A while back I found this old photo –

Ignore the fat sleeping child, which is me. What really grabbed my attention was the collection of videos, sat minding their own business on the wall unit behind me.

With the help of social media, I was able to identify some of the blurrier ones. I’m not going to bore you with my dad’s collection of Shadows videos, or the blank ones that no doubt have episodes of Spender on them; I’ll just stick to mine, which were the best. Continue reading “12 VHS tapes from 1992” →

Gladiators is one of my favourite shows, but it’s never really occurred to me to have a look at the various cash-in tat on offer. This is because I’ve been too busy Ebaying Kwik Save carrier bags with the handles missing.

My god, where have I been? I should have known that a show about men in bras kicking each other in the bollocks would have spawned a wide and fascinating array of merchandise. And even better, some of it manages to not be about Jet.

Customer ready? 3… 2… 1…

3D glasses, for seeing in 3D

Continue reading “The weird world of Gladiators merchandise” →

I’ve been meaning to write about Saved By The Bell for the last couple of years, but I was busy that day. Oh well, better late than never.

Saved By The Bell follows the wacky adventures of Zack, Slater, Tammy-Jo and Billy-Bob-Bob-John as they go round scamming people out of money, shooting up caffeine and generally being dicks. This takes place in a school called Bayside High, which contains ten students and a payphone that at least one of those ten students is using at any one time.

Today I’d like to talk about the episode ‘Screech’s Woman’. The following things happen in this episode, because they happen in every episode:

• Someone wears an outfit that makes me want to stop the universe by punching myself in the face
• There’s a misunderstanding with hilarious consequences
• The audience goes “Wooooo” because Slater got his ankle out
• Mr Belding is the best one
• Not much else

Now the world of Saved By The Bell has been clearly and succinctly established by me, let’s crack on with the episode.

Continue reading “Saved By The Bell episode review: I’m Joan Collins, let’s do sex” →

I’m trying to imagine the kind of person who still watches Television X and those other not-real-porn channels. All I can come up with is someone who has loads of money for food, but who prefers to eat out of bins.

However, these channels do have their merits. In the middle of the night, when there’s nothing else on, we find ourselves jabbing aimlessly at the Sky buttons until we end up in the ‘Tits and misc’ section. These are divided into two categories:

Babestation and 37 identical channels. In the programmes we’ve seen, there are ladies that wear not many clothes and work in a call centre. They might sell Scottish Power, but I don’t think they do.

Porn channels. The ladies without phones, unless it’s very specialist porn. These channels are where ladies have their flaps out and do dry humping with men. They are definitely having real sex, because that’s what they tell us. Continue reading “Recreating Television X titles with action figures” →