Andy Capp + Bottle Boys

I listed Bottle Boys back last winter but now I have another 80's sitcom that fits on the disc nicely with it.

Andy Capp was a TV adaptation of the famous newspaper comic strip and starred none other than James Bolam as Andy (Likely Lads, When The Boat Comes In, Second Thoughts, Only When I Laugh, New Tricks, Born And Bred, The Missing Postman, Dirty Tricks, Biederbecke Trilogy). It also featured several veteran actors (and familiar faces) such as John Arthur, Paula Tilbrook, Keith Smith, and Keith Marsh.

It was written by Keith Waterhouse (Billy Liar).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Capp_%28TV_series%29

Bottle Boys, 9 of the 13 episodes, was sort of Dustbinmen as milkmen and was written by Vince Powell (Mind Your Language, Love Thy Neighbour, Pardon The Expression, Nearest And Dearest, For The Love Of Ada, George And The Dragon, Never Mind The Quality, Two In Clover, Odd Man Out, Spring And Autumn, Never The Twain).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_Boys

Kingswood Country

Till Death Us Do Part was Norman Lear's inspiration for the 70's US sitcom All In The Family. They both seem to have inspired the 1980's Australian sitcom Kingswood Country. Kingswood ran for 89 episodes between 1980 and 1984 and despite it being repeated almost continuously since, finding episodes of it is like looking for the Tasmanian Tiger. Most of what's floating around out there are from the few DVD releases, but even those are difficult to track down without paying a lot more money than they're worth. One thing seems clearly evident, Australians are not into ripping DVD's or using home video recorders. Tracking down the Aussie TV stuff is probably more bother than it's worth, but they've had a number of great TV programs so it's my pleasure to make them available to those who want to broaden their entertainment resources. So here is 26 of the 89 episodes of Kingswood Country and they could be the best episodes as they are almost all the early ones and as we know with most programs the longer they run the more stale and lame they are apt to become. Some programs go out still at their peak, but most do not. Also on Disc 1 is a sketch from the late 70's Australian sketch show The Naked Vicar from which Kingswood Country was spun off from.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingswood_Country 

Coronation Street 2010 - Disc 6

Coronation Street - 25 more recent episodes of the program that will turn 50 years old in about 4 months.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_Street

The IT Crowd - Series 4

The IT Crowd - Series 4. The popular Channel 4 comedy concluded its 4th series tonight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IT_Crowd

Shortland Street

Shortland Street, the drama from New Zealand that dates back to 1992, is now available beginning with episode #4524 broadcast July 1. Shown 4 nights a week, Tuesday - Friday, the Tuesday program is always a double-episode. This has been broadcast in Ireland for the past 14 years, is shown in Australia and was on in the UK for 11 years but is currently not being carried there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortland_Street

No Place Like Home update

No Place Like Home, the popular 1980's BBC sitcom, is now complete* (but with an asterik). The first 15 episodes were released on DVD 4 years ago, but it seems not enough money was made from them so further releases never materialized. Then a couple years ago the Paramount channel in the UK began rebroadcasting the program but they skipped over 3 episodes. This year a Canadian station began airing the show and they didn't skip over those 3 episodes but * (asterik) they chopped about one-third (!) of the content out of each one. What were they thinking? Stoooopid.

Who runs that station? The trailer park boys? Hank Yarbo?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Place_Like_Home_%28sitcom%29

The "Carry On" films - Discs 1 & 2

The first 2 (of what will probably be 6 or 7 at some point in time) discs of the Carry On films.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On_films

Michael Bird Mediterranean Quadrilogy

The 4 dramas Michael Bird wrote for the BBC in the 1970's that were all based in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Lotus Eaters, perhaps the best known of the four, is about British ex-pats on Crete.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lotus_Eaters_%28television%29

Who Pays The Ferryman? came next and also takes place (and was filmed) on Crete. 30 years after WWII a former British soldier returns to Crete where he had been involved with a resistance group to find "ghosts from the past waiting for him".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Pays_the_Ferryman%3F

The Aphrodite Inheritence took place in Cyprus where "a man visiting Cyprus to investigate the death of his brother and subsequently being drawn into a strange conspiracy, with the narrative twists of the serial employing various supernatural and mythological motifs."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aphrodite_Inheritance
These files are from a video tapes of an old UK Gold rebroadcast and it has never been commercially released.

The final program is one I posted here about a month ago. At the time I couldn't fnd much information about it. The Dark Side Of The Sun was set in Rhodes and you can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Sun_%28television%29 
As with the Aphrodite Inheritence, this is from old video tapes of a TV broadcast and it has never been commercially released. 

EastEnders 2010 - Disc 6

Another 14 episodes of the very popular program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EastEnders

Invisible Man

H.G. Wells' Invisible Man was produced by ITP and broadcast by ATV London in the UK and CBS in the US. The program was created by Ralph Smart who a few years later developed Danger Man (aka Secret Agent Man) starring Patrick McGoohan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invisible_Man_%281958_TV_series%29

Grass Roots

There have been some excellent British political satire programs. Yes Minister, No Job For A Lady, The New Statesman all come to mind. Grass Roots was an Australian program following that same path only at the local level of government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Roots

If you'd like to see what some people thought of the program click here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250859/usercomments

The Royal - update

The Royal.....hey! what's up with that? I have more people bugging me about The Royal. Is it that good?

It's always nice to see Wendy Craig get work and I enjoyed Robert Daws in Roger Roger, but I've never watched The Royal except to check files etc. I'll say this, for something that is supposed to take place in 1969, they're all over the place with that. It's like 1969 +/- 5 years. They could get away with that if the setting was in more recent times, but not back then. We went through a lot of changes in a very short period of time and it's fairly simple to watch a TV program, a film, see a photo or hear a song and be able to place it in a specific year. Well, at least if you lived through those years it is. Not that Hollywood ever got it right either. (lol)  

Anyways, as most of you know, ITV is all screwed up (like the BBC isn't?) and The Royal has been in limbo for about a year and now it looks like it's dead in the water. (Unless one of you out there knows different.)

They produced an 8th series of the program, and about a year ago showed the first 3 episodes and then pulled the plug. The remaining 9 episodes found their way onto Danish TV last autumn and then Canadian TV last winter. Unfortunately nobody in those countries seem to have recorded Episodes 81-84, so Disc 8 is not available at this time unless you want it with the missing 4 eps.

The good news is, ITV has finally decided to start broadcasting Series 8 and those episodes are slated to be shown in the UK in October. We'll see.

The quality of the first 13 files isn't that great (despite their large size), but I've never been able to track down better ones. 

The Royal was a spinoff of the longrunning Heartbeat (373 episodes since 1992) which has met a fate similar to The Royal. The final series was broadcast in Sweden last year and has just now started to be shown in the UK, so I'll be able to get files of the last 9 episodes without the Swedish subtitles.....I hope. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royal

Packed To The Rafters - Disc 4

Packed To The Rafters - Disc 4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packed_to_the_Rafters

http://uktvfl.blogspot.com/2010/07/packed-to-rafters.html

Fast Forward - Funniest Moments

Fast Forward was an Australian comedy-sketch program that produced 90 episodes from April 1989 to November 1992 on Seven Network. In 2004 the best clips were compiled into 12 episodes. The Fast Forward cast included Gina Riley, Jane Turner, Magda Szubanski and Glenn Robbins who all went onto Kath & Kim about 10 years later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Forward_%28TV_series%29

Dad's Army update....sort of

I've added to Disc 6 the complete radio program It Sticks Out Half A Mile.

Originally this was intended to be a TV spinoff of Dad's Army, but after Arthur Lowe died it was decided to make it a radio program.

It was written by Michael Knowles and Harold Snoad. Knowles appeared in several supporting roles on Dad's Army and was a regular in It Ain't Half Hot Mum, You Rang M'Lord, and Come Back Mrs. Noah.

Snoad had a hand in either producing or directing (or both) such programs as Dad's Army, Are You Being Served?, Ever Decreasing Circles, Don't Wait Up, Brush Strokes and Keeping Up Appearances.  

Lowe appeared in the unaired pilot, but had died before it went into the production of its 13 episodes. Returning from Dad's Army were John LeMesurier as Arthur Wilson, Ian Lavender as Frank Pike, and Bill Pertwee as Bert Hodges.

The storyline is it's 1948 and the Frambourne Pier is slated for demolition. Former Air Warden Hodges wants to purchase the pier and renovate it. To do so he needs a loan from bank manager George Mainwaring. When Lowe died after the 1981 pilot was recorded it was changed so that Hodges recruited Pike as a partner who could then approach his "uncle" bank manager Arthur Wilson for financial backing.

In 1987 this was adapted for TV by Yorkshire and it was called High And Dry with Richard Wilson as the bank manager and Bernard Cribbins in the Hodges role.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Sticks_Out_Half_a_Mile

The Agatha Christie Hour

The Agatha Christie Hour was a 1982 collection of Christie television adaptations from Thames TV.

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343230/

Carrott Confidential

Carrott Confidential ran for 3 8-ep series on the BBC in the late 80's. Jasper Carrott had several comedy sketch programs back in the 20th century. Thankfully, some wise person was running a VCR when these were rebroadcast on UK Gold at some point in time. Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis were part of this program too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Carrott

Last of the Summer Wine update

Apparently the BBC decided to proceed with just letting the program fade away with the 6 new episodes that will be shown starting Sunday July 25. All of them were shot before the program was cancelled. BBC's idea of a "proper goodbye" was hosting a dinner for the cast this week. See the photo below.

Tom Owen went public with his sentiments last week.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jhmptoSR_1pSRRDz0ueXfXQPuuuw

So that...........is that, I'm sorry to say. August 29 will be the final episode.

Front row seated: Roy Clarke (who wrote the program), Peter Sallis (Norman Clegg) who appeared in every episode since the first one was filmed in June 1972, and Frank Thornton (Herbert Truelove).

Standing L-R: Jean Fergusson (Marina), Jospehine Tewson (Miss Davenport), Alan J.W. Bell (director/producer), Juliette Kaplan (Pearl Sibshaw), Robert Fyfe (Howard Sibshaw), Ken Kitson (PC Cooper), Burt Kwouk (Entwhistle), Trevor Bannister (The Captain), June Whitfield (Nelly), Mike Grady (Barry), Barbara Young (Stella), Christopher Beeny (Morton Beemish), and Tom Owen (Tom Simmonite).

Absent are Jane Freeman (Ivy) (like Peter Sallis, an original cast member), Sarah Thomas (Glenda), Jean Alexander (Auntie Wainwright), Brian Murphy (Alvin Smedley), Russ Abbot (Hobo), and Louis Emerick (PC Walsh).

SeaChange

SeaChange was an Australian comedy-drama from the late 90's.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaChange

I could be wrong, but I seem to think this might have been shown by some PBS stations in the US.

Packed To The Rafters

Packed To The Rafters is an Australian comedy-drama that is currently airing its 3rd series, so there will be additional discs in the future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packed_to_the_Rafters

Due South

Due South was a Canadian comedy-drama from the 1990's that was also shown in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, partially in the USA and in about 25 other countries around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_South