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Zammo chased the dragon and got a smack on the nose.
Looking back, the UK media I remember from my youth suggested the world was populated almost entirely by glue sniffers, every adult you didn’t know was a paedophile with a packet of sweets and if the glue or paedos didn’t get you first, you were almost certainly guaranteed to be killed crossing railway tracks
We've come a long way. Er, oh.
I was born in the early 70s so was a 'child of the 80s'. We had a lot to be scared about. On one side you had the death throes of the Cold War and to paraphrase Billy Connelly, a man with his finger on the nuclear button who was the same age as my grandad and he couldn't be trusted with the TV remote control. On the other, the AIDS explosion, a huge "don't die of ignorance" campaign and b-list celebrities rolling condoms onto bananas. Better get laid before the bomb drops except you're not allowed.
But really, you're right, we got so much better at not shoving dodgy behaviour under the carpet. We criticise social media today for fearmongering but this is where it started, stranger danger and by extension being empowered to call out Uncle Brian for being a creepy ****, and I'm not convinced that's a bad thing.
One Summer?
Bloody hell I’d forgotten about that. It was utter genius. I remember it having a massive impact at the time
When I started going to pubs in the UK I was so disappointed they weren't like Cheers. When I started going to bars in the US I as disappointed they weren't all like Cheers.
Kes, Billy Elliot and Our Friends in the North will give you an idea of some of the bleakness but also the good times too. Back when miners still thought they could hold a country to ransom for a dying unprofitable industry.
One Summer?
Bloody hell I’d forgotten about that. It was utter genius. I remember it having a massive impact at the time
Might've been NW specific. As a kid the age of the protagonists growing up in Merseyside, it hit us all. Willy Russell disowned it because he didn't like the casting and some of the script edits.
British life just seemed so low budget – I still feel that way
Ditto. As a nation we do a cracking job of portraying our country as a grim little shithole.
Ditto. As a nation we do a cracking job of portraying our country as a grim little shithole.
Isn't it an ‘English’ thing thou, look at the success of Eastenders/Cornation St/Emerdale,people seem to like wallowing in grimmness.
Seem to like seeing people in worse circumstances than their own as opposed to better ones.
I used to like Capital City,Chancer and Spender which were mostly up beat, normal lad done good type of things.
When I started going to pubs in the UK I was so disappointed they weren’t like Cheers
When I started going into pubs in the UK I was disappointed that they were exactly like the Slaughtered Lamb in American Werewolf.
Well this is an interesting topic, discussed at length in the Grips house.
American TV is aspirational, whereas British TV is representational. Americans (for the most part) seem to want to be shown wonderful stuff, big houses/cars etc, that they wish they owned. But in the UK we want to see ourselves represented on-screen. The reasons for this are pretty complex I suspect, but perhaps linked into the resentment Brits often feel towards the rich, which may be related to historical concepts of class, I'm not sure. Or the American style might be linked to the way the whole of US life is aspirational - the pursuit of success and money, and the fantasy of the American Dream being sold at every opportunity.
One of the most irritating examples of this is Friends. The title song talks about how crappy their lives are then they end up living in huge apartments and somehow managing to have money all the time. Although to be fair, part of the reason the apartments are huge is because they are stage sets for live filming with a large audience.
Anyway we watched loads of US TV in the 80s (and still do), so we thought all of the US was big houses, cars, phones and TVs in your own bedroom etc. And for a while I really thought people in the US actually grew faster, because all the school kids look like young adults. And the men were all much more muscular. I think a lot of people still think that tbh.
Back when miners still thought they could hold a country to ransom for a dying unprofitable industry.
I think it was more about the way it was being done, and how it was being turned into a weapon for class warfare...
I turned 18 in 1980 and didn't have a TV through most of the decade* but I don't recall any ambition to live on the set of Happy Days or ET or whatever, or the set of Neighbours come to that, it just looked a bit shite. Also, days of Reagan, Bush #1, iran/contra etc (why no impeachment there?) and I was pretty anti US. Europe had an appeal. Still does.
My childhood was similarly hanging round friends' houses, the park which shaded into countryside, the long hike to town, adults distant features of the landscape. Pretty comfortable really. My kids lives were pretty similar which apparently is rarer these days.
*Okay there was a TV in a couple of shared houses but I was out literally every night. I'm knackered now just thinking about it.
We all wanted your life saxonrider.
I used to dream about my parents movign to california every day, where there were skate bowls and empty pools everywhere for my skate/bmx fantasies.
That's why we all loved Et, Goonies etc, those kids lived the life we could only dream of.
American TV is aspirational,
Even when it tries not to be.
How many shows / films portray the loser kid living in mom's basement? We all thought that would be AWESOME!
Or the fully stocked cabin in the woods? Or the long-abandoned family home that no-one has been in for half a century yet is completely free of graffiti and syringes, in fact is otherwise perfect besides a couple of dust sheets, and is the size of Balmoral?
American TV is aspirational
Yep, just getting into one little brawl in Philadelphia and BOOM! You're in Bel Air.
We all wanted your life saxonrider.
I used to dream about my parents movign to california every day, where there were skate bowls and empty pools everywhere for my skate/bmx fantasies.
Oddly enough my dad used to drink with a bloke who’s son did freestyle BMX back in the 80’s
,who moved to the USA with dad to do just that.
He used to go to St George park in Bristol but had the big ramps in his back garden.
I just can’t remember his name.
(Funny enough JLC's dad use to also drink in the same pub)
Remember Entertainment USA selling the dream to us 🙂
That talking cat wasn’t wrong thou.
"Charlie says, always tell your mummy before you go out."