Back To The 80s - Part 2: Wacaday! Look at everyone at home and say blairrrr!!

Ok, this just suddenly occurred to me. One of the best TV shows ever when I was a kid was Wacaday! I remember getting up early Saturday mornings - I used to get up stinkingly early - about 5am! I must have been insane!! I remember getting up so early that there would be literally nothing on the TV except that scary test card girl with the creepy clown doll.

Anyway, I remember sitting and watching all these odd shows in the mornings - Will Quackquack, Ludwig, Fred Bassett and all sorts of other weird and wonderful crap! But the one I really loved was the Wide Awake Club - shortened to WAC. It used to have Tommy Boyd and some other people on it whose names I can't remember now... although I can still see their faces in my mind's eye. It was cool (except the Mini Pops - why do adults think kids want to watch other kids trying to act cool on TV? I wonder how often those kids got beaten up by their peers?) and it introduced us to the one and only Timmy Mallett! I seem to recall he joined it later on.

Not sure whether I should admit this but Timmy Mallett was my hero when I was a kid! I wanted to be just like him - I remeber once going to a fancy dress party with the glasses, crazy shirt and a big home made mallet to hit people with!

When WAC spawned WAC-A-Day during the school holidays (see, it was on every day - see what they did there?) it became Timmy Mallett's own gig. He hosted sometimes by himself and sometimes with the lovely Michaela Strachan (yep - the one that does all the animal shows now). I used to get up and watch it religiously. I used to feel bad if I overslept and missed it (that happened a few times as I got older).

I used to stick plasters on myself in odd places. I used to do the W wave at the TV. I got a Pinky Punky one Christmas. Then, one day, Timmy Mallet came to my home town for a carnival. I remember my Dad telling me and I had to go! Well, there we were - hundreds of people lined up for the carnival. For some reason some of us were standing in the road when I saw Timmy Mallett apparoaching. I was far too shy to call out to my hero - I was going to be content with just watching from the sidelines. But my Dad had no fear! He called out "Mr. Mallett! Mr. Mallett!" just like Pinky Punky and over comes Timmy Mallett! Well, I'm in a bit of a daze - I wasn't expecting that. For some reason I'm momentarily fascinated with Mr. Mallett's shoes - well, they were quite funky - but I suddnely hear a voice ask "this one?" and the next thing I know he's got his arm around me and my Dad takes quite possibly the best pic an 8 or 9 year old can ever have taken! A quick "thankyou" and he was off on his way! I still remember that moment and I still ahve the pic somewhere too.

You no doubt think I'm very sad but cut me some slack - I was just a kid! I remember it for several reasons. 1. I met my childhood hero and have a momento to prove it. 2. It proved that my Dad was the best father ever - and that he had no problem in being silly to get the attention of his son's hero! 3. It was just a great moment - one of those ones you'll always remember.

Anyway, Wac-A-Day ended when TV-AM lost their franchise to the awful GMTV. Gone was Timmy Mallett with his funky dress sense, crazy sense of humour and just all round sense of fun. What did GMTV replace it with? Simon Parkinson. Making something crap out of cardboard (that's all I can remember). I'm sure Mr. Parkinson is a really nice guy but... come on! He was never going to live up to Lord Timmy of Mallett!

I think they tried some other shows with Timmy Mallett. A show called Utterly Brilliant and some game show thing on The Children's Channel... I also remember he was in a really cool show on CITV that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. He had to team up with other celebs like Neil Buchanan and some others and get from one place to another, doing challenges along the way. I think they went around in a bus... No idea what it was called but I loved it!

These days I believe Timmy Mallett does a lot of painting - he's a good artist from what I remember (careful now!) and he has his own website with Timmy memorabilia too.

And you know what? I still think he's cool!

I think Pinky Punky and Magic The Cockateil formed their own progressive rock band but it fell apart when Magic's crack habit and wild orgies took their toll. As Timmy used to say, that's a true story as I just made it up myself!

Geeky post!!

Well, I was back at work today. It wasn't too bad - things weren't too busy but, as usual, just about everything had been left for me to do so failed backups and other fun things were waiting for me to sort out.

Well, being the complete geek that I am - I will be at this year's Auto Assembly (just as I was last year and a few times before that too). If you don't know what that is - well, it's a Transformers convention.

Yep - I love giant robots and I suspect Transformers are in some way responsible for that (actually I know they are). Plus they remind me of my childhood. I'm sure I'll make a Back To The 80s post on them at some point.

Anyway, they've got some pretty cool guests lined up including David Kaye (the voice of Beast Wars Megatron and TF Animated Prime), Greg Berger (G1 Grimlock!) and David Wise (writer of a number of G1 episodes).

Last year's AA was excellent - unfortunately I had to leave early on Sunday but, to quote Shockwave (hey - it's a Transformers post so why not?): this time we shall be ready! In other words, this time I'm spending the whole damn weekend there! By the way, bonus points if you know what episode that quote came from!

Yep - I shall be geeking out completely, I already have two Transformers t-thirts I've bought especially for wearing there (and plan to get a third soon). Plus I've ordered myself a lovely HD camcorder to video what goes on there!

Last year was great - Garry Chalk and Scott McNeil were the main guests and they were great. Mr. Chalk performed a concert on Saturday night and he was very good! So much so that I plan to get a CD of his music, should one ever appear (I'm not the only one to be asking about this, btw). He is one of my favourite voice artists, by the way, and he's also appeared in a lot of movies and TV shows. He was that Russian General that popped up a few times in Stargate SG-1, for example. Yep - very cool!

If you haven't already guessed, I'm a big fan of anime, sci-fi and fantasy in general. If you hadn't already guessed that - do pay attention 007! ;-)

Earlier this year I got all the original series episodes of Star Trek on Blu Ray. Very cool and I've been watching those on and off for a while (I'm several episodes into season 2 now). It got me thinking about Star Trek conventions. The last one of those I went to was way back in 1994/5 for the Generations con at the Royal Albert Hall. I was still at school then and my mum and dad came along... I think they got a bit bored! lol

One time, I seem to remember, there were loads of these things but these days there doesn't seem to be that many, at least not here in the UK. I'm guessing it's because there's no new TV shows or anything. Pity though as I think a Trek con would be a lot of fun!

Anyway, that's today's geeky post. I'm sure there'll be many more to come!