Sub-Optimal

The six Transformers Adventure Game Books were released between 1985 and 1987 by Corgi. Gamebooks based on licensed properties are rarely high points of the genre, and whilst these don't plumb the depths of Dick Tracy: A Catch-a-Crook Adventure, they're not especially remarkable: each runs between 67 and 72 pages, and can have as few as three possible endings. They were authored by Dave Morris, who also wrote the Knightmare gamebooks and The Crystal Maze gamebook, as well as other series based on Enid Blyton's Adventure Squad, LEGO, James Bond Jr. and HeroQuest, but is best known for his work with Jamie Thomson on their own original ideas, most notably the incredibly ambitious Fabled Lands series.

The second book, Perils From the Stars, is the one that only has three possible endings -- one good, two bad. One of those bad endings, though, is a stunning example of one of my favourite ways to die in interactive fiction: The game allows you to voluntarily do something incredibly, lethally stupid. (Much thanks to regular commentator Ed Jolley for putting me on to this.)

You look to JAZZ, but he is still too groggy to act. STARSCREAM's homing beacon, which is attracting the falling weapons pod straight towards it, lies on the floor beside the telescope.

If you want to get the homing beacon and hurl it at STARSCREAM, turn to page 44

If you want to put it in your pocket, turn to page 46

B&T

In 1990, two of D. C. Thomson's remaining weekly humour titles, the Beezer (running since 1956) and the Topper (running since 1953) merged to form a publication which was called, not unreasonably, Beezer and Topper. The nature of the combined comic was a little different to other comics mergers -- usually the 'junior' title would merge into the 'senior' one, but these two titles got equal billing in a publication which was essentially considered a new comic in its own right, starting the numbering back at issue 1.

The Topper and the Beezer had arguably not moved with the times in the way D. C.'s other publications, the Beano and the Dandy, had, and this joining of forces saw several long-serving stories -- some of which had been running since the beginning -- get quietly retired. Amongst the stories not carried forward were Ginger, who had been the Beezer's cover star for some 28 of its 37 years, The Badd Lads, The Hillies and the Billies, Hungry Horace and Figaro, whilst several others would be retooled to better appeal to a modern audience, and a variety of entirely new strips also appeared.

Beezer and Topper would last for 153 issues and just under three years, and then both titles disappeared from weekly newsstands for good, although the Beezer Summer Specials and Christmas annuals would continue to be issued until 2002 (and the quarterly reprint titles The Best of the Beezer and The Best of the Topper until 1996 when they were supplanted by the all-purpose monthly Classics From the Comics); several of the 'legacy' characters moved over to the Beano and Dandy, but for others B&T would prove to be their last chance saloon.

The original plan here had been to scan in one issue from early in the run, to cover all the characters who'd crossed over from Beezer and Topper (some of them were phased out later on, whilst other new stories were chopped and changed). It wouldn't have been anywhere near as representative of the whole run as our look at Hoot was, and it'd probably have been worth scanning in one of the final issues later on to compare.

However, upon unearthing the issues in my possession I discovered that B&T had such a large roster of stories that most of them didn't appear every week, so I went for a different approach: from across five different issues, here's one example of each 'legacy' character, and a selection of notable strips that were unique to the merger.

Just Ask For International Broadcasts Of South By South East

You remember that thing that sort of took over this blog for a period of several years where I was looking for (and eventualy found) the missing Children's ITV serial The Diamond Brothers: South by South East, don't you? Yes? Marvellous. If not, go here, go to the oldest post and work your way forwards from there. I promise you it's worth your while.

Anyway, I have some newly unearthed information on international broadcasts which you may as well have, as these airings would have used the original version of episode 3, and anything that could possibly help me find it is worth a try.

American viewers would have seen the show on the Disney Channel weekly from 7 April to 12 May 1993; the broadcast of episode 1 was preceded by a showing of Just Ask for Diamond, under its international title of Diamond's Edge.

The other thing is a bit more esoteric, but an Indian viewer got in touch to say they recall the show being broadcast on Saturday afternoons on a channel called StarPlus; they can't recall the exact year, but it may have been somewhere between 1992 and 1994. Anyone able to point me in the direction of some archive Indian TV listings?

Check, Please

Goodness Gracious Me was a groundbreaking sketch show that popularised British-Asian comedy and helped make household names of people like Sanjeev Bhaskar.

In the fourth episode of Series 1 (TX: 02/02/98), in the "Bhangra Muffins" sketch, Kulvinder Ghur is reading a copy of the Beano.

We get a nice close look at it at the start of the sketch, so through the magic of iPlayer it's pretty easy to tell it's issue #2882, dated 11/10/97:

A valuable clue as to the recording dates of Goodness Gracious Me, to be sure, but this issue was originally sold with a free lolly, and the issue seen onscreen appears to have had the sticky tape attaching the free gift to the issue very carefully removed to avoid ripping or damaging the cover.

So we can figure that a production runner sent to the nearest newsagent's had an interesting afternoon, if nothing else.

Numskull Valley

The Numskulls, a comic strip about the microscopic humanoids everyone has living inside them who control all your bodily functions, launched in the Beezer in 1962, some six years into the comic's run. (The above strip hails from the Beezer Book 1975, but you can see one of the very first editions here.) If you've picked up a copy of the Beano at any point in the last thirty years, you'll probably be aware that the strip is still running there to this day -- indeed, it is the only strip to originate in the Beezer that has survived to the last of the weekly humour anthology comics still going. The route it took to the present, however, isn't exactly straightforward.

Potato Man

On the 15th June 1992, then-Vice President of the United States Dan Quayle, on the campaign trail for that year's presidential election, visits Muñoz Rivera Elementary School and commits one of the most famous political gaffes in history when he "corrects" a 12-year-old pupil's spelling of 'potato' to 'potatoe'.

Ten days later, on the 25th June, Fox airs a repeat of The Simpsons; appropriately enough, the episode is "Two Cars In Every Garage, Three Eyes On Every Fish". The blackboard joke in the opening sequence is usually "I will not xerox my butt", but for this repeat, a new joke is hastily added: "'potato', not 'potatoe'".

This alternate blackboard -- seen on that repeat, and that repeat only -- has become one of the few pieces of Simpsons miscellany completely lost to time. It's frustrating, because the joke was reported in advance in newspapers, and you'd expect someone to have their VCR switched on for it. I've made more than one attempt to track it down in the past, but as of yet things haven't gone anywhere.

One thing I did think to do, though, was check alt.tv.simpsons for any contemporary posts regarding the joke. Multiple posts describe the blackboard as looking very last-minute, saying that the text visibly shimmered or moved around:

Great bit on the Simpson's tonight....
For those of you who don't watch the show, a running joke in the opening credits involves Bart writing something on the blackboard over and over. Past sentences have included "I will not expose the faculty's ignorance.". Well, though tonight's show was actually a repeat, they did change the sentence on the blackboard. Looked like a last minute thing, since the blackboard portion of the shot shimmered badly.
Tonight's slogan: "Potato" not "Potatoe".

Something Stupid

You pull the lever down -- the fatal connection is made. The red lights begin to flash with a strobe-like rapidity, a screaming siren starts up and a great rumbling goes through the ship. From all around you a deep machine voice booms out:

REACTOR CORE NOW UNSHIELDED

TERMINAL MALFUNCTION IN T MINUS TWO MINUTES

DESTRUCTION OF VANDERVECKEN WILL FOLLOW IN T MINUS SIX MINUTES

Realizing that you've really done it this time, you run from the room, throwing yourself through the hatchway into the tunnel beyond. Will you take the left tunnel (turn to 21) or the right tunnel (turn to 281)?

* * *

Space Assassin is not one of the most highly regarded Fighting Fantasy books, even for one of the science-fiction titles in the range, but I've always had a soft spot for its sense of humour and flairs of creativity. I am also really drawn to game overs in interactive fiction which allow the player character to do something really stupid, and Space Assassin devotes a not insignificant number of sections to letting the player character enter a maintenance hatch deep in the bowels of the Vandervecken marked "WARNING -- EXTREME DANGER -- ENTER ONLY WITH AUTHORITY" and muck about with a control panel until they accidentally unshield the reactor core of the spaceship's engines (red lights pulsing and menacing tones sounding as you do so, basically making it as clear as possible without actually saying so that this is an unbelievably ill-advised course of action). The ship's reaction when the hero first starts messing with the controls is so ominous that they pause in fear for several minutes, and they're still given the option to carry on!

Drugs on E4

At the moment E4's Sunday-night Simpsons block, rather than running episodes in order like they do the other six nights of the week, is a theme night, with five episodes connected by something. Thus far they've had a Treehouse of Horror night, a night of Homer episodes for Father's Day, a Lisa Night, next Sunday is based around musical guest stars... it's a cute little touch, especially since each night has a name given to it which shows up in the EPG.

I was quite late to notice this, though, and only spotted yesterday what they'd run on 8th June.

Uh. Did they seriously run a theme night based around drugs? It's hard to see any other line of logic that could connect those five episodes. The Internet Archive to the rescue...

Riiiiiiiight. The theme is "weird and far out episodes". Nothing to do with drugs at all.

Sure.