1 9 6 1 (UK) 6 x 30 minute episodes Premiering on Tuesday 1 August 1961, this BBC series revolved around the titular insurance investigator, played by Andrew Crawford. The indefatigable Mr Ambler – who worked for an old established independent…
In 1966, at the height of the popularity of his “Supermarionation” TV shows, Gerry Anderson developed a concept for a new television series. He had already designed the puppets, and with the recent success of Thunderbirds behind him, he was…
The third highest-grossing film of 1956, Trapeze is set in Paris (France) at the Bouglione Circus (the film was shot on location at the Cirque d’Hiv, Paris’ famed one-ring circus) Young American acrobat Tino Orsini (Tony Curtis) persuades his father’s ex-trapeze…
This 24-minute short film from director Barney Broom finds four mouthy motorbike-riding punk lads (Daniel Peacock, Pete Lee-Wilson, Jon Eden and Mark Draper) on a night out in Great Yarmouth. They repeatedly harass a group of attractive girls (Cindy Day,…
1 9 9 4 (UK) 5 x 30 minute episodes Premiering on Friday 21 January 1994, this late-night BBC Scotland series for BBC2 presented sharp, topical comedy with Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson bringing his unique brand of humour to a series…
1 9 6 8 (UK) 10 x 30 minute episodes Premiering on Wednesday 8 May 1968, the 10-week ATV series It Must be Dusty presented pop singer Dusty Springfield with musical guests including Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Kiki Dee, Manfred Mann, Scott Walker, The…
1 9 6 4 (Belgium) 16 x 25 minute episodes 1 9 6 8 (Belgium) 16 x 25 minute episodes This Belgian children’s TV series – originally titled Kapitein Zeppos – ran for three series with Flemish actor Senne Rouffaer (who also…
This 1960 version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s story starred Michael Rennie as an aristocratic playboy and big game hunter named Lord John Roxton and Claude Rains as the bombastic zoologist Professor Challenger, the leader of an expedition which finds more…
1 9 7 1 (UK) 7 x 30 minute episodes Samantha, Virginia, Clover and Gillian (known as ‘Pudding’ because of her love of food) were four posh girls sharing a flat (and each other’s underwear) in London in a kind of…
1 9 7 6 – 1 9 8 3 (USA) 178 x 30 minute episodes “Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!” Laverne and Shirley was the first spin-off from Happy Days, where the characters Laverne De Fazio and Shirley Feeney had made their debut as friends…
1 9 6 9 – 1 9 7 0 (UK) 13 x 30 minute episodes Cockney wide-boy Alfred Wilcox (Harry H. Corbett) works as a salesman for a plastics firm. He values his independence and will take any opportunity to get…
1 9 6 9 – 1 9 7 0 (UK) 18 x 60 minute episodes This hour-long late-night variety show was produced by ATV and aired on Sunday nights. Engelbert Humperdinck was joined by British and American guests, including Paul Anka,…
1 9 6 5 – 1 9 6 6 (Canada) 30 x 60 minute episodes Made in Canada by England’s ITC television company, this short-lived drama series followed the investigations of Nick King (Stephen Young) and Admiral Henry Fox (Austin Willis)…
1 9 5 2 – 1 9 8 9 (USA) American Bandstand became a powerful symbol of American teenage culture with its nearly four-decade look at the ever-changing tastes of the country’s youth. Featuring guest artists who lip-synced to their latest tunes,…
1 9 6 8 (UK) 6 x 25 minute episodes George Treet (Nicholas Evans) is an affected, self-proclaimed genius and part of the Treet family’s group of travelling players entertaining in the hostelries of England. One night, a stranger (Valentine Dyall)…
1 9 6 9 – 1 9 7 0 (UK) 13 x 30 minute episodes Thora Parker (Thora Hird) was the landlady of a North Country boarding house that predominantly catered for showbiz types. She oversaw the comings and goings of…
Spent the last 55 years with a lost tribe in the Amazon? In that case, here’s a band you should know about… Brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson joined forces with their cousin Mike Love, and David Marks, in the…
James Marshall Hendrix (real name: Johnny Allen Hendrix) was born in Seattle, Washington in 1942. He began his short career by touring with a number of R&B shows from 1961 to 1966. In 1966 Hendrix moved to England and founded The…
The Detours formed in Shepherd’s Bush in 1964 as a local youth club band. Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle (who originally called himself John Allison) founded the band, and having jettisoned Colin Dawson (vocals) and Doug Sandom (drums), recruited…
David Edward Sutch (formerly a plumber’s mate from Harrow) based his act on Screaming Jay Hawkins and presented his musical horror show around British clubs in the late 50s and early 60s, when (for a while) he was the farthest-out thing around.…
Olive Marie Osmond was born in Ogden, Utah, the eighth of nine children (and the only daughter) born to Olive May and George Virl Osmond. Her brothers are Virl, Tom, Alan, Wayne, Merrill, Jay, Donny and Jimmy Osmond. From an…
The inaugural house band at CBGB’s in New York, and contemporaries of Patti Smith and later Blondie, The Ramones and Talking Heads, Television figure large in American punk rock pre-history. The band began in the early 70s as The Neon Boys. Although they were never to play in public,…
1 9 7 7 – 1 9 8 1 (UK) 92 x 30 minute episodes Get It Together was a weekly TV pop show – filmed in Manchester for Granada TV – featuring groups miming to their hits in front of…
1 9 6 6 – 1 9 6 9 (UK) 27 x 25 minute shows During 1966, Dusty Springfield provided a six-show BBC TV series. Dudley Moore guested on the first show. The six episodes in 1967 included Warren Mitchell (pictured…
Willie Dynamite (Roscoe Orman – yes, Gordon from Sesame Street!) is a flamboyant but down-on-his-luck New York pimp. His pimpmobile – a tricked-out metallic purple and gold 1971 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado with chrome pipes on the side and a leopard…
Or ‘It’s just one thing on top of another’. This virtually plotless movie is simply a collection of knowing sexually-geared comic sketches linked by the dubious Wedded Bliss Marriage Agency run by Sidney and Sophie Bliss (Sid James and Hattie…
A happy-go-lucky bunch of British prisoners in a German POW camp during World War II discover that their new acerbic fellow prisoner is high-ranking British aeronautical scientist Sir Ernest Pease (James Robertson Justice) who they must help escape at all…
This lively and enjoyable lightweight musical comedy stars Tommy Steele as a young British seaman in Spain who takes the place of a bullfighter. Young seafarer Tommy Tomkins (Steele) docks in Seville, and whilst returning to his ship, he breaks…
This superb example of British comedy takes place in the new world of television in the 1950s when the BBC was the only television channel. Wet-behind-the-ears producer David Prentice (Ian Carmichael) has the idea of basing a daily family drama…
Mentally ill young Simon Lacey (Roland Curram in the performance of his life) gives out his prescription barbiturates to children thinking they are sweets because they’re normally administered to him by his mother (Jean Anderson). The kids are found unconscious…
This cut-price poppycock begins with husky seaman Thorne Sherman (James Best) arriving with supplies for Doctor Craigis (Baruch Lumet), a scientist working on an isolated island with his team. A storm breaks before the goods can be unloaded, and Thorne…
This 1958 American International Pictures release has newlyweds Eric (John Hudson) and Jenni Whitlock (Peggy Webber) retire to his desolate old mansion, where Eric’s first wife Marianne died from a mysterious freak accident. Jenni, who has a history of mental…
The American male’s obsession with big breasts found its perfect incarnation in the sumptuous 40-19-36 statistics of Jayne Mansfield, who shot to stardom in 1957 in Frank Tashlin’s rock & roll comedy The Girl Can’t Help It, where the 24-year-old former…
The folks at the Schaper company were definitely the kings of the insect games. They first hit it big in 1949 with the delightful construct-a-bug game, Cootie. In the 1960s, they followed up that deathless hit with Ants In The…
The Australian music magazine Go-Set was launched in February 1966 by Phillip Frazer, a quietly spoken, blonde 19-year-old who had previously edited the Monash University paper Lot’s Wife. The title was an amalgam of the catchwords “go-go” and “jet set”. The…
ECSTASY ‘Ecstasy’ was the street name given to methylenedioxymethamphetamine – MDMA for short – which was formulated by the German company Merck in 1914 as a “sleep suppressant”. For decades it was bandied about for experimentation by drug companies, doctors…
The Daleks were the arch-enemies of the Doctor in the hugely popular BBC television series Doctor Who. They were created by writer Terry Nation and designer Raymond Cusick and first appeared in the series in 1963. Introduced in the fifth…
The object of Frogger was almost Zen-like: to get to the other side. But considerably less Zen were the many obstacles in your path: zooming cars, trucks and buses, snakes, alligators and unpredictable turtles. What started as the simple twist…
Californian Nolan Bushnell created a game called Pong in 1971. The following year – with $250 of his own money and a matching investment from partner Ted Dabney – Bushnell created Pong’s parent company. He called it Atari, a term used…
Early 1950s fore-runners of arcade games included photo booths which became a national craze and shuffle games which moved beyond bowling with Deluxe Shuffle Targette. Meanwhile, Auto Test let practising drivers learn the rules of the road, and Two-Player Basketball…
President Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963 – shot in the head as he was driven through Dallas, Texas, in an open car on his way to a political festival. A number of shots were fired as crowds cheered him on…
January 01 – West Indies cricketer and politician Sir Learie Constantine becomes Britain’s first black life peer. 01 – Ohio State beats Southern California, 27 – 16, in the Rose Bowl to become US national collegiate football champions. 02 – Australian…
January 02 – Erica Roe Streaks at Twickenham. 03 – South Korea lifts its night-time curfew after 36 years. 05 – Public donations to the Penlee lifeboat disaster fund amount to £2,000,000. All to be shared by the families of…
30 January 1969 The Beatles made their last ever live appearance together on 30 January 1969, putting on a free lunchtime concert on a hastily constructed wooden stage on the (very windy) roof of their Apple Corps HQ at 30…
1 July 1969 The title “Prince of Wales” has traditionally been bestowed to the male heir apparent of the English or British monarch since Edward I of England gave his son Edward of Caernarfon the title in 1284. Queen Elizabeth…
1 9 5 3 (UK) The British nation came to a standstill on 2 June 1953. Thousands lined the streets of London, while in homes and offices the length and breadth of Britain, colleagues, neighbours and relatives huddled in corners, all…
Around midnight on 10 July 1985, French secret service agents bombed the Greenpeace environmental patrol ship Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand’s Auckland harbour, ripping apart the ship’s hull with two limpet mines. The 420-tonne ship sank at its Princes Wharf mooring…
Before 1960 the Congo was a Belgian colony. It became independent on 30 June 1960 and the country was soon thrown into chaos. The Belgian government had done very little to prepare for independence. All the important jobs in government, industry…
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Featured Blog Posts
A look at some fascinating behind the scenes shots from some classic television shows. UFO (1970 – 1973) Star Trek (1966 – 1969) Z Cars (1962 – 1978) Steptoe and…
The BBC’s Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd’s Bush officially opened on 21 May 1950. The site had started out as film studios, first for Gaumont and later for Gainsborough and…
Steptoe and Son (1962 – 1965) The Morecambe and Wise Show (1961 – 1964, 1966 – 1976, 1980 – 1983)) Happy Days (1974 – 1984) The Dustbinmen (1969 – 1970)…
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28 July 2021 The son of comedian Eric Morecambe has found a missing episode of The Morecambe and Wise Show in the family home’s attic. While searching for paperwork in…
According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s probably shouldn’t have survived . . . Our baby cots were covered…
Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) As the episode begins, Mary is talking excitedly on the phone at her office desk, planning her Christmas visit with her mother. Right afterwards, her…
It’s no coincidence that Britain embraced Glam at precisely the moment that colour TV sets became affordable. Out went any series which looked great in black and white but lacked…
Featured Aussie Posts
1 9 7 2 – 1 9 7 7 (Australia) 1218 x 30 minute episodes episodes Number 96 debuted on Monday 13 March 1972 with the proclamation, “Tonight at 8.30 pm,…
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 trials…
1 9 9 4 – 2 0 0 6 (Australia) 510 x 50 minute episodes Created by Tony Morphett and Hal McElroy, Blue Heelers was the most successful Aussie cop show of…
1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 8 (Australia) 972 x 30 minute episodes This Australian soap opera revolved around twins Angela Hamilton (Ally Fowler) and John Palmer (Peter Phelps)…
1 9 8 8 – Current (Australia) 7,900+ x 25 minute episodes Home and Away originally told the story of Tom and Pippa Fletcher, who moved from the city to a…
Long recognised as Australia’s foremost jazz, blues and soul singer, Renee Geyer (born 1953) issued 15 studio albums over the course of a 40+ year career. Best known for her…
Featured Canadian Posts
1 9 9 0 – 2 0 0 0 (USA/Canada) 91 x 30 minute episodes This horror anthology TV series aired on Nickelodeon from 1992–1996 (after premiering in Canada in 1990)…
In their first ten years together, Canadian band April Wine went through several changes in style and personnel with Myles Goodwyn the only enduring original member of the band which…
1 9 7 2 – 1 9 9 0 (Canada) 324 x episodes The Beachcombers was in production for 19 years – the longest-running drama in Canadian television history. The family adventure…
Martha and The Muffins were a playful Canadian new wave band who had their roots in a mid-70s outfit called Oh Those Pants – a 10-piece group who performed Sixties…
First known as The Four Dukes, this Canadian doo-wop group was formed in 1947 in Toronto by Jimmy Arnold, Bernie Toorish, Frank Busseri and Connie Codarini who all attended St…
1 9 7 1 – 1 9 7 5 (Canada) 90 x 30 minute episodes This syndicated magic variety show screened from 1971 to 1975 and was known in 1975 as The…
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Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 1999 and contains some words and references which reflect the attitudes of those times and which may be considered culturally sensitive, offensive or inappropriate today.
