Box Set: Looks Unfamiliar Series One

The first six editions of my podcast Looks Unfamiliar...

It looks as though some of you aren't aware that I now have a new website (which you can find here), and are still hanging around here wondering where all the new 'content' is. Well it's over there, obviously. To give you all some idea of where to start, though, I'm adding some new posts here with themed collections of links, and this time it's the initial run of my podcast Looks Unfamiliar, the show that looks at all of the things that you remember that nobody else ever seems to. Have you missed any of them? Get them listened to now...

Phil Catterall
Podcaster and gamer Phil Catterall on on Madballs Comic, Channel 4 consumer advice show Wise Up!, animation Phantom 2040, the Platoon computer game, Birdseye Steakhouse Grills adverts, and Star Wars: Droids.

Garreth F. Hirons
Musician and writer Garreth F. Hirons on indie band The Bigger The God, action figure range Food Fighters, ZX Spectrum game Saboteur, wrestling tag team The Triangle Of Terror, Sizzlin’ Bacon Monster Munch, and BBC3 sitcom Fun At The Funeral Parlour.

Mark Thompson
Radio host and political pundit Mark Thompson on computer-driven action serial Whiz Kids, Crash ZX Spectrum, ITV filler Night Shift, Public Information Film family The Blunders, sci-fi drama The Last Train, and Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Drak Pack.

Stephen O'Brien
Writer Stephen O’Brien on Steven Moffatt's The Office, LM magazine, You Can Do The Cube by Patrick Bossert, Brilliant (the band), The Beachcombers and other last-minute ITV emergency schedule replacement standbys, and The Morecambe And Wise Board Game.

Ben Baker
Writer, broadcaster and quizmaster Ben Baker on early Chris Evans vehicle TV Mayhem, football comic The Onion Bag, novelty yoghurt range Fiendish Feet, the early internet craze for misidentifying every comedy song as ‘by’ Weird Al Yankovic, Betsy Byars' Bingo Brown novels, and the International Youth Service penpal scheme.

Emma Burnell
Journalist Emma Burnell on The Miners' Strike Tape Whose Side Are You On?, Sweet Valley High, playground craze Scoubidou, childrens' horror book The Patchwork Monkey, Rutger Hauer movie Split Second, and the Ever Ready ‘Power To The People’ advert.

Series One Compilation
Highlights from all the above plus Tim talking to Georgey Spanswick on BBC Radio York about seventies TV Tie-in board games.

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Higher Than The Sun is the story of Screamadelica, Foxbase Alpha, Bandwagonesque and Loveless, and how, long before Britpop, Creation Records took on the world and nearly won. You can get it as a paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Looks Unfamiliar #31: Mark Thompson - Libby's Difficult Second Carton Drink

Looks Unfamiliar 31: Mark Thompson

Looks Unfamiliar is a podcast in which writer and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington talks to a guest about some of the things that they remember that nobody else ever seems to. Joining Tim this time is political commentator Mark Thompson, who's offering his polling predictions for the chances of people remembering hillbilly-themed soft drink Moonshine, the A. Mazing Monsters books, L!ve TV's Agony, Being Erica, Hawkeye Collins And Amy Adams, and Channel 5 sketch show We Know Where You Live. Along the way we'll be revisiting the forgotten link between Rupert And The Frog Song and Cannibal Holocaust, speculating on how many hours of L!ve TV Richard Herring might have watched, and learning the terrible fate of The Sheep That Knew Too Much.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE - SUBSCRIBE IN ITUNES - RSS

You can find some extra chat with Mark about watching television on holiday, looking at ropey old American anthology series, French dubbed versions of The Professionals, and whatever NUTS! actually was here.

You can find Mark's previous appearance on Looks Unfamiliar here, and more episodes of the show here.

Looks Unfamiliar is hosted by Podnose.

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Support Looks Unfamiliar by buying one of Tim's books! Can't Help Thinking About Me is brand new and features loads of brand new material, and you can get it in paperback here or from the Kindle store here.

The Best Of Looks Unfamiliar #1: Captain Peacock Is Pompous, Move Back Three Spaces

Looks Unfamiliar is a podcast in which writer and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington talks to a guest about some of the things that they remember that nobody else ever seems to. This is a collection of highlights from the first six shows, featuring Stephen O’Brien on The Morecambe & Wise Board Game, Garreth F. Hirons on Food Fighters, Emma Burnell on The Patchwork Monkey, Phil Catterall on the ZX Spectrum tie-in game of Platoon, Mark Thompson on Night Shift, and Ben Baker on Fiendish Feet. Along the way we’ll be finding out when it’s appropriate to address Colin Bennett as ‘Vince Purity’, how many issues of ‘Razzle And Wise’ were published, and just which elements of The Untouchables were considered appropriate for a scrolling platform game aimed at children, not to mention recalling the classic horror film ‘Dracula Vs. The Skeleton’. Plus there’s also something you may not have heard before – Tim on the radio talking about ridiculous seventies board games!

DOWNLOAD IT HERE - SUBSCRIBE IN ITUNES - RSS

You can also find the full version of each show here...

Stephen - Garreth - Phil - Emma - Mark - Ben

Looks Unfamiliar is hosted by Podnose.

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If you enjoyed hearing about The Morecambe And Wise Board Game, you can hear me on the radio talking about even weirder TV tie-in board games here.

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Support Looks Unfamiliar by buying one of Tim's books! Not On Your Telly is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here. And there's several other books to choose from here...

Looks Unfamiliar #3: Mark Thompson - I'm Quite Happy With My Passport Colour To Be Honest

Looks Unfamiliar 3 - Mark Thompson

Looks Unfamiliar is a podcast in which writer and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington talks to a guest about some of the things that they remember that nobody else ever does. Joining Tim in this episode is radio host and political pundit Mark Thompson, who's wondering why nobody else he knows seems to have heard of computer-assisted action series Whiz Kids, Crash ZX Spectrum Magazine and its legally contentious parodies of competitors, ITV Night Time filler Night Shift, Public Information Film family The Blunders, late nineties dystopian thriller The Last Train, and Hanna Barbera horror-adventure hybrid The Drak Pack. Along the way we'll be finding out why there should be more warnings about the dangers of hallucinating a disdainful Emma Bunton, how to distinguish an American teenager on a BMX from Arthur Mullard in a school cap, and when it's appropriate to address Colin Bennett as 'Vince Purity'. Also, we finally find out the identity of our Mystery Theme Tune!

DOWNLOAD IT HERE - SUBSCRIBE IN ITUNES - RSS

Looks Unfamiliar is hosted by Podnose.

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Support Looks Unfamiliar by buying one of Tim's books! Not On Your Telly is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here. And there's several other books to choose from here...

The Great British Bake-Away

Hit BBC shows - and stars - being snatched away by commercial rivals is nothing new, and neither are indignance and outrage at it happening. Back at the very dawn of ITV, there was an episode of The Goon Show in which all of the characters defected to the flashier new advertising-funded service one by one, leaving just the ever-loyal Bluebottle to man the entire BBC by himself. In the early nineties, Chris Morris launched into a ferocious rant against his former colleagues from GLR who'd upped and offed to the newly-launched Virgin Radio the second that Ian Virgin waved a huge cheque under their noses. And it's worth stressing that it has sometimes worked in the other direction too, as anyone who has made it through an edition of H&P@BBC will tell you. If such people actually exist, that is.

So it's not really any surprise that the makers of The Great British Bake Off should have taken the bait and airlifted the entire show to Channel 4. In fairness they really had the BBC over a barrel with this one, and the extra TEN MILLION they were demanding for the right to keep hold of the rights to the show would have provoked all manner of mouth-foaming and collapsing in the gutter about RA RA LICENCE FEE, so the BBC just couldn't win. Not that we should have expected any better from the production company behind Why Don't You Speak English? but that's by the by. This is the Brave New World of broadcasting that Rupert Murdoch has been promising us in badly punctuated lower-case tweets for a while now, and with the BBC on the back foot and unable to do right for doing wrong we're probably going to be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing in the near future. In fact, the only BBC Stars we can be certain won't defect to commercial channels are TV 'Girl' and 'Clown', and that's probably just because everyone's too scared to ask them.

In amongst all the controversy and debate and GIFs of Paul Hollywood having his cake and eating it, though, there's one important detail that's been missed - it almost certainly will not work. The Great British Bake Off is a show that has caught the imagination of viewers precisely because of how it had to fit around the restrictions, resources and general 'house style' of BBC television, becoming distinctive and engaging viewing almost by accident. Over on commercial television, much like David Dickinson not so long ago, it will almost certainly get lost amongst the hours and hours and hours of similar fare, and its character - which, let's be honest about it, was what drew viewers in rather than the actual format itself - will be gone. Chances are it will fall flat on its face and they will only have their own greedy selves to blame. In the meantime, the BBC - if they have any sense - will have found a new unlikely subject area to successfully shoehorn into their schedules.

Why am I so certain of this? Because there is a long history of performers, presenters, writers, producers and even entire programmes moving from the BBC to commercial television and vice versa, seemingly unaware that their creative niche and indeed their audience had derived entirely from the structure and atmosphere that they were working in, and losing both almost before the ink had dried on the contract. But I'm not going to bore you by going on about them. At least not as part of this article. Instead, here's me on the radio a while back, talking to Mark Thompson about the notable and notorious failures (and the count-them-on-one-hand successes) of the Great TV Defections, from The World According To Smith And Jones to Bruce Forsyth's Big Night, and of course a certain Mr. Parkinson. After which I will be signing an exclusive contract with Channel 5.

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If you've enjoyed this article, you my book The Camberwick Green Procrastination Society in paperback here, on the Kindle Store here, or as a full-colour eBook here.