This ultra-low-budget tale of a man who can transform himself into a half-man, half-jellyfish begins when a group of kooky and rowdy college students – including lots of sexy girls, natch – decide not to spend Spring Break drinking and…
This big budget made-for-TV musical film from Granada Television found Kid Creole & The Coconuts shipwrecked on a tropical island called Zyllha – “The Paradise Republic” – which is governed by racist black dictator President Nignat (Oscar James). Kid (August…
When Apache chief Cochise (Michael Keep) goes on the warpath, US cavalry Captain Bruce Coburn (Audie Murphy in his last starring role) and his men escort the Malones – a homesteading family which includes his fiancée Ellen (Laraine Stephens) and…
Guido (JC Wells), a black drug dealer from Detroit, heads to Los Angeles to set up a big trade of weapons for drugs. He employs local crooks Fay (Darlene Anders) – a predatory lesbian – and Ziggy (Russ Tamblyn) -…
The Secret Policeman’s Ball was a 100-minute film featuring the highlights of the third Amnesty International charity concert staged over four consecutive nights (27 – 30 June 1979) at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Haymarket in London. Monty Python team members Terry…
Where The Godfather had a good script and excellent actors, The Valachi Papers offered less art but more facts in its dramatisation of the Cosa Nostra operation in New York City from 1929 to 1963 in an engrossing and often gripping style. The Valachi…
1 9 9 1 (USA) 6 x 30 minute episodes Dr Tony Menzies (Dennis Boutsikaris) is the senior resident physician overseeing the chaos of the ER room at Hudson Memorial Hospital in New York City while trying to mentor idealistic new…
1 9 5 8 – 1 9 5 9 (USA) 39 x 30 minute episodes “This is the story of three men who came to be known as the Rough Riders. Many years later and half a continent away, that name…
1 9 5 0 – 1 9 5 1 (UK) Mr Pastry, the slapstick character complete with walrus moustache and flapping coattails, was the popular creation of actor-acrobat-dancer Richard Hearne and was a great success for many years with young…
1 9 6 1 – 1 9 6 6 (USA) 158 x 25 minute episodes The Dick Van Dyke Show was conceived by Carl Reiner (who also played the part of Alan Brady). Dick Van Dyke starred as Rob Petrie, the head…
1 9 8 6 – 1 9 9 3 (USA) 163 x 30 minute episodes This late 80s CBS sitcom told the story of the two Sugarbaker sisters – Suzanne (Delta Burke) who was sex-mad and dumb, and Julia (Dixie Carter) who…
1 9 9 2 – 1 9 9 3 (USA) 17 x 30 minute episodes After leaving her no-good husband, hefty blonde Southerner Delta Bishop (Delta Burke from Designing Women) quits her job at Mona’s House of Hair, packs her bags…
1 9 7 6 (USA) 1 x 95 minute episode 11 x 50 minute episodes A Sci-Fi drama series from NBC providing an update of the old Invisible Man storyline. After being caught in a radiation explosion during an underwater salvage operation, hip,…
1 9 8 1 (USA) 5 x 60 minute episodes This short-lived CBS crime drama starred Josh Taylor as Frank Riker, a tough unconventional San Francisco cop who does what he wants but gets the job done. After 11 years, the…
1 9 7 5 – 1 9 7 6 (USA) 14 x 60 minute episodes The Wrecking Crew (1969) was the end of the line for the Dean Martin-as-Matt Helm franchise on the big screen, but in 1975, Man From U.N.C.L.E…
1 9 5 2 (USA) 30 minute episodes This Saturday afternoon NBC series related events in the lives of the newlywed Naughtons – architect David (Hugh Reilly) and his naïve 18-year-old wife, Claudia (Joan McCracken). On the threshold of womanhood, Claudia…
It remains the defining assembly of rock music – an unprecedented gathering of at least 300,000 young, long-haired, raggedy clad Americans “going up the country” in New York’s Catskill Mountains, searching for answers, hoping for transcendence . . . and…
Nottingham-born Alvin Lee teamed up with Leo Lyons and a drummer in 1964 and the trio took themselves off to Hamburg, Germany, to perform in various clubs. Back in England the group – known then as The Jay Birds -…
The Kinks – from London’s Muswell Hill district – began their career in a similar way to hundreds of other groups, playing R&B and blues music. By drawing on the old British Music Hall and traditional pop, within a few…
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…
1 9 6 4 – 1 9 6 5 (USA) Shindig! premiered on 16 September 1964 and made Wednesday nights something special for every American teenager. The show was hosted by Jimmy O’Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles at the time,…
Husband and wife duo Cathryn Antoinette (“Toni”) Tennille and Daryl Dragon had both worked as session artists before forming a musical partnership, and marrying in February 1975. Dragon was the son of a classical conductor and film scorer and had worked…
Shortly after Olivia’s birth (in Cambridge, England, in September 1948), her family moved from England (where her Welsh-born father was head of King’s College, Cambridge) to Australia and settled in Melbourne. When she was a teenager, Olivia dropped out of high…
Texas bluesman Freddie (originally ‘Freddy’) King was often named as one of ‘the Three Kings’ alongside BB and Albert. Although not as well-known as the other two, there was no blues guitarist more respected by his peers. Born on 3 September 1934…
The Fifth Element begins in Egypt in the 1930s where archaeologists are deciphering hieroglyphics on a tomb that describe linking the four elements – earth, air, fire and water – with a magical fifth to create the only instrument that…
A golden bullet arrives in London, with 007′s number engraved on it, the trademark of Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), an assassin who charges $1 million per victim. James Bond (Roger Moore) is useless to M on his current assignment, searching…
Following the success of a film featuring the comedy and musical highlights of the third Amnesty International charity concert in London in 1979 – released as The Secret Policeman’s Ball – the fourth Amnesty International Concert in 1982 was also…
Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale retained nothing but its title in this free-for-all spoof of the successful James Bond industry. Though the book was the first of the Bond thrillers to appear in print, the film chose to feature 007 as an ageing…
“She’s 6 feet 2″ of Dynamite and the Hottest Super Agent Ever!” After napalming opium fields in Turkey, six-foot-two-tall karate-trained government agent Cleopatra Jones (ex-model Tamara Dobson) returns to Los Angeles to confront Mommy (Shelley Winters), the lesbian queen of the…
The Baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad that ever hit town – She had body men would die for . . . and a lot of them did! Tall, gorgeous, outrageously built, and believably ferocious, Pam Grier became the undisputed queen of blaxploitation…
Soon after the Reverend Deke O’Malley (Calvin Lockhart) has sponsored a massive barbecue in the heart of Harlem and persuaded the crowd to part with $87,000 for a “Back to Africa” campaign, armed men break up the meeting and steal…
Richard Roundtree and Moses Gunn returned in the sequel to the huge blockbuster Shaft (1971), which kicked off the early 1970s blaxploitation craze – and later inspired the Quentin Tarantino release Jackie Brown (1997). Tough Harlem private eye John Shaft (Roundtree) is…
Billy Butlin spotted two things in the 1930s: First, holidaymakers were routinely turfed out of their boarding houses and not allowed back in until teatime. So whatever the weather, they had to entertain themselves all day – and pay for it.…
James Dean was born on 8 February 1931 in a small town in Indiana, the son of a dental technician. His mother had a passion for poetry and gave him Byron as a second name, After graduating from Fairmont High,…
In order to encourage people to save again following the end of the second world war, Premium Savings Bonds went on sale from 1 November 1956. The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Cuthbert Ackroyd, bought Premium Bond No 1, while…
Cor!! was a Fleetway comic, first published on 6 June 1970. The comic merged with Buster in 1974, although Cor!! annuals were printed until 1976. Regular strips included: Andy’s Ants Chalky Donovan’s Dad Friends and Neighbours (later reprinted in Scream!) Football Madd Frankie Stein – Teenage…
Conkers are the hard fruit of the Horse Chestnut tree. These are collected in autumn (we used to throw sticks up the trees to knock down the Horse Chestnuts), removed from their spiky casing and left to mature. A hole…
The original teen fashion rebel of the post-war era, the “Teddy Boy” paved the path of rebellion for all hooligans to come. During the war years, young men filled the working positions left vacant by their enlisted fathers, and they…
There has always been fast food of sorts, but 1950s America put mass-produced, flavour-rich but nutritionally-poor fast food on the culinary map. It was the decade that quick-service restaurant chains began to open and franchise, heralding a seismic shift in…
From humble beginnings in 1952 when publisher Maurice Kinn bought the title The Musical Express & Accordion Weekly for £1000 and re-branded it as New Musical Express, the NME became an essential weekly purchase for generations of music fans, populated by characters as notorious…
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…
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…
January 01 – Western Samoa becomes independent. 01 – The Beatles are turned down by Decca Records, whose A&R man Dick Rowe enters the history books when he advises them that “groups with guitars are out”. 03 – Fidel Castro…
January 01 – Fred West, the Gloucestershire builder charged with 12 murders, commits suicide in his prison cell. Prison officers discover the 53-year-old’s body hanging from strips of clothing at Winson Green prison near Birmingham. 01 – Austria, Finland and…
January 01 – The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect. 01 – American actor Cesar Romero – famous as The Joker from the classic Batman TV series – dies at the age of 86. 02 – In South…
During the summer of 1967, The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club album had shot straight to the top of the UK and US album charts. A few weeks later, All You Need Is Love topped the singles charts around the world. Still…
January 01 – Chinese and North Korean forces advance across the 38th Parallel and through UN lines. 01 – First episode of The Archers is broadcast nationally on the BBC Light Programme. 01 – Bill Byford (Saxon) born. 04 – Communist…
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…
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Featured Blog Posts
The Old Grey Whistle Test, That’s Life!, Juke Box Jury and Crackerjack were all made in front of large audiences in what the BBC called The BBC Television Theatre, which…
Throughout its history, rock & roll has been inextricably linked with the English language – the first tongue, after all, of the nation of its birth, the United States. The…
In the 1970s and 80s, a panel beater’s council house in Sheffied (South Yorkshire) doubled as “Studio Electrophonique”, a recording studio that was the launchpad for seminal British pop bands…
The partnership of British comedy scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson lasted over 50 years. They met in 1948 whilst recuperating from tuberculosis at the Milford Sanatorium, near Godalming in…
Members of The Beatles’ fan club were rewarded with a special seasonal gift each Christmas between 1963 and 1969 – their very own 7″ Beatles Christmas records delivered to their…
Ursula Andress walked from the sea in Dr No in 1962 and became the first of many beautiful women who found fame in James Bond films. Some of the Bond…
Coined by British filmmaker Gerry Anderson and his wife, Sylvia, while making the series Supercar in 1960, “Supermarionation” was the name given to a technique through which marionettes (string puppets)…
6 September 2021 Get Some In! star Tony Selby has died aged 83. His management, LCM Limited, shared a statement on Twitter announcing he had died in London on Sunday (5th…
Featured Aussie Posts
This Australian-made film – a remake of Rudolph Maté’s 1950 film noir classic DOA – cast Americans Tom Tryon, Carolyn Jones and Rick Jason in the lead roles to encourage…
A sex-hungry Australian (pardon the tautology) gets into all kinds of trouble on a visit to the Mother Country in a movie which is funny, crude and tasteless – just…
John Grant (Gary Bond) is the bored teacher at a one-room school in Tiboonda, a tiny railway junction on the far western plains of New South Wales. On his way…
“In Australia when an Aborigine man-child reaches sixteen, he is sent out into the land. For months he must live from it. Sleep on it. Eat of its fruit and…
The story of a man who has a chip on his shoulder and is against the world at large. Frankie McCoy (Ken Shorter) is young, stylish and tough, an illegal…
Smiley Greevins (Colin Petersen) is a cheeky, mischievous, imaginative little boy who lives in the small town of Murrumbilla in the Australian outback. His father Bill (Reg Lye) is a…
Featured Canadian Posts
1 9 8 2 – 1 9 8 6 (Canada) 78 x 30 minute episodes Debuting in March 1984 and aimed at an audience of six to twelve-year-olds, this Canadian series…
1 9 6 8 – 1 9 6 9 (Canada) 30/60 minute episodes This Canadian music series was broadcast on CBC from 30 September 1968 to 23 June 1969. Episodes featured…
1 9 9 8 – 2 0 0 5 (Canada) 98 x 60 minute episodes The Canadian drama series Cold Squad – a conventional police drama about unconventional police detectives…
1 9 8 7 – 1 9 8 9 (Canada) 42 x 30 minute episodes The trials and triumphs of students at an urban junior high school were explored in this…
1 9 9 7 – 1 9 9 8 (Canada) 23 x 60 minute episodes Movie director John Woo brought his trademark martial-arts violence, explosions and tongue-in-cheek humour to TV in…
1 9 7 0 (Canada) 130 x 30 minute episodes This infamously awful low-budget sitcom was shot in Toronto (but set in New York) and loosely based on a 1940s radio…
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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.
