Stuart Millard posts
Posts: 334
Files: 300
Nuking the Fourth Wall – Byker Grove's Wild Finale
You may remember the written version of this, as a Great Moment in Pop Culture, 3 years ago, and so far I've stayed away from full-on adaptions of previous pieces as it feels like a bit of a swizz. However, I was really happy with how this turned out, and actually seeing it really adds something new. Plus, it's really the only existing piece that's feasible to adapt into a video, so hopefully nobody feels too put out by it. All the fu...
Masterspy
I grew up in an era where pseudo-spying was a popular trend for kids, with Usborne's handbooks giving parents a brief respite from our whines of being bored, to instead write invisible ink letters with lemon juice, disguise ourselves as an old man, or bone up on how to follow someone without being seen. These days, if you're sneaking around in a big trenchcoat, local Facebook send up the warning flare that there's a paed about. Despit...
VHS:WTF - Gulf Aid
Content warning: horrible 90's racism
Owt Good On, Mam? – Su Pollard Special
Though she's an ever-present reference, even taking a small but pivotal role in a Patreon novella, I've yet to really dig into... not so much the career, but the existence of Su Pollard. The dress sense of a bird of paradise in a holding cell after a hen night got out of hand, and an energy that's pure bedlam, Su is a cartoon character brought to life – ironically going onto voice Penny Crayon, whose magic pens did exactly that. The...
Jubilee Bonus Post - The Guffer
Half my first day was spent signing NDAs before they even told me what the job entailed.The pay isn't spectacular, they said, but such service is a privilege.Plus, you get to wear nice clothes, and have your fill from expensive buffets, which saves on groceries.My life was a procession of functions which felt too posh for me.Meet and greets and luncheons, engagements and charity do's, where patrons mingled with ambassadors and presidents....
Pauline's Quirkes
As a one-line pitch to sell me on something, 'chat-cum-magazine-cum-sketch show hosted by a teenage Pauline Quirke' is hard to top. The title's even got a pun in it! Pauline's Quirkes debuted on Thames, on November 15th 1976, for a six episode run, with Gilliam-style opening titles where Quirke as King Kong rises from the depths to devour the Thames logo with a hearty belch. Each episode kicks off with the theme – “What's ...
Brian Conley
Brian Conley's another of those cultural oddities who were massive for years, endlessly quoted in classrooms and offices, yet never deemed worthy of a DVD release or even repeats, outside of minor satellite channels. The Brian Conley Show ran for 53 episodes over a full decade, taking us from the neon and knitwear of 1992 to television's post-911 trench warfare, and all powered by hand-clapping holiday camp confidence. Like Shane Richie h...
Owt Good On, Mam? - When Game Shows Had The Horn
As a terribly repressed figure, bloated with shame and self-loathing, it's with some trepidation I must wade into the suspiciously-sticky waters of – where else? – the nineties, when telly got thirsty AF. ITV already had form with the Margi Clarke fronted Good Sex Guide, which found an incredible 13 million viewers in 1993, and in '96, they took that randiness and made a quiz out of it, in the form of Carnal Knowledge.This is the Mr. ...
The 11 O'Clock Show
Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show was one of the most reviled series of the early 21st century, by critics and audiences alike, only fading from the discussion when people forgot it'd existed. Running Tuesdays to Thursdays, smack bang in the middle of Blair's Britain, it's a living museum to late-90's edgelord banter, back when everyone's main hobby was being really rude to everyone else and not giving a ruddy shit about...
Whodunnit?
After my piece on Cluedo, I was recommended Whodunnit?, ITV's previous murder mystery quiz, which aired from 1972-78, and entirely passed me by. Going in blind to old telly is like launching yourself off a high building, but at least with this, there's a visible crash pad waiting below, in the pedigree of its co-writers, Jeremy Lloyd ('Allo 'Allo; Are You Being Served?) and beloved comedy performer Lance Percival. Like Cluedo, eac...
Saturday Morning Archaeology at Christmas
As this is the final post of 2021, I'm afraid I have to do a Yarwood – “and this is me” – and give massive thanks to everyone who's supported me through another year of content. Knowing I have an audience really pushes me to keep improving and branching out, and I'm so appreciative of everyone sticking with me on the journey into various cultural rabbit-holes. Hopefully you've been enjoying it too, and there's lots of ...
Important note re: that last post.
If you read my stuff via email, I'm a dunce who accidentally pressed 'publish now' instead of 'save as draft', so you got the Mike Reid piece a couple of days early. Hence why it's a bit of a state, with notes to myself included and various formatting errors, as I meant to do another pass on it. As I know some people will read it (and hopefully this apology) through the mailouts, I couldn't delete it, so enjoy your ear...
Mike Reid's Pussy in Boots
Though I did eventually clear my plate of Jim Davidson's rancid old trilogy of Christmas cum jokes, what kind of pop culture historian would I be without taking a header into the original rude panto? A perennial on fold-out tables manned by glum men at rainy car boots, Mike Reid's Pussy in Boots pre-dates Sinderella by a year, with its VHS cover clunkily trumpeting “you will not believe what you will see,” and “you have been warned!...
Little and Large at Christmas
Like the inevitability of Only Fools and Horses novelty socks from the auntie you never see, once I started diving into the lads, I think we all knew this was coming. It's December 23rd 1978, and this is Christmas alright, with a flurry of superimposed snow over the opening titles, where Syd and Eddie swoop down in a UFO, suggesting, like Mr. Bean, they are aliens in human form, which would explain why they never got the hang of that Earth th...
The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow
Yep, I'm back on my bullshit again. Having already penned tens of thousands of Noel-centric words, perhaps I should just leave him be, but then, could I contentedly go into the ground having failed to cover every coiffured inch of the Edmonds oeuvre? Decades from now, my restless ghost will be left wandering the South Downs, barred from the afterlife with loose ends untied; scaring some campers by spelling out pleas on a ouija board for a typ...
