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1 9 8 0 (Australia) 6 x 50 minute episodes As the title suggests, this six-part Saturday night drama series from Australia’s ABC was adapted (by Cliff Green) from stories by Henry Lawson. The debut episode – ‘Bob Brothers’ (26/1/1980) -…
1 9 9 2 – 1 9 9 3 (Australia) 14 x 30 minute episodes This sketch show from the Australian ABC was the first television appearance for comedians Jean Kittson and Maryanne Fahey since they found fame on The Big Gig (Kittson)…
“Blue Ice” is the polite term for the contents of aircraft toilets that sometimes fall from the sky frozen. The film opens with baggy-eyed, droopy-jawed ex-MI6 agent Harry Anders (Michael Caine) attending the funeral of a chap who had been…
1 9 6 4 (UK) 6 x 25 minute episodes Set in the quiet Welsh village of Pandymawr, this six-part BBC series traced the story of a mentally unbalanced murderer who is driven to kill when the bells from the village…
Natalie Miller (Patty Duke) is a young woman from Brooklyn who has struggled with her self-image since childhood and firmly believes she is an ugly duckling. Her well-meaning mother (Nancy Marchand) repeatedly assures her she will grow up beautiful, but…
When professional, no-nonsense small-time criminal Earl Macklin (Robert Duvall) is released from prison, he discovers his brother, Eddie (Edward Ness), has been killed by a pair of mob killers representing a massive criminal syndicate known as “The Outfit”. What he…
1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 5 (UK) 1 9 7 1 – 1 9 7 9 (UK) 128 x 30 minute episodes A classic British comedy in which the irrepressible Eric Sykes constantly got himself in a mess with…
1 9 9 8 – 2 0 0 9 (Australia) 493 x 60 minute episodes This Australian medical soap opera was set in the (fictional) All Saints Western General Hospital in the (fictional) Sydney suburb of Clydesbridge. Storylines focused on the…
1 9 9 0 (USA) 2 x 90 minute episodes In 1960, seven outcast kids known as ‘The Lucky Seven’ must fight and defeat an evil demon that shapeshifts into a clown called Pennywise, feeds on children’s fears, and kills…
1 9 8 1 – 1 9 9 3 (Australia) 1057 x 60 minute episodes This long-running Australian drama series revolved around the activities of a medical clinic, hospital and veterinary practice in Wandin Valley, a small (fictitious) country town in…
1 9 7 6 – 1 9 8 3 (Australia) 30 minute episodes This World War II drama series, set in Melbourne, had warmth and charm, and Aussies loved the Sullivan family’s trials and triumphs. The Sullivans begins on the eve…
This annual awards ceremony to celebrate Australian television was first held in 1959 as the TV Week Star Awards. From 1960 onwards, it was officially known as the TV Week Logie Awards. The inaugural Star of the Year winner, Graham Kennedy,…
Johnny O’Keefe produced more Top 40 hits than any other Australian recording artist. He had 29 hits spanning 1958 – 1974, including five number ones and eight more in the Top 10. He also released more records than any other…
The Disc Jockey widely credited with coining the phrase “rock ‘n’ roll” began life as a jazz trombonist with a band called the Sultans of Swing (it may have been them that Dire Straits sang about many years later). Born in Pennsylvania…
Long before “Glasto” became all about high fences, giant video screens and corporate advertising, the events were far simpler – based around the summer solstice, ley lines and as much free love as you could stand. Thankfully, for those of…
Elvis Aron (Aaron) Presley was born on 8 January 1935 to a poor family from Tupelo, Mississippi, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his parents in 1948. While still at school, he won first prize in a singing contest, and…
Born on 29 September 1935, Jerry Lee Lewis was raised in the same Pentecostal religious tradition and cultural setting as Elvis Presley and was exposed to almost identical musical influences. From there on, the two young rebels grew to be…
Aussie band Ayers Rock combined progressive rock and jazz in an easy-to-take mix with a focus on extended jamming. Guitarist Ray Burton had been in The Executives before a sojourn in the US, where he worked as a session player…
Six dizzy modern-day southern belles hang out in Truvy’s Beauty Parlor down in Chinquapin, Louisiana – dishing dirt while dying their roots. Dolly Parton is Truvy, who believes “what separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorise.” Shirley…
David Lynch’s Blue Velvet was a subliminal and strange film. To this day, the image of Dean Stockwell as Ben – lip-synching to Candy Colored Clown while Dennis Hopper as Frank goes into sexual raptures – is etched in the mind…
Nora (Noni Hazlehurst in her first starring movie role) – a 33-year-old single mother living in a commune – wants a love with “no fade from distance in it”. What she gets is Javo (Colin Friels), a 23-year-old actor whose…
Al Pacino once again teams up with his Heat director Michael Mann, albeit in a vastly different film from the masterpiece. Taking aim at Big Tobacco, this brave, ballsy film never flinches from its subject matter or the morally complex…
Behind The Green Door starred former cheerleader and Junior Olympic diver Marilyn Chambers (born Marilyn Briggs), whose credit as the Ivory Snow girl – the wholesome model who appeared cuddling a chubby baby on detergent powder boxes boasting the product…
Retired Lt. Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino), a blind, hard-drinking war veteran, pays timid college student Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell) to accompany him on a weekend break in New York, where he plans to sample life’s luxuries over the Thanksgiving…
For more than 10 years, the Reverend Jim Bakker – who frequently said: “God wants his people to go first class” – was at the helm of open of America’s fastest-growing Christian media empires, serving as high priest (along with…
“Swinging London” is a generic term coined by Time magazine in April 1966 and used to describe the fashion, music, cinema and cultural scene which flourished in London in the 1960s and the change in attitude which pervaded the scene. It…
The Indica was a bookshop and counterculture art gallery in Mason’s Yard (off Duke Street), St James’s, London – in the same courtyard as the Scotch of St James club, which was incredibly popular with the in crowd in 1960s…
The increase in available leisure time in the 1960s (the average working week reduced by nearly 10 hours a week post-WWII) afforded greater freedom. One form of entertainment that arrived to fill this new leisure time, and appealed particularly to…
Small, spindly-legged, with a huge domed head, horse’s teeth and a face that could avalanche in despair or spread sideways in maniacal glee, sad-funny man Max Wall riveted an audience’s attention without saying a word or moving a limb. But…
Radio Luxembourg (“Your Station of the Stars”) began broadcasting in 1933 and was the earliest commercial radio station that could be heard in the UK, thanks to its transmission on the European long-wave band alongside the BBC Light Programme and…
January 02 – Erica Roe Streaks at Twickenham. 03 – South Korea lifts its night-time curfew after 36 years. 04 – Former Australian Prime Minister Sir William McMahon announces his retirement from politics. 05 – Public donations to the Penlee…
The symbols and totems of the 1967 Summer of Love are legion: peace signs painted on hippy girls’ cheeks, flowers in the hair, tribal gatherings of semi-naked war protestors in San Francisco parks . . . The Summer of Love…
January 01 – David Dinkins is sworn in as New York City’s first black mayor. 02 – World population passes five billion. In 1960 it was three billion. 03 – Manuel Noriega surrenders to US forces, ten days after taking…
20 April 1992 “We’re here to celebrate the life and work and dreams of one Freddie Mercury,” said a clearly emotional Brian May, addressing the crowd of 72,000 that flocked to London’s Wembley Stadium on 20 April 1992 to witness…
January 01 – In Australia, the Bogle/Chandler case mystifies police who believe poison may have been used to kill the couple. 02 – UPI reports that 30 Americans have died in Vietnam combat to date. 10 – Premier of Cliff…
By the end of 1957, Elvis Presley was the unchallenged King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. With nine US chart-topping hits behind him (achieved in less than two years), he was the hottest item on any menu. But that very fact…
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Enjoy your trip in the time machine!
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…
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…
The club scene in the “Swinging London” of the 1960s revolved around the area known as Soho – contained in just one square mile, bordered by Shaftesbury Avenue to the…
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,…
No. 22 The first resident at #22 Ramsay Street was stripper Daphne Lawrence (Elaine Smith, pictured at right), and when she moved in with Des (Paul Keane), wacky doctor Clive…
1 9 7 2 – 1 9 7 3 (Australia) 25 x 60 minute episodes This drama series from the Australian ABC told the stories of three members of a family…
1 9 6 8 (Australia) 132 x 30 minute episodes An early home-grown soap from Australia’s ATN7, this black-and-white series told the stories of the staff and residents of the Green…
1 9 7 3 – 1 9 7 4 (Australia) 39 x 60 minute episodes A twist on the conventional cop drama, English actor Rod Mullinar played Australian private eye Michael…
1 9 7 1 – 1 9 8 8 (Australia) 800+ x 30 minute episodes “Close your eyes, and I’ll kiss you . . .”. Sing this to Australians of…
Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1968, Kylie Minogue began an acting career at the age of 11, appearing in the Australian television shows Skyways and The Sullivans, but it was…
Canadian band The Pursuit of Happiness was formed in 1985 by frontman Moe Berg and drummer Dave Gilby, who were soon joined by bassist Johnny Sinclair and Winnipeg sisters Tam…
1 9 5 2 – 1 9 6 1 (Canada) 303 x 60 minute episodes Produced in Toronto for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), this weekly anthology presented standalone one-hour dramas…
1 9 6 4 – 1 9 6 9 (Canada) 33 x 60 minute episodes This television anthology series from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ran from 1964 to 1969, offering…
1 9 5 8 – 1 9 8 5 (Canada) 3,000+ x 15 minute episodes “Look up! Waaaaay up!” The character of the Friendly Giant debuted on radio in Madison, Wisconsin,…
1 9 7 6 (Canada) 1 x 60 minute special 1 9 7 8 – 1 9 7 9 (Canada) 21 x 60 minute episodes The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC)…
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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..