Lost in N-Space

The Summer of 1993: A brand new, fully dramatised Doctor Who radio drama, The Paradise of Death, is recorded and broadcast in five weekly parts on Radio 5 - the first new 'proper' Who made by the BBC since Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred went to find cities made of smoke and people made of song in December 1989. It stars Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney, and was written by the producer of Pertwee's television era, Barry Letts. Letts went on to novelise the story for Target Books the following year. (I'm going somewhere with all this, don't worry.)

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Witty Article Title Referring to the Radio Times

Well, having just covered a history of The News Quiz and Just a Minute in Radio Times listings, it seems only natural that we wrap up Radio 4 Comedy Panel Show Listings Month with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. (It's a real shame The Unbelievable Truth only arrived on the scene long after the custom of specially-written listings had stopped.)

Just a Minute: Deviation of a Listing

When Just a Minute began on 22 December 1967, its very first Radio Times listing described it as "a panel game controlled by Nicholas Parsons".

By the time of its very next billing, on 29 December, the RT had seen fit to add "(!)" after the word "controlled", perhaps indicating sarcasm or disbelief at the choice of words.

"Put In A Questionable Way..."

For this week: anomalies and points of interest I have found whilst looking at old Radio Times listings for The News Quiz.

Broken Gamebooks #5 ½: Return to the Crown of Kings

Steve Jackson's Sorcery! has received a bit of an errata from the blog in the past. But here's something I missed out on the first time round, and I think is worthy of a post in its own right. (It would help to read the original article if you haven't already, naturally.)

Adventure Games Live

In lieu of a proper blog post this week, I thought I'd point my regular readers in the direction of Adventure Games Live, given the popularity of the gamebook articles on here. AGL features a whole suite of old-school text adventure games, ranging from trivially easy to incredibly hard, is a fantastic way to kill time, and the website is still active but not updated so it's easy to miss.

I find websites of that kind quite fascinating for whatever reason - there's still a small trickle of viewers playing the games, and there's one or two people on the discussion forums, but the webmaster is no longer aware. AGL is part of a wider website, RinkWorks, and you can see from the main page that there's even a few automated features still regularly updating. Like a virtual ghost town. (NB: Interestingly, in the time between me queuing up this post and it going live, part of the website seems to have come back to life...)

So, yeah, do check it out. Good fun.

Bananaman Unpeeled

One of the most recognisable faces to appear in DC Thomson's range of childrens' comics, Bananaman started life in the Nutty in 1980, then when that comic folded in 1985 he moved over to the Dandy, and with that having gone out of print in 2012 these days he's found in the Beano. Such was the character's popularity he not only had his own annual between 1983 and 1986 (despite the Nutty not receiving that honour), he also appeared in a series of animated five-minute shorts aired on the BBC for three series in 1983, 1984 and 1986 (with all the voices done by the Goodies, who allegedly thought the show was complete rubbish, and some rather catchy music), and it's those we're interested in here.

Edit Wars #6: International Insurrection

The year is 2000, Robot Wars is really hitting its stride, and a new video-only release, The First World Championship, offers the chance to see the best of British roboteering fight against robots from around the world. Except, erm, not really.