I got quite a lot of writing done this year -- by far the most since I moved the blog to an "ideally once a month" update schedule -- and some of it I'm really quite proud of.
Whilst 2021 and 2022's round-ups were mostly taken up with my quest regarding the 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series, that sort of hit a wall this year, because when I finally accomplished the goal of actually seeing it last year I was faced with an issue pertaining to the fact that episode 3 fell off-air halfway through its one and only UK broadcast: I still don't know who all of the actors in that episode are, and any further writing I want to do on the subject can't really proceed until I do. My offering from the 2022 round-up is still open: The full series is now on YouTube, and any thoughts you might have on the subject would be gratefully received. Someone must recognise those last few unidentified players...
I didn't make zero progress on the subject, however, as I set my mind on some other questions regarding that transmission error. I successfully worked out where the fault occurred, as part of a post trying to work out how exactly ITV coped with the issue that otherwise turned out to be completely wrong, and was back not long after with the true story of how the channel rearranged its schedule in the wake of the problem. Even more excitingly, not long after a second copy of the series turned up, revealing the previously unseen bodge-job performed when ITV broadcast the second half of episode 3 a week later.
(I include this just as a side-note, but someone has just a week or two ago uploaded the opening titles for Just Ask for Diamond -- the film which the TV series served as a sequel to -- to YouTube. I legitimately think that might be my favourite opening sequence for a film ever made.)
On other matters, I looked at the differences between two different versions of some obscure adventure gamebooks here and here; investigated what happened when TV listings magazines of the nineties inexplicably claimed David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were to appear on Have I Got News for You; and the episode of Would I Lie to You? I was in the audience for finally aired, allowing me to write up all the various truths, lies and other scraps that didn't get shown on TV more than a year later.
I made two very successful trips to the land of broken gamebooks, both looking at Fighting Fantasy books, covering an accidentally immortal lizard man and an opportunity to make yourself as strong or lucky as you like by repeatedly dying. I was next in the audience for the Bath recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, and reported back with some more detailed tidbits after the shows had gone out, including the great power cut farrago. As we moved into the summer, I looked at an odd and hitherto largely unnoticed animation retake on the very first episode of The Simpsons, and examined a single line from a thirty-year-old video game in far too much detail. BBC Two's decision to repeat the first two series of Red Dwarf not only gave me an opportunity to update my BBC Broadcasts Guide for the show, but also provide some largely unfounded speculation on the original production and broadcast orders of the very first series.
As the Autumn loomed, it was time for me to once again predict what Channel 4 might censor from the season of The Simpsons they were due to get the rights to for the first time. October saw the beginning of a period where the blog updated on a weekly basis for a full month and a half, mostly as I looked at several series of adventure gamebooks based on licensed properties, covering the Asterix series Alea Jacta Est!, Give Yourself Goosebumps and -- in what has somewhat oddly become one of my favourite things I've ever written -- The Famous Five and You.
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A Brief Diversion on the German Translations of The Famous Five and You
Actually, here's a little addition to that last one: From 1995-97, The Famous Five and You was translated into German -- a country where Blyton's books and adventure gamebooks in general are very popular. That might explain, therefore, why the German translators proceeded to write eight of their own titles after they'd finished translating the original English ones, taking the series up to 2002!
The titles of the German originals, and their literal English translations, have been provided by Demian's Gamebook Webpage:
7. The Famous Five and You in Camp -- presumably an adaptation of the seventh Blyton book, Five Go Off to Camp
8. The Famous Five and You Come into Difficulties -- too vague to pin down
9. The Famous Five and You Help the Comrades -- also seems too vague to pin down, but might fit the ninth Blyton book, Five Fall into Adventure
10. The Famous Five and You On a Big Trip -- presumably an adaptation of the tenth Blyton book, Five on a Hike Together
11. The Famous Five and You as Emergency Rescuers -- would match the eleventh Blyton book, Five Have a Wonderful Time
12. The Famous Five and You in the Old Tower -- would match the twelfth Blyton book, Five Go Down to the Sea
13. The Famous Five and You Hunt the Kidnappers -- might fit the thirteenth Blyton book, Five Go to Mystery Moor, but that's really more about forgers
14. The Famous Five and You Pursue the Beach Robbers -- wouldn't seem to fit the fourteenth Blyton book, Five Have Plenty of Fun
Conclusion: The German translators (Nele Moost, who'd translated the six English originals, wrote books 7-11, then a different person, Wolfgang Mennel, took over for the final three, which were all published the same year) probably just carried on adapting the books in the original publication order, but might have gone a little off-piste once or twice. The input of any German gamebook enthusiasts would be most welcome here.
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I also salvaged the dates and details for the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue stage show from Wikipedia after some tosser removed them, looked at the radio adaptation of One Foot in the Grave, and Sky Showcase premiered the Simpsons Season 34 episode "Treehouse of Horror XXXIII" several months after the rest of the season, allowing me to find much interest in their belated premiere. I then finally reported back with the full list of cuts Channel 4 had made to Season 31 of Our Favourite Family, taking everyone by surprise as they treated the show with far more lenience than they have in the last few years. Working out all those cuts drains a surprising amount of my writing time, but I think I was able to keep the blog much more active during that period than it has been in previous years, and I even managed to squeeze in (another piece I've bizarrely become very fond of) a festive look at the use of the Beezer as a prop in One Foot in the Grave just before Christmas.
Actually, this seems as good a place as any to make a note regarding The Simpsons on Sky: Following their decision to move Season 29 to a later, 8pm timeslot, I initially noted that the episodes were mostly if not entirely untampered with, but a few apparent cuts in Seasons 32 (mostly involving a certain word that crops up in "Missionary: Impossible") and up have been clocked recently that I'll get onto when it's time for C4 to show those episodes. For Season 33, Sky moved back to early-evening premieres which initially didn't seem to affect the level of censorship, but I think I was lulled into a false sense of security by them leaving the word 'shit' in in the 6pm premiere of the S33 opener "The Star of the Backstage" and hence missed some later cuts. However, Sky retained the later 8pm slot for narrative repeats, and from what I can piece together it looks like most (but not all) cuts from the earlier showings were reinstated for those airings... again, I'll go into more detail when C4 get the rights.
I find it quite difficult to figure out how to end these round-ups -- I don't ever really have any particular plans for the future of the blog (well, there will be a new post tomorrow as it happens, so do come back for that) -- but I did provide some very amateur photography from the Game of Thrones studio tour and a nearby exhibition of Doctor Who art, which seem like a nice note to close on if you haven't seem them already.
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