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At the Pridemore Juvenile Reform School, good girls learn to be bad and bad girls learn to be even worse. And none of ’em are worse than teenage lesbian Charlie Chambliss (36-year-old Wendy O. Williams from punk band The Plasmatics).…
This vibrant alternative rock movement emerged from Los Angeles in the early to mid-1980s, following the rise of several 1960s-influenced bands in downtown LA and Hollywood. The scene fused 1960s psychedelic rock, garage rock, and jangle pop, all delivered with…
Formed in Los Angeles in 1981, the Three O’Clock were originally called The Salvation Army. They released a self-titled debut LP in 1982 under this name, but by that summer, legal threats from the actual Salvation Army organisation forced them…
Emerging from the Southern California punk and new wave club circuits and fronted by singer Terri Nunn, Berlin became one of the defining American mainstream electronic acts of the 1980s. Founded by bassist and core songwriter John Crawford, the band…
Released in 1970, Multiple Maniacs is John Waters’ second feature-length film and his first “talkie”. The black-comedy horror film was made on a shoestring budget of just $5,000 and shot entirely in black and white on 16mm film around Waters’…
This underground dark comedy was director John Waters’ very first feature-length film. Produced on a shoestring budget of just $2,100, the black-and-white feature served as a critical stepping stone for Waters’ regular crew of Baltimore actors, known as the “Dreamlanders”.…
1 9 8 2 – 1 9 9 0 (USA) 72 x 30 minute episodes This American version of the British series Not The Nine O Clock News featured actual news footage (slightly edited for laughs) combined with sketches and blackouts…
1 9 5 5 – 1 9 6 0 (USA) 142 x 30 minute episodes 1 x 60 minute episode Set in the motor pool of Fort Baxter – a remote army post in Roseville, Kansas – Phil Silvers starred as…
1 9 6 2 – 1 9 6 6 (USA) 138 x 30 minute episodes 1 x 60 minute episode Lt. Commander Quinton McHale (Ernest Borgnine) was the commander of PT73 – a World War II motor torpedo boat with the…
1 9 7 2 – 1 9 8 3 (USA) 251 x 30 minute episodes M*A*S*H was a fictional account of Dr Richard Hornberger’s years at the 8055th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War. Hornberger’s book (written under…
1 9 5 4 – 1 9 5 6 (USA) 69 x 60 minute/30 minute episodes The opening of Stage Show featured the camera – used as the eyes of the home viewer – entering the theater, moving down the aisle…
1 9 6 6 – 1 9 6 7 (USA) 28 x 25 minute episodes In an attempt to cash in on the popularity of The Beatles movies A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965) US producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson interviewed 437 applicants for a…
In a desperate attempt to prevent a third consecutive Tory victory at the looming General Election, Red Wedge – a coalition of Socialist-minded pop stars and musicians including Billy Bragg, Paul Weller and Mick Talbot from The Style Council, Junior…
Early April 1963, not far from Penny Lane, Liverpool. Outside in the cool night air, the young girls wait for a glimpse of John Lennon. Inside Sefton General Hospital, Lennon dashes through the corridors to see his son, Julian, for…
Mitch Easter and childhood friend Chris Stamey formed various bands in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, culminating in The Sneakers in the mid-70s. After Stamey left for New York (and The dB’s), Easter set about assembling a quality recording facility, ‘Drive-In Studio’,…
Gilbert Gabriel, Kate St. John and Nick Laird-Clowes were born in London in the late 1950s and were probably too young to attend Woodstock or to remember such early ’60s events as JFK’s assassination or The Beatles’ first album. But that…
The Outfield formed in East London and began recording in the mid-1980s, originally as The Baseball Boys. In 1986, their single Your Love went into heavy rotation on MTV, sending it into the American Top 10. It became a staple of…
Curt Kirkwood was born on 10 January 1959, his brother Cris less than two years later, on 22 October 1960. The brothers were born in Texas (Curt in Wichita Falls, Cris in Amarillo), where their mother was married for a…
The haunted Freeling family moves to Arizona to stay with Grandma. But guess what? The evil spirits aren’t giving up their pursuit of the family’s too-cute-for-her-own-good daughter, Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke). This inferior sequel does little more than recycle the…
Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces is a road movie built around the evasive charm of Jack Nicholson. Screenwriter Adrien Joyce partly based the character on the actor’s own personality. Nicholson plays Bobby Dupea, a drifter who, at first glance, seems like every…
Michael Mann’s finest hour is famous for bringing Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together on screen in this taut psychological drama about an obsessive detective and a brilliant thief whose fates are linked after a high-stakes securities heist. Brilliant LAPD…
Rock Hudson shows deft comedic talent in Pillow Talk, where he plays philandering songwriter Brad Allen, whose shared party phone line with New York interior designer Jan Morrow (Doris Day) leads to romantic complications. Directed by Michael Gordon, produced by Ross Hunter, and as…
Set in the near future, Moon follows Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a lone worker nearing the end of a three-year contract at a lunar mining facility called “Sarang” on the far side of the Moon. Due to a permanent satellite…
When a private investigator and her sidekick are hired to protect a supply of precious gems, they find themselves duped in this brilliant Pop Art spoof. Antonioni’s muse Monica Vitti stars as jewel thief/spy-for-hire Modesty Blaise (a character originally seen…
In the late 60s, the duffle coats and scarves of yesteryear were replaced by kaftans, beads, bells, velvet loon pants, afro hairstyles, bright military uniforms and flowers. Psychedelia was largely a product of California’s hippie movement. Cultivated in the deeper…
South African-born William (“Billy”) Butlin spotted two things in the 1930s: First, British holidaymakers were routinely turfed out of their boarding houses and not allowed back in until teatime – whatever the weather – so they had to entertain themselves all…
Skegness on the Lincolnshire Coast is where the Butlin’s story began. Founded in 1936 by Billy Butlin, it was the UK’s first-ever holiday camp. Construction of the camp began in 1935, and when it was opened on 11 April 1936…
Although synonymous with all those 1980s cliches of power-dressing, double-breasted suits and big hair, the Filofax has actually been around since 1921, and its template can be traced back a decade further. In Philadelphia, a company called Lefax had been…
The exact beginnings of the Harlem Globetrotters are uncertain, though the team considers its first-ever road game took place on 7 January 1927 in Hinckley, Illinois. Despite the team’s name, the squad was born 800 miles west of Harlem, on…
Born Josephine Edwina Jaques in Kent on 7 February 1922, prolific comedy actress Hattie Jaques was a deeply beloved icon of British post-war entertainment. Best known for her unforgettable roles in the Carry On film franchise and her long-running television…
January 02 – Ideological purity reaches the superficially cosy world of the nursery. In an attempt to excise any taint of racism, all new editions of Enid Blyton’s Noddy books will be shorn of the traditional black golliwogs, who will…
January 01 – Greece officially adopts the Euro currency, becoming the 12th member of the Eurozone economic framework. 08 – The British High Court awards anonymity for life for the two boys who murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993. Their identities…
January 02 – US peacekeepers pour into Bosnia to keep the peace between Bosnian Serbs and Muslims, following the signing of the Dayton peace plan last month. 03 – The first flip mobile phone goes on sale. The Motorola StarTAC goes…
January 09 – Elections are held to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. He is succeeded by Rawhi Fattouh. 09 – The Second Sudanese Civil War ends. 10 – A mudslide occurs in La Conchita, California, killing 10…
A series of benefit concerts dubbed ‘Live 8’ took place in the G8 states and South Africa on 2 July 2005, organised by Bob Geldof to raise awareness of poverty and coincide with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid in 1985.…
January 01 – In Britain, Alf Ramsey is knighted and Bobby Moore gets an OBE in the New Years Honours. 01 – 48-hour ceasefire ends in Vietnam with B-52s attacking the DMZ. 01 – All Night Rave at The Roundhouse…
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Enjoy your trip in the time machine!
Joe Orton (pictured below right) was one of the brightest lights in London’s luminous theatre district during the 1960s. His first full-length play, Entertaining Mr Sloane, sold to television and…
Anyhow* have a Winfield (with Hoges) Big Rooster Bullens Animal World and the African Lion Safari Chiko Rolls “C’mon Aussie C’mon” El Caballo Blanco No Knickers (Holeproof) Football, meat pies, kangaroos…
In February 1957, rock’n’roll thundered onto British television screens when the BBC introduced a new programme for teenagers titled Six-Five Special. As the 70th anniversary of that influential programme approaches,…
June 1968. Seven new US Army officers — six Afro-Americans, one Caucasian, all honorary lieutenant colonels — are collected from Tan Son Nhut, Saigon’s main airport, and rushed through the…
1964 was shaping up to be an extremely busy year for The Beatles. After touring the United States and Canada, sparking Beatlemania and performing their first live US television set…
Dr Douglas Ross Cook County General Hospital Doug Ross (George Clooney) from E.R. is the paediatrician who looks like he just popped out for a quick coffee and accidentally became…
AC/DC was formed in Sydney, Australia, by ex-patriot Scotsmen Malcolm and Angus Young (brothers of George Young – one of the mainstays of 60s Aussie supergroup, The Easybeats). Their sister suggested…
From the release of their single She Never Said in November 1980, this unique Canberra-born, Sydney-based band produced a distinctive, ethereal, psychedelic blend of music that alternately found favour and disfavour in…
Paul Maurice Kelly was born on 13 January 1955 in Adelaide, Australia, the sixth of eight children. He attended Rostrevor College, where he played trumpet and studied piano, became the…
Tim, Andy and Jon Farriss formed The Farriss Brothers with school friends Michael Hutchence, Kirk Pengilly and Garry Beers in Australia in 1977. A year later they renamed themselves INXS.…
Band of Light was a blues-based group formed in October 1972 in Sydney (Australia) by Phil Key, with bassist Peter Roberts – both of whom had just left The La…
This Canadian band evolved from a Winnipeg bar band called Bad Brad Roberts and the St. James Rhythm Pigs. Possessed of a highly-distinctive bass-baritone voice, vocalist/guitarist Brad Roberts was joined by…
Canadian band Rush began playing hard rock in Toronto bars in 1968. After financing a debut 1974 LP themselves, Neil Peart (an ingenious lyricist) replaced the band’s original drummer, John…
Bob Clark’s imaginatively nasty low-budget Canadian slasher traps a group of college students in the snow-dusted sorority house of Sigma Lamba Chi, where they are terrorised by an obscene phone…
1 9 7 6 – 1 9 8 4 (Canada) 72 x 30 minute episodes 42 x 90 minute episodes 18 x 45 minute episodes Second City Television (SCTV) was a popular…
Investigative television journalist Deborah Balin (Lee Grant) falls foul of a mentally deranged viewer and is brutally attacked in her home. Her friendly news show producer, Gary Baylor (William Shatner),…
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Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 2009 and is presented as a historical artefact. Some words and references which reflect the prevailing attitudes of those times may be considered culturally insensitive, discriminatory, offensive or inappropriate today..