tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post3003677555642666762..comments2024-03-28T16:18:17.778+00:00Comments on A Yorkshire Memoir: Too Much TelevisionTasker Dunhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-5946997048167356072023-02-07T16:24:32.482+00:002023-02-07T16:24:32.482+00:00The Buccaneers theme has stayed in my head along w...The Buccaneers theme has stayed in my head along with that of Panorama (the Window on the World with Richard Dimbleby) Wagon Train, I Married Joan, Doctor Who, Zoo Time, Z Cars, The Fugitive, This Week, The Human Jungle, Laramie, Bonanza, Hancock's Half Hour, Steptoe & Son, Morecamble & Wise, Dick Van Dyke etc & The Dick Powell Theatre (YouTube) which opened with the curtain rising on a proscenium and the old movie star emerging with a warm smile.<br /><br />The episode of The Simon Dee Show, featuring George Lazenby naming the men who conspired to assassinate President Kennedy has been taken off YouTube. <br />Lazenby, with brilliant timing, waited till the closing credits.<br /><br />This sci-fi atmosphere of early television is what brings to mind H.G. Wells and his prophetic romances such as The Shape pf Things to Come, The War of the Worlds, In the Days of the Comet, and The First Men on the Moon.<br />It is fitting that the era ended with the transmission of the first Moon Walk, 1969, and the astonishment on everyone's face.<br />J.G. Ballard thought this colossal event would change men and women for good, and lead to the end of all wars.<br /><br />For those of us living in housing schemes (ours had 40,000 people and no cinema and no swimming baths for the first years) television was a positive good.<br />If anything television encouraged reading and stimulated interest in politics, world affairs, science, history, dance, theatre, cinema, pop & classical music.<br />And who could forget Hughie Green who said, 'Once you learn to fake the sincerity the rest is easy.'Haggertyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03878998597580981583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-42522609385147733942023-02-07T09:07:25.497+00:002023-02-07T09:07:25.497+00:00Apart from The Buccaneers all those themes are in ...Apart from The Buccaneers all those themes are in my head. I don't have to look of Youtube. It's interesting to watch McCartney sing now. You can see the techniques he has learnt to compensate. Yes, the 60s and 70s were a golden age for television. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-58996450996713808802023-02-06T23:02:52.017+00:002023-02-06T23:02:52.017+00:00Transmission error.
Paul McCartney sang Till There...Transmission error.<br />Paul McCartney sang Till There Was You at the Royal Command Performance (YouTube) a song from The Music Man.<br />Macca can't sing for toffee. <br />What pop star could except for the girl in The Seekers ?<br />Emily Linge has a bonny rendition of the Broadway hit YouTube with Simon Tonkins on guitar.Haggertyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03878998597580981583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-33781645027334250332023-02-06T22:44:19.810+00:002023-02-06T22:44:19.810+00:00As a bookish fossil I possess no box, but I wish t...As a bookish fossil I possess no box, but I wish to make a case for television of the 1950s-60s, a time that brought us, thanks to John Logie Baird, satellite transmission, the Space Age, men on the moon, the first Labour government since 1945, coverage of the war in Vietnam, the assassination of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King's Civil Rights, Christine Keeler and tragic Stephen Ward, the Beatles & Merseysound.<br /><br />The term I would denote for our television world view is Wellsian.<br />H.G. Wells was a great writer, non Bloomsbury, and without pretensions, except at the end when he wrote A Mind At the End of its Tether. He told J.B. Priestley he thought of himself as a journalist.<br /><br />BBC Television gave us Children's Hour, Blue Peter in black and white, Tales From Eastern Europe (The Singing Ringing Tree) and after tea Tomorrow's World. We had a future despite the Atom Bomb.<br /><br />The texture of those black & white transmissions gave a certain ghostly glamour to the Fab Four (Ready Steady Go may have been their first TV appearance) and the gritty realism of Z Cars, the Wednesday Play, Play For Today, and political discussions that brought Teddy Taylor and Norman Buchan (my father's great Labour hope) into our Scottish living rooms. <br />Harold Wilson was in his element on TV and gigged with the Beatles.<br /><br />Thanks to YouTube we can see David Frost twice interviewing the unreconstructed fascist Oswald Mosley; Ken Tynan talking to Laurence Olivier; Kenneth Alsop speaking to Casals; Cilla Black performing with Dudley Moore; and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.<br /><br />I doubt Wells met Logie Baird who was experimenting with the cathode tube from his ramshackle workshop in Yoker, Glasgow, not far from Clydebank where the great cruise ships of the world were built.<br />Baird wished to transmit a moving image from one room to another.<br />Some thought him mad.<br /><br />You can hear the theme tune from The Buccaneers on YouTube likewise Tombstone Territory, Gunsmoke, Sugarfoot, Laramie, Bonanza, The Fugitive, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Human Jungle the Wednesday Plays, Steptoe & Son, Tommy Cooper, Dave Allen<br />and The Dick Powell Theatre (my mother's favourite) whose theme tune I can still whistle along with a dozen others.<br /><br />I remember the music of the London Palladium coming home on summer nights during the holidays and Mario Lanza & Gracie Fields as the guest stars.<br />Paul McCartney sang (badly) A Taste of Honey at the Royal Command Performance on Sunday night.Haggertyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03878998597580981583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-65211140336661698862023-02-06T09:14:58.561+00:002023-02-06T09:14:58.561+00:00It is indiscriminate watching that is not a good t...It is indiscriminate watching that is not a good thing. It's all too tempting and I've wasted hours on "just watch the next programme". Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-89287360265588291452023-02-05T19:56:54.090+00:002023-02-05T19:56:54.090+00:00Think of all the skills lost to television - too t...Think of all the skills lost to television - too true.. But overall I think the pros outweigh the cons. And I too remember many of those theme tunes - and more from the Seventies. The bike shedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05195882998271591934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-26808017806033107162023-02-04T10:02:50.063+00:002023-02-04T10:02:50.063+00:00Agreed.Agreed.Yorkshire Puddinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06019673884543913089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-73377128988936690862023-02-04T09:53:13.665+00:002023-02-04T09:53:13.665+00:00Reminds me of the story of the drama teacher who d...Reminds me of the story of the drama teacher who died. When the Head told the children one put up his hand and asked whether she might be acting. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-85634328590624711782023-02-04T02:50:16.101+00:002023-02-04T02:50:16.101+00:00We watch too much television right now. It is wint...We watch too much television right now. It is winter, and we are a bit cooped up at the moment. We always had a television as far back as I can remember. I remember being a child and loving Captain Kangaroo. I also remember watching a cowboy show on television, and I could not understand how someone would let themselves be shot and die. My mother explained 'acting' to me. I was not yet in school, but I remember being very relieved. Debbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09531125606268748793noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-19000058422704598932023-02-03T16:09:59.692+00:002023-02-03T16:09:59.692+00:00It annoys me that they make at least 50% about cel...It annoys me that they make at least 50% about celebrity resenters and "interesting" characters rather than the subject matter they are supposedly about. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-8245035243083088982023-02-03T16:04:24.369+00:002023-02-03T16:04:24.369+00:00about the same time and for the same reasons as me...about the same time and for the same reasons as me Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-88235800664644748572023-02-03T16:02:43.782+00:002023-02-03T16:02:43.782+00:00Both me and wife were late to tv and it was the sc...Both me and wife were late to tv and it was the schoolwork argument that did it. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-67246326167936249522023-02-03T15:58:09.612+00:002023-02-03T15:58:09.612+00:00These is very tittle I want to watch, but sometime...These is very tittle I want to watch, but sometimes something silly like Ice Road Truckers will draw me in. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-67445037105888401092023-02-03T15:56:14.505+00:002023-02-03T15:56:14.505+00:00thanksthanksTasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-31478453669210268672023-02-03T15:54:59.113+00:002023-02-03T15:54:59.113+00:00Sometimes you see into someone's wondow and t...Sometimes you see into someone's wondow and they have an enormous expensive set covering the whole of wall, just for wasting time. My view is that it was much more satisfying when we used to acquire deep skills and knowledge through and handicrafts. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-1787215142286867882023-02-03T15:49:01.622+00:002023-02-03T15:49:01.622+00:00I agree, and made a similar response above before ...I agree, and made a similar response above before I saw yours, although I don't watch online much either. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-54137387786806396992023-02-03T15:45:42.303+00:002023-02-03T15:45:42.303+00:00He was all the rage at the time. I wanted a beaver...He was all the rage at the time. I wanted a beaver-tailed hat too but never had one. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-56703729331651201562023-02-03T15:44:13.141+00:002023-02-03T15:44:13.141+00:00Don't know for how long it will be but glad to...Don't know for how long it will be but glad to pleased to have sparked off good memories. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-84760094807485117022023-02-03T15:41:36.883+00:002023-02-03T15:41:36.883+00:00It is noticeable how empty of children the parks a...It is noticeable how empty of children the parks and playing fields have been for several decades compared to earlier times. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-41254837818703119772023-02-03T15:37:58.694+00:002023-02-03T15:37:58.694+00:00The were great entertainment. Now we have loads of...The were great entertainment. Now we have loads of channels and they are neatly all rubbish. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-52206554882943854182023-02-03T15:36:26.346+00:002023-02-03T15:36:26.346+00:00I find other things more satisfying. I could hate ...I find other things more satisfying. I could hate myself when I waste time watching silly programmes. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-37944293309932883862023-02-03T15:33:35.742+00:002023-02-03T15:33:35.742+00:00Well done! We have one, but I watch very little. Well done! We have one, but I watch very little. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-72698267014281899352023-02-03T15:31:09.949+00:002023-02-03T15:31:09.949+00:00The bigger distraction today is of course the inte...The bigger distraction today is of course the internet and phones. Tasker Dunhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17634612033217902946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-1807181315916115002023-02-03T04:10:01.652+00:002023-02-03T04:10:01.652+00:00I remember all those shows from long ago, TV these...I remember all those shows from long ago, TV these days simply doesn't compare well at all, all the silly "reality" shows and talent shows, not to mention "wall-to-wall" advertising segments which are often as long as the segments of shows divided by them.Riverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14794655013673748992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4023204082711630211.post-68169650695649412382023-02-02T21:11:11.621+00:002023-02-02T21:11:11.621+00:00I initially grew up in a TV-free house, my parents...I initially grew up in a TV-free house, my parents bought their first set the week that Dr Who started on BBC, although that wasn't the reason, it was so my elder brother could catch up on some of the schools broadcasts. I was familiar with some of the programs you mentioned from visiting school friends or relatives, but we didn't miss the programs when back home. Even after getting the TV, my brother and I still preferred to read after completing homework, and I was usually outdoors of an evening in summer.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06715674477635617592noreply@blogger.com