Saturday, August 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The Liver Birds: A 70s Conundrum
For FaceBook Notes: Here is the URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_FB2vHj8BY
Everyone who grew in the UK in the 70s wants to remember Twiglets, Abba and Hovis Commercials. However, despite its surprisingly ground-breaking social commentary, no one really wants to remember The Liver Birds. Set in Liverpool, The Liver Birds (pronounced "Lie-veh"), which is what all Liverpudlian girls were known as back the day, was a sitcom, set almost entirely indoors in a flat shared by two young women who not only worked, but dated, fought with their parents, and struggled to stay afloat in what was ostensibly still a neanderthal man's world. While not exactly Laverne and Shirley, the show began in 1969 and ran until 1979, with an unsuccessful revival in 1996.
It began with Dawn (Pauline Collins) and Beryl (Polly James) and ran for 5 episodes, but came back in 1970 with Sandra (Nerys Hughes) taking over for Dawn. The Sandra and Beryl days were definitely the heyday for The Liver Birds (and it's Sandra and Beryl you can see in the clip above), though I'm more familiar with later series when Carol, played by Elizabeth Estensen, took over the flat from Beryl.
As a childhood memory, The Liver Birds has all but gone. Nothing more than a group of high-pitched annoying voices and that theme song, penned by Paul McCartney's brother, that just burrows into your brain and eats away you from the inside like something from a bad Star Trek episode. Prior to starting this blog, I'd have said the best thing to come out of The Liver Birds was the Half-Man, Half Biscuit song, I Hate Nerys Hughes.
Looking back on it properly, now, though, the show was actually quite revolutionary. Showing life outside of London, with two independent women (notice in this clip Beryl is only 19 years old) negotiating life on their own in a way women hadn't really done since World War 2. They find their own way though the world of work, romance and family strife with a sense of grit and determination. They aren't tarts, or even really "Dolly Birds", though they have been described that way in many of the other entries I've seen. They paved the way for the women of the 80s and onwards, showing that men weren't necessary for survival. In fact, many of the men who appear in the show are lazy, useless, or socially awkward, especially Carol's brother, who became a show regular in later years and was obsessed with his pet rabbits.
So, try to put aside the horrible sets and lighting, and the theme tune, and some interesting opinions on Chinese food, and let the upbeat quirkiness of The Liver Birds transport you back to a time when no one would look twice at a multi-colored crotchet gilet, or an overabundance of orange floral wallpaper.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Blagged from Slashfilm: Steve Oedekerk to Write Stretch Armstrong Movie | /Film
Every once in a while a new product comes along that makes you wonder, what do they expect me to do with that? Stretch Armstrong was such a product. You could pull at him every which way but loose, and his rubbery memory plastic body would slowly morph back into shape. But seriously, what kind of toy is that? It's basically a humanoid rubber band! It didn't even stick to anything!
Well, thanks to a deal with Hasbro, that threatens to bring us a Ridley Scott produced Monopoly movie, Universal has hired the writer of Bruce and Evan Almighty to bring us a Stretch Armstrong movie. Now, unlike the writer in the blog I'm lifting all this information from, I'm not going to be too dismissive about this premise. It surely can't be any worse than Paul Blart: Mall Cop, or The Pink Panther 2. And hey, maybe the toy itself will make a comeback, and a new generation will discover how utterly useless Mr Armstrong really is...
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Weekly WTF
Believe it or not, this actually the opening 8 minutes to a 1975 children's TV show from the UK called Sky. We've spoken many times before about how children's TV executives back then were definitely dropping acid, but this one looks like the result of a seriously bad trip. You know the ones... Where demons appear in front of you, naked and snarling, and although their heads are upright, their bodies, instead of standing on the floor, disappear upwards into the clouds, which are crimson, and rain blood and Hersheys chocolate syrup down on you, and all you can do to make them leave is to climb a tree and cry and cry and cry.
Ahem. So, yes. Sky. He's a mostly naked albino alien child and he's hiding in the leaves in a forest near you. The obvious thing to do would be to take him into your house and make him your friend, yes?
Monday, February 9, 2009
10 Great 70s Games
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
"And I must 'fess that I helped the industry out by getting my kit off in films like Vampire Lovers (1970) and The Wicker Man (1973)."
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
What Were They Thinking Tuesday: Ball Buster
Honestly, what the hell were they thinking? This could go under the Simple 70s Games tag, as it's about as simple as it gets, you have a bunch of balls on sticks, and move them around the board and try to hit as many opponents balls as possible.
But to be serious, we can't tag it that way. It's a full-on question mark of a game made entirely out of what-the-effery, designed to be useless within five days of play as balls fly off the sticks and get lost in the gap in the sofa. If you enjoyed playing this as a kid, I doff my cap to you, but there was no way it could keep me entertained for more than a rainy afternoon.
You're better off with Ker-Plunk.