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.

Top Of The Pops - An Audience Of 19 Million In 1979 - But Only Because Of The ITV Strike

I was reading the other day about how wonderful TOTP must have been in 1979 because it reached ratings of 19 million viewers. Oh yes, but only because the ITV Strike was on. The infamous strike which wiped ITV from our screens for so long, and left us with only BBC1 and "highbrow" BBC2. And as the video age had not kicked in, we were a bit stuck. Not that 1979 was a bad year for music, but it contained more than its fair share of turkeys - Lena Martell and Matchbox to name but two. So, don't be fooled!

Rings On their Fingers - And Anthony Hayward - Not An Overwhelming Hit...

Diane Keen as Sandy and Martin Jarvis as Oliver in "Rings On Their Fingers". Were there special circumstances surrounding its success?

Roz writes:

I've just read this by TV writer Anthony Hayward, regarding the sitcom "Rings On Their Fingers", starring Diane Keen and Martin Jarvis:

Feminists criticised the programme, written by Richard Waring, but failed to stop it becoming an overwhelming hit with viewers, attracting as many as 21 million during its three series.

Twenty-one million was a HUGE audience, even back then and I don't recall "Rings" being that big a deal. What goes on?

Anthony Hayward - silly-billy! First thing to do when writing about TV ratings covering 1979 is to check if the ITV Strike was on at that point! ITV was the only popular opposition to BBC 1 in those days, and with less than 5% of UK households having a video recorder, pretty much the only game in town.

So, when ITV disappeared during that long and torturous strike, most of us didn't switch to "posh", minority interest BBC 2, but good old Beeb 1 - and the results were spectacular. Even quite naff shows and repeats received mind boggling ratings, which is what happened with "Rings On Their Fingers", which suddenly sprouted an outrageous 21 million viewers in October 1979, the month the ITV Strike fortunately ended. "Rings" began in October 1978, but sadly didn't make the top twenty monthly ratings at all then.

Having said that, "Rings" was a success, scoring 15.6 million viewers in November 1980, probably helped by viewers who had become acquainted with the show during the ITV Strike.

Do check on the dates in future, Anthony Hayward, old bean - and BBC, take that advice too - see here.

Sheesh, and here's me, no training, no paid position in on-line or other journalism, running rings around some of those who have!

Thanks for querying this, Roz!

And stay tuned to The REAL 1970s for the facts as they actually happened!

1979 - A "Watershed Year"?

We're going back to 1979. Not the BBC's I Love 1979, bolstered with early 1980s pop culture, but the real thing. And we start with Margaret Hilda Thatcher. The 3rd of May 1979 saw her becoming Britain's first female Prime Minister. All right she was a Tory, and my family were vehemently anti-Tory, but would a woman be different? More sensitive? I remember seeing footage of her washing up and saying how she understood the concerns of the everyday housewife. Hmm. And then there was the fact that Labour Isn't Working. Double hmm.

Did the big booming 1980s start prematurely as soon as Maggie was in place? I can honestly say NO. The big booming bit of the 1980s did not get started until c. 1983 - and Maggie was not the only cause.

Much is written about 1979 being a "watershed year" - with the election of Mrs Thatcher being a decisive vote by the electorate for a long-term free market economy. Actually, at the time, it seemed more like a "The Tories can't possibly be worse than this current lot," vote. And our fate was not sealed. It was events of the 1980s which had Thatcher re-elected twice. The election of Ronald Reagan in America in 1980 had great impact (more about that here) - as did the "Falklands Factor".

Thatcher's long reign was far too turbulent and far too influenced by outside events to be called "cut and dried" in 1979!

Reports about the Yorkshire Ripper make horrific reading...

There is no doubt the quietly spoken Yorkshireman hated streetwalkers, probably stemming from an incident when he was ripped off by one in Bradford's notorious Manningham Lane red light district. He began attacking women in the summer of 1975: two in Keighley and one in Halifax. All three survived and police did not notice the similarities between the attacks.

The first fatality ...

In the early hours of 30 October 1975 Sutcliffe's attacks turned fatal. Wilma McCann, a 28-year-old prostitute from the run-down Chapeltown district of Leeds, kissed her four young children goodnight and went out for a night on the town. She spent the night drinking in various Leeds pubs and clubs and by 1 am was touting for business not far from her Chapeltown home.

Sutcliffe picked her up in his lime green Ford Capri and took her to the nearby Prince Phillip playing fields. He suggested they have sex on the grass. Sutcliffe stated in his confession that she got out, unfastened her trousers and snapped: "Come on, get it over with." "Don't worry, I will," Sutcliffe mumbled as he reached for his hidden hammer...

The poster above refers to leads that the police were following in 1979 - involving somebody they had dubbed "Wearside Jack". This man had sent anonymous letters and an audio tape to the police.

But "Wearside Jack" was not the Yorkshire Ripper. The hoaxer's identity was finally discovered in 2005. He was one John Humble, a former builder.

Humble's hoaxes had great impact on the police back in 1979. Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield believed that the letters and tape were from the Ripper. Dial-the-Ripper phonelines were set up so that the public could ring in and listen to the tape. It was drilled into detectives that they could discount suspects if they did not have a Wearside accent.

The real Ripper had been interviewed by the police several times. From October 1975 to September 1979 he killed eleven women. As we headed into the 1980s, he remained at large...

Portslade, Dorset, in February 1979: storms caused great damage in many places.

A few headlines from early 1979:

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FOOD ROTS ON QUAYSIDE - LORRY DRIVERS' STRIKE TO BE MADE OFFICIAL

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GRAVE-DIGGERS STRIKE IN LIVERPOOL

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RAIL STRIKE TO GO AHEAD

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HOSPITALS UNDER SIEGE

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PETROL CRISIS WORSENS

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WORST WEATHER FOR SIXTEEN YEARS

And from August...


More from 1979 soon...

Jilted John Meets Gail Potter...

Simply one of the best pop records. Not just of 1978. Not even just of the '70s. But EVER.

Jilted John hit the charts just as I was on the very brink of teenagehood in August 1978 and it fitted my mood exactly. My hormones hadn't waited for the magic "13", due in October, and my body and moods were already undergoing thoroughly grotty changes. And had been since I was eleven.

So John's rantings suited me perfectly. John was really one Graham Fellows, and this record was a spoof of the Punk/New Wave songs around at the time - a tremendously clever one which had enormous appeal to us comp school kids. John was a bit of a retard, and, it seemed, also a bit of a "girly" (fancy crying all the way to the chip shop!) but somehow he struck a chord with me and a lot of "der lads" I knew back then.

As was the fashion in the Punk era, the song had a great 1950s guitar riff, and the "in" way to dance to it was with a 1950s hand jive. But you had to wear a thoroughly bored, pissed off expression whilst you did it. "Postmodern irony" some call it. Back in 1978, I had no idea what "postmodern" meant (it was just something the likes of Melvin Bragg liked to waffle about) and, despite studying theories of post modernity in the '90s, I remain unconvinced that it's not just a load of written and verbal diarrhoea, fresh from the bowels of academia.

Whenever I hear Jilted John, I'm instantly reminded of the grotty, greasy, zit-ridden little geezer I was back in 1978. Miserable little sod I was. And I had a hair cut just like Terry Wogan's.

I'm also reminded of the mates I had, some of whom are still mates of mine today. And standing in the local shopping centre during the evenings with said mates, "gobbing off" at passers by. And picking my zits. And being bored a lot of the time. And hating everything.

They were good days.

And by the way: Gordon is a moron.

Coronation Street, New Year's Day 1979, and Gail Potter (Helen Worth) is waiting for Brian Tilsley at the pictures. But who is the dashing fellow beside her?

Yep, it's Graham Fellows, AKA Jilted John, making a cameo appearance in The Street as a young lad who, like Gail, has been "stood up". He offered to go into the flicks with her, but Gail was not impressed. She never did know what was good for her that girl - remember how her life turned out with Brian, and think just how different things could have been had she settled down with Jilted John...

Mind you, she was a funny lass even back then. I mean, just LOOK at the gloves she's wearing...

Buzby: "Make Someone Happy..."

Buzby - the talking cartoon bird, voiced by Bernard Cribbins, was launched c. 1977 and was around well into the 1980s. Buzby's catchphrase was: "Make someone happy with a phone call."

Round where I lived, few people had telephones at home in the 1970s and making phone calls involved a trek to the local call box, which, unfortunately, doubled as a public loo.

So we were not impressed with jolly little Buzby, boinging around on his telephone wire.

"Make someone happy - wring Buzby's neck," was one of the major catchphrases of the late 1970s and early 1980s round my way.

Wimbledon 1979 data available on the blower!

Good idea.

Note: "Post Office Telecommunications". The telecommunications section of the Post Office was renamed British Telecom in 1980 and became a totally separate public corporation on 1 October 1981. See a 1980 British Telecom Buzby newspaper ad here.

1979: Grown-Ups Were Eating "Our" Rice Krispies. Apparently.

It's 1979, and on the telly (pre-strike!!) and in the TV Times a militant boy is on a crusade to stop grown-ups from eating Rice Krispies. Nice little ads - but barbecued Rice Krispies?!

Back in the 1970s, my mother dismissed the idea of barbecued food as "foreign muck" so I'd never tried it.

Nowadays I love it, but I think I'll leave out the recipe here.

"Where Are You All Coming From?" The Smurfs Arrive!

This is your "Smurf of the Month" at National petrol stations, July 1979. The Smurfs' orgins actually date back to the late 1950s, but over here in England most of us had never heard of them until they released a pop record called The Smurf Song, which crashed into our pop charts on 10/6/1978.

"Where are you all coming from?" asked Father Abraham.

"From Smurfland where we belong!" they warbled in reply.

The song made it all the way up to No. 2.

Of course, there was a spoof version:

"Where are you all coming from?"

"We're from Brixton, on the run!"

Smurf merchandising was everywhere - cuddly toys, books, figurines...

The original Smurf craze in England outlasted the 1970s, spilling over into the early 1980s.

Lovely.

1979: Proudly Presenting Mr Shakin' Stevens...

IT COULD BE A SHAKING REVIVAL

From the TV Times, July 1979.

Shakin’ Stevens - known to his friends as Shaky - is a miner’s son from Cardiff who is rising to fame on the rock ‘n’ roll revival. From playing Elvis Presley on stage in the London hit musical “Elvis”, he’s now shaking up “Oh Boy!” on Monday evenings.

He doesn’t see himself as an out-and-out rocker. “I mean,” he says, “I’ve never worn Teddy Boy clothes. Never been a Ted. Never wore creeper shoes. I’m more casual. You don’t have to plaster your hair with grease to like the music. That’s the trouble - everyone’s putting everyone else in compartments. I’m just Shaky Stevens, rock artist.”

He says it’s always the same in the music business - fashions keep changing, but rock music stays much the same. Jack Good, who created this series of “Oh Boy!” as well as the original twenty years ago, agrees. “Music goes round in ever decreasing circles. Fashions come and go but the sounds still keep turning up again.”

Good is 47. Perhaps, he says, it’s a little too old to still be messing with rock ‘n’ roll but he’s not that bothered. “I don’t think it’s any more mature to play “Hamlet” rather than play “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”.

Viewers of this series of “Oh Boy!” aren’t just entertained by the rock ‘n’ rollers on stage, but by the committed, specially invited Teddy boys and girls in the audience.

Now that audience really DOES believe in the fashion. Take Barry Rodgers, aged 28, from Selly Oak, Birmingham. He is a Teddy boy and proud of it; his two best suits prove the point. One’s black and edged with silver-grey velvet, the other is blue drape set off with mauve. Sometimes he wears a bootlace tie, but basically, says Barry, he’s a “slim Jim” man. His wife Ann is a Teddy girl. “Our interests, our beliefs, brought us together. Ann wears stiletto heels, full circular skirt, suspenders, stockings and pony tail. She looks great.”

“One day,” says Barry Rodgers, who goes to his job as a fitter dressed in all the gear, “we’ll have a little Teddy boy or Teddy girl. And they’ll be wearing drainpipe nappies.”

The 70s had a huge love affair with the 50s.

Think Fonzie.

Roy Wood and Wizzard

Grease

Certain Abba songs, like Waterloo

The repeated 1950’s guitar riffs on certain Punk records

Showaddywaddy

Mud

The Crocodile Rock

The Rubettes

The Bay City Rollers (with their “blue suede shoes, dancin' the night away”)

It could be annoying because watching Top Of the Pops in the 70s was a nightmare for me. My mother, who had been very much part of the 50s scene, always punctuated the show with squawks of “We did that! They’re copying us!”

But what the heck. Because of my 70s childhood I grew to love 50s (and some 60s) music.

And I’m glad.

"TV Times", July 1979 - we Love the 50s and 60s. 70s 50s retro pop star Alvin Stardust and his 60s mate Joe Brown welcome us back to two great musical decades.

What else can you see of interest in this TV Times clipping?

Clapperboard sure bored me.

Why Can't I Go Home? was great. It was aimed at kids a bit younger than me, so I watched it whilst apparently "doing my homework".

Crossroads was deeply into the hellishly long story of Alison Cotterill, her gloomy uncle Reg, her facial scar, her plastic surgery, etc, etc...

Jenny Tomasin, Ruby of Upstairs, Downstairs fame, was appearing as a character called Florence Baker. I vaguely recall Jenny appearing in Crossroads (not that I ever watched it, of course), and, if I remember rightly, her character in the motel saga was not a million miles away from Ruby.

Coronation Street was going great guns, now well into the Bill Podmore era.

And yellow dentures?!! I'll pass on that.