Wayne and Wanda - The Glorious Muppet Singing Duo, The Appendectomy And The Fever...

The Muppet Show! Jim Henson's lovely Muppet puppet concept had been around in one form or another since its very first manifestation in the 1950s. In 1976, this all-American phenomenon sprouted new characters and descended on a clapped-out old English music hall to become one of the fondest remembered kids' TV shows of all time - and it's still a thriving comicdom, fandom and filmdom today.

I loved the show, which ran from 1976 to 1981. Who could forget the Swedish Chef? Pigs In Space? The Great Gonzo? The horrifically scientific Dr Bunsen Honeydew? Poor, terrified Beaker? Fozzie Bear's bravery and optimism in the face of an indifferent or hostile audience? Sam the Eagle, battling (and failing) to keep things decent? The fabulous Great Gonzo? Or the strange success of Mah Na Na? This song, originally performed by the Muppets in 1969, took over UK pop culture like a rocket when it popped up on the Muppet Show a few years later. Suddenly, everybody was saying it. My cousin, opening the door to the insurance man: 'Ma nah ma nah'. Insurance man: 'Funny you should you say that - ma nah ma nah'.

Me, to a bus conductor: 'Ma nah ma nah!'

Bus conductor: 'Where do you want to go, you stupid XXXXXXX kid?'

Well, maybe not everybody.

My own personal favourite Muppet characters were Miss Piggy - that gorgeous purveyor of sweetness, glamour and violence - and the singing duo of the first series, Wayne and Wanda.

Wayne and Wanda? Yes. Kermit fired them after series one. They sang lovely old songs in Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy style. But things were not nearly as good. Wanda had a terrible voice (I liked Wayne's) and the props and other things always ensured they never got very far into their act.

Wayne and Wanda struck my own personal funny bone in a sketch which featured Wayne sawing Wanda in two while she warbled You Do Something To Me. This was the famous old magician's sketch, but it ended abruptly when Wanda suddenly began shrieking. Something had gone wrong.

I was, for some reason, in stitches. My adolescent humour was aroused and I guffawed and guffawed and guffawed. And so, Wayne and Wanda became favourites.

Not long afterwards, I was literally in stitches - in hospital.

I'd been ill for a while and finally ended up fearing for my life as I experienced pain which took my breath away. This was quickly traced to my appendix - perforated - and so into hospital I was rushed and the offending part removed.

It was September 1977, I was less than a month from my 12th birthday, and I was ill. I was ill for a few days after the operation - experiencing high temperatures and delusions. Into this unhappy state came a set of brand new annuals - bought by the neighbours who had collected for the poorly lad in hospital. The annuals were The Quest (now long forgotten Western series), The Sweeney (hated it) and The Muppet Show.

I perused the annuals during lucid times. In the Muppet annual, Wayne serenaded a Spanish woman: 'Lady of Spain I adore you!' Wanda responded by kicking him off the stage: 'Make another pass at her and I'll floor you!' This interested me. After all, the concept of making a pass at somebody seemed a little adult for a kids' annual. I also looked at The Quest. In my fevered states, the two worked together to create a strange world in which Wayne and Wanda were present at my bedside and I was, at the same time, a cowboy in the desert.

'Howdy!' I drawled to a nurse at one point.

'Where's Wanda gone?' I asked at another.

It was all highly embarrassing in retrospect because the nurse reported these fascinating facts, with great amusement, to my mother.

Wayne and Wanda were kind enough to refrain from singing during their attendance at my bedside.

Anyway, I survived to see 1978 (blurgh) and Wayne and Wanda, now gone from The Muppet Show, were etched on my memory.

They returned in an episode shown in December 1979 in which they reproached Kermit the frog for firing them. Wayne was now fulfilling his 'life's ambition' as a manual labourer, and the pair were okay - thanks to help from Wanda's mother's pension money.

By then 14, I was dead chuffed to see them. Guilt-ridden Kermit rehired them, and then promptly refired them when they burst into a spirited rendition of that lovely 1930s number Sweet Mystery Of Life.

I never forgave Kermit.

Wayne and Wanda have cropped up a few times since, but there is a shocking lack of Muppet merchandise devoted to them. I want figurines of this legendary pair to pop on my mantelpiece. They will forever remind me of their out-of-this-world visit to my hospital bedside in 1977.

And I will smile.

Go to it, please, Disney.

The '70s Love Retro!

As if it wasn't enough to be overshadowed by the 1960s, the dear old '70s sought out retro style at every opportunity. Think Laura Ashley. Think smock tops. Think of those revolting, to the floor dresses with puffed sleeves. Think of the '50s look. Think of the '60s look. Think of the '40s look. Think of those 1930s platform shoes.

But it wasn't enough to buy new clothes made in a retro style - the adorable '70s also decided that genuine old clothes were a WOW, as this newspaper article from April 1976 shows.

Not keen on the pearly king, but the Pre-Raphaelite maiden looks like a bit of all right.

1976: Fanny Cradock Comes Unstuck...

1975: "Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas" - seasonal fare for the cash-strapped 1970s.

1976: "The Big Time" - Fanny registers absolute disgust at the suggested menu of an amateur cook. Big Time? Big Mistake.

-

Fanny Cradock was a hugely influential pioneer of TV cookery shows, who began her on-screen career in the 1950s. With monocled husband Johnnie by her side, she taught the nation how to cook sophisticated things, lifting us out of the mood of post war austerity and into a glittering new era of fancy French cuisine.

French cookery was the be-all-and-end-all to Fanny, as it was to many at that time, and La Cradock was proud of having some French ancestry a little way back. Fanny seemed to believe that French and English were not simply different nationalities, but different races - particularly when it came to culinary skills!

She was posh and bossy, could wear wonderful finery whilst cooking without getting covered in flour, and was one of the most enjoyable TV personalities I have ever clapped eyes on. To watch Fanny and Johnnie, she the Iron Lady, he the silly dodderer, was to watch a wonderful double act. The entertainment value went way beyond the cooking.

Perhaps blue eggs do seem a bit weird now, but hey, this was the rock n’ rollin’ 50s and the free lovin’ 60s! Things were different!

By the time the 1970s had arrived, Fanny had been HUGE for years, and it seemed that she would go on forever. I loved watching her as a little kid, although when I was a tiny tot I had found her a little creepy. I think this was because her voice sounded quite male, and she wore loads of make-up.

In 1975, Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas showed that our culinary heroine had her finger firmly on the pulse of current economic trends, as she prepared meals like mincemeat pancakes for Christmas jollies and mentioned many times the appalling economic climate. With prices soaring, I recall my mother being grateful for Fanny’s cost-cutting approach back then.

Then, in 1976, Fanny disgraced herself. She poured scorn on a menu presented by an amateur cook on the BBC TV show The Big Time. So biting and condescending was Fanny that her career was permanently damaged. Neither the viewing public nor the BBC admired her approach, and Fanny rarely appeared on television again. In the 1980s, she could be glimpsed at times on chat shows and breakfast TV publicising various books she was writing, as spirited as ever, but her career as a TV cook was over.

Fanny Cradock died in 1994, and although she wasn’t the most lovable of TV personalities, she was certainly a trailblazer for TV cooks.

And enormously entertaining to watch.

Every year, just before Christmas, my wife and I settle down to watch Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas. It stirs memories of “making do” at Christmas in the 1970s, and Fanny never fails to delight us. When watching the shows, it is always hard to believe that the vibrant, colourful personality on screen is no more.

Some 1960s Fanny material here .