Saturday 27 February 2016

Masters of the Universe Art #1: Earl Norem


Earl Norem (1923-2015) was a regular contributor to the visual world of MOTU for 30 years, starting with the classic brand in the 1980s, right through to the He-Man Classics line of the 2000s. His paintings and artwork for MOTU added to the world that we all known and love as that particular universe, without him oour memories of He-Man and Skeletor may be quite, quite different. This post is a tribute to the great man, and a thank you for all that he gave to our visions of the Masters of the Universe.

I mean, who else gave us He-Man and Skeletor fighting each other on lions and elephants?



Or He-Man and Skeletor fighting each other in the cold of space?


Certainly the most utterly, completely METAL that Hordak has ever looked.


Earl even made long distance shots look great, with all of your favourite characters in there, battling away. It gave you all sorts of ideas for play patterns, creating massive storylines and battles in your mind, making you think and create and imagine.




If you want to see more of Earl's MOTU artwork, his website is located HERE, it also has a lot of his artwork for other properties as well and is well worth checking out!

Thanks Earl. Your work shaped a lot of how we saw the toys and made up our stories. We're forever grateful.






Friday 26 February 2016

Episode 254 - Food Glorious Food


It's a feast of fun this week as Sam, Becca, Paula and Glenn take a look at the various foods they ate in the Eighties, as well as what they would have put them in - the mighty Eighties lunchboxes.

So prepare to be all Thermos'ed up for the next couple of hours, get the pineapple chunks and squares of cheese out of the cupboards, and have your flask of weak lemon drink at the ready as we raid the pantry of the 1980s and ask ourselves how we didn't all have horrendous indigestion ALL OF THE TIME.

Back to the Eighties Forum: backtotheeighties.freeforums.net

Back to the Eighties Blog: backtotheeightiespodcast.blogspot.co.uk

Back to the Eighties @ Twitter: @BTTEPOD

Back to the 80's on Facebook: facebook.com/bttepod


We've only gone and done it again...

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Roland Rat - Superstar of Breakfast

In 1983, TV-am began broadcasting to the nation at a revolutionary time for the UK - TV in the MORNING. BBC had started their breakfast programming a couple of months before, so they'd got there slightly late, but still, they were broadcasting. Sadly, due to many reasons (mismanagement, failing to gague the audience they were broadcasting to, failing to get any adverts to put in their ad breaks, and so on) TV-am was doing badly. VERY badly. Something had to be done. So, they brought in a puppet rat. This was Roland Rat - Superstar.



On Friday, April 1st, 1983, Roland appeared. Launched by future Teletubbies creator Anne Wood, Roland was there to give children some Easter entertainment during the school holidays. But, as ever happens with these sort of things, Roland's take-no-prisoners style of interviewing famous people, manner when talking with the actual human presenters of TV-am (where he would give none of them any respect - most of the didn't deserve it anyway) and general belief that not only was he a superstar, but he was, in a move that would be echoed by Chris Moyles at Radio One in the future, the "saviour" of TV-am, come to turn the beleagured channel's fortunes and flagging ratings around. He may have been right. With him on board the ratings rose from a dismal 100,000 to just over 1.8 MILLION.


Roland's golden age on TV-am continued through 1983 to August 1985, Roland would appear during school holidays in half hour episodes, where his backstory was fully fleshed out, and new characters appeared in the mix, like Roland's very own superfan Kevin, a gerbil from Leeds obssessed not only with Roland but also the colour pink, Errol the Hamster, the Welsh VT operator who was so laid back he was almost horizontal, to Roland's brother Little Reggie, who seemed to serve no other function than to be extremely annoying and utter the phrase " Great ere, innit?" Hrm.


Roland even brought out a couple of singles during this period, the best (and most remembered) being "Rat Rapping". Whilst it didn't in any way set the charts alight, it's still fun, and a definite classic Eighties novelty record.



So much of a totem did Roland become for TV-am, that in August 1985 he was poached by the BBC themselves, although in retrospect, they didn't actually do that much with him. They gave him a series (imaginatively titled Roland Rat - The Series) which used the conceit of a chat show hosted by Roland to effectively rip off the Muppets (ironic, as Roland's puppeteer David Claridge had once workd for Jim Henson), but really, this was tame stuff. Eventually the BBC just stopped doing anything with Roland, almost as if the only intention was to stop TV-am being able to use him.



Roland still sometimes pops up to make the odd appearance, on The Big Breakfast and even Daybreak (offering to save that beleaguered breakfast show in the same way he had TV-am), but people seem to have largely forgotten him now. It might be just me, but that seems to be a real shame. Lots of today's celebs could use a grilling from Roland, I would think. Imagine Beiber or Beyonce getting a lesson in superstardom from Roland. Just imagine.





Tuesday 23 February 2016

Skeletor: Why We Love Him


It's no secret that we love Skeletor on Back to the Eighties. He's one of our favourite villains of all time, right up there with the Joker, Mumm-Ra and David Cameron. But why? It's not as if by the end of the Masters of the Universe series he was particularly threatening, indeed, they'd turned him into He-Man's whipping boy at that point. No, seriously. Go back and watch the end of the second season of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. He's pretty much no more than a nusiance by that point, and it's sad to see.



It was all so different at the start. In "Diamond Ray of Disappearance" Skeletor was a true threat, taken seriously by all. Yes, his "big plan" involved a hook and rope taking down Castle Grayskull, but at least it was a plan, and not just an idea which may grow into a plan as long as He-Man (or even just Cringer, or kids with a puppy cyborg thingy) didn't immediately throw a spanner in the works.

But why do we love Skeletor? Why does he work as a villain? There's not just one reason. He's funny. Really funny. He's usually got a witty one liner, or major league putdown to throw not only in the direction of his underlings, ("Dolts! Halfwits! Brainless idiots, you couldn't even beat a motley group of gnomes!" is a particular favourite) but also at the heroes as well - now this happens a lot these days, but back in the early Eighties is wasn't so much of a regular occurence, villains would be exceedingly poe-faced and would usually call out the heroes on their demeanour, but wouldn't usually stoop to name calling like "flesh face". By the way, "flesh face"? One of my favourite insults, EVER.

He's also duplicitous and overbearing, bossy and needlessly cruel on occasion. Yes, even in the Filmation series. He has absolutely no qualms about sacrificing his own men, one time even leaving Mer Man to the mercies of Evilseed, with Mer Man declaring that even Skeletor should have at least one good bone in his body, Skeletor responds with "There isn't! Never has been, never will be." Even in that episode, the ONLY reason ol' skull-face sides with the heroes is out of complete self-interest.


Let's face it, his look is another reason we love him. He's just so completely distinctive looking, there really isn't another villain out there who looks like Skeletor. It took ages to get somewhat of a definitive answer for why he looks the way he does, too. The original explanation, given in the He-Man minicomics, is that he's one of many of his kind, from an alternate dimension of Infinita, come to Eternia to take over Castle Grayskull to allow others of his kind to TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE. That gets retconned (sorta) when it turns out that he's desperate for King Randor NOT to find Randor's half-brother Keldor, who disappeared years ago. This is again picked up in the 2002 Mike Young Productions version of MOTU, but this time Keldor has no familial connection to Randor, he just gets blasted in the face with acid instead of Randor. Of course, absolutely none of this is ever mentioned in the Filmation cartoon, he's just got a skull for a face, deal with it, yeah?


As villains go, in the big picture, Skeletor didn't really get an awful lot done in the Filmation cartoon. The 200X Skeletor was a complete beast, but again, didn't accomplish much. Still, he will forever remain a complete boss in the eyes of Back to the Eighties because he's a wiseass, skull faced, blue-skinned legend. Who is absolutely, positively, definitely, NOT nice.

Amen to that, Skeletor. Amen to that.




Saturday 20 February 2016

Episode 253 - Up the Wooden Hills to Bedfordshire


Jenny for World of Crap's back this week (yay!) and this time she's all about the state of bedrooms in the 80s, from the cabin beds, to the duvet covers, from the wall coverings to the carpets and curtains.

We also give you our opinions on a range of subjects from Snatch the Dog to Victoria Plum, so join the gang as we talk about all of this and much, much more.

Back to the Eighties Forum: backtotheeighties.freeforums.net

Back to the Eighties Blog: backtotheeightiespodcast.blogspot.co.uk

Back to the Eighties @ Twitter: @BTTEPOD

Back to the 80's on Facebook: facebook.com/bttepod


We've only gone and done it again...

Tuesday 16 February 2016

Episode 252 - Always Five, Acting As One


It's Glenn's turn to spotlight this week, and he's chosen to look at something that reminds him mainly of school holidays, sat in front of the television - it's the repurposed Ninja Science Team Gatchaman, sanitised and shortened for the benefit of Soccer Moms everywhere - Battle of the Planets!

We'll be taking a look at the adventures of the fearless young orphans of G Force, and their battles with the evil Spectra and ther leader Zoltar, who totally, completely had a sister. It wasn't him. No, really.

We'll also have some Toy Fair news, as well as all of the other things that held our interest over the last seven days, so join Glenn, Becca, Paula and Sam as they protect Earth's entire Galaxy.

Dedicated! Inseparable! Invincible!

Back to the Eighties Forum: backtotheeighties.freeforums.net

Back to the Eighties Blog: backtotheeightiespodcast.blogspot.co.uk

Back to the Eighties @ Twitter: @BTTEPOD

Back to the 80's on Facebook: facebook.com/bttepod


We've only gone and done it again...

Tuesday 9 February 2016

Episode 251 - Stephen King: The Maine Man


It's all about the horror this week (and some sci-fi and fantasy too) as Becca spotlights the legend that it Stephen King this week, with Glenn and horror novice Paula in attendence as well - there's also some HP Lovecraft and Poe thrown in as well, and a discussion on horror in general, including parodies such as the amazing Garth Marenghi's Darkplace!

Enjoy the podcast, people, just don't listen with the lights off...

Back to the Eighties Forum: backtotheeighties.freeforums.net

Back to the Eighties Blog: backtotheeightiespodcast.blogspot.co.uk

Back to the Eighties @ Twitter: @BTTEPOD

Back to the 80's on Facebook: facebook.com/bttepod


We've only gone and done it again...

Wednesday 3 February 2016

Back to the Eighties: Episode 250 - Playing games


With Glenn away, Sam, Becca and Paula decide to regress into childhood to talk about those playground games we used to play at school. Tig/Tag/It, Kiss Chase, Simon Says and more!

 

Plus, Sam decides to sell the concept of Super Sentai to Becca. Will it yield results?

 

 

 


We've only gone and done it again...