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1 9 6 7 – 1 9 6 9 (New Zealand) 30 minute episodes Debuting on 4 February 1967 and airing on Saturday nights, this teenage pop show from NZBC was a fast-paced, tightly scripted production. It was screened live…
2 0 0 5 – 2 0 1 0 (New Zealand) 107 x 45 minute episodes One of the most successful and longest-running series in New Zealand television history, Outrageous Fortune followed the West family – a tight-knit, proud clan of career…
2 0 0 1 – 2 0 0 4 (New Zealand) 60 x 45 minute episodes When city doctor Nicky Somerville (Sara Wiseman) is punched by a patient and discovers her boyfriend (Simon Prast) is having an affair, she decides to…
1 9 9 2 – 1 9 9 4 (New Zealand) 39 x 60 minute episodes Marlin Bay Lodge is a luxurious, hideaway paradise with a world-class casino, situated in the picturesque, subtropical Far North region of New Zealand. Wealthy…
1 9 8 0 – 1 9 8 1 (New Zealand) 14 x 50 minute episodes 1 9 8 4 (New Zealand) 7 x 50 minute episodes Premiering on 19 August 1980, this TVNZ production was New Zealand’s very first home-grown…
1 9 7 2 (New Zealand) 11 x 30 minute episodes The appearance of Ewen Solon, star of Maigret and The Revenue Men and an expatriate New Zealander, was one of the most exciting features of New Zealand’s first urban TV…
1 9 6 1 – 1 9 6 5 (New Zealand) This fortnightly teenage pop show from NZBC began on regional Auckland television (AKTV2), and was New Zealand’s first TV music show. Produced by Kevan Moore, each show featured a…
1 9 6 9 – 1 9 7 3 (New Zealand) This weekly family-entertainment variety programme from NZBC was created as a mild-mannered replacement for C’mon and was intended to bridge the generation gap. Instead of psychedelic go-go dancers and screaming…
1 9 6 7 – 1 9 6 8 (Australia) 30 x 60 minute episodes The ABC’s answer to Homicide, Contrabandits, was produced by Eric Tayler, whose credits included Maigret and Z Cars. The top man was Chief Inspector Ted Hallam…
1 9 6 7 – 1 9 6 8 (UK) 23 x 30 minute episodes 1 x short special Beggar My Neighbour featured two families; The Garveys – Gerald (Peter Jones) was an underpaid junior executive married to Rose (June Whitfield)…
1 9 9 6 – 2 0 0 0 (Australia) 188 x 180 minute episodes Created by producers Paul Clarke and Bruce Kane and partly modelled on the long-running Australian music show Countdown, this wildly enthusiastic youth-oriented Saturday morning TV series…
1 9 9 0 (New Zealand) 13 x 30 minute episodes This action-packed children’s drama from New Zealand introduced four street-smart kids – Mick (Anthony Samuels), Megan (Sarah Ford), Chrissie (Jessica Cardiff-Smith) and wee Billy (Clayton Spence) – who lived in…
The Vines formed in Sydney, Australia, in 1994 when co-founders Craig Nicholls (vocals/guitar) and Patrick Matthews (bass) met while working together at a local McDonald’s. Bonded by a shared obsession with Nirvana, they began writing music that blended ’90s grunge…
This pop duo from north London emerged as unexpected chart successes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With both members already in their 30s and lacking a stylish image, lead singer/pianist Chas Hodges and bassist Dave Peacock thrived in…
The Only Ones emerged in 1977 with an independent single, Lovers Of Today b/w Peter & The Pets, and a swag of Velvet Underground-like songs of heroin addiction and the futility of existence. Preferring flawed romance to fiery nihilism, street urchin poet Peter Perrett…
Kilburn and The High Roads formed at Canterbury College of Art in 1970 when lecturer Ian Dury let his inner Gene Vincent fan take control, with co-writer and keyboard player Russell Hardy. Playing an eclectic, English mix taking in rock…
Formed in London in 1997, The Libertines – all long, shabby hair and beer-stained biker jackets – became the torchbearers of the UK garage rock revival in the early 2000s. Revolving around the songwriting partnership of frontmen Pete Doherty and…
Blending folk, psychedelia, electronica, and trip hop, the highly experimental Beta Band formed in Scotland in 1996 around core members Steve Mason and Gordon Anderson. Anderson left early on due to illness, and the lineup solidified with the addition of…
This documentary follows Madonna on her 1990 ‘Blond Ambition’ concert tour beginning in Makuhari, Japan and ending in Nice, France. Filmed in grainy black and white, with the concert pieces in glittering colour, it offers an intimate look at the…
This undemanding picture proves that Arnold Schwarzenegger can do comedy, provided he doesn’t try too hard. He plays tough Los Angeles cop John Kimble, who is forced to teach toddlers while searching undercover for a crook’s ex-wife and son in…
When the plane carrying Edward Douglas (David Thewlis) crashes, he is rescued by a boat carrying crates of animals by Montgomery (Val Kilmer), who promises Douglas he can send for help from the island home of Dr Moreau (Marlon Brando),…
Roger Avary co-wrote Pulp Fiction (1994) with Quentin Tarantino, and his debut feature as a director deals with many of the same themes. Eric Stoltz is Zed, an American safecracker visiting his old friend Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) in Paris to rob…
The title says it all – bachelors Ted Danson, Steve Guttenberg and Tom Selleck are left holding the baby, abandoned on their doorstep, and it’s not long before they are knee-deep in bottles, nappies and gooey moments. The three leads…
Picture James Bond, slightly geekier and wearing a winged condor suit. Got it? Then you’re ready for Condorman, a goofy action/comedy from Disney starring the world’s most unlikely superheroic secret agent. Comic book writer/artist Woody Wilkins (Michael Crawford) refuses to put anything…
When the transistor replaced the bulky and unreliable vacuum tube in amplification units, transistors did the job better and were much smaller, making it possible to drastically reduce the size of radios and record players. Transistors also had significantly lower…
1 9 6 9 – 1 9 8 0 (UK) 15 minute episodes Premiering in April 1969, this BBC Radio 2 series (a replacement for Mrs Dale’s Diary, which had run since 1948 and was now regarded as twee and…
1 9 3 9 – 1 9 9 5 With the on-air cool of Alan Freed and the smokestack growl of Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Weston Smith – a young white man born in Brooklyn in January 1938 – remade himself as DJ legend…
In November 1964 a 780-ton former WWII minesweeper named MV Galaxy anchored three-and-a-half miles off the Essex coast and became home to Radio London – “Big L”. The American-financed pirate station was to give Radio Caroline – the original UK pirate,…
The first British pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, was founded by Ronan O’Rahilly in 1964. He was inspired by Dutch offshore stations like Radio Veronica and chose the station’s name in honour of the daughter of the first Roman Catholic President of…
Radio 1, the BBC’s pop music station, began broadcasting on 31 August 1967, with Tony Blackburn spinning Flowers In The Rain by The Move. The new station was designed to replace the various pirate radio stations that had transmitted from…
January 01 – Millennium celebrations are held around the world to celebrate the beginning of the 3rd millennium. The fears about the anticipated Y2K bug problems turn out to be largely unfounded, and very few major failures occur. 01 – The Millennium…
January 01 – Slovakia adopts the Euro as its national currency, replacing the Slovak Koruna. 01 – A Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer shoots and kills Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man, at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, United States. The…
January 01 – Cyprus and Malta adopt the Euro as their currency. 08 – New Jersey officially apologises for slavery, becoming the first Northern US state to do so. 20 – Frenchman Francis Joyon becomes the fastest person to sail solo around the…
January 01 – Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union. 01 – Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel assumes the presidency of the European Union. 04 – Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. 05 -…
January 01 – Sydney, Australia, swelters through its hottest New Year’s Day on record, with the temperature peaking at 45.8 degrees Celsius, sparking bushfires and power outages. 04 – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffers a second, more serious stroke, and his…
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…
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Enjoy your trip in the time machine!
It’s really quite simple: This is Moonbase (pictured above) – These are the folk who are supposed to stop the UFOs entering the Earth’s atmosphere in the first place This…
The image that endures is of a platinum-blonde picture of innocence silhouetted against a picture tube of pure evil. “They’re heeeere!” called out 5-year-old Heather O’Rourke as Poltergeist’s Carol Anne…
The term “Ozploitation” refers to low-budget Australian-produced exploitation genre filmmaking of the 1970s and 80s. From bawdy sex comedies like Alvin Purple (1973) to horror films like Patrick (1978) and…
To outsiders, it seemed that Pete Duel had everything to live for – a loving girlfriend, a nice home, money and a hit TV series. Yet shortly after 1:25 am…
The first time I appeared on Juke Box Jury, I wasn’t on the panel. I was in the “Hot Seat” – that famous chair hidden from the panel behind the…
The Silver Beetles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Stuart Sutcliffe) failed an audition as Billy Fury’s backing group but drew a consolation prize in playing behind Johnny Gentle…
In the 1860s, Elite Wyoming sharpshooter Matthew Quigley (Tom Selleck) answers a newspaper advertisement from a wealthy Australian cattle rancher offering an astronomical sum of money for a master rifleman.…
1 9 8 9 – 1 9 9 2 (Australia) 74 x 60 minute episodes Fast Forward was an innovative Australian comedy sketch show with an extraordinarily talented cast, who specialised…
Australian film Stir does not make for a nice Saturday night movie. It is full of terrible physical violence and repetitive dirty words. Nothing about a prison gives viewers a…
Smiley William Thomas 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),…
10-year-old Smiley Greevins (now played by Keith Calvert instead of Colin Petersen) gets into more strife in this sequel to the 1956 movie Smiley as he attempts to prove himself…
The Pointed Sticks formed in Vancouver, Canada, in 1977 when singer Nick Jones returned from England where he had witnessed the excitement of the British punk rock scene. Taking the…
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…
1 9 5 7 – 1 9 9 5 (Canada) 30 minute episodes This long-running Canadian game show started on 24 June 1957 as an inexpensive summer replacement for The…
1 9 5 4 – 1 9 5 7 (Canada) 80 x 30 minute episodes This popular early music variety television series from CBC was hosted by Toronto-born pianist, singer, and…
1 9 7 1 – 1 9 7 6 (Canada) 30 minute episodes This highly popular long-running Canadian panel game show (which began as a summer replacement for Front Page…
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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..