Popular Nostalgia

You are browsing the archives of 2008 February.

Enter the Dragon was almost as life-changing for 70’s kids as James Bond. Dangerous, exotic and full of epic fight scenes, Bruce Lee’s films marked a new era for the West -martial arts had arrived. Everyone wanted to learn Kung-Fu or Karate. Kids all over Europe and America sought the secrets and mastery of Chinese [...]

The events of Mouvember have brought back a funny 70’s style to the public’s awareness. Take a gander at these:

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 [...]

Allo Allo is a farcical comedy about a French cafe owner juggling the secrets of French, British and German wartime interests -as well as his own. The show ran from 1982 to 1992 and followed the progress of Rene who has to hide paintings

A hapless bunch of Home Guard “soldiers” attempt to defend their homeland to little effect. Dad’s Army has a brilliant start sequence with song that was specially written for the show and military progress arrows fighting each other.
Who do you think you are kidding Mr. Hitler,

Famous for coining the term “Scrubs” and Lisa LeftEye Lopez

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This is the anthem to 1983. As The Eurythmics, Annie Lennox and her companion, David A. Stewart, marked out the competitive and money-grabbing decade as their target and hit bullseye with the reversed-bass-track riff

It seems almost comical to watch Brian Harvey singing a love song now, but croon he did with the help of the singer-with-the-eyepatch, Gabrille, who used the world largest fringe to cover a droopy eyelid. There was a really fit guy in the background, whom I think was a member of the band, but I [...]

In a dark, dark town there was a dark, dark street
and in the dark, dark street there was a dark, dark house,

“Flash! Flash! I love you! But we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!” Biggest, best, camp intergalactic quest -ever. Squeaky rubber outfits, flying hawk-men led by Brian Blessed, Ming the Merciless, monsters, green blood, ladies in outrageously skimpy get-ups -Flash Gordon has it all. Most famous for two things:

the fight for the Earth [...]

Remember the fighting skeletons? The Hydra guarding the Golden Fleece? The Crashing Rocks that threaten to smash Jason’s boat to pieces and the giant sea monster that holds them apart?

I remember watching the Sinbad films on a weekend. I always thought the creatures were really funny because they didn’t move properly and the special effects were always shaky, when in fact they were ground breaking in their time -created by the same man who did special effects for Jason and the Argonauts.

Clueless typifies teenage girls in the 90’s. Well, how every girl wanted to be in the nineties anyway. For some reason, I always thought that Alicia Silverstone (who plays the main character Cher) was the same actress as Joan Hart (who plays Clarissa and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch). Compare these two images yourselves.
Every young teenage [...]

Platform trainers were very cool indeed during 90’s spice-mania. Sporty yet, ermm, not-so-feminine. Not very practical for cross training or basketball, but excellent for Tom Cruise. Just look at the monstrosities on the right!

Sharky and George was originally a French Canadian animation that was then translated into English. The two fishy detectives solved underwater crime, Seacago style. The show is full of marine puns on everyday words -like Silly-Clam Valley