Everything 80's

John Foxx - Underpass.

Not sure I remember that. I was more into the newer stuff like The Jam, Madness and my beloved Police. There was quite a range of music back then with all sorts of different styles especially after Punk had died off with Nu Wave, Two-Tone, Ska and the remants of Disco. Some say it was a golden era from 1981-1985, but after that Stock, Aitken and Waterman virtually dominated the charts and although some of it was good, the rest was pure dross.

Was thinking about games and puzzles we had in the 1980's - I remember in the late 70's/early 80's playing Magic Robot, a quiz game with a small robot-like counter with a pointer and CROSSFIRE, which a friend of mine had-you had this arena with two guns at either end. You loaded it up with metal balls I think it was and then fired like crazy at discs to try and score points. Another one wasn't so much a game it was a toy-SUPER FLIGHT DECK, a way of guiding a cardboard plane off a runway and then guiding it back again. It was one of the must-have things but looking back it was absolutely crap! Who also remembers MASTERMIND? The cover picture showed this Bond-style villain type with a beautiful Asian girl as his side but it was nothing like the quiz show on the BBC. You had to guess a four-pegged colour code and you could be half right, half wrong but if you were clever you could use all the same colour or really mix it up. Drove most of us mad, but a good brain workout.

Speaking of games, it reminded me of the great stuff we had for our various computers back in the boom months of 1983/4 when British computers ruled(if only we had seen the potential we could have been THE Microsoft of that era instead of the Yanks!) and machines such as ZX Spectrum and BBC Micros were the market leaders along with Commodore C64's etc as must-have gadgets. Of course we lied to our parents and said "oh yes you can do stuff on there for homework and school" but what many of did was play hundreds of games-imagine today's teens sitting for five minutes excitedly waiting for a game on a cassette tape to load up (wouldn't last five seconds) Which games did you play and what machine did you have? My favourite shows for computers were Making the Most of your Micro and The Computer Programme (these series and others like them can be found via the BBC computer archive which you find the link to via a search in Google) I also used to watch something called Database with Tony Bastable(former Magpie presenter) where at the end you could record something over the speaker via that God-awful download noise for your machine.

This is SUPER MASTERMIND but it was the same sort of thing.

Here is the cover of a Saturday Superstore book from 1986.

Posted elsewhere but relevant to the 80's I SPY Books and the membership book/starter book.

Note how the prices changed over a period of time. There was also an article in the Daily Mail from the Chief known as Big Chief I-Spy and there was even a secret sign-but it's so secret I can't tell you

MAGPIE was mentioned. The presenters had other jobs before. Mick Robertson(a Brian May look-a-like) moved later to a fledgling satellite channel on analogue called 'The Children's Channel' and he interviewed my father who was on to talk about a book he had done for the Olympics. Douglas Boyd was the radio presenter of a late-night programme on LBC news channel in the 1980's, Jenny Hanley was of course the ex Bond girl(O.H.M.S.S.) whose brother Jeremy Hanley was an MP.

Does anyone remember Susan Stranks? She did a lunchtime show for kids called PAPERPLAY and had two puppets(glove) helping her Itsy and Bitsy. She was married to the radio presenter Robin Ray btw. She was a very sexy lady and to a callow youth worth looking at each lunchtime.

Try not to cheat but how many of these can you answer? Prize is a cardboard cut out of a cheque for £20
Good luck
1) Let's start the next game of the set of three, let's play...? Host's name? Show?
2) It could be a big night if you....? Name of presenter? Show?
3) Smashing!, super! great!... Name of presenter? Show?
4) This one for Mother & elder son Name of presenter? Show?
5) "Let's see tonight's amazing prizes that can be gleaned from a recent BBC firesale"
Name of presenter and show
6) "I've started so I'll finish" Name of the presenter(first one) & name of show?
7) "Dave Smith...come on down, you are the first contestant on tonight's....?
"Name of Presenter(original UK one) Name of show?
8) "A difference of opinion there Geoffrey" this one is hard Name of Presenter/Show

(24-01-2019 00:29 )GreenMachine Wrote:  Try not to cheat but how many of these can you answer? Prize is a cardboard cut out of a cheque for £20
Good luck
1) Let's start the next game of the set of three, let's play...? Host's name? Show?
2) It could be a big night if you....? Name of presenter? Show?
3) Smashing!, super! great!... Name of presenter? Show?
4) This one for Mother & elder son Name of presenter? Show?
5) "Let's see tonight's amazing prizes that can be gleaned from a recent BBC firesale"
Name of presenter and show
6) "I've started so I'll finish" Name of the presenter(first one) & name of show?
7) "Dave Smith...come on down, you are the first contestant on tonight's....?
"Name of Presenter(original UK one) Name of show?
8) "A difference of opinion there Geoffrey" this one is hard Name of Presenter/Show

1) No idea
2) Play Your Cards Right - Bruce Forsyth
3) Bullseye - Jim Bowen
4) Generation Game (complete guess) - Bruce Forsyth/Larry Grayson
5) Blankety Blank - Terry Wogan/Les Dawson
6) Mastermind - Magnus Magnusson
7) The Price is Right - Leslie Crowther
8) No idea...