A night without any disturbance.....
No new baby - it's been an odd week at work - you almost feel a fraud as everyone asks "any news yet?"
I'm starting to sound like a long playing record
But hey - it's Friday yay! Remember this programme .... and click on the link
Crackerjack
THIS LONGTIME kiddie mainstay of a gameshow went through several mutations from its original (relatively) sedate desks 'n' buzzers '60s roots (with a few muted sketches and the Crackerjack Pencils as prizes - you couldn't just write in and ask for one, y'know, you had to EARN it!) complete with EAMONN ANDREWS, PIP HINTON and LESLIE CROWTHER. First, there was the discovery of music hall slapstick with PETER GLAZE, DON MACLEAN, JAN HUNT, LEIGH MILES, GILLIAN COMBER, BERNIE CLIFTON and hosts MICHAEL ASPEL and/or ED 'STEWPOT' STEWART, making up a "mess" of fun indeed. This also included the ever-present and always-cringemaking point where the cast broke out of some whimsical sketch into a full-on rendition of popular contemporary hits, eg. "Golden Years" and, unforgettably, Sparks' "Something for the Girl with Everything" sung by MacLean as he assaulted Glaze with an old boot. Then, far more ominously, the descent of that sub-TISWAS word 'gunge', with the camp STU FRANCIS ("Ooh, I could crush a grape, etc.") and the godforsaken KRANKIES, that wonderful husband-and-wife-dressed-as-man-and-schoolboy creepy duo all right-thinking kids loathed and feared (and yes, we are well aware of THE KRANKIES' ELEKTRONIK KOMIK (1985-6), but it's not getting a separate entry. We have our limits). They even dropped Double Or Drop - that hold-the-boardgames-plus-cabbages-if-you-get-a-question-wrong thing (but other staples such as the giant tuning fork lingered on). Theme tune in the closing years by Chas 'N' Bloody Dave again (cf COWBOYS, THE HAPPY APPLE etc.) "Lumberjack? No! Steeplejack? No! Oh, Uncle Jack! No!"
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