Titans Return Wolfwire w/ Monxo Review

Review of Wolfwire and Monxo this is. Supposed to be Weirdwolf it was, lost the right to the name they have. Useless tosspieces they are.

Episode 277 - Talkin' Toys

From Speak'n'Spell to 2XL, from Major Morgan to Teddy Ruxpin, Paula's going to take us down an aural memory lane this week with a spotlight on talking toys of the 1980's!
Becka and Glenn come along for the ride, and chip in their favourites - what are YOUR faves?
Next week: it's Morphin' time!
Back to the Eighties Forum: backtotheeighties.freeforums.net
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We've only gone and done it again...

Masters of the Universe Trap Jaw (1982)

It's been a while since we last looked at anything Masters related, so here he is - Trap Jaw from the very first incarnation from 1982!

Playmates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Classics Collection Figures! - Cymru Nerd Cave

Heroes in a half shell - Turtle Power!

Let's have a retroactive look at the mutants from Manhattan in the form of their Playmates Classics Collection from 2012!

Episode 255 - Big Fat TV Theme Quiz of the 80's

It's finally time for the quiz everyone's been waiting for - how many of the 30 TV themes featured in this week's quiz do you think you can name?
Join Becca, Paula and Sam as they face the questions from Glenn, our very own Jim Bowen, Terry Wogan and Bob Monkhouse rolled into one, and see if you can do better than they did?
Definitely share your answers and scores with us, even post a picture of your answer sheet if you can, so we can see how well you did! Also, let us know if you enjoyed this quiz, so we can do this again!
Good luck!
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...

CASTLE GRAYSKULL (1982, Mattel) REVIEW! Cymru Nerd Cave

By the Power of Grayskull! Let's have a look at THE premier playset of the early 1980s, and see why it was such a success for Mattel.

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.

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.