The Pigging 1980s...

Well, we know it's often referred to as 'The Greed Decade' by the Great and The Priggishly Hypocritical nowadays, but there's no doubt that the 1980s did have a bit of a fixation with pigs. Take a look at the festive porker above. He's on the lid of an embossed tin of lovely fudge I had for a Christmas prezzie in 1988. Kinnerton confectionary made a whole range of 'Who's A Little Piggy then?!' things in 1987 and 1988 (and probably beyond) and below you can see a couple of 1987 egg cups.

Needless to say I guzzled the fudge in a single serving - actually while watching Madge and Harold bickering in Neighbours. I was so intensely involved that before I knew it the tin was empty.

And lovely that fudge was too!

The tin has survived much longer and I now store safety pins, odd buttons and ear plugs in it.

But, on the subject of the '80s and pigs, you don't have to look much further to find more. In that prime porker of a decade, there was something of a drive by UK banks to get kiddies and teenies saving with them, and Nat West came up with the wizard wheeze of a whole family of piggies as collectable ceramic money boxes. Remember Woody? Remember Annabelle? Remember Sir Nathaniel? Of course you do! And all stand mute testament to the 1980s affection for a bit of a swine.

Here's Woody! 'Oink, oink, darlin'!'

And here's old Sir Nathaniel, larding it up on a badge.

It was at Christmas 1988 that, as well as the aforementioned fudge, I ended up with these as prezzies  too. From the same 'friend' who had purveyed the fudge. These very '80s porklets are enjoying themselves thoroughly - with a personal stereo (preferred listening probably 'Pig In Japan'), gym weights ('fit for business, fit for life') and a luxury holiday (complete with binoculars to guzzle in the sights).

'Why all the pig-related gifts?' I asked my 'friend'. 'Not some snide allusion to my weight, is it?' (I'd been hogging the Stella Artois a bit and I had a very slight poddy, which I was trying to offset by cunning use of shoulder pads).

'Of course not, sweetheart!' said my 'friend', all innocent and wide eyed.

That was OK, then. I believed her because she was never snide. Well, only when she was awake. And, to return the thought, the following year I sent her...

... these. Cute, aren't they?

It's 1985... how about some piggin' aerobics?

And we also had the mid-1980s 'Pig Tales' piggies by George Good - pictured above are 'Hogwash' and 'No Pain, No Gain' from 1986. Adorable!

And also from 1986 clap your little trotters for this Marks and Spencer cruet set!

Enough of anthropomorphic pigs! What about pig pigs? Well, if you liked the plain old natural farmyard variety, the 1980s catered for you too. Take a snout at the 1988 lovely below. 

So real!

Oh my gawd - my room looked like a pig sty!

And then there was an ordinary pig doing extraordinary things. Yes, the NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC pig! Proudly starring on my bedroom wall in the mid-1980s, the pig also appeared on several NOW album covers, but probably the height of its career came in late 1984 when it starred in the nude centrefold below. Well, I ask you!

Pig fans across the land grunted in delight back in the Style Decade, but one young pal of mine recently called it 'disturbing'. The 21st Century, eh? What a bore!

Pig fans didn't exactly have a lean time of it in the 1990s either - remember the Piggin' ornaments?

But, when it comes to the oinky ones, the 1980s truly had the competition beat!

Coronation Street 1987 - And 1989... Phyllis Pearce The Material Girl And The New Side To The Street...

If only soaps were still like they were in Phyllis's day...

Faced with entirely uninterested Mr Sugden, Phyllis was undaunted. Come on, Percy, pucker up!

Our Phyllis was no quitter. She pursued her man for over a decade.

We've enjoyed a few glimpses of ITV 3's Classic Coronation Street recently, which has been reliving each episode of the Street from 1986 onwards. The strand has just reached 1989, which promises to be a corking year with the Alan Bradley story, the death of Brian Tilsley, Jack and Vera Duckworth's stone cladding, and the building of a whole new side of the Street as Baldwin's factory and the community centre are demolished and the new houses, shops and industrial units go up.

The production team teased us with blink-and-you'd-miss-them glimpses of the new development as time went on - and below we see what would become Audrey's hairdressing salon in the episode broadcast on 11 December 1989.

Also in that episode was a great favourite of ours - the legendary Phyllis Pearce, played by the legendary Jill Summers. What a fantastic blue rinser Phyllis was - never giving up on getting Percy Sugden to appreciate her charms, always ready with advice, a bit sad about the loss of her salad days, but still a very positive and young-at-heart character.

We loved her.

We have a feeling Phyllis would be as disappointed in modern day soaps, with their constant serial killers, explosions and excessive violence, as we are.

Phyllis did enjoy the occasional grumble about the youth of the day, but at heart she was very much a modern girl of the 1980s - in fact a material girl, and she and Alf Roberts's shopping-loving wife Audrey (Sue Nicholls) were happy to present their credentials on the 1987 TV show 'The Funny Side', as backing 'singers' for Bucks Fizz star Cheryl Baker's performance of the Madonna hit.

Cos the boy with the cold hard cash is always Mr Right...

Flippin' 'eck - there's Judith Jacobs - Carmel from Walford - showing unexpected musical talent and proving that even the EastEnders could have fun in 1987...

Good grief, and here's Archie Brooks from Emmerdale Farm, James Wilmot Brown from EastEnders, and Bobby Grant and Matty Nolan from Brookside getting in on the act!

And our Cheryl's Mr Right in those days of success-seeking glitz and glamour? Kevin Kennedy's Curly Watts, of course! Who else!

Who needs Pepsi and Shirlie?

1987 - The Colbys, Fallon, And A Flying Saucer

We've written about Fallon and the flying saucer before, but the subject returns to our minds periodically...

Poor old Fallon. Just what was it with her? There she was in Dynasty, a sort of female equivalent of Falcon Crest's Lance Cumson, a spoilt rich playgirl, played by Pamela Sue Martin. This '80s role shocked us as we were used to Pamela Sue as good old Nancy Drew in the '70s revival of the tales of that worthy young mystery investigator. Hurrah for Nancy!

But thoroughly '80s Fallon was not into investigating mysteries. Oh no. She was into investigating men. If you know wot I mean (nudge, nudge!).

But then Fallon morphed into actress Emma Samms - only Emma Samms's Fallon thought she was Randall Adams and was altogether a sweeter girly than before, even when she finally discovered she was really Fallon.

If you know wot I mean. If you've lost the plot, don't worry - so had the writers...

By then Randall/Fallon had moved on from Denver and the Carringtons to California and the Colbys.

Fallon gets a dislocated shoulder pad on spotting the craft from another galaxy.

EEEK!!!

Of course, The Colbys, the even-richer-than-rich Dynasty spin-off wasn't doing that well. But was a flying saucer really necessary? 

In her great book Soap Box (1988), journalist Hilary Kingsley gave some insights into why it happened:

Its writer, Robert Pollock, told me later that the idea had been that of co-producer Richard Shapiro. 'Apparently Richard had had a dream. He was tremendously excited. At the time the novel Communion was a smash hit. The supernatural was being discussed over dinner-parties everywhere. I couldn't discourage him. I was very worried about our writing ourselves into a corner. How would we get Fallon back? Richard said: "We'll worry about that next season." The scene was not received with enormous enthusiasm, as I expected. It will never be done again.'

So, that was it. How a legendary loopy 1980s American soap storyline came about. And the end of The Colbys.

Of course, Fallon was back on Earth in time for the next season of Dynasty.

Ms Kingsley in 1988 again:

When Fallon and Jeff returned to 'Dynasty' for the series this year, Fallon's time was explained as another of her 'turns', an out-of-body experience. The aliens' spacecraft smelt of cinnamon, she said. 'Were they baking?' Jeff asked. The poor man's disbelief became grounds for another divorce.

I don't believe that 'out-of-body' tripe. Nope. Viewers saw the flying saucer too, and the episode wasn't shot as if from Fallon's point of view (as it should have been if she was in a delusional state), so I reckon she was definitely whooshed away by ET's. You never know wot's gonna happen on dark nights like that, do you?

Such auspicious moments in our cultural history often lead to the question: 'Where were you when...?' Well, when Fallon got whipped away by the aliens I was in the bath, preparing for another night of wild excess at Tracy's Nite Spot.

Read all about it here.

I went to Tracy's Nite Spot. Fallon went...?

Mr Dog - Specially Prepared Because Some Dogs Are Called Cesar...

Anybody remember Mr Dog dog food? Well, if you remember the 1980s you probably do. The dear little tins were packed full of goodness your doggy couldn't get from fresh meat alone, and specially made to care for a small dog's needs. At first. Then Mr Dog was specially made because some dogs are special. Then out went Mr Dog in 1989 and it was suddenly made because some dogs are called Cesar. Apparently.

Comedian Eddie Izzard posed the question 'why did Mr Dog change its name?' in recent years. Well, while the scenario he painted of a late night meeting at Mr Dog HQ with bonkers late night thought processes running rampant was quite amusing, the real reason was simply to bring it into line with its European brand name.

Anyway, for our screen caps we've picked some lovely pics from an early Mr Dog ad - from 1982 - and two later ads from 1985 and 1987.

Aw, cute, eh?

A new decade on the way and a new canine treat! 

And the first thing any self respecting seller must do is flog the goods to the punter. Pedigree Pet foods, purveyor of our canine culinary delight, knew this full well. The twee, posh dog nosh hit the supermarket shelves in 1978, and the first two Mr Dog TV ads on the BFI site are dated 1980, although I think they had hit some ITV regions towards the end of 1979. They were 'King Charles Spaniel' and 'Poodle'. More ads then spanned the rest of the 1980s. 

A few years in, the ads gained a very twee... er... cute jingle, which is now etched on my brain.

Mr Dog was famous. Even if you didn't own a dog, you couldn't fail to be aware of the ads.

For myself and certain people I knew Mr Dog also achieved a certain sinister significance as the 1980s progressed.

I recall a friend's mother having a nervous breakdown in the mid-1980s. She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where she briefly believed that Mr Dog was spying on her and listening to every word she said.

Honestly.

My mate was visiting her at the hospital. Sitting in the day-room, he noticed she seemed a bit brighter, was talking far more logically, and he was feeling very relieved. They were chatting away ten-to-the-dozen, when suddenly she leaned forward:

'Ssh! He'll hear you!'

'Who'll hear me, Mum?' asked my mate.

'Mr Dog!' said mate's Mum.

Spied on by dog food? Or was there more to it? Just who was Mr Dog? I was twenty years old, with an over-active imagination, and although I appreciated the gravity of my friend's Mum's illness, on the quiet my thoughts conjured up visions of a sinister cigar smoking poodle, surrounded by yappy henchdogs. My fantasy poodle was the mutt who might be behind the Mr Dog empire, Mr Dog himself in fact, a mutt of immense power.

Don't mess with Mr Dog...

My friend's Mum made a full recovery and could only say afterwards that the Mr Dog delusion came about simply because she'd seen too many of the ads.

Advertising is a mighty powerful tool - sometimes with very unforeseen results...

Cute little tins, weren't they?

On to 1985 and yappie yuppie Mr Dog is having beef for din-dins.

And he loves you for it because it's so expensive and 'special'. Mercenary little git.

The 1986 'Mr Dog' watch - for every trendy person this was a must - a watch that reminded you of dog food every time you looked at it. I've still got mine, and it still goes (Timex, you see - no rubbish from the classy '80s!) and now it reminds me of a defunct dog food every time I look at it.

Mr Dog was, of course, mentioned in Domesday. No, not the 1086 version, but the 1986 BBC 'snapshot' of the UK - the BBC's very first digital project.

Eleven-year-old Joanna Hall had this to say:

My family and I own 2 cats and one dog. Our dog is a female, black and white Jack Russell terrior called Tinker. She is 13 years old, two years younger than my sister, Becky. 

Tinker gets fed "Mr. Dog" dog food at the time when I have my tea (6pm). She has a plentiful supply of water. 

I take her on walks as often as I can. I like taking her down the lane to Brompton on her lead, but she prefers going down the field behind our house. 

Tinker understands most commands, like "stay", "walkies" and sometimes "sit!" She usually sleeps on a chair in the kitchen. She is a lovable dog and doesn't bite. She is rarely naughty except when she eats the cats' food. 

The two cats are twins and can be told apart by their different coloured noses: one is black, the other pink.

Mr Dog wakes up from a nice snooze in 1987...

... and gets stuck in...

... and with Mr Dog then available in a new larger size, he could indulge in a little conspicuous consumption. Just watch out for your carpets and soft furnishings afterwards.

1989 - FAREWELL, MR DOG! BLUB!!! A transition ad. Even with fabulous Johnny Morris of 'Animal Magic' fame to do the voice-over, it was still a tremendous blow.

Home Decor In The 1980s And Who painted Puss?

Back in the 1980s a change began to sweep over working class homes. Before that decade, we poor types had been happy to mix-and-match our furnishings and décor. There would be that old couch passed down by Aunt Lil - probably dating back to the 1950s (the springs were going but it still served), Great Nana's flying swallows from the 1940s, that nice bit of carpet Mr Sims had chucked out (quite new as well!), some out-of-date but still serviceable bright yellow 1960s curtains, Great Aunt Gemma's religious text - dating back to a 1920s seed catalogue, some garish modern wallpaper - dreamt up in a nightmare by some late 1960s hippie, and so on. It clashed. But we didn't see our rooms as a whole.

We loved Great Nana's swallows and they may not have gone with the modern smoked glass-topped coffee table (a Christmas present from Auntie Lizzie, who'd only had it three years) but then neither went with cousin Sue's cushion covers. In fact, nothing went with cousin Sue's cushion covers. Still, we didn't care. Our rooms often contained a 1950s or 1960s print on the wall too - sad eyed kiddies and clowns and so on by the likes of Barry Leighton Jones or Audrey Dallas Simpson. These were usually board prints with cheap plastic frames.

Stylistically, the rooms were often very discordant - but we didn't think like that.

Things were displayed or used because they were of sentimental value or because we thought they were 'real nice' or  because we couldn't afford new and somebody we knew was chucking something out that wasn't totally knackered. If only just.

But then came the 1980s.

The mid-1980s presented the working classes with a credit boom and LIFESTYLE choices. What sort of clothes best portrayed who YOU were? Were YOU trendy? Futuristic? Power dressing? Casual? Classic? What did your home say about YOU? Should your home be futuristic? Rustic? Trendy? Townie? Minimalist? Industrial?

And so out went out the strange assortment of furnishings we'd assembled over the previous decades and in came our very own distinctive 'look'. Yes, this was about YOU and who YOU were and about making a statement to the world about YOU.

The transition was slow and wasn't always in the best possible taste, particularly at first, but by the end of the 1980s my very working class family's homes were definitely becoming less of a hotchpotch and more black ash and vertical blinds (or country cottage or whatever) than they had been before.

1985, Argos catalogue... Graffiti your furniture... make it really YOU!

A study area? Darling, how could we do without one?

Index catalogue, only now it's 1989. OOOH!

I was an '80s trendy person and when, in 1987, I moved into a shared flat, I was eager to furnish the communal areas with my flatmate. I went to a nice posh shop and bought a nice posh (and very 1980s) clock for the kitchen and was stunned when my flatmate went out to a jumble sale at the local United Reformed Church and bought back the kitten picture pictured at the top of this post. She'd paid 10p.

My beautiful 1987 wall clock! Isn't it great? And still keeps perfect time!

Now, my flatmate seemed quite posh to me. Her parents had started buying their council house in the late 1960s (you could where I lived) when she was a tiny tot and she affected an air of languid middle classness. So, what the hell was she doing? Here was me, fresh off a council sink estate, living in the throes of the latter years of the Style Decade and very 'with it', and here she was, from a home owning family, doing a 'dead common' pick-n-mix job on our flat like it was 1983 or something.

My flatmate - I'll call her Sharon - hadn't bought the print because it was 1960s and she had enthusiasm for that era. Those sort of prints still adorned many a fogey relative's living room wall back in the 1980s and hadn't any appeal as retro pieces to trendy young people.

No, Sharon had bought it because she thought the kitten was 'sweet'.

The picture was one of those Audrey Dallas Simpson style things, delicately stained with nicotine, and the kitten portrayed looked as miserable as sin. And there was no way I wanted it rubbing shoulders with my dead posh modern clock in the kitchen/living room of the flat.

I thought quickly. I didn't want to offend Sharon by calling out her lousy taste, so I said: 'What a great picture! It will go great with the green wallpaper in the hall!' And so there it was hung.

And it stared. Miserably. Each day, its eyes clocking me out of the flat as I left for work and back in as I came home. Finally, when we left the flat, Sharon gave me the picture. I didn't want to offend, so cooed delightedly over it, and hung it in my new hall so that Sharon would see it when she visited.

The picture still has its original 1987 10p jumble sale price ticket on the back.

And so it continued to clock me out as I left my new house each day - and back in again. As at the flat, I found those solemn eyes meeting mine each time I left or entered.

In recent years, the picture has become increasingly shabby and faded. I took it down. And then began to feel a profound sense of unease each day as I left the house or entered.

Could it possibly be the lack of those solemn eyes, clocking me in and out?

After thirty years, had I become addicted to them?

The sense of something lacking continued and in the end I scanned and brightened the picture and put a copy up in the hall.

The eyes were back.

And so was my sense of wellbeing.

Kitty had entered the second of its nine lives.

The original board print with plastic frame originated from the 1960s, and lately I've wondered who painted it? It looks very Dallas Simpson to me, but does anybody know?

I call it the '51c Cat', because that was the number of our old flat.

Funnily enough, in my middle age, I've started mixing-n-matching again.

The 51c Cat happily resides in the same hallway as my 1980s wall clock...

And both go so well with my pink woodchip oh-so-1980s hall wallpaper...

Not to mention my Adam Ant mirror...

Back to 1987, and Sharon had really liked my ultra modern 1980s kitchen clock. So she went out and bought a chopping board with a 'country kitchen' design to display on the worktop - a past times greengrocer's shop complete with old money price tags and old style woman and boy. There was nothing wrong with the design. I quite liked it. But it clashed liked nobody's business with the clock. Despite Sharon's parents buying their council house and her refusal to drop her aitches, the woman was dead common. She had no sense of style and interior design coordination at all.

I despaired. 

And gave it all up as a hopeless job. Especially when another flatmate arrived and immediately made her contribution to the décor. She  blue-tacked a yucky brown and cream horse's head tea towel to the pantry door.

Sharon's chopping board. Of course, this was the 1980s, so it was being flogged as a 'very collectable chopping board' (sigh).

Blind Date - Straight Talking, Non-PC - Beautiful '80s TV!

You know, nowadays we're scared of opening our mouths in case the words we're about to use aren't politically correct. You see, political correctness has become a very strange thing indeed since we first stumbled upon it circa 1987 - when it seemed somewhat droll.

I've never thought that over-analysing words is a good idea, because it doesn't really make people good or bad or indifferent. So easy to play the PC game while secretly being a nasty bit of work. In fact, being PC seems right priggish to us, love, and when it comes to earnest young girls or guys lecturing their grandparents and telling them not to use a particular word because it's not 'PC', we shudder to think what our grandparents would have thought if we'd tried it. And dread to think of what they'd have done even more. A good clump round the ear 'ole would have been the least of it.

So it's nice to watch good basic entertainment from the 1980s with clear communication.

We've been back in 1986, having a lorra lorra laffs with our Cilla and the Blind Date contestants. Remember Blind Date, which brightened up our early Saturday evenings before we went out to get... er... slightly inebriated?

It was a laff partly because a lot of the contestants had absolutely no fashion sense. Look at the three gents below. I mean, what do No 1 and No 3 look like? Number 1 looks all set to go out and trim his hedge and No 3 looks set for a naff day's junior clerking in the back office of Cloggins and Co, Boiler Specialists.

Only Contestant No 2 shows any sense of style and occasion. The shoulder pads. The bouffant mullet. The lovely shirt. The colourful shoes. The pushed up jacket sleeves.

The young lady's question for this gent was: ' 'ow would you react if I smashed your car on the first day you 'ad it?'

And the gent's reply?

'I'd kill yer.'

A simple, direct reply, and very amusing in the viewing and hearing.

The 21st Century equivalent (if the guy didn't want to leave himself open to ridiculous accusations of misogyny or anger management problems) would probably be 'I wouldn't be happy at all!'

Our verbalisations have become so deodorised it's hard to have a giggle any more.