I realize that for many folks, it would be a snooze. H. I don't recall having seen that documentary, but it does sound interesting. Magpie was ITV's equivalent of the BBC's Blue Peter, a magazine-style programme for children. It ran from 1968 to 1980, and, like BP, featured a trio of presenters, whose members changed down the years. They included Tony Bastable, Susan Stranks, Mick Robertson and Jenny Hanley--if you've seen Hammer's Scars of Dracula, Miss Hanley is its buxom heroine. Freewheelers was a series that ran from 1968 to 1973 on ITV. It featured a group of teenagers who helped Colonel Buchan of M.I.5. Early series featured an ex-SS officer as the main villain. It was fast-paced with lots of location shooting, and extensive use was made of Southern TV's news boat--I seem to remember the villain having it as a base. As I said, sadly many episodes were wiped.
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Post by cromagnonman on Apr 23, 2020 14:38:34 GMT
Richard, that's hilarious about the cardboard Magpie studio being more substantial than the real thing! Magpie is a series I've never heard of, nor Freewheelers. On one of the Jon Pertwee era Dr Who DVDs, there's a really cool extra that is this documentary from the early Seventies. It involves a BBC presenter spending 24 hours in various studio spaces of the main television centre (or whatever it was called--I think it was the big rambling building that I read was torn down a few years ago). We get to see sets being dressed, disassembled and re-dressed. Both rehearsals and filming of an episode of the classic Margaret Tyzack serial adapting Balzac's Cousin Bette are shown. The host guy also goes into the BBC cafeteria and has lunch or dinner with an actor. The tech folk get interviewed and he visits the prop room (with a shot of the TARDIS model, protected by a large tag that reads DON'T TOUCH). Rehearsals and taping of a Blue Peter show are glimpsed. I think this was filmed in 1972. Being the huge fan of Sixties and Seventies Brit TV that I am, this was really fascinating to watch. I realize that for many folks, it would be a snooze. H. I do seem to remember Liz Sladen complaining that the Tardis roof fell in week after week. Typical piece of flimsy tat knocked out by Gallifreyan cowboys. Magpie was supposedly commercial tv's cooler, edgier, funkier, street-cred alternative to cosy, safe middle class Blue Peter. A reputation it retains largely on account of Mick Robertson's flares and Brian May hairstyle and Susan Stranks's hippy chick persona. But I don't recall Tony Bastable ever hurling himself out of an airplane five miles up or tumbling from a hurtling bobsleigh. And when did Jenny Hanley ever nearly kill herself abseiling down the Bishop's Rock lighthouse? Magpie might like to have thought of itself storming the barricades but it never proudly paraded a defecating elephant to an audience of millions. Its reputation is misplaced in my opinion. And its annuals are downright boring. Freewheelers marketed itself as James Bond for teenagers. Comes from a time when all the itv regions made their own programmes which all had a distinctive regional personality. Something completely lost in the homogenous generic pc pap that itv regurgitates endlessly these days.
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Post by cromagnonman on Apr 23, 2020 14:42:30 GMT
Sorry Mr Ripper. Didn't mean to duplicate your answers. You were posting even as I was composing. Which is preferable to decomposing as I think Robert Bloch used to say.
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Post by helrunar on Apr 23, 2020 15:33:27 GMT
Thanks to both of you for that fascinating glimpse into a world I'll never know.
I feel bad for the studio janitors who had to clean up after the elephant on Blue Peter.
Did anybody ever explain just how Blue Peter got its name? In the US, the word peter is a slang term similar to "willy" over there with y'all. So it was a while before I could read any sentence with the phrase "blue peter" without simultaneously frowning, wincing and giggling. Quite a peculiar sensation.
When I've seen clips I've wondered if the presenters were given some form of "enhancement" to make them so relentlessly cheerful and upbeat.
H.
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 23, 2020 15:38:27 GMT
The "Blue Peter" is a flag - I think it is flown by ships that are about to leave port. I vaguely remember Look-In magazine, and the cardboard TV studio. I also remember the Timeslip comic strip - particularly one involving some big-headed bipedal creatures walking out of the sea (they turned out to be people in futuristic diving suits).
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 23, 2020 16:04:14 GMT
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Post by cromagnonman on Apr 23, 2020 17:21:54 GMT
Many thanks for the links Doc. Believe I'm going to have hours of nostalgic fun there.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 23, 2020 18:16:30 GMT
Timeslip looks very good. Thanks for the link. The professionalism of the British comic industry is always remarkable. A wilde ride, from Dinos to cavemen to robots. Who is the writer?
Recently the Judge Dredd Megazine reprinted two tales from Scream Magazine, published in 1984. Two stories, Terror of the Cats and The Nightcomers. I don't know if this is avaiable at the newsstand in this form, but subscribers get a seperate reprint mag included every month which is not for sale. For a horror comic for kids or YA, as it is called today, it was well done and had solid artwork, like Timeslip.
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Post by cromagnonman on Apr 23, 2020 19:17:44 GMT
Timeslip looks very good. Thanks for the link. The professionalism of the British comic industry is always remarkable. A wilde ride, from Dinos to cavemen to robots. Who is the writer?
According to the official Timeslip website it was written by Angus P Allan and drawn by Mike Noble, both stalwarts of the superb Gerry Anderson centric comic TV Century 21. And that makes sense as Look-In's editor was the Anderson shows script-writer Alan Fennell.
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 23, 2020 19:31:39 GMT
Timeslip looks very good. Thanks for the link. The professionalism of the British comic industry is always remarkable. A wilde ride, from Dinos to cavemen to robots. Who is the writer? According to the official Timeslip website it was written by Angus P Allan and drawn by Mike Noble, both stalwarts of the superb Gerry Anderson centric comic TV Century 21. And that makes sense as Look-In's editor was the Anderson shows script-writer Alan Fennell.
God, yes - TV Century 21 was the other one I was trying to remember, I think. Was that the one with the immortal time-traveller that could only be killed with a weapon made of gold? I think he was called Adam something... LATER EDIT: No, that was Adam Eterno. From the dates, I think I would have seen him in the Valiant comic - petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogspot.com/2017/01/valiant-comic-1976-adam-eterno.htmlThis is probably my favourite comic memory, from the days before I discovered Marvel and DC.
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Post by cromagnonman on Apr 23, 2020 19:52:57 GMT
God, yes - TV Century 21 was the other one I was trying to remember, I think. Was that the one with the immortal time-traveller that could only be killed with a weapon made of gold? I think he was called Adam something... LATER EDIT: No, that was Adam Eterno. From the dates, I think I would have seen him in the Valiant comic - www.internationalhero.co.uk/e/eterno.htmThis is probably my favourite comic memory, from the days before I discovered Marvel and DC. Doc, we're singing from the same hymn sheet. I could wax lyrical about Adam Eterno until the cows come home. Something of a favourite hobby horse of mine. You're spot on that he ended up in Valiant eventually but he actually began life in a short lived comic called Thunder which was merged into the long running Lion. When Lion itself was subsumed into Valiant in 1974 Adam made the leap too. In fact he survived every merger until Valiant was consumed by Battle in 1976. Fantastic strip drawn by the great Solano Lopez of Kelly's Eye fame.
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 23, 2020 19:55:44 GMT
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Post by cromagnonman on Apr 23, 2020 21:05:23 GMT
Yes, Adam does swear by Crom (a lot actually) and Mitra and even the Hounds of Tindalos on occasion, would you believe. I think that aspect of his personality can be confidently attributed to Chris Lowder who was the assistant editor on Thunder and a big REH/ Weird Tales fan. Time travelling was a favourite pursuit of UK comic strips in the late 60s and early 70s, I have found. Even dear old Robot Archie started whizzing around in a giant temporal chess piece called The Castle (years before Warren's The Rook did exactly the same thing). Kelly's Eye wasn't that sort of strip originally but it did go very Hartnell era Dr Who when Tim hooked up with the conniving Dr Diamond who had a time machine in the shape of an enormous rococco mantle piece clock.
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Post by helrunar on Apr 24, 2020 0:44:03 GMT
This is a fun page about Adam Eterno. Chris Lowder is given credit for co-creating Eterno. www.internationalhero.co.uk/e/eterno.htmI notice that Adam Eterno swears "by Kalizar" several times but though that sounds vaguely Arabic and alchemical, it looks as if Lowder (or another writer) simply made up the name. H.
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