Fame

FAME
Made by: NBC/MGM Television
Shown on: BBC1
Years shown: 1982-87

Forget Geri Halliwell prancing around in leg-warmers and torn-off retro sweatshirts, pretending to be sixteen years old. Oh, that's okay, we already have. Fame was the television spin-off of Alan Parker’s 1980 stage-school film of the same name, but the folks at NBC knew that in order for the show to be successful, they had to lose the gritty, seedy, exploitation-exposing side to it. Instead, the new class at New York’s La Guardia School of Performing Arts were, in the main, a wholesome, healthily ambitious bunch, who the audience followed through their lives as trainee thesps, divas and dancers. The programme was cancelled by NBC after its first season, and then re-launched by MGM Television, but it was always far more popular in the UK than its native land.

The main players were Bruno (Lee Curreri), a musical genius and a solid, dependable type; Coco Hernandez (Erica Gimpel), who did a bit of anything and had the most insatiable appetite for success; Leroy Johnson (Gene Anthony Ray, pictured above, and one of the few actors to reprise their film roles), a Brooklyn homie who cuts some funky moves; ballsy Doris Schwartz (Valerie Landsberg), who nearly had a thing with best bud, Bruno; and Montgomery MacNeil (P.R. Paul), a shy, red-haired musician. Fame also introduced the world to Lori Singer (playing straight-laced Julie Miller), who went on to woo Kevin Bacon in seminal 80s movie Footloose, and a certain Janet Jackson, who appeared as Cleo Hewitt in the 1984-5 series.

Yes, the kids danced on taxis and played their little hearts out; some had pushy mums, and some had deadbeat dads, but they kept on flashing those pearly whites in the face of expulsion. Actually, I thought Fame was great when I was five years old, and I have my brother to thank for me being able to watch it (while my friend wasn’t allowed to watch beyond the rousing opening titles.) My mum was so busy looking after him that she was temporarily unavailable to vet my viewing choices. Maybe if she had, she might have been able to allay my confusion when the kids’ version of The Wizard of Oz (which may have been a dream sequence, I suspect), was not the same one I was familiar with. Mum, why is Dorothy wearing white stilettos and a pink ra-ra skirt?

SQUARE EYES RATING: 7/10

Eureka!

EUREKA!
Made by: ?
Shown on: BBC1 & BBC2
Years shown: 1982-87

My memories of this blatantly-educational-and-therefore-a-bit-dull programme are rather hazy. It basically set out to try and amaze you by explaining how everyday objects were invented or discovered, and in an attempt to keep you awake the ‘eureka!’ moments were re-enacted by a comedy troupe of sorts, which included future Dr Who, Sylvester McCoy. The inventions were usually something very dull like the biro or the vaccuum cleaner, and they tried to sneak the same inventions past the viewer time and again - but we weren't fooled.

The first series was presented by annoying TV prankster, Jeremy Beadle, with future series fronted by Sarah Greene and Newsround’s Paul McDowell. Gone and best forgotten.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 2/10

(Thanks to www.tvradiobits.co.uk for the borrowed pic)

Emu's Pink Windmill Show

EMU'S PINK WINDMILL SHOW
Made by: ?
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: mid 80s

Rod Hull and his feathered fore-arm appendage had a whole series of programmes, but this is the one that I can remember being on, when I was about eight. Even then I thought it was dire. Emu was a one-joke comedy act that was able to drag out every day for most of his working life, but who actually found it funny? The smallest of children knew that Emu wasn’t a real bird, and the fact that you knew that it was actually Rod Hull attacking the special guest only made you feel kind of sorry for him.

Anyway, I have no idea why it was set in a windmill (except that windmills have been put out of action in the same way Rod Hull should have been years before), and can’t honestly say why it was pink…although I have a few ideas. The mill was populated by a dozen or so stage-school brats (including young madam Naomi Campbell at one stage), who would leap, bound, trill and generally ham it up whenever they got a whiff of the camera’s presence. When somebody arrived at the windmill, they would all spring into formation and chime, “There’s somebody at the door! There’s somebody at the door!” Yes, it’s the CID. We’d like to know why this old man is keeping a bunch of pre-adolescents in a windmill with nothing for company but a tatty flightless bird puppet. Oh, and a witch. Who could forget Grotbags (Claire Davenport), dressed in black bin-liners and with garish green face make-up? For some reason, she was always trying to kidnap Emu, for which there can be no excuse unless, like us, she was desperate for the show to be cancelled. She often enlisted the help of her pet Croc - but then, the whole show was a crock, really.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 0/10

(Thanks to www.tvcream.org for the borrowed pic)