Mr. Claypole's Robot's Robot
Featuring She-Hulk, Marmalade Atkins, Weebles Haunted House and more...
Hello, and welcome to Tim Worthington’s Newsround, very shortly after it was outdone on every imaginable conceivable level by an hour of filler slash archive children’s programming at the start of an evening on BBC Four. Not only did they kick off proceedings with one of the very last few black and white instalments of The Magic Roundabout, apparently only shown once at the time with the launch of a full colour service only weeks away, but this was followed by an episode of Rentaghost from the full-tilt Dobbin and Hazel The McWitch era which turned out to be the much raved about around these parts one where Mr. Claypole’s domestic chores-assisting robot Jeremy builds its own robot parrot - not at all related in any way shape or form to Polyphase Avatron from Doctor Who And The Pirate Planet - which somehow takes it upon itself to record Mr. Meaker saying “yes Ethel… no Ethel… three bags full Ethel” and relentlessly repeat it to her down the phone, which in turn was followed by an early seventies Vision On complete with Sylvester McCoy hunting the Woofenpuss, a deeply surreal and surprisingly lengthy backwards universe bit after they took a trip to the beach through a mirror, and the exact same piece of library music that introduced the ‘Mastermind Of Soccer’ game show-based flexidisc that came free with Match magazine one week. The weekend before, of course, the same timeslot also played host to one of the ultimate television holy grails in the form of the cast of Crackerjack (DON’T) singing Making Plans For Nigel; unlike the ideological leanings of a certain member of the band that originally sang it, it did not disappoint. Anyway…
What’s New?
Miriam Kent - Dr. Marvel herself - recently joined me on It’s Good, Except It Sucks for a chat about the absolutely brilliant fourth wall and Disney+ menu-breaking legal sitcom with an uncompromising feminist perspective She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, in which Bruce Banner’s cousin Jen Walters suddenly finds herself having to develop a strategy for juggling her personal and professional struggles with her new found ability to turn into a giant green monster with a whole new wardrobe. If you’ve seen She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, then you’ll know to expect quite an in-depth chat for this one as there are some exceptionally well done storylines surrounding misogyny and online abuse to tackle in addition the gleefully off-the-scale postmodernism and the exceptionally welcome return of a certain character not seen since before Avengers: Infinity War - and no, not even the one that was in the trailer - but we still managed to have a bit of a laugh at the same time. After all, that’s what the show itself did. Also there’s a bit of discussion about a very unlikely big name movie star who was very nearly cast as She-Hulk in a proposed early nineties outing, who we actually both think would have been brilliant but would doubtless have horrified the purists, the highbrow critics and, well, the incels. Anyway, you can find it here. Miriam is always good value as a guest as you get a good balance between rigorous academic analysis and a refusal to take anything too seriously, as you can also hear in our chats about Jessica Jones here, Runaways here, Eternals here and the 1989 version of The Punisher here, so I’d definitely recommend giving this a listen. With the usual proviso about spoilers, obviously.
There’s also a new collection of highlights from Looks Unfamiliar out featuring Lisa Parker and Andrew Trowbridge on Plug Comic, Toby Hadoke on Rowntree’s Cabana, Carrie Dunn on The Isle Of Wight Waxworks Museum, David Smith on Stranger In This Town by Richie Sambora, Al Kennedy on The Golden Cagoule and Lydia Mizon on Ceefax Backchat, plus a couple of extracts from my commentaries on the Bluray releases of spooky ITV children’s drama serials The Owl Service and The Intruder. To be honest if you enjoy Looks Unfamiliar you will probably enjoy the commentaries anyway but if you were understandably unsure about taking a punt on some obscure and extremely weird old children’s shows you might not even have heard of on a relatively expensive format then this should give you some idea of whether they are worth a try. Which of course they are, but you knew that anyway. You can find the highlights show here.
Meanwhile if you sign up for my Patreon here, you can find some random bits and pieces of retro-fixated ramblings rescued from the archives as well as a brand new look at a jaw-dropping patronising mid-sixties advertising campaign for, um, furniture castors.
What I’ve Been Watching, Reading And Listening To…
I’m currently very much enjoying Beware Of The Bull, the first ever biography of singer-songwriter Jake Thackray by Paul Thompson and John Watterson. Having had cause to research aspects of Jake’s career myself in addition to being a huge fan of his music - the fact that nobody seemed to care how and why the completed and mastered 1970 album with his song about the Oz trial on it was shelved at the last minute beyond casually noting the fact that it was shelved has always been a major irritation for me - I have some idea of how difficult it must have been to track down any details at all, let alone accurate ones, about this unassuming and deeply private performer who more or less deliberately disappeared from the public consciousness once he retired from performing, so the fact that this is crammed with entirely new information is really quite some achievement. Paul and John are both musicians themselves - John actually has a touring show recreating Jake’s stage show as ‘Fake Thackray’ - and have recently been on a promotional tour where they not only talk about the background to the book but also perform a number of ‘lost’ Jake Thackray songs, ranging from one performed once as a commission for a Radio 4 documentary and subsequently entirely lost to obscurity to a fragment of another recalled by one of his former pupils from around 1964. It really is a compelling work about the compelling story of one of the most category-defying musicians slash comedians slash social historians ever to emerge from darkest drollest Yorkshire and you can get it from here.
Also, as I recently had a long overdue catchup with Jill and Becky from the excellent teen horror novel podcast Don’t Point That Horror At Me and had a frankly belting time, it would be remiss of me not to plug the show. It’s over here.
TV That Time Forgot
Educating Marmalade and Danger: Marmalade At Work (ITV, 1981-84) - not to mention the frequently forgotten original one-off special Marmalade Atkins In Space - were a literal textbook example of post-punk classroom anarchy that came appended with their own klaxon-heralded ‘BAD GIRL WARNING’. Charlotte Coleman starred as the uniform-askew ‘World’s Naughtiest Girl’ as she gobbily frustrated teachers and wore down social workers - many of them played by graduates of the sixties satire boom and up and coming stars of the alternative comedy boom - and eventually tried her hand at a variety of school leaver-friendly vocational directions and a timely two fingers stuck up at The Kids From Fame! with the inevitable demolition-associated consequences. More of a statement on Thatcher’s Britain than many more brow-furrowed types would probably accept, and her slang-flinging tearaway educational and workplace trajectory was introduced by a suitably rowdy theme song from Bad Manners which beat The Young Ones to its ska-inflected contextless cuckoo sound-sporting punch by a good twelve months.
Stuff You Can Buy
There’s currently a whopping Cyber Monday-related 30% off all of my books in paperback. I have to be honest and say that I’m still not entirely sure what Cyber Monday actually is, aside from the fact that it’s not Krail and Krang off of Doctor Who And The Tenth Planet duetting with New Order which is very much a missed opportunity if you ask me, but if it gives people the opportunity to own the absolutely paving slab-sized Top Of The Box Vol. 2 at a more affordable price then I’m all for it frankly. If you don’t especially want a paving slab-esque book about that album that those people who used to do comedy stuff on early music instruments while Spike Milligan said “‘n’GOOOOOO” while dressed as a grocer or something taking up shelf space where you could have David Mitchell’s Why Are My Columns Always In Column Form? but would still like to show your appreciation regardless, you can always buy me a coffee here. I can wearily confirm that Taylors Of Harrogate Hot Lava Java has not got any less lacklustre since last time, so any contributions towards an alternative option would be very gratefully received.
Emergency Questions
Another dip into Richard Herring’s book of thought-provoking and rationality-defying posers - you can find more of my responses here.
263. Which is the sexiest TV Puppet?
Atlanta Shore from Stingray. If Troy Tempest was stupid enough to choose Marina over her - and it honestly breaks your heart to see her gazing longingly at his photo in the end titles - who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to put him at the controls of a hi-tech submarine charting territorially risky waters?!
So What Was That At The Start?
1976’s Weebles ‘Haunted House’ playset, a sort of Hammer House Of Wobbling But Not Falling Down gambit set against one of those weirdly shaded blue skies straight out of Tomb Of Dracula in which a visibly spooked boy and girl Weeble were given a rickety old phantom-festooned shack to run ghostbusting riot around, accompanied by a not especially menacing-looking witch and a glow-in-the-dark ‘ghost’ straight out of one of those old black and white cartoons where you thought it was going to be Betty Boop but then it wasn’t, with a dial operated one of those bookcase things that turned round as seen in more or less every single episode of Scooby Doo, Where Are You! and a chimney mechanism facilitating sudden spooky Weeble fireplace appearance. ‘Horror Weebles’ were an actual thing!
…and to finish, here’s a mystery link!