Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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| Image by Tumisu from Pixabay |
As we all know, the greatest film ever made was Fiend Without a Face, that stirring tale of what happens when an air force base in Canada is attacked by evil brains summoned up from the depths of one man's id.
How we gasped as they laid siege to a house.
How we shuddered as they came down the chimney.
Those, of course, are brains no man would ever wish to encounter. But here's a brain-related activity any man would give his right cerebral cortex to take part in.
And that's the feature in which the first person to comment gets to decide just what is to be discussed.
It could be almost any topic under the sun. Therefore, feel free to get the ball rolling and we shall see just what drama unfolds before us.
Posts
32 comments:
THE YEAR 1981 – WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES/RECOLLECTIONS ?
I'll kick off with some recollections - based on my 1981 diary, so self-indulgent I'm afraid...
Junior school ended, by early September 1981, and high school's horrors started!
But, before then...
A first, colour TV (Sony Trinitron) graced our lounge, on July 24th, 1981 – the Royal wedding, on July 29th, probably prompting that purchase!
March 16th 1981– Our family got a Datsun Cherry – still probably our best car.
Playing marbles (nigs) at junior school - also 'pegs' & 'rounders'.
1981 weather? - Channel 5's broadcast 1979 & 1982 shows about UK snow, so I assumed 1981 was a snowless year. However, according to my 1981 diary, on December 10th I built a snowman, and on December 13th it snowed – a lot!
1981 Comics
From September1979/well into1980, UK comics peaked for me. You had Jim Shooter's Avengers in Marvel Superheroes Monthly, plus Byrne's X-Men in American comics.
Sadly, Marvel's glory days seemed over, with 1981 dawning...
However, Iron Fist kept my Marvel interest going. Blockbuster featured Iron Fist's excellent early adventures, every month. Also, Power Man & Iron Fist became a favourite American acquisition, which – in my mere 4 or 5 issues - never failed. Every random Power Man & Iron Fist was good!
Who else saved 1981? Captain America, of course! John Byrne's excellent Captain America debuted in Captain America Weekly, backed up by Michelinie's Iron Man!
Also outstanding in 1981 was 'Savage Action' (my brother bought these), with Sienkiewicz & McLeod's Moon Knight, culminating in the top-rate Bushman storyline ( Moon Knight # 1).
Anything else significant, comics-wise? Well, starting 1981 chronologically, on January 10th I got Team-up Winter Special, cover dated 1980? ( it must have been Spidey & Red Sonja, with Black Panther & Storm as the “undercard” !) My brother got Valour's Winter special (Thor participates in the Trojan War), concurrently. Paper covers blighted both – strange, as UK Winter (& Summer) specials had glossy covers (usually!) The 'What If Phoenix had not died?' Winter Special (my Marvel Swan song) – although dated 1981? - must have been a 1982 acquisition.
Also, on June 3rd 1981, I got a Marvel Multimags (Iron Man # 137, Spidey & Howard the Duck, & I forget the 3rd title!)
In June 1981, I got the Captain Britain Summer Special (CB vs Spidey), with its outstanding Perez glossy cover. That's despite having read that story twice before!
August 1981 - 2nd hand Ms.Marvels & Rampage Monthlies (swaps?), from Leeds market!
Odd Adam Warlock Star Wars Weeklies, possible acquisitions, too. Plus, good ROMs bought.
1981 Television
“A Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy” was by far the biggest 1981 UK show, starting in June (on Thursdays), according to my diary. But let's be chronological...
In January 1981, “The Gaffer” started ( February, according to my diary ) – a show Rewind TV's recently been repeating - for the first time in 45 years!
For February 1981, “The Deceivers” is marked in my diary – a Jeremy Beadle ( later famous as a UK tv prankster! ) show.
Monkey's still being broadcast, in March & April 1981!
March 1981 – 'Sorry!' - excellent Ronnie Corbett sitcom!
May 1981 – 'Only When I Laugh' – ITV hospital sitcom. Also, comic duo Cannon & Ball.
Still with sci-fi, August 1981 saw “Sapphire & Steel” being broadcast! ITV comedy – 'A Sharp Intake of Breath'. BBC – 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum'.
In September/October 1981, new sci-fi comedy “Kinvig” is broadcast on Fridays. In September, my diary also mentions Kelly Monteith!
November – Kessler (Secret Army spin-off ) & 'Life on Earth' (must be repeats! )
US tv shows – Hart-to-Hart, Starsky & Hutch, Diff'rent Strokes, Incredible Hulk, Vegas, Kung Fu, Magnum, etc.
1981 MOVIES
May – Superman 2, July – Clash of the Titans, October – For your Eyes Only/ Raiders of the Lost Ark/Bakshi Lord of the Rings
1981 BOOKS/READING
Silmarillion (I read The LOTR the previous year), James Herriot books (2nd hand ), Lucky Les (a choose-your-own adventure), Tarzan books, Dr.Who & the Revenge of the Cybermen, Duncton Wood ( Watership Down, with Moles!), The Plague Dogs. That's apart from school fiction (mostly myths & legends – plus, I read a lot of Willard Price books at Juniors. ) Oh – I also read Raiders of the Lost Ark's novelisation
1981 Snacks – SKIPS, Farmer Browns, Piglets, Walkers Snaps (Spicy Tomato flavour), plus Griddles.
DO YOU HAVE ANY RECOLLECTIONS OF 1981?
Phillip
If anyone else's got a joint/or better topic, please go right ahead - I just had this one on the back burner!
Phillip
Phillip, you didn't mention Bucks Fizz winning the Eurovision Song Contest!
Nor did you mention the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle which was finally launched on Sunday, April 12th after a two-day delay.
My TV highlights of 1981 included Carl Sagan's Cosmos, Salem's Lot and Private Schultz.
Colin - Hmm...Bucks Fizz - strangely, I don't remember that registering, at the time. But, of course, I do remember 'Land of Make Believe', and other famous BF songs. You are right to highlight Cosmos - I don't know why I haven't got it - when I certainly watched Cosmos, at the time!
Phillip
Most memorable comic of 1981 was probably the double-sized Iron Man #150 in which Iron Man and Dr Doom are thrown back in time to King Arthur's Camelot. In 1982 there was a follow-up WHAT IF story called What If Iron Man Had Been Trapped In King Arthur's Time? which ends with Arthur getting killed and Iron Man being proclaimed "King Anthony Of Britain".
Colin - I never got that Iron Man story. Maybe it's referencing 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' - although that's a Mark Twain tale I haven't read, either. Maybe Team USA might know!
Phillip
Thinking on, Iron Man should have had his fill of time travelling, after the famously alliterative 'Frenzy in a Far Flung Future!' (I.M. #5)
Phillip
Happy St.Patrick's day to Sean!
Phillip
Phillip, thanks for the topic.
Memories of 1981?
Joe Dolce keeping Vienna off the top spot for what seemed like an eternity.
Buying The White Album and Abbey Road.
The Passions, Toyah, Kim Wilde, Landscape, the Human League, Laurie Anderson, and a whole bunch of other people, all sounding very modern.
Movie-wise, it was the Year Of The Werewolf — THE HOWLING, WOLFEN, and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. I re-watched HOWLING last year and thought it held up really well. I liked WOLFEN at the time but was never very keen on the Landis movie.
Also:
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, EXCALIBUR, BODY HEAT and others.
Musically, nothing is jumping out at me. I’ll have to research it. Same with comics.
b.t.
1981. Here goes...
The John Lennon interview in Playboy which was released in January.
The Rolling Stone interview with John Lennon which is sitting next to me on my 45 year old turntable (A naked Lennon kissing a clothed Ono.)
Lennon's "Double Fantasy."
"We Don't Need this Fascist Groove Thing" by Heaven 17 courtesy of Rolling Stone Magazine I bought it on the reporting.
New Wave / Synth had not really kicked in yet, in Chicago / USA.
And that's about it for contemporary culture stuff.
CH
Phillip, the cliffhanger final episode of Blake's 7 was broadcast in late 1981.
Shakin' Stevens made his chart debut with the #1 hit This Ole House and Adam & The Ants reached #1 with both Stand & Deliver and Prince Charming.
bt, two massive US #1 hits from 1981 that come to mind are Physical by Olivia Newton-John and Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes. Apparently Bette Davis sent Kim Carnes a big bunch of flowers with a note saying "Thank you for making me part of the modern world".
OK - as far as CH's Life was concerned...
Made it through my sophomore year in Engineering School at Purdue while pledging a fraternity. That diversion meant a night in County Lockup with my pledge brothers resulting in 25 hours of community service. That sentence meant working at an animal pound where they gassed the strays. We had to schlep them to a truck. Also cleaning up a gulch next door that had served as a dump for Lafayette, Indiana's rednecks.
The BIG hit song in the frat was SUGAR HILL GANG'S "RAPPERS DELIGHT." We boys and girls would line dance to that thing 2-3 times a night on w/end though it was from 1979.
"I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie
To the hip, hip-hop and you don't stop the rockin'
To the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie
To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat"
It was also the second and final time I ran in the nude olympics at Cary Quadrangle. It was always hosted on the presumably coldest night of the year. (Alas my kids found some photos of this event in their late teens.)
Lastly, in the summer I worked with Union Electricians doing odds/ends working construction on the last Blast Furnace ever built in the USA at Inland Steel, in East Chicago, Indiana. Blast Furnace #7. It still sticks out like an Egyptian Pyramid along the lake front.
CH
In November 1981 ABBA released The Visitors, their final album until Voyage in 2021.
Charlie, you just reminded me that Blondie's Rapture was a hit in 1981 - it reached #1 in the USA but only #5 in the UK following three consecutive UK #1 hits for Blondie in 1980 (Atomic, Call Me and The Tide Is High). I remember my friend Jason saying that Rapture was the only Blondie song he didn't like and I agreed with him at the time but I've come to appreciate Rapture in the years since.
MTV debuted in August but I don’t think I paid much attention to it until about midway through ‘82. I’m looking at the year-end Billboard Hot 100 for 1981 and I’m not seeing a whole lot of songs that I listened to. I liked “Jesse’s Girl” by Rick Springfield, “Treat Me Right” by Pat Benatar, and “Games People Play” by the Alan Parsons Project enough to buy the albums they came from.
A (very quick) scrub through 1981 at Mike’s Amazing World, and it looks like Frank Miller’s DAREDEVIL was probably my favorite monthly comic. I was very much looking forward to John Byrne taking over FANTASTIC FOUR but found it disappointing right from the jump. I read it off-and-on over the next year or two but it never grabbed me. Steranko’s adaptation of OUTLAND (serialized in HEAVY METAL) was pretty nifty, way more exciting than the mediocre movie.
That’s all I got!
b.t.
81 was still childish concerns, as I was in the last year of primary school before the hard, cold, grubby world of high school took over.
Movies were Superman 2 (several times), Dragonslayer (twice and I was very disappointed no-one else I knew went to see it), Clash Of The Titans (clunky and dated-looking), and the fantastic Time Bandits which took me completely by surprise.
We were still in the era where you’d get a short film or a documentary before the main feature, and they were all very boring except one called ‘Stretch Hunter’, which was a blacksploitation pastiche set in London. Still trying to track that down.
My best friend had a subscription to Starburst magazine and cinemas used to show trailers for X and AA movies before U and PG films back then, so I was intrigued by all the more adult movies that were frustratingly out of reach: Scanners, Outland, An American Werewolf In London and Altered States. Had to see them illicitly on home video a few years later.
Said friend had that year moved to a very nice big house that was a bit dusty and atmospheric and colours a lot of my memories of the era. It’s for sale now and if I could bear to move back to that town I’d snap it up in a second as it’s been in his family ever since and hasn’t changed at all.
I only read 2000AD, no American comics at all!
Didn’t listen to pop music actively but it was a cracking year in retrospect.
I liked TIME BANDITS and SCANNERS a lot. TB was kind of a surprise hit back in the day, got excellent reviews and made a bit of money, but you don’t hear much about it anymore. Upstaged by Gilliam’s later movies (12 MONKEYS, BRAZIL etc), I reckon.
Other movies I paid to see on the big screen back in ‘81 (and enjoyed to varying degrees):
REDS
RAGTIME
DAS BOOT
ARTHUR
BLOWOUT
EYE OF THE NEEDLE
SOUTHERN COMFORT
THIEF
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
THE EVIL DEAD
LOOKER
A few interesting train wrecks:
AMERICAN POP
GALAXY OF TERROR
SHOCK TREATMENT (the very odd ROCKY HORROR sequel)
And a few that I really didn’t care for :
PORKY’S
MOMMY DEAREST
b.t.
I was in the second year of senior school, in 1981, and the big deal was my first visit to the US. I was still a Madness/Two-tone fan and I remember visiting Universal Studios wearing stay-press trousers, a Fred Perry polo, brogues and a Harrington jacket, with short cropped hair. The local teens all seemed to be wearing faded, bell-bottom Levis and all had long, wavy, centre parted hair (both the boys and girls).The majority also had braces on their teeth, which was very much still a catalyst to be bullied, at my school. No shootings, however, which wasn't yet a thing.
What definitely was a thing was CB radio. Despite spending an age trying to come up with an impressive and 'handle' I somehow adopted Firefox. Not because of the Clint Eastwood movie, or the novel it was based upon, but rather the name of a radio controlled toy car I had. Despite this catastrophic loss of coolness, I also got my first girlfriend in 1981.
I don't think I was getting any UK comics in 1981, but was definitely picking up the X-men plus the odd Daredevil and Captain America. I'm now wondering how the paper-round money stretched so far.
A good year.
DW
"Shutupa Your Face!" was repeated far more in playgrounds across the nation than Vienna ever was!
Charlie - I wonder why American universities have fraternities/sororities (& hazing rituals), whereas UK universities don't (?)
The only Rolling Stone interview I've ever read's DD # 100 (with its terrible art!) ; )
Charlie - Regarding 'Kessler', yourself being a WW2 buff, 'Secret Army' might be required watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxsJaUwtUqA
However - whatever you do - don't watch Allo, Allo first!
b.t. - I've watched both 'The Howling' & 'An American Werewolf in London', but a long time ago.
The Howling starred that bloke who played Bo Dai Thung (Stringfellow Hawke's old mentor, who turned bad, and whom Hawke reluctantly had to kill, despite their mutual respect ) in 'Airwolf'. However, in The Howling, he was more of a ladies' man. I preferred Stone as a nihilistic nut-job, as per Airwolf (the villain/antagonist makes the show! )
In the UK, 'An American Werewolf in London' entered popular culture. When people go to a pub they've never visited before, and all the regulars turn in their seats, and stare, the newcomers laugh, muttering: "It's just An American
Werewolf in London!"
My first Byrne FF was # 212, in 1980 - The Sphinx vs Galactus - a cracking issue! Years later, however, I got the follow up, and it was a disappointment (as was often the case! )
Colin - Ah, Adam Ant....On a cinema trip to see For Your Eyes Only, on a friend's birthday, I seem to remember my brother repeatedly singing, "Prince Charming, Prince Charming - ridicule is nothing to be scared of!" The friends mother gave us both a rollicking, despite my having no part in it!
I thought I got into ABBA in late 1981, but it was probably early '82 (Greatest Hits Volume 2).
As regards the Visitors, my brother brought it back from Sheffield circa 1989/90.
That being said, I remember Head Over Heels being played by Terry Wogan, when my dad had the radio on, around breakfast time, in 1982.
As regards Radio shows, my 1981 diary records Tony's - a comedy radio show about a barber's shop. I vaguely remember this.
Matthew - Your comment about not actively listening to pop music probably fits me, too. Of course, you heard certain well-known ones - Boney M, Grease songs, Ringing My Bell, etc, but weren't actively seeking it out.
DW - I seem to recall the CB craze was related to BJ & the Bear (?)
Phillip
just like 'An American Werewolf in London' - Typo City, Arizona.
Phillip
Steve - My first comment should have had your name in front of it! (Lack of sleep! )
Phillip
1981 memories for myself were that this was the start of the Scottish movie mini explosion with the launch and success of Gregory's Girl.
I was working in 1981 and started a pretty good ( and not at all stressful) job dealing with youth training managing to leave a truly awful stressful job.
I moved into my first private rented flat to be nearer a girlfriend who shortly afterwards dumped me lol.
I was only buying Marvel UK Marvel Superheroes monthly title then and possibly the DC monthly reprint The Super-Heroes"
I remember being in London in 1971 training at the time Scotland beat England 1-0 ( not unusual then) and the animosity between the 2 fans being almost civilised in the pubs afterwards
I seem to recall it was a good year for music and I attended Echo and Bunnymen gig. LPs by Bowie, Echo, Stiff Litttkr Fingers, Gary US Bonds etc .
1981 in London not 1971 duh!
Paul - I've never been a big football fan, but - in the playground - the sticker albums were still compulsory! One year ( was it '78?), England didn't qualify, so even English kids took an interest in Scotland, its team being the only game in town! I remember it was a red sticker album, that year!
Phillip
I remember those sticker albums Phillip but up here we don't talk about the debacle of the 1978 World Cup lol. In 1970 Esso( I think) petrol released a coin set with one free coin with each purchase of petrol, featuring the England World Cup team ( we didn't qualify that year) . That set was an immensely popular series collected by us up here as well ( young and old) which was strange when you consider the intense rivalry between the 2 teams/countries at the time . Its amazing what 30 years of Scotland being rubbish can do to tame a rivalry lnow some Scottish kid actually support England when we're not at the finalsol
Paul - I suppose if some Scottish players, like Kenny Dalgliesh, were stars for English teams like Liverpool (putting aside the argument that Liverpool is a country unto itself! ), that gave English fans an excuse to root for them in the World Cup. And maybe vice versa (?)
Phillip
Phillip, 1981 -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1OOhkSkVZQ
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/the-northerner/2015/jan/06/sheffield-socialist-republic-south-yorkshire-1981
-sean
Sean - No mention of Sheffield's early 80s bus fare policy. Thus, not a true representation of the socialist republic of South Yorkshire!
Phillip
Fraternity hazing. My house had minimal and none dangerous or involving alcohol; it was just a nuisance.
Not sure why it’s a USA thing.
I did a little googling and learned my university banned the nude Olympics in 1986 a few years after I left.
Anyhow, a bunch of young men living together with limited life experience and unlimited alcohol (or drugs, now) is a potentially stupid and dangerous brew.
Tom Baker made his final appearance as Dr Who in 1981.
Politics in 1981:
Ronald Reagan became the new US President on January 20th (I remember watching the inauguration on BBC2 after coming home from school).
Francois Mitterand was elected President of France in May and spent 14 years in power (he died in January 1996 only 8 months after leaving office).
In the UK the "gang of four" who'd split from the Labour party founded their new party, the SDP, which formed a coalition with the Liberals and by late 1981 the SDP/Liberal Alliance was at 50% in the polls (match that, Farage!) but clearly they didn't "break the mould of British politics" as they claimed at the time.
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