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Set on the fictional Craggy Island, a remote location off Ireland's west coast, Father Ted stars Dermot Morgan as Father Ted Crilly, alongside fellow priests Father Dougal McGuire (Ardal O'Hanlon) and Father Jack Hackett (Frank Kelly). Dishonourably exiled on the island by Bishop Leonard Brennan (Jim Norton) for various reasons, the priests live together in the parochial house with their housekeeper Mrs Doyle (Pauline McLynn). The show subverts parodies of low-brow humour as it portrays nuanced themes of loneliness, agnosticism, existentialism and purgatory experienced by its title character; this deeper meaning of the show has been much acclaimed
The series is centred on the working-class life of Stan Butler and Jack Harper, who are the crew of the Number 11 bus at the Luxton and District Motor Traction Company. The action mostly takes place at the Butler home and at the bus depot.Network On Air describes the show as having a "bawdy, comic postcard humour and resolutely working-class outlook", and notes the series became "one of the most popular British comedy series of its era, if not all time.
The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either because of age (hence the title Dad's Army), medical reasons or by being in professions exempt from conscription. Most of the platoon members in Dad's Army are over military age and the series stars several older British actors, including Arnold Ridley, John Laurie, Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier. Younger members of the cast included Ian Lavender, Clive Dunn (who, despite being one of the younger cast members, played the oldest guardsman, Lance Corporal Jones) and James Beck (who died suddenly during production of the sixth series in 1973). Other regular cast members included Frank Williams as the vicar, Edward Sinclair as the verger, and Bill Pertwee as the chief ARP warden.
The series has influenced British popular culture, with its catchphrases and characters being widely known. The Radio Times magazine listed Captain Mainwaring's "You stupid boy!" among the 25 greatest put-downs on TV. A 2001 Channel 4 poll ranked Captain Mainwaring 21st on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.In 2004, Dad's Army came fourth in a BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was placed 13th in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, and voted for by industry professionals. A second feature film of Dad's Army with a different cast was released in 2016.
In 2019, UKTV recreated three missing episodes for broadcast in August that year on its Gold channel under the title Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes. It starred Kevin McNally and Robert Bathurst as Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson.
At the center of the show is the bar's owner and head bartender, Sam Malone, who is a womanizing former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. The show's ensemble cast introduced in the pilot episode are waitresses Diane Chambers and Carla Tortelli, second bartender Coach Ernie Pantusso, and regular customers Norm Peterson and Cliff Clavin. Later main characters of the show also include Frasier Crane, Woody Boyd, Lilith Sternin, and Rebecca Howe.
After premiering in 1982, it was nearly canceled during its first season when it ranked almost last in ratings for its premiere (74th out of 77 shows). However, Cheers eventually became a Nielsen ratings juggernaut in the United States, earning a top-10 rating during eight of its 11 seasons, including one season at number one (season 9). The show spent most of its run on NBC's Thursday night "Must See TV" lineup. Its widely watched series finale in 1993 became the most-watched single TV episode of the 1990s, and the show's 275 episodes have been successfully syndicated worldwide. Nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series for all 11 of its seasons on the air, it earned 28 Primetime Emmy Awards from a record of 117 nominations.
By 2002, It was one of ITV's longest running TV programmes, after Emmerdale and Coronation Street
The series revolves around the lives of Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, beautiful blonde twins who live in the fictitious Sweet Valley, California, and their gang of friends. Elizabeth is warm, friendly and sincere, while her twin sister Jessica is flirty, mischievous, and irresponsible.
The show focused on four female flatmates and their landlady. It was a female version of The Young Ones, two series of which were made in 1982 and 1984. French and Saunders had both appeared in The Young Ones and, like most of its stars, were members of The Comic Strip.
Mayall and Edmondson had worked together since the mid-1970s, and developed Bottom as an extension of their own relationship and their on-screen characters in The Young Ones and Filthy Rich & Catflap, their earlier BBC sitcoms. In addition to the series the pair completed five stage show tours between 1993 and 2003, and adapted the sitcom into a feature-length film, Guest House Paradiso, released in 1999. A spin-off series featuring various Bottom characters, Hooligan's Island, was cancelled in 2013. Mayall's death in the following year ended plans for a revival.
The show details the ongoing trials of Angel, a vampire whose human soul was restored to him by a Romani curse as a punishment for the murder of one of their own. After more than a century of murder and the torture of innocents, Angel's restored soul torments him with guilt and remorse. Angel moves to Los Angeles, California, after it is clear that his doomed relationship with Buffy, the vampire slayer, cannot continue. During the majority of the show, he works as a private detective in Los Angeles, where he and a variety of associates work to "help the helpless", restoring the faith and saving the souls of those who have lost their way.While he must also battle his own demonic nature, he typically battles with evil demons or humans allied to them, primarily related to Wolfram & Hart, a law firm supported by occult practices which is an extension of otherworldly demonic forces.
The series follows Buffy Summers (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar), the latest in a succession of young women known as "Vampire Slayers", or simply "Slayers". Slayers are chosen by fate to battle against vampires, demons and other forces of darkness. Buffy wants to live a normal life, but learns to embrace her destiny as the series progresses. Like previous Slayers, Buffy is aided by a Watcher, who guides, teaches and trains her. Unlike her predecessors, she surrounds herself with loyal friends who become known as the "Scoobies". The show primarily takes place in the fictional setting of Sunnydale, a small Southern California city that is located on a "Hellmouth"; a portal "between this reality and the next," and a convergence point of mystical energies.Because of this, supernatural creatures and beings with magical powers, both good and evil, are drawn to Sunnydale, or rise from below ground to menace the town and the world.
The series starts in 1998 when Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) returns from New York and moves back into the family's Halliwell Manor in San Francisco to live with her sisters Prue (Shannen Doherty) and Piper (Holly Marie Combs). When Phoebe discovers the family's Book of Shadows in the attic, she learns that she and her sisters are the most powerful witches ever known, destined to protect both innocents and the world at large from demons, warlocks, and other evil creatures. Phoebe, reasonably suspecting the book to be a novelty, reads its initial inscription—unaware that it also happens to be an incantation activating the sisters' supernatural powers once all three are reunited in their ancestral home.
The series features the exploits of Victor Meldrew, played by Richard Wilson, and his long-suffering wife, Margaret, played by Annette Crosbie. Wilson initially turned down the part of Meldrew and David Renwick considered Les Dawson for the role, until Wilson changed his mind.The programmes invariably deal with Meldrew's battle against a long series of problems, some of which he creates for himself. Set in an unnamed town in Southern England, Victor takes involuntary early retirement. His various efforts to keep himself busy while encountering various misfortunes and misunderstandings are the themes of the sitcom. Indoor scenes were filmed at BBC Television Centre with most exterior scenes filmed on Tresillian Way in Walkford in Christchurch, Dorset.Despite its traditional production, the series subverts its domestic sitcom setting with elements of black humour and surrealism.
The series was occasionally the subject of controversy for some of its darker story elements, but nevertheless received a number of awards, including the 1992 BAFTA for Best Comedy. The programme came 80th in the British Film Institute's 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. Four episodes were remade for BBC Radio 2.The series inspired a novel, published in 1992, featuring the most memorable moments from the first two series and the first Christmas special.
The sitcom follows Hyacinth in her attempts to prove her social superiority, and to gain standing with those she considers upper class. Her attempts are constantly hampered by her lower class extended family, whom she is desperate to hide. Much of the humour comes from the conflict between Hyacinth's vision of herself and the reality of her underclass background. In each episode, she lands in a farcical situation as she battles to protect her social credibility.
Keeping Up Appearances was an immense success in the UK, and also captured large audiences in the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands. By February 2016, it had been sold nearly a thousand times to overseas broadcasters, making it BBC Worldwide's most exported television programme ever. In a 2004 BBC poll it placed 12th in Britain's Best Sitcom. In a 2001 Channel 4 poll, Hyacinth was ranked 52nd on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.The show has been syndicated on Gold and Drama in the UK, on PBS member stations in the United States and on 7TWO and 9Gem in Australia.
The programme mostly followed the same format throughout its run. A title intro is shown consisting of a couple of short clips for each character from the series. It is then followed by a series of short two- or three-minute-long segments, followed by the credits.
For Series 1–9, each segment was introduced by the camera zooming in on a corresponding panel on a giant comic, shot in reverse (e.g. the camera starting at the panel, and pulling back into a wide shot), which was reversed in post-production; this technique was done to aid the camera operator in aligning the camera squarely with the panel, which was especially important with Cuthbert Lilly and Smart Arty sketches, where the exact same panel graphic often physically existed on set in some form. This giant comic has a set of nine frames on it, some of which contain a character representing their segments. For Series 10, the aforementioned comic transitions were replaced with a CGI roulette of the panels.
The show was designed with deaf children in mind,and so the style of the show is predominantly visual, with the sound only providing music and effects. The audience in "The Handymen" segments would also often sign clapping instead of actually clapping.
The introduction to Series 1 was filmed in Chequers Shopping Centre in Maidstone showing a boy buying a copy of a comic called "ZZZap!" from a newsagent. The comic contains a 'Free TV Zapper!' which he uses only to find that the comic has increased to an enormous 18 ft size. This introduction was abandoned from series 2 onwards, which instead showed the giant comic and then introduced each of the characters with a short video. Some computer generated additions were made in series 8, and transitions were wholly computer generated by series 10. The closing titles also changed between series.
The show follows three anthropomorphic mice motorcyclists named Throttle, Modo, and Vinnie who escape a war on their home planet Mars before arriving to rebel on the Earth against the species that destroyed their homeland (the Plutarkians) and to one day return to Mars.The mice's signature weapons consist of a cestus and a laser pistol (Throttle), a bionic arm with built-in laser blaster (Modo), and flares (Vinnie). Despite the frequent battles, no blood is shown, and many villains are monsters, aliens, and robots.
The original premise of the series was that during a midlife crisis, Sgt. Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Alan Williams), who was the resident police officer of Baywatch since the beginning of the series, decides to quit his job as a police officer and form a detective agency. Mitch Buchannon (David Hasselhoff), his friend from Baywatch, joins to support him and they are, in turn, joined by a detective named Ryan McBride (Angie Harmon). Singer Lou Rawls, who starred in the first season, performed the series theme song, "After the Sun Goes Down", alongside David Hasselhoff. Rawls played the role of Lou Raymond, owner of the nightclub where the detective agency rented its office. Midway into the first season, the series added two new cast members: Eddie Cibrian and Donna D'Errico.
For the second season, facing slipping ratings, which were never as good as the original series, the producers decided to switch to a science-fiction format (inspired by the success of The X-Files). Gregory Alan Williams left the series and was replaced by Dorian Gregory as Diamont Teague, a paranormal expert. The new format did not help the series and it was canceled after the second season. The character Donna Marco was later carried over to the original Baywatch series afterwards.
The show was cancelled after its first season on NBC, but survived through syndication and later became the most-watched television series in the world, with a weekly audience of over 1.1 billion viewers despite consistently negative critical reviews,earning it a reputation as a pop cultural phenomenon and frequent source of allusion and parody. The show ran in its original title and format from 1989 to 1999. From 1999 to 2001, with a setting change and large cast overhaul, it was known as Baywatch: Hawaii.
It spawned a spin-off series, Baywatch Nights, which aired for two seasons from 1995 to 1997, and a 2017 feature film adaptation.
Baywatch revolves around the work of a team of lifeguards and their interpersonal relationships, with plots usually centering on dangers related to the beach and other activities pertinent to the California (later Hawaii) beach lifestyle. Saving people from drowning is one of the most typical situations used in the shows, but a range of other topics, such as earthquakes, shark attacks and serial killers, serve as plot conflicts on the show.
The product gained some notoriety for its highly sensual advertising. In the UK, the advertisements showed people – almost always women – enjoying a Flake whilst relaxing.
The Flake Girl became famous as a symbol of indulgence and secret pleasure. Her emphasis – to a jingle ("Only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate, tastes like chocolate never tasted before") – was on allowing herself a guilt-free luxury.[citation needed] The advertising of a girl in a field was produced by Barry Myers.
The Flake song was composed by UK jingle writer Ronnie Bond, who also composed "Tasty tasty very very tasty" for Bran Flakes, and "I'd rather have a bowl of Coco Pops" for Coco Pops.
Former Tyrannosaurus Rex percussionist Steve Peregrin Took wrote a song, Peppermint Flickstick, in 1970 as a satire on the campaign. The song was recorded that year by his band Shagrat and released in 1990.
In 1999, a tribute advertisement to the Flake Girls of decades past was released. The montage began with a clip of the very first Flake Girl advertisement from 1959, followed by a 1965 clip of a girl relaxing in a rowing boat whilst being pestered by a cheeky swan for a peck of her Flake bar. The next clip showed the 1973 advertisement of a doe-eyed artist in a field of poppies painting a watercolour and indulging in a Flake bar, before being caught in a summer shower. This was followed by a clip of the exotic 1987 ad in which a restless woman in silk negligee reposes on a window sill on a sultry night, indulging in a Flake bar whilst a gecko lizard is noted crawling over a ringing telephone. Next was a clip of the classical 1991 Flake advertisement in which a woman sporting a dark, cropped hairstyle reposes in an overflowing bath tub in a great painted hall. Lastly, this tribute montage advertisement ended with the latest Flake Girl advertisement (1999), featuring a Parisienne relaxing in a summery garden overlooking the Eiffel Tower. As she bites into the Flake bar in her ice-cream, the garden sprinklers are set off and she is drenched in refreshing water.
The Flake girl was finally retired after 40 years, in 2004. However, in 2005 she was found to have a 19% recall in the UK population, leading to a revival in 2007.The new advertisement featured Australian model Alyssa Sutherland eating a Flake in a convertible during a shower of rain.
UK singer Joss Stone became the new Flake girl in 2008 – the first non-model to promote the product.In the television advertisement she is seen breaking off a small piece of Flake before popping it into her mouth and brushing the crumbs off her blouse whilst softly singing the Flake theme song.
On 8 June 2010, a new advertisement (first aired on Channel 4) saw a woman float around on a black background. Whilst part of 'The Flake girl' series, there is no mention of any text or slogan aside from the image of the bar at the end of the advertisement, and the familiar music jingle is replaced by a haunting piano piece.
I used to dream myself to somewhere else each night,
I dreamed in colour, cause I lived in black and white.
Until I chanced upon this road that led to you,
I could not see
How anything could be
Better than a dream
Stranger than my wild imagination
If this is a real sensation, It's better than a dream.
Higher than the moon,
Hazy like a beautiful illusion.
Crazy and in confusion,
And better than a dream.
I used to wish I was beyond some distant door,
I knew there must be more to life, and now I'm sure.
No dreams of pirate caves, or Indian braves, or magic carpets could
Ever be this good,
Better than a dream
Stranger than my wild imagination
If this is a real sensation,
It's better than a dream.
Higher than the moon,
Hazy like a beautiful illusion.
Crazy and in confusion,
And better than a dream.
The Dreamstone is set in an alternative world of Two Realms, the Land of Dreams and the Land of Nightmares, and concerns itself principally with the struggle between good (personified by The Dream Maker, a Merlin-esque white magician), and evil (personified by Zordrak, Lord of Nightmares)
The Land of Dreams is populated by Noops (the humanoids of the land, who live and work like humans) and Wuts (the defenders of the land, who fly around on leaves and use staffs with orbs of light attached to both communicate and ward off Zordrak's evil forces).
The Land of Nightmares, also known as the dark side of the planet, is populated mostly by Urpneys, who resemble lizard-like human beings. They live in Viltheed, a tall black mountainous wasteland in which resides Zordrak. Although all the Urpneys in Viltheed are male, female Urpneys do exist, as Urpgor has both an auntie and a niece.
In 2000, series 1, set in Germany, was ranked number #46 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in a list compiled by the British Film Institute. In 2015, the 1980s series was voted ITV's Favourite TV Programme of all Time in a Radio Times readers' poll in order to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the station. The show was the subject of the first episode of the BBC documentary series Drama Connections in 2005.
The first series, co-produced by Witzend Productions and Central Television for ITV in 1983, is the story of seven out-of-work construction workers from various parts of England who are forced to look for work in West Germany as a result of the recession and high unemployment of the early 1980s, although its initial emphasis is on three bricklayers from Newcastle upon Tyne making the journey to Germany, with the others being introduced along the way. (The title refers to their farewells to their wives and girlfriends – "Auf Wiedersehen" being German for "Farewell" or "Goodbye", or more literally "See you later", and "Pet" being a North-East English term of endearment.)
They find work on a German building site in Düsseldorf but, despite promises of hostel accommodation, are forced to live in a small hut that reminds them of a World War II POW camp. The rest of the series is driven by the interactions and growing friendships between the various characters. Barry (Timothy Spall), a "spark" from the Black Country, is an obsessive bore; Neville (Kevin Whately), one of the Geordie "brickies", is an insecure young newlywed; fellow Geordie Oz (Jimmy Nail), another bricklayer, is aggressive and jingoistic; and London "chippy" Wayne (Gary Holton) is a womaniser. Dennis (Tim Healy) is another Geordie bricklayer who, being older, more experienced and generally more mature than the others, becomes the de facto leader of the group. Bristolian "brickie" and wrestler Bomber (Pat Roach) being the oldest is usually the calmest and sense of reason in the group; Scouse ex-con plasterer Moxey (Fairbank) is a jittery, recidivist arsonist. Over the course of 13 episodes the "Magnificent Seven" enjoy comic, dramatic, and romantic adventures, until a change in German tax laws forces them to return home.
The first series, The Black Adder, was written by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson, while subsequent series were written by Curtis and Ben Elton. The shows were produced by John Lloyd. In 2000, the fourth series, Blackadder Goes Forth, ranked at 16 in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, a list created by the British Film Institute. In a 2001 poll by Channel 4, Edmund Blackadder was ranked third on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In the 2004 TV poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom, Blackadder was voted the second-best British sitcom of all time, topped by Only Fools and Horses. It was also ranked as the 9th-best TV show of all time by Empire magazine. Rowan Atkinson said Blackadder is "the thing he found the least stressful" to do.
Each series is set in a different period of British history, beginning in 1485 and ending in 1917, and comprises six half-hour episodes. Blackadder follows the misfortunes of Edmund Blackadder (played by Atkinson), who in each series is a member of the same British family. It is implied in each series that the Blackadder character is a descendant of the previous one; the end theme lyrics of series 2 episode "Head" specify that he is the great-grandson of the previous, although it is never specified how or when any of the Blackadders (who are usually bachelors) managed to father children. In series one, Edmund Blackadder is not particularly bright, and is much the intellectual inferior of his servant, Baldrick (played by Tony Robinson). However, in subsequent series, the positions are reversed: Blackadder is clever, shrewd, scheming and manipulative while Baldrick is extremely dim. Each incarnation of Blackadder and Baldrick is also saddled with tolerating the presence of a dimwitted aristocrat. In the first two series, this is Lord Percy Percy, played by Tim McInnerny. Hugh Laurie plays the role in the third and fourth series, as Prince George, Prince Regent, and Lieutenant George respectively, and by Stephen Fry as Lord Melchett.
The first series, made in 1983, was called The Black Adder and was set in the fictional reign of "Richard IV". The second series, Blackadder II (1986), was set during the reign of Elizabeth I. Blackadder the Third (1987) was set during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the reign of George III, and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) was set in 1917 in the trenches of the Great War.
Last of the Summer Wine was set and filmed in and around Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, England, and centred on a trio of elderly men and their youthful misadventures; the members of the trio changed many times over the years. The original trio consisted of Bill Owen as the mischievous and impulsive Compo Simmonite, Peter Sallis as easy-going everyman Norman Clegg, and Michael Bates as uptight and arrogant Cyril Blamire. When Bates dropped out due to illness in 1976 after two series, the role of the third man of the trio was filled in various years up to the 30th series by the quirky war veteran Walter C "Foggy" Dewhurst (Brian Wilde) (who had two lengthy stints), the eccentric inventor and ex-headmaster Seymour Utterthwaite (Michael Aldridge), and former police officer Herbert "Truly of The Yard" Truelove (Frank Thornton). The men never seem to grow up, and they develop a unique perspective on their equally eccentric fellow townspeople through their stunts. Although in its early years the series generally revolved around the exploits of the main trio, with occasional interaction with a few recurring characters, over time the cast grew to include a variety of supporting characters and by later years the series was very much an ensemble piece. Each of these recurring characters contributed their own running jokes and subplots to the show, often becoming reluctantly involved in the schemes of the trio, or on occasion having their own, separate storylines.
After the death of Owen in 1999, Compo was replaced at various times by his real-life son, Tom Owen, as Tom Simmonite, Keith Clifford as Billy Hardcastle, a man who thought of himself as a direct descendant of Robin Hood, and Brian Murphy as the cheeky-chappy Alvin Smedley. Due to the age of the main cast, a new trio was formed during the 30th series, featuring somewhat younger actors. This format was used for the final two instalments of the show. This group consisted of Russ Abbot as Luther Hobdyke, known as Hobbo, a former milkman who fancied himself as a secret agent, Burt Kwouk as the electrical repairman, "Electrical" Entwistle, and Murphy as Alvin Smedley. Sallis and Thornton, both past members of the trio, continued in supporting roles alongside the new actors.
The series had two runs: the original (1978 to 1980, based directly on Herriot's books) was for three series; the second (1988 to 1990, filmed with original scripts but generally regarded as a continuation of the 1978 series) for four. The supporting cast, both recurring and one-offs, numbers over 600, most of whom appear as farmers or clients of the surgery. The series was produced throughout its run by Bill Sellars, who was tasked in early 1977 by the BBC with the creation of a television series from Herriot's first two novels, If Only They Could Talk (1970) and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet (1972), using the title of the 1975 film adaptation. It is part of a series of movies and television series based on Herriot's novels. The novels were written in an episodic style, with each chapter generally containing a short story within the ongoing narrative of Herriot's life. This format greatly facilitated their adaptation for a television series.
In 2020, a remake, also titled All Creatures Great and Small, was produced by Playground Entertainment for Channel 5 in the United Kingdom and PBS in the United States.
After Bonet's departure in the first season, the remainder of the series primarily focused more on Southern belle Whitley Gilbert-Wayne (Jasmine Guy) and math whiz Dwayne Cleophus Wayne (Kadeem Hardison).
While it was a spin-off from The Cosby Show, A Different World typically addressed issues that were avoided by The Cosby Show writers (race and class relations, sexual assault, or the Equal Rights Amendment). One episode that aired in 1990 was one of the first American network television episodes to address the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS.
The original premise was to focus on a white student at a historically black university and feature Lena Horne as an acting teacher, but in production, the premise changed from being a story about a white student in a black college to a black student (Denise Huxtable) in a black college with a white friend.It was ultimately decided that Denise, who was of college age, would be spun off and have a white roommate in order to show the dynamic of a white girl in predominantly black surroundings.
Meg Ryan was originally cast for this role, but she decided to pursue a film career, so Marisa Tomei was cast.The first season of Hillman's student body consisted of both black and white students in equal numbers, but this was changed at the beginning of the second season and a predominantly black student body maintained until the series ended.
The show was originally broadcast on BBC One from 1991 to 1999, and ran for eight series, concluding on 30 December 1999 with the special episode "The Millennium Experience". The show is regularly repeated in the UK. In Australia showings are on UKTV. The name of the show comes from the stereotypical average size of a typical nuclear family in the UK at the time of the writing of the first series.
The show regularly picked up audiences of up to 14 million throughout the 1990s, with an average of between 6 and 9 million.The final episode was viewed by 9.03 million people.
Lead actor Gary Olsen died in 2000, effectively ruling out a return of the show for any further series.
The Porters are a working-class family who live in Chiswick, London who at first seem normal enough. Bill is the sensible, level-headed mother who does the cooking and housework whilst working for a bakery with her highly sexed best friend Rona. Ben is the father, who is often just as immature as the children. He runs a heating repair business with his moody and sarcastic assistant Christine.
Jenny is the typical teenage daughter, keen on boys, music and vegetarianism, and David is the mischievous younger brother, who enjoys horror films, aliens and annoying his older sister.
However, the Porters' world is frequently upended by bizarre occurrences and bad luck. Whether it is dealing with flatulent dogs, a frozen body in a freezer in the front room, or even stumbling across a warehouse filled with Shirley Bassey's cast-off ballgowns, anything seems possible in the Porters' world. Traditionally Christmas episodes would feature characters collectively performing a musical number.
The Wombles is a stop-motion animated British television series made in 1973–1975. The Wombles are creatures that live underground, collecting and recycling human rubbish.
After the first Wombles book, published in 1968, was featured on the BBC1 children's television programme Jackanory, the BBC commissioned producer FilmFair to create a television series of the books. The series was produced by Graham Clutterbuck and directed by Ivor Wood using stop-motion. The characters were all voiced by actor Bernard Cribbins. Sets and model making were by Barry Leith. Two series of 30 five-minute episodes were produced, with the first series airing in 1973, animated by Ivor Wood, and the second in 1975, animated by Barry Leith.
The original television series was regularly screened for many years. After FilmFair was acquired by the Canadian company Cinar Films in 1996, a new series of episodes was created, with three new Womble characters.
The story revolves around a young boy named Sport Billy, who is from the planet Olympus (a twin of Earth on the opposite side of the Sun), which is populated by athletic god-like beings, ruled by the benevolent President Sportikus XI and his wife, Pandusa. Billy himself has a magic size-changing gym bag, the Omni-Sack, which produces various tools as he needs them. He travels to Earth on a mission to promote teamwork and sportsmanship. Described by the show's theme song as a "hero from another planet", Billy battles the evil Queen Vanda and her gnome-like henchman, Sipe. Vanda's mission is to destroy all sports in the galaxy since fairness disgusts her.
Billy is assisted by two faithful companions, his girlfriend named Lilly and her talking dog named Willy. The trio travels around in a time traveling spaceship named the Timeship, which is mounted on two rocket engines and resembles a giant wind-up clock, complete with a ringing bell. In each episode the trio travels through time in order to save a different Earth sport from Vanda's grasp.
The show is about four children who meet in their dreams every night, accompanied by their dog Potsworth and a toy dinosaur, to protect the sleep of the innocent from the dreaded Nightmare Prince.
The series tells of four children and Potsworth the dog who live in the same neighborhood. When they go to sleep at night they turn up in the Dream Zone where, as the Midnight Patrol, they are appointed by the Grand Dozer to protect it from nightmares and other threats and are given their missions by the Snooze Patrol. Their main enemy is the Nightmare Prince.
Whilst they are in the Dream Zone, the five have special powers. Keiko has a flying skateboard; Carter can draw anything and then have it come to life; Nick is super-strong and is able to fly; his stuffed toy Murphy comes to life; whilst his cynical sister Rosie tags along. Potsworth himself acquires the power of speech which enables him to complain about the way he is treated in the real world, and make wry comments about the kids and their own attitudes and relationships. The cartoon Potsworth had a very "English" accent, even in the American version of the programmes, reflecting his real-life counterpart's British origins.
The series revolves around Potsworth, an English Springer Spaniel, based upon a real-life springer spaniel called Potsworth, bought from the Battersea Dogs Home by Martin and Vivien Schrager-Powell. The couple were somewhat disheartened with some of the children's programmes being made at the time, commenting that "Six-year-olds just aren't content to be fobbed off with 'Mr Wizard go pouf and nasty man go away'. Stories these days have to be believable, contain some logical process". In 1987, Martin started writing stories about Potsworth who lives in a city in America and four young children: Carter, Keiko, Rosie, and Nick. The couple took the idea to Hanna-Barbera and suggested a 50-50 deal to turn the stories into a television series.
First appearing on The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera on 1 September 1990, Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone lasted only 13 episodes. It was watched by 8.5 million in the US while 5.1 million watched the series on Children's BBC in Britain, making it the "second most popular children's show on British television after Neighbours".
The "real" Potsworth became something of a celebrity when he featured extensively in the British media as part of the promotion campaign for the cartoon series when it first aired in the UK in 1990/91 television season. A comic adaptation of Potsworth & Co. was featured in the merged Beezer and Topper from issue #87 to #153 (May 16, 1992—August 21, 1993) and, when that comic closed, The Dandy from issue #2701 onwards (August 28, 1993—1994).
The series' setting, "Dream Zone", was first used on "Back to Next Saturday", the NBC Saturday Morning preview special for the 1985 season.
The programme premiered on 29 August 1983 on ITV and ran for ten series, ending on 19 May 1993. It has since been revived for four additional series, the most recent of which was a comedy version hosted by Dara Ó Briain, which aired on Comedy Central from 21 March to 5 December 2019.
Blockbusters was created by Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions and originated as an American series in 1980. The UK version was created after Central Independent Television producer Graham C. Williams spotted the show in 1981 and produced a pilot in 1982. The difference was that instead of adults, who appeared on the American edition, the UK edition was produced for sixth formers.
Bob Holness was the original presenter staying on for the first ten series of the first incarnation and a 1994 revival on Sky One. Holness commented in 1988: "When Central TV were looking for someone to host Blockbusters I was thought of. It was remembered that I'd done TV programmes of much the same sort, such as Junior Criss Cross Quiz which I compered in the 1960s and which was also a question and answer show. One led to the other."A 1997 edition featuring adults was produced for one series on BBC Two with Michael Aspel presenting. Sky One brought Blockbusters back under its original rules in 2000 with Liza Tarbuck at the helm. The Challenge series was presented by Simon Mayo, and the Comedy Central series was presented by Dara Ó Briain.
Contestants were allowed to do a hand jive during the end credits of the Friday episode of each broadcast week. The hand jive first appeared in 1986 after one of the contestants was bored while sitting through filming several shows a day waiting for his turn. It lasted for the rest of the original series' run. The hand-clapping sequence was referenced by Half Man Half Biscuit in their 1991 song "Hedley Verityesque".
The original game board was powered using 40 slide projectors, each with its own set of slides for the different Letters and Gold Run questions, and took up the entire height of the studio. Slides were preloaded onto carousels with enough slides for about 3 – 5 shows. Carousels took about 30 minutes to change over. There were 15 different board combinations (5 sets X 3 games per match) which meant the same letter combinations would reappear. The letter 'Q' was only on one board, the letter 'Y' on two boards. All 15 boards followed in the same sequence; if the same player/team won a match with victories in the first two games, the third one was skipped and the projectors were advanced directly to the Gold Run.
In 1987 and 1988, readers of TVTimes voted the series the most popular quiz show on television
Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be with You" was the first song featured on TOTP, while the Rolling Stones were the first band to perform, with "I Wanna Be Your Man".Snow Patrol were the last act to play live on the weekly show when they performed their single "Chasing Cars".Status Quo made more appearances than any other artist, with a total of 87 (the first was with "Pictures of Matchstick Men" in 1968 and last with "The Party Ain't Over Yet" in 2005).
Special editions were broadcast on Christmas Day (and usually, until 1984, a second edition a few days after Christmas), featuring some of the best-selling singles of the year and the Christmas number one. Although the weekly show was cancelled in 2006,the Christmas special continued annually. End-of-year round-up editions have also been broadcast on BBC1 on or around New Year's Eve, albeit largely featuring the same acts and tracks as the Christmas Day shows.In a change of format, the festive specials did not return in 2022 or 2023 and were replaced by an end-of-year review show on BBC Two. It also survives as Top of the Pops 2, which began in 1994 and features vintage performances from the Top of the Pops archives. Though TOTP2 ceased producing new episodes since 2017, repeats of older episodes are still shown.
The Official Charts Company states that "performing on the show was considered an honour, and it pulled in just about every major player".The show has seen seminal performances over its history. The March 1971 appearance of T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan wearing glitter and satins as he performed "Hot Love" is often seen as the inception of glam rock, and David Bowie's performance of "Starman" inspired future musicians. In the 1990s, the show's format was sold to several foreign broadcasters in the form of a franchise package, and at one point various versions of the show were shown in more than 120 countries.Editions of the programme from 1976 onwards started being repeated on BBC Four in 2011 and are aired on most Friday evenings – as of 2024 the repeat run has reached 1996. Episodes featuring disgraced presenters and artists such as Jimmy Savile, Dave Lee Travis, Jonathan King, Ian Watkins (Lostprophets), R. Kelly, Rolf Harris, and Gary Glitter are no longer repeated.
Prisoner (known in the UK and the US as Prisoner: Cell Block H) is an Australian television soap opera, which broadcast on Network Ten (formerly the 0-10 Network) from February 27 (Melbourne) February 26 (Sydney) 1979 to December 1986 (Melbourne), though the series finale would not screen until September 1987 in Sydney, where it aired as a three-hour film that was split into three one-hour episodes at the much-later time-slot of 10:30 p.m., running eight seasons and 692 episodes.
Prisoner was the first Australian series to feature a primarily female-dominated cast and carried the slogan "If you think prison is hell for a man, imagine what it would be like for a woman!"
The series, produced by the Grundy Organisation, was conceived by Reg Watson and filmed at the then Network Ten Melbourne Studios at Nunawading and on location.
The series garnered an international cult following, and it was one of Australia's most successful media exports, exported to 80 countries, performing particularly well in the United States and Canada (billed as Prisoner: Cell Block H and Caged Women, respectively). It also built a large audience in the United Kingdom and other European countries, especially Sweden.
The series is loosely based on British prison drama series Within These Walls, although it focuses more on the prisoners or inmates, rather than the prison staff led by officious governor Faye Boswell, played by Googie Withers, who was even approached by producers of Prisoner to play the governor.
The series is set in the fictional Wentworth Detention Centre in the fictional suburb of Wentworth in Melbourne, Victoria, and follows the lives of the prisoners and staff within cell block H and, to a lesser extent, others on the outside such as family members, doctors and lawyers. Numerous scenes also took place outside the compound exploring the lives of the inmates and staff outside of the prison; in particular, "Driscoll House", a halfway house where inmates were housed after being released, or neighbouring correction institutions like Barnhurst (a lower-security country prison) and Blackmoor (an aged, yet high-security, prison).
The series starred Jack Warden as Harry Fox, a free-spirited private detective who lived by his wits, and John Rubinstein as his high-strung attorney son, Harrison, who unwillingly, and frequently, found himself dragged into his father's cases.
Jane Wyman stars as Angela Channing, the tyrannical matriarch of the Falcon Crest Winery, opposite Robert Foxworth as Chase Gioberti, Angela's nephew, and later David Selby as Richard Channing, the illegitimate son of Angela's ex-husband. Other notable series regulars include Abby Dalton and Margaret Ladd as Angela's daughters Julia and Emma, Lorenzo Lamas as Angela's grandson Lance, Susan Sullivan as Chase's wife Maggie, William R. Moses as their son Cole, and Ana Alicia as heiress Melissa Agretti.
Dynasty was conceived by ABC to compete with CBS's prime time series Dallas. Ratings for the show's first season were unimpressive, but a revamp for the second season that included the arrival of Collins as scheming Alexis saw ratings enter the top 20. By the fall of 1982, it was a top 10 show, and by the spring of 1985, it was the #1 show in the United States. The series declined considerably in popularity during its final two seasons, and it was ultimately cancelled in the spring of 1989 after nine seasons and 220 episodes.
Inspired by the book Where Death Delights by Marshall Houts, a former FBI agent,the show also resembled the earlier Canadian television series Wojeck, broadcast by CBC Television. John Vernon, who played the Wojeck title role, later guest-starred in the third-season episode "Requiem for the Living". Quincy's character is loosely modeled on Los Angeles' "Coroner to the Stars" Thomas Noguchi.
Quincy was originally broadcast as 90-minute telefilms as part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie rotation in the autumn of 1976, alongside Columbo, McCloud and McMillan (formerly McMillan & Wife). The series proved popular enough that after four episodes of Quincy, M.E. were broadcast during the 1976–1977 season in the extended format, Quincy was spun off into its own weekly one-hour series without a typical 60-minute pilot. Instead, a two-hour episode kicked off a thirteen-episode shortened run of the series, which concluded the 1976–1977 season, while NBC canceled the Mystery Movie format in the spring of 1977.
NYPD Blue was met with critical acclaim, praised for its grittiness and realistic portrayal of the cast's personal and professional lives, though the show garnered controversy for its depictions of nudity and alcoholism. In 1997, "True Confessions" (Season 1, Episode 4), written by Art Monterastelli and directed by Charles Haid, was ranked number 36 on "TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time". In 2009, "Hearts and Souls" (Season 6, Episode 5), Jimmy Smits' final episode as a main cast member, ranked 30th on TV Guide's "100 Greatest Episodes of All Time".
Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher,it centers on the partners, associates and staff of a Los Angeles law firm. The show contains many of Bochco's trademark features, including an ensemble cast, large number of parallel story lines, social drama, and off-the-wall humor. It reflects the social and cultural ideologies that were occurring when the show was produced in the 1980s and early 1990s, and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot-button issues such as capital punishment, abortion, racism, homophobia, sexual harassment, HIV/AIDS, and domestic violence. The series often also reflects social tensions between the wealthy senior lawyer protagonists and their less well-paid junior staff.
Recognized for its gritty, realistic drama, St. Elsewhere gained a small yet loyal following (the series never ranked higher than 47th place in the yearly Nielsen ratings) over its six-season, 137-episode run; however, the series also found a strong audience in Nielsen's 18–49 age demographic, a young demo later known for a young, affluent audience that TV advertisers were eager to reach.The series also earned critical acclaim during its run, earning 13 Emmy Awards for its writing, acting, and directing. St. Elsewhere was ranked No. 20 on TV Guide's 2002 list of "The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time",with the magazine also selecting it as the best drama series of the 1980s in a 1993 issue.In 2013, TV Guide ranked the series No. 51 on its list of the "60 Best Series of All Time". In December 2023, Variety ranked St. Elsewhere #92 on its list of the 100 greatest TV shows of all time.
The show is the second longest-running primetime medical drama in American television history behind Grey's Anatomy.


