On June 20th, 1973 the world lost one of its most iconic figures at a ridiculously young age when Bruce Lee died just days before the release of the biggest film of his career "Enter The Dragon". His name would become synonymous with deadly accuracy, quiet dignity and martial arts skills envied the world over. ...unless you were a schoolboy in the 70s and 80s in which he was probably most famous as something bigger boys would shout whilst pretending to do kung fu kicks on bus stops and throwing the smaller ones' bags on the science block roof.
Despite being an 18 certificate release, "Enter The Dragon" would have been seen by every single lying schoolboy for decades although its actually much more likely that their information was gleaned not from the movies but 1984's "Bruce Lee" for ZX Spectrum and C64, one of the most popular games of the era as this powerful footage reveals...
The 80s were a strange but wonderful boom time for games with tiny teams of people working on full titles that could go on to be million sellers. With so many games on the market though, celebrity endorsements quickly became common with every sports person, musician or actor worth their salt having their own barely recognisable 8-bit home version.
Which famous folk are featured here in their own real 80's 8-bit licensed games?
1. Daley Thompson (Daley Thompson's Decathlon), 2. Benny Hill (Benny Hill's Madcap Chase!), 3. Frank Bruno (Frank Bruno's Boxing)
4. Gary Lineker (Gary Lineker's Hot-Shots), 5. Bob Monkhouse (Bob's Full House) 6. Samantha Fox (Samantha Fox Strip Poker)
A: 7. Geoff Capes (Geoff Capes Strong Man), 8. Bruce Forsyth (Bruce's Play Your Cards Right), 9. Jocky Wilson (Jocky Wilson's Darts Challenge), 10. Michael Jackson (Michael Jackson's Moonwalker)
Did you guess them all? If so, tell me on Twitter @ twitter.com/punkrockpubquiz! And if you liked the quiz, please do tell your friends. And now the serious celebrity tie-in omission I know you were all about to spam the comments with...Stuart Henry's Pop Quiz!!!!!!!!!!
Many achievements have been fought for and won throughout the centuries but the world never looked at us with such respect and admiration as this very date twenty years ago when the following epoch shattering moment occurred...
I can still remember where I was, although for decency I'll spare you what I was doing. Being a indie kid I should've loathed the Spices and all the gooey, hugging pure pop they stood for and yet, despite fancying them rotten, I couldn't help but be swept away by the sheer joy of the singles which would only get better and better throughout the next 18 months. When contrasted to the dreary post-Britpop indie fallout of the time, its easy to see why the nation embraced them with such love and inappropriate touching.
But it wasn't all Spice Spice Spice in the 90s, no ma'am, as some of the greatest pop of the decade had been performed by girl groups. Along with a load of old forgotten shite like Girl Thing, Girls@Play and Girly Girl Girlingtons Group (although I may have just made that one up). I wont have a bad word said about 21st Century Girls, mind who were bloody great fun.
Now I know what, you're all thinking, "Wot? No Buffalo G?" to which I say YES BUFFALO G!
For children of the 1970s in Britain there were three certainties:
Getting into a Rolls-Royce in Stoke Mandeville was ill-advised.
Look-In magazine will feature an alarming hand-painted front cover of the biggest in vogue celebrity, musician or TV star (assuming that star is on an ITV programme only)
The Grimleys is on.
Moving back to number two and its always a source of joy to compile quizzes about old magazines as they really are the closest thing to a direct time tunnel with access to everything you could possibly need from that period in history. Or more likely with Look-In, a selection of baffled "WHO THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT?" (I was born in 1980, we didn't allow Skiboys.) pointing.
And I still haven't gotten over whatever this is...
So to help in my identification process, here are four front covers as its time to ask...
"Who the f**k ...in Look-In?"
Click here for the answers:
1. Paul McCartney, 2. Boney M, 3. Bjorn Borg, 4. David Essex
And as ever, if you like this quiz, please please share it! Thank you.
We all love the telly, right? Shows like "The Big Bread-Off", "Britain's Got Some Tapdancers" and "Baddiel's Syndrome" are all we as a nation ever talk about by the 'watered coolers' of Great Britain. And don't even get me started on "Game Of Chairs"!!!!! Honestly, some days I think I watch so much TV I should get a badge for it!!!
Um...ok, that was weird. Moving on...
So, in order to scratch your TV itch, here's another "Looking Back On Today" quiz. Another chance to dip into the schedules of yesteryear and pull out some plums. Not like that, that's right out. But...
...What are these ten programmes that originally aired on this date - 3rd May - in the UK?
Remember! If you like this quiz, please share it with your friends!
And now a piece of thinking-time music before the answers.
NO!
1. Play School, 2. Spitting Image, 3. Call My Bluff, 4. The Waltons, 5. Vision On, 6. V, 7. 'Allo 'Allo, 8. Right To Reply, 9. The Magic Roundabout, 10. The Old Grey Whistle Test
Strap your opinions to your face and run to the nearest Scout hut to cast your constitutional right in a little booth because (if you're in England because that's where I perhaps foolishly assume most of my readers come from) Its Voting Day! Whether it's Police commissioner, local council or which flavour delicious New Covent Garden SoupTM you want for dinner, it's important to make sure your voice is heard. Because god knows, the people who disagree with you will be! Donald Drumpf etc.
But what if you could only vote for people whose birthday it is today? Well, thats a frankly ludicrous suggestion and should not be considered. But imagine if that was the premise of a quiz! Which ten candidates born on May 5th are represented here by their campaign pledges?
1. My P.R.O.M.I.S.E. to you is that no matter what happens, I will stand by my manifesto. 2. No matter where I am flying in the world, I will keep an note in my diaries to stick to the mission and never spam you with yarns. 3. I pledge instant contact. No calls diverted to answer phone. Maybe I could take you for a drink on Tuesday and see how the week goes from there. (Except Sunday.) 4. Some may say it's a fable but as a syndicate of humanity, black and white, we can all make this populous great. 5. Steel yourself for a man who knows what is best for this world, even if I am not from here myself. 6. Despite what my surname suggests, I am neither a sitcom hologram or like to put my wilbus up around the bottom area. No cooking of the books but lets do brunch. 7. I promise a sparing of cutters across the board by 1984. (A sparing of cutters across the board by 1984.) Sorry, is there an echo in here? 8. If elected, I will increase the use of terrifying electronic noises on them big reel to reel tape machines and some oscillator things. If you've got the Time, then I'm your Lady. 9. Hello, its me. I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet to go over increased EU subsidies on corn and wheat by-product importation. 10. You want a manifesto? I got your manifesto right here. Top marks.
Today is also rapper and repeated woman puncher Chris Brown's birthday but he can, of course, die in a fire. And now the results from the Buttocks (South) council...
1. Tammy Wynette, 2. Michael Palin, 3. Craig David, 4. Peter Molyneux (games designer), 5. Henry Cavill (actor and current Superman), 6. Simon Rimmer (chef), 7. Ian McCulloch (Echo and The Bunnymen), 8. Delia Derbyshire, 9. Adele, 10. Karl Marx
I was recently in the three by two foot section WHSmith has left allocated for magazines next to the chocolates, cards, Kobo Readers, board games and novelty musical socks. (You know, just next to the internal Post Office and the fourth KFC.) Anyway, it was there I noticed a new copy of Kerrang! magazine, a periodical I read faithfully between the years 1995 to 2001 and had assumed folded the minute I stopped reading it because music was not as good as it used to be.
Amazingly it was full of new bands I'd never heard of in my befuddled 35 year old state. All Time Low? Pierce The Veil?? I. Ron Maiden? WHO?!? Where were the likes of Symposium, Midget, Tampasm and Kittie? The only face I seemed to recognise on a cursory glance over was actually a drawing: Pandora, Ray Zell's excellent snarky rock star dismisser who had taken down all the bands of my reading era. Not that I had a clue which current rock star she was presently snarking at but it was good to see her carrying on nonetheless.
And so I wondered if any of the old strips were online and - would you adam and Eve 6 it - there's a whole archive!! You can guess the next bit...
Which various musical types is Pandora graciously allowing in her strip below? Answers after Continuum...
1. Ash, 2. Jon Bon Jovi, 3. Green Day, 4. Ozzy Osbourne, 5. The Hives, 6. Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit), 7. Marilyn Manson, 8. Courtney Love, 9. Jonathan Davis (Korn), 10. Keith Flint (The Prodigy)
Who knew when I launched this blog that one of the most popular features would very quickly turn out to be wonky watercolour paintings of 1970's celebrities? Well, everyone probably because no matter how much we say its "sociological research into pre-Thatcherite Britain" and "valid social history", really we're just fascinated at the fact a magazine could look like that in this modern age of glossy, gift-bulging titles. Doesn't hurt some of the contents are (as they should be) baffling to a 2016 audience. But, as always, now ask the question: "Who the f**k ...in Look-In?"
Which celebrities are seen here in all their 70s pomp and glory?
Answers afer OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?
David Kid Jensen, Mike Reid, David Cassidy, Les Dawson as Superflop
Are we still doing the 1996 thing? Well, okay then. Looking back at Tuesday's TV quiz, there were a few folks surprised I'd missed out what was for them the biggest telly event of the year - no, not the episode of Seaquest DSV where Darwin said "knackers" - but Doctor Who which was back back BACK! For 85 minutes! (89 without PAL speedup) And then it was gone again! Which from a modern perspective, eleven years and four Doctors into a revival, was a blessing in disguise, no matter how good Paul McGann was in the role.
It had rated well enough to finish ninth in the week's TV with over 9 million viewers on a Bank Holiday Monday in May. Sadly in America, the story was always that it was crushed by its competition and only managed 5 and a half million. Enough to launch fifty Netflix series on now but in 1996, not great for national US television. So, what did it go up against? Well, that's for you to tell me in The Great Time Lord Rivalry Of 1996...
Here are six screengrabs from the actual episodes up against Doctor Who the night of May 14th 1996 (The John Larroquette Show, Wings, Moesha and CBS' Totally Animals amazingly did not make the list) but can you work out what the programmes are?
And as a bonus, here are four more programmes and episodes that aired that same week on the same channel as Who. (Fox.) Can you guess them all?
Answers after Jimi Hendrix picks up his puppy....
Home Improvement (Alarmed by Burglars), Roseanne (Heart & Soul), Ellen (The Tape), Frasier (The Focus Group), 3rd Rock from the Sun (Selfish Dick), NYPD Blue (Closing Time), The X Files (Talitha Cumi), The Simpsons (Homerpalooza), Beverly Hills 90210 (Ray of Hope), Married...with Children (The Joke's on Al)
Did you know that as well as being a world champion quizzist and powerful blog-wrangler, I also write and perform for various podcasts? One of which is "From The Sublime", an excellent review of recent pop-culture put together by journalist Iain Hepburn.
The latest episode is now available to download and is a special "1996" themed show with features on the likes of This Life, the much missed Neon magazine, Baddiel, Skinner and the brief spell of Euro 96 fever, pop and the promise of Babylon Zoo, WWF vs WWE vs NWO, celebrating Scottish fiction with the Children of Albion Rovers and there's myself talking about the time Bob Mortimer and Noel Gallagher went to Chris Evans house for Good Friday tea.
As a bit of cross promotional confrontation, here's a special 1996 movie quiz in which SIXTEEN of the year's biggest films have had their logos adapted to make a sentence....just. How much do you remember about the tinseltown tosspots of twenty years ago? Lets find out...
Answers after some fashionable heroin.
Independence Day, Twister, Mission: Impossible, The Rock, The First Wives Club, Romeo and Juliet, Ransom, The Cable Guy, Trainspotting, Striptease, Mars Attacks!, Eraser, The Birdcage, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Jerry Maguire, 101 Dalmatians
And so as the internet lights four candles for the passing of A Ronnie, we'd best have a nice gentle lunchtime quiz here at the blog. So we return to the heyday of the Rons, the imperial seventies and another run of four Look-In cover stars that could be anyone from Barbara Lott to Barbapapa, as I ask "Who the f**k ...in Look-In?"
And whilst you think on them, lets all listen to our new national anthem....
1. Ronnie Alvin Stardust, 2. Ronnie Cat Stevens, 3. Ronnie Sparks, 4. Ronnie Madness
As you may have seen in various news stories around the web, today marks the tenth anniversary of the first tweet ever sent back when Ian Twitter first sent the message "I am leaving Twitter #blessed" on 21st March, 2006. No, really its true. Mostly.
But what if Twitter had been around much longer than that? And was already much in use in the worlds of fictional characters? That rather slight but intriguing premise is the crux for today's PRPQ lunchtime quiz. All you have to do is work out which characters from TV, film, literature and pop culture could've sent the following tweets...
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Answers can be found below...
1. Billy Bunter, 2. Officer Dibble (Boss Cat), 3. Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West (Benny Hill), 4. Emu, 5. Zammo (Grange Hill), 6. Dr Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap), 7. Carwash (Willo The Wisp), 8. Luigi (Super Mario Bros), 9. Pacman, 10. ALF
More St Patrick's Day shillelagh-anigans with some more live clips, this time from 2015's "Salute To Irish Ireland", starting with one of the Irish musical big guns, The Irish Rover. Or at least the lyrics are. But as for the five artists and songs they're being performed in the style of, that's anybody's guess...
A regular appearance at our quiz nights is the singing superstar Steven Patrick Overcoat Morrissey who provides Smiths-esque medleys of various acts or styles. Being the most Irish man of all time (as evidenced by his 2004 hit "Irish Blood, English Bum") it was inevitable he would turn up to do a megamix of Irish hits both Eire and Northern based. See how many you can pick out.
Bizarrely that Morrissey round was featured on the front page of Audioboom once and got us a thousand plays in a day. Wonder how many of the buggers bought a book....
Final round for now (you can see the full quiz in said just mentioned book) and its time for a jolly sing-a-long with that other staple of pissed toothless arseholes sloshing Guinness around everywhere The Wild Rover. And he sure has roved - all over the world! So much so he's picked up five different languages for the choruses. Can you work out which?
That's all the dubious stereotyping for this Paddy's Day! Have a safe one! Don't drink too many lovely pints!
THE IRISH ROVER: 1. Zombie – The Cranberries, 2. Parklife – Blur, 3. Rockin' In the Free World – Neil Young, 4. I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor – Arctic Monkeys, 5. Come Together – The Beatles / MORRISSEY DOES IRELAND: Dirty Old Town (Various), Whiskey In The Jar (Various), Jailbreak (Thin Lizzy), My Perfect Cousin (Undertones), I Don't Like Mondays (Boomtown Rats), Orinoco Flow (Enya), Nothing Compares 2 U (Sinead O'Connor), Screamager (Therapy?), Them Girls Them Girls (Zig and Zag), Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol), What Can I Do? (The Corrs), Lipstick (Jedward), My Lovely Horse (The Divine Comedy)/ THE WILD ROVER: 1. French, 2. German, 3. Dutch, 4. Russian, 5. Chinese
For those of a certain age, Look-In magazine was the go to place to learn about the latest trends in pop, film and television, specifically ITV programmes on the myriad of now-long dissolved telly regions. One of the key features that made it stand out from its pop mag brethren was its eschewing of photographs in favour of especially commissioned painted covers, invariably done by respected Italian film poster artist Arnaldo Putzu.
Sometimes this resulted in a wonderful, unique rendering of a current favourite, such as this wonderful "Monster" mash-up...
But sometimes under tight deadlines and less than reliable source material, it could go a bit wrong and you'd end up with something like...I do not know what this is...
And so, a regular feature here on the blog will be "Who The Fuck...in Look-In?" devoted to four not necessarily obvious cover stars of the past. Here's the first...
Answers below....
1. Bryan Ferry, 2. Gary Numan, 3. David Jason, 4. The Police
