Hangover TV. I'm not going to lie that I don't watch it occasionally. OK, I watch it quite a lot. But so do you, don't kid yourself. Especially on Sundays when T4 have that delightful and yet soul-destroying mix of all the pretty people in Hollyoaks, Friends and - throughout the summer months - repeats of Big Brother you didn't watch on Friday as you were too busy polishing off that bottle of Tia Maria. Oh, was that just me?
A recent conversation with a friend resulted in us hatching a half-arsed plan to launch our own TV channel that would constantly stream the hangover-TV shows that we and everyone our age would want to watch. You know the stuff, that TV gold of yesteryear that they never show anymore. All the children's TV favourites you used to race home from school to watch Andi Peters and Ed the Duck in the Broom Cupboard present. We even had potential advertisers worked out, and how we would need to bring in extra revenue. (Yes, we really were that bored.)
My friend's hangover-TV choices were very male-centric (and included some stuff I had to Google - Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, anyone?) while mine were the typical girly ones you'd expect, so we had a nice balance. Is there a point to all this then? Well, no, not really. But when Hollyoaks was on again this morning I was thinking about how hangover TV actually WOULD be so much better if you could watch all the things you loved decades ago, rather than the tangled love-lives of people in a Chester suburb who don't even have the decency to sport Chester accents. So this brings me to my very first list, and feel free to add or amend to it if you so wish.
My Top 10 80s Children's TV shows I Would Like to See on TV Again (catchy, eh?)
He-Man and She-Ra (you can't have one without the other)
Ah, the twins of Eternia and Etheria and their bad haircuts. You'd have thought Prince Adam would have stopped his mother from giving him a bob beyond the age of 5, but he didn't seem to mind. What I loved about He-Man was his direct-to-camera morals at the end of each story. And there was something a little bit seedy about She-Ra. Maybe it was her boots. Or her skirt.
Maid Marian and Her Merry Men
Maaaaaariaaaaaan! Robin Hood was a big Jessie and and Maid Marian was a tomboy. Tony Robinson hadn't started digging up fields at this point and minced about as the Sheriff with a band of lunatic guardsmen. That giant dude who always pops up in British films and TV shows as village idiots popped up as one of the Great Unwashed merry men.
Round the Twist
Set in a haunted lighthouse on the Aussie coast where 3 kids solve mysteries with a fantastic theme tune and really, really weird stories...does anyone remember the one with the phantom seagull with rubies for eyes who poohed on the kids so much they looked like walking marshmallow men?
Fun House
There's a bit of an urban myth around my hometown that a friend of a friend went on this and won. Pat Sharp displayed the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) mullet this side of Limahl and kids ran amok in ball pools, with go-carts, gunge and all sorts. I wonder what happened to Melanie and Martina?
Jem and the Holograms
For obvious reasons (my name, in case you haven't worked it out) I was ALWAYS Jem whenever we acted this out in the playground. We often had some trouble recruiting a willing boy to play Rio though, and it's only looking back now that I wish I could have been one of the Misfits instead of Jem. Their music really was better.
Knightmare
Yes, it's really geeky and the effects are rubbish now but did you never wonder how they did it then? Or if they really were walking through a dungeon towards a door trying to avoid a gatekeeper with an axe on one side and a stick of dynamite about to go off on the other?
Stoppit and Tidyup
I'm sure Terry Wogan voiced these little critters. I don't remember all of them but 'Eat Your Greens' and the two bees, 'Bee-Have' and 'Bee-Quiet' stick out for some reason. I have a friend whose sister drew Stoppit and Tidyup on a t-shirt using Fluffit pens for her. Remember those? They made 3d designs on your clothes after you heated the drawings up with a hairdryer. Mine never worked.
The Moomins
A very bizarre cartoon. Think they were Polish? Anyway, white hippos who wear aprons and top hats and live in a lighthouse in Moomin Valley with a kangaroo and an annoying brat named Little Mai. There was one very creepy episode where they were all trying to fight a big hill with eyes who froze everyone around her.
Eerie, Indiana
The American version of Round the Twist in a way, with a very young Omri Katz (the one from Hocus Pocus - the guy who lit the Black Flame Candle) and his mate solving mysteries and having bizarre encounters with urban legends in the weirdo-filled town of Eerie.
Thundercats
Another one with a fantastic theme tune. They just don't make theme tunes like this anymore. I'm still slightly disturbed that the main character shares his name with waterproof kitchen flooring, however. Mummra was a very bad baddie and all the boys in my class had a slightly wrong crush on Cheetara in her leopard-print leotard.
A special mention goes to The Poddington Peas. Simply because I have been known to break out into a chorus of the Poddington song and frighten onlookers. Ooh, this could lead to a separate post about 80s toys. I'll make a note of that...
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