I had quite the surprise when watching Saturday morning’s edition of Runaround on Talking Pictures.
At first, all seemed normal: here’s cockernee geezer Mike Reid, the world’s most unlikely children’s gameshow host, welcoming us all to the show, and asking the mysterious Eve to talk us through the prizes. Reid quips that “they’ve spent three and a half quid on these” and you think he’s joking until Eve starts listing them: a draughts set; a swimming mask and snorkel; a smart black briefcase for “carrying your sandwiches to school”; a powerful zoom telescope so you can “watch your neighbour’s television set”; a competitive Micro10 video game; a pen and pencil set (one pen, one pencil – pity the poor spod who ends up with that); and today’s star prize: “an all-purpose cross-country and road bicycle – guaranteed to amaze your friends!”, which it probably would, but only in a “it’s-1980-and-the-bike-I’ve-just-won-is-neither-a-BMX-or-a-Chopper” kinda way.
I don’t wish to accuse our younger generation of being lazy, but can you imagine kids these days wanting to win any of that lot?
The kids fortunate enough to be competing for such breath-taking prizes are delivered to the studio in a vintage bus and a couple of questions later there is a break in proceedings whilst Mike interviews a man who has brought two shire horses into the studio, which seems a bold move to me. If that isn’t tempting fate, then I don’t know what is. Have these people never seen that time they brought an elephant onto Blue Peter?
Another couple of questions for the kids later, and here’s the vintage bus – sorry, it’s a charabanc, apparently – and time for Mike to brush up on his interview techniques again.
Before long, it’s time for this weeks’ musical act. “The song is Ever Met a Day and the group is Graduate” mutters Mike unenthiastically, pointing in the direction of a stage where the curtain is opening to reveal a bunch of sharply dressed young chaps, all wannabe Mods, including one who is playing that staple of all Mod and Ska records: a flute.
And this is when the surpise came.
I found myself peering ever closer at the screen. Hang on a minute. I recognise two of them!
See if any of these chaps look vaguely familiar to you:
That’s right: it’s only Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal, later to find stardom as Tears for Fears.
Here you go:
You’re welcome!
More soon.
A History of Dubious Taste 