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Happy Holidays adapted from Hattie by Andy Merriman All articles are copyright © Television Heaven or their individual authors where stated |
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Happy Holidays adapted from Hattie by Andy Merriman All articles are copyright © Television Heaven or their individual authors where stated |
Short lived but lively musical series based on 'The Wizard Of Oz' and starring Jack Wilde, who had shot to fame as The Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart's Oscar winnig film 'Oliver.' In the opening episode, Jimmy (Wilde) and his magic talking flute named Freddie are lured to a fantasy land in a beautiful boat which is then shipwrecked by the nasty sorceress Witchiepoo, who is intent on stealing the instrument. Luckily, the dragon mayor of Living Island, H.R. Pufnstuf, spotted the boy in distress and sent his Rescue Racer team to bring him ashore. Thereafter, Jimmy shared a series of adventures in the company of Judy the Frog, Cling and Clang, Ludicrous Lion and Dr. Blinky. Although Witchiepoo scuppered all of Jimmy's attempts to leave the island, she never got her hands on the flute. The non-human characters were represented by life-size puppets and the entire series was made to the most highest of production values. A feature film was released in 1970.
Comedy serial written by Peter Ling (co-creator of Compact and Crossroads) made by the BBC Children's Television department and broadcast throughout the school holidays of 1954. In it, real life husband and wife John Le Mesurier and Hattie Jacques play Mr and Mrs Mulberry - a childless couple, who, for the summer, look after four children whose own parents are in Ceylon. When the Mulberry's London flat proves to be too small to accomodate all of them they take off for the seaside where the action takes place at the end of a disused pier. Clive Dunn also appeared in the series as the suitably named Mr Grimble. The studio scenes were filmed at the BBC's Lime Grove studios and the exterior seaside scenes were shot on location at Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex. The six episodes were shown fortnightly on Saturday afternoons between July and September.
A Cabinet minister is gunned down outside his home in London by a member of the Provisional IRA. Security protocols come into immediate effect, but the assassin evades them and manages to get back to Belfast unscathed. The military send in Captain Harry Brown - a soldier who specialises in deep cover work in hostile situations - into the Falls Road area of Belfast, a place notorious for civil unrest. His mission: to infiltrate himself into the local population, hunt down the assassin and kill him on his own territory - proving to the IRA that they are not safe, even in their "own back yard". It is a terrifying game of cat and mouse, taking place in a civilian-occupied war zone, where one mistake means certain death. Based on a best-selling novel by ex-ITN correspondent Gerald Seymour, this critically-acclaimed top ten ratings winner stars Ray Lonnen as Captain Harry Brown and Derek Thompson and its haunting theme - by the Irish group Clannad - reached the top five in the UK singles charts. The theme music was nominated for a BAFTA and the series won director Lawrence Gordon Clark the prestigious Golden Leopard's Eye award at the Locarno International Film Festival. Harry's Game was not actually shot in Northern Ireland but rather in Leeds, England. Yorkshire Television shot most of the scenes in now demolished housing in the Burley area of the city adjacent to their Leeds Studios.
Private eye series billed as ’77 Sunset Strip’ in Hawaii, and with good reason. Both series were produced by Warner Bros., and it was not unusual for the characters in one show to turn up in the other. Stars of the series (apart from the weekly parade of beautiful women) were Robert Conrad as Tom Lapaka and Anthony Eisley as Tracy Steele , two young and handsome private detectives who were based in the poolside offices of the Hawaiian Village Hotel. The main leads alternated with each episode and both had assistance from local nightclub songstress "Cricket" Blake as played by Connie Stevens and local cab driver Kazuo Kim, who was played by a Hawaiian actor with the name Poncie Ponce (honest). Grant Williams joined the cast as fellow detective Greg MacKenzie and Eisley left the series in 1962, his gap being filled for the final season by Troy Donahue as the hotel’s social director.
Based on John Fennimore Cooper's character, who battled the Huron Indians in the northern frontier of upstate New York during the 1750's, Hawkeye was played by John Hart, who had previously taken the reins from Clayton Moore -but only temporarily, of another Western hero,
'The Lone Ranger'. Hawkeye was a trapper, fur trader and scout for the US Cavalry and was joined on his adventures by his redskin 'bloodbrother', Chingachgook, the 'Last of the Mohicans' of the title, played by Lon Chaney Jnr. Chaney's father had been a famous Hollywood actor who was known as 'The Man of a Thousand Faces' (James Cagney portrayed him in a 1957 film of the same name), playing amongst others, 'The Phantom of the Opera.' Junior had reluctantly followed his father's footsteps into the same movie genre, appearing in the 1941 Universal production of 'The Wolfman.'
When James Hazell was forced to retire from the police force due to an on-duty injury he took to the bottle, became an alcoholic and destroyed his marriage. By the time television viewers were introduced to him he was almost a reformed character, having dried out and, with the help of his cousin, Tel, formed his own private detective agency in an area frequented by London's more seedier residents. Nicholas Ball played private eye Hazell like a Cockney Phillip Marlowe (complete with commentary voice over) in this stylishly film noir series based on the books of former footballer (and future England coach) Terry Venables and Gordon Williams, who also contributed to the TV version. The raunchy theme song was written by Andy McKay of Roxy Music and was a minor hit for Maggie Bell in April/May 1978.
Starring Hollywood Oscar winner Broderick Crawford as Chief Dan Mathews, ’Highway Patrol’ is today seen as the father of the TV Cop show genre with it's all-action storylines involving the pursuit of murderers, bank robbers, smugglers and hijackers, by car, bike or helicopter across the highways and byways of the Western United States. Made on a shoestring budget and starring no other regulars apart from the star himself (who was also a part-owner in the production company that made the series, Ziv TV), the series was a massive hit around the world. In Italy it was known as ’Policia Della Strode’, in Spain –‘Petrulla de Seguridad’ and by various other titles in twenty other countries. Its most enduring legacy was the introduction to the phrase 'Ten-Four', meaning 'message received and understood.' Crawford, a Californian, had begun his career in the 1930's playing tough gangster roles and won his Best Actor Oscar in 1949 for ’All The King's Men’, plus a special critics award for ’Of Mice and Men’. He insisted on doing most of his own stunt work and as a result of this incurred a number of injuries, as he explained in 1958. "Running around filming in helicopters and fast cars for three years you're bound to have accidents, and I've certainly had my share. So far I've fractured my skull, broken an arm and an ankle and taken hundreds of falls." The series ran from 1955 to 1958 and at the end of its run Crawford secured the lead in ’King of Diamonds’ and later in ’The Interns’ before popping up as a guest star in ’Get Smart,’ ‘Burke's Law’ and ’Fantasy Island’, to name a few.
Hugely popular long-running comedy series starring former stage partners Hugh Lloyd and Terry Scott as a type of modern day Laurel and Hardy double-act, forever finding themselves in hot water and situations that tested their friendship to the limits. At his mother's house at 33 Lobelia Avenue, Tooting, Scott was the overbearing work-shy bachelor who aspired to wealth in a number of 'get-rich-quick' schemes. Lloyd was the rather dim-witted, hapless lodger who worked at a local aircraft factory and who was easily led from one misadventure to another by his boisterous partner. By the end of the fifth series both Lloyd and Scott decided to call it a day, but after some persuasion by the BBC they returned for another series but with a different setting. After Lloyd won £5000 on the Premium Bonds the pair left behind Terry's mum (Vi Stevens) and two sets of nosey neighbours (the Crispins and the Wormwolds) to go on a world cruise. The pair teamed up one more time after this in a parody of a US adventure series in 1968 -'Hugh and I Spy'.
