Popular Nostalgia

One of the things we most remember of our childhood, since the advent of television. Children’s T.V. holds many happy memories for many people. Reminisce with us.

Count Duckula was another cartoon that I grew up watching in the late 1980s and early 1990s – enjoy the episode above – I hadn’t remembered the intro was quite so long!
This was one of my favourites, probably because it was pretty dark and macabre.
Count Duckula was made for four series and there are 65 [...]

The Muppets were the biggest sewn people for a decade or so in the 1980s and early 90s – and there isn’t a much more nostalgic show than “A Christmas Carol” when it comes to feeling christmassy, so it isn’t really that amazing that the “Muppet Christmas Carol” evokes in me all kinds of twinkly, [...]

Saturday (or was it Sunday??) mornings never were the same once we lost the Orange Organics front-man Pugwall (Peter Unwin George Wall) and his epic series of the same name.
In the UK, we used to watch these glorious moments of Aussie stardom on Channel 4.
Pugwall was played by a chap called Jason Torrens. We all [...]

Airwolf ran from 1984 through 1987. The supersonic military helicopter with hidden weapons and stealth capabilities flew along the thin line of the Cold War standoff. Its test pilot, Stringfellow Hawke, was played by Jan-Michael Vincent.
When Airwolf is stolen by its twisted creator, Doctor Charles Henry Moffet, “the FIRM” asks Hawke to go to Libya [...]

The 1982 TV series starred David Hasselhof as a cop who was shot in the face, but then rescued by a self-made billionaire committed to vigilante action. Wilton Knight treats Michael Long and gives him plastic surgery to rebuild his face. Not only that, but the wealthy do-gooder gives the ex-policeman a new identity and [...]

Hands up who remembers the Really Wild show that used to be on BBC TV during (I think) the early 90s and possibly the late 80s too.
This show features Michaela Strachan, who was the first woman most young boys fancied, and Terry Nutkins, who certainly was  not her male counterpart in the fanciability respect, but [...]

A group of adventurers go on a quest to collect the Thirteen Treasures of Rule, which possess the power to stop  “Dark Water” from consuming the alien world of Mer. The Darkwater is like a sticky oil with a mind of its own – attacking good things and choking them.
Because of problems in production, there [...]

The Yogi Bear cartoons were on in the early 90’s and whilst I remember them, I don’t remember much. Yogi, and his best friend Boo Boo, lived in Jellystone National Park stealing “pic-a-nic baskets” off holiday makers.
The original cartoons were around in the 1950’s and every decade thereafter. Park Ranger Smith would occassionally arrive to [...]

Snow White was the first full length animated feature to be produced by Walt Disney, and the first American animated feature film in movie history. If you’re in any doubt about how a woman should behave, check out the Disney 1930’s idea of female etiquette. It’s brilliant. Move like a ballerina and clean as though [...]

The CBS executives hated this feature when they saw it because it had readings from the Bible, jazz and children’s voices, but it was a hit. Linus recites a reading from the Gospel of Luke (whilst carrying his blanket) under a spotlight and we all know what we forgot over the last two weeks:
Charlie Brown: [...]

I remember Potsworth & Co. with fondness from my childhood, but a look back at the video shows that, compared to today’s cartoons, it was a pretty budget affair, which relied on good storylines.
In the USA, it was called Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone – what a mouthful! Potsworth & Co. is a [...]

I can’t believe we haven’t had The Raccoons featured in this Popular Nostalgia website, I mean it was Saturday morning gold when I were a wee laddie.
BBC One mornings, before your mums and dads got out of bed were made all the more enjoyable/tolerable by The Raccons while we waited for Going Live to come [...]

A 1992 hit with all the prerequisite uniform: perm, big earrings and a lot of PVC. I love the setting for this video – how exactly do you book a missile launch platform? The German duo Snap! were responsible for this club hit and UK number 1 as well as The Power which was another [...]

The Getalong Gang is a fine exemplar of everything that a cartoon should be: informative, fun and featuring a moose AND a caboose.
2 words you don’t often hear in the same sentence these days, more’s the pity, are ‘moose’ and ‘caboose’. A caboose is of course the single train cart club house that the getalong [...]

Intro Lyrics for “Funnybones”
In a dark, dark town there was a dark, dark street
and in the dark, dark street there was a dark, dark house,
and in the dark, dark house there were some dark, dark stairs
and down the dark, dark stairs there was a dark, dark room
and in the dark dark room….
three skeletons lived!
There was [...]