All about Grease

I was just in my dressing room getting ready for my new year festivities which involves not leaving the house, obviously. Anyway, Grease blasted out and it got me thinking:

1) I've only really done one serious post about Grease on here.
2) I've not watched Grease this year.

Back in 1978, when Grease was released, there were two cassettes in my mum's car - the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and the Grease soundtrack. Life was good, it was all we needed. We listened to it all the time. Then tragedy struck, the tapes were taken to a party and never returned. I don't quite know why my mum didn't go and buy them again, we were not flush with money but times weren't desperate. She didn't and we were left without the music. Literally.

So how about I do my rundown of the Grease soundtrack in order of greatness? Why the hell not? I am going to leave out the majority of the prom songs because good as they are, they don't really count. Obviously I will include Born To Hand Jive because I am not a heathen.

In reverse order:

Hopelessly Devoted To You

Something has to come last. I am not a fan of this drippy ballad. Liv gives it her all but it's all a bit dull.

Beauty School Dropout

I want to like this more than I do and over the years it has grown on me. I love Frenchie, I love her pink hair and the bubble gum. Who doesn't love Frankie Valli? I don't know why this doesn't quite work for me but there you go.

We Go Together

This is so joyous - look at them! Nonsensical lyrics, you wonder how on earth they learned them. Also, some kick-ass dancing!

Sandy

I love Sandy because of Travolta's heartfelt singing and the dancing hotdog. We're now into songs I adore: What will they say, Monday at school. It still remains one of my favourite lyrics.

Born To Hand Jive

The greatest dancing sequence with some hand moves we can all try at home.

Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee

Total genius. I love Stockard's relish as she sings this and the lyrics are hilarious. That bedroom is still my dream bedroom.

You're The One That I Want

Still one of my favourite moments in a movie when Danny first sees sexed-up Sandy. It's just marvellous. A great intro to a song that never quite lives up to the early promise. Still, I am splitting hairs.

There Are Worse Things I Could Do

One of the saddest songs ever written. Stockard really is the star of Grease.

Greased Lightnin'

I love the way Danny jumps on to the table near the beginning, the choreography, the dream silver suits, the dirty lyrics. ALL OF IT!

Grease

One of the best openings to a movie ever. From the over blown Love Is A Many Splendored Thing to the opening notes of this. It's simply perfect.

Summer Nights

This will always be my favourite, it's fun and effortless and it has the best line ever: because he sounds like a drag. Never has one person been so wrong. Danny is not a drag!

Happy 2015 readers!

Grange Hill

We're in the third year of this blog and I've not talked about Grange Hill. Shame on me.

Just looking at this photo transports me back to a time when everyone fancied Tucker Jenkins.

We all though Trisha Yates was dead cool.

Roland! Zammo! And the other one!

I watched Grange Hill avidly for years. I was still watching it when I was doing my A' levels. It was simply marvellous entertainment.

Mr Baxter!

Mrs McLusky. Firm but fair.

I was proper scared of Gripper.

It's bothering me that I can't remember the name of the kid next to Roland - Stewart? Anyone?

Proper school drama with London non-posh kids, Grange Hill was magnificent. The day I saw an actual place called Grange Hill on the tube map is one I'll never forget. I still think there should be a real Albert Square as well. Grange Hill explored bullying, school romance, death and of course, drugs! Just say no.

It also had epic opening credits.

All in all, it was perfection. I could happily watch an episode right now.

The Dukes of Hazzard

You may be wondering why it's taken me so long to talk about The Dukes of Hazzard and the reason is simple, the opening credits weren't on YouTube and really, what is a post about TDOH without that marvellous opening?

I am happy to say that now some are uploaded but they are still not quite right. There is a very long version that a fanboy seems to have put together and with the wrong song or there is the song but no credits. So perhaps the answer is to watch this one for the song:

And this one for the visuals:

I loved those Duke boys so much. Saturday tea time was not complete without watching this. I don't know why I loved it so much because it was the same show week after week - the Duke boys would outwit Rosco and Boss Hogg and there would be a car chase, Daisy would look sexy and well, that's about it. I just loved how they got in their car (never using the doors), the fact the car was called The General Lee and again, the general Southern nature of it all. The rebel cry, the Dixie horn - really, I should have just been born in Georgia, not Essex. Without the racism obviously.

It's hard to think of a finer theme tune that The Good Old Boys. I've just had a wave of nostalgia listening to it again. There is no equivalent now to these types of shows and it's a crying shame. Innocent, tea time fun. I just need a Club biscuit and a packet of Skips and I'll be in heaven.

Opening credits - The New Adventures of Black Beauty

Today is a special day as it is my musical soulmate's 40th birthday. We share very similar taste and we amaze each other with our 'yes, I love that too!' moments although as we've now known each other for 20 years, these are no longer such a surprise to us and certainly not to those around us who nod and sigh heavily.

To say I adore these credits would be an understatement. I don't have an affinity with horses, I didn't enjoy reading Black Beauty and I certainly never watched this show but this theme is the business. Only 15,000 people have viewed this on YouTube and frankly, I think the 230 million watching the Jesse J videos would be better served taking a look at this instead. Look at that horse galloping majestically across the dunes!

Happy birthday Linz.

Opening credits - Rentaghost

I was just putting a file back in a cupboard today and out of nowhere came the theme to Rentaghost (in my head I mean, not literally playing although that woud have been super cool). I've not thought about this programme for years but I used to love it.

Claypole and Miss Popov were my favourites. I am sure this is why I like Audrey so much in Coronation Street because she once played Miss Popov! I am devastated to learn that the actor who played Claypole died in 1984, nearly 30 years he's been gone and I've only just realised. RIP Mr Claypole.

Top line in credits here; very low-key but perfect for the programme and I love the little ghost logo. Coming soon... a trip down memory lane with some classic children's tv. I know, I am excited too!

Meanwhile, wallow with me...

Opening credits - Ski Sunday

We've not done an opening credit for ages have we? In honour of the imminent snow and freezing cold weather, I bring you one of the best sports themes ever: Ski Sunday.

I cannot imagine anything worse than skiing. Paying loads of money to exercise on holiday, being cold, looking like Michelin Man, hairy flights into mountain ranges. No thanks. Also, people* who ski regularly are smug and annoying wittering on about how fantastic it is (usually while nursing a broken limb). Shut. Up.

Now I have that out of my system, there is nothing wrong with watching a little slalom and Ski Sunday was required viewing in my house when I was growing up. We used to sit down with a tray of tea and sandwiches and the most exciting part for me was the theme. For someone non-sporty, I do like a sporty theme: Wimbledon opening, Grandstand, cricket, snooker, Formula One. They are all wonderful. But this is my favourite of them all. It's so majestic.

*Not any of my friends, obviously. You are all lovely.

Opening credits - Hong Kong Phooey

I don't know quite why I loved Hong Kong Phooey as much as I did as a kid but I thought it was the best thing ever. Along with The Pink Panther, it was my favourite cartoon. It might well be because of the awesome opening credits.

"Rosemary, the telephone operator?"

"No"

"Henry, the mild mannered janitor?"

"Could beeeeee!"

It's genius frankly.

Opening credits - The Streets of San Francisco

I'm too young to properly remember The Streets of San Francisco but posting a reply in my Romancing The Stone post made me think of it and I do remember it had awesome opening credits, and we've not done any of those for a while. Nothing could have prepared me for how amazing they are however.

Credits where a narrator talks over and introduces us to the cast! I am loving it. And the San Francisco scenery is so pretty. I can't embed so watch it here, I really recommend you do.

M*A*S*H

I'm always surprised when I talk to people my age (or thereabouts) and they say they never watched M*A*S*H.  It was so good and I wonder what they had to do that was better on a Wednesday night. Maybe they had rocking social lives.

Mobile Army Surgical Hospital was a black comedy set in the Korean war. The film was a proper black comedy (if you've not seen the film, stop reading and go and watch it now). However the TV show was a little sweeter and more sentimental. The early seasons were sensational with the original cast of Frank, Trapper, Henry and Radar. It was truly hilarious. I was too young to watch those early seasons when they aired and so I probably came to it when they brought in BJ Hunnicutt and Charles Winchester. I've since watched them all of course and the early episodes are the best. The show lost a little something when Radar went home. As for killing Henry Blake, I still well up thinking about it.

In my research to bring you this post (mainly, looking up how to spell Hunnicutt), I read that the finale of the show had 106 million viewers. Extraordinary. It was one of the best finales to a tv show ever. When Hotlips and Hawkeye finally kiss! When Hunnicutt spells out Goodbye. It was fantastic.

My criticisms of it are I always found Klinger very unfunny and Alan Alda's sentimentality made the later shows a bit harder to enjoy. Minor points in the grand scale of things though and Hotlips atoned for all that - she was one of the best TV characters ever.

It also had great opening credits that captured the show perfectly. Here they are if a little fuzzy.

St Elsewhere

St Elsewhere was probably the first medical TV drama I watched. A forerunner to ER and ground-breaking at the time, it was fantastic. It also introduced us to Denzel Washington and Mark Harmon. Not bad going.

William Daniels (aka The Voice of K.I.T.T) was crotchety and perfect in this. Whatever happened to him? I always really liked him and thought he was a great actor. Everyone in this was great and it reminds you how good the Americans are at making these tv shows. However, I never forgave them for killing off Mark Harmon's character with AIDS.

It had some classic opening credits but for some reason they are all blocked on YouTube to the UK so I can't post a link but here is the theme.

Opening credits - The Waltons

Some themes make you feel all will be right in the world despite the fact it's meant to end today. If it does, let's leave it while listening to the aural equivalent of a comfort blanket: The Waltons.

Sunday mornings were not complete without watching The Waltons. I loved it. They may have been poor but they had each other. It was always marvellously wholesome entertainment on Walton Mountain. This is one of the great TV themes of our time as it beautifully sums up the show.

Opening credits - True Blood

Any excuse to post a picture of Eric...

True Blood is a rather strange programme and it took me a while to warm to it. It's super gory (for my delicate nature) and can be quite annoying (series two was awful) but when it's good it is great and I do enjoy a bit of southern drawling. And it has Eric...

It has the best opening credits I've seen on a show for ages and it is such a pleasure to see nice long credits - these ones go on for ages. A song that very much evokes Louisiana sexiness and sums up the show with some wonderful visuals. I never get tired of watching them.

Home & Away

Home & Away was the racy cousin of Neighbours. It gave us the Australia we wanted to see - ie, it had beach scenes. Curiously nobody seemed to wear sunglasses.

It doesn't have a stand out memorable few years like Scott & Charlene in Neighbours but early Home & Away was consistently quite good. For an Australian soap. It always dealt with more issues than Neighbours and was slightly grittier. Pippa and Tom were the foster parents and the show revolved around their foster kids and the other 'lost' children of Summer Bay who just needed a bit of love. None were as lost as Bobby (above) who turned out to be... Flathead's daughter! Scandal!

Great characters of H&A include Alf ("the flamin' mongrol"), Bobby, Emma (a young Danni Minogue), Marilyn, Flathead, Martin and Lance, Sally (so tragic) and my personal favourite - Morag.

It's also famed for its young lovers storylines. Angel and Shane were the first of these but I always found them utterly tedious. It launched the career of several actors and there must be something to those Aussie soaps because they really do turn out some stars. Isla Fisher (I always quite liked her), Vinnie (can't think of his name - him from True Blood), Danni Minogue (although they could have kept her) and I am sure loads more.

Check out these credits (sappiest theme song - ever, surely?) Look how young Sally is!

Opening credits - Cheers

One of the best sitcoms of all time, Cheers. If you didn't watch this, then I feel sorry for you as it was awesome. It had a rather wistful little theme tune but I used to love it and sing along happily every week. Also, very unusual credits in that you didn't see any actors, just drawings of ye olde worlde people in a bar.

The theme of Cheers was loneliness and how the people in the bar were their real friends even if they really annoyed them. It has some of the best characters in sitcom world. Carla was hilarious.

Norm: "I have on several occasions been known to perspire a bit."
Carla: "We could grow rice."

Norm. I loved Norm.
Woody: "What's going on Mr Peterson?"
Norm: "What's going *in" Mr Peterson. A beer please Woody."

I could quote them all. The show that brought us the wonderful Frasier and the even better Lilleth. Cliff and his stream of useless facts boring everyone to death. Woody and his lovable dimness. Diana and her pseudo-intellectual posturing and of course, Sam. Yes, once upon a time Ted Danson was a sex symbol and if you don't know why, you never saw Cheers.

Everyone wants a neighbourhood bar like Cheers. Where everybody knows your name.

Opening credits - Starksy & Hutch

The 70s. What a decade. So funky. No theme tune came funkier than Starsky & Hutch. Everything about this show was iconic; from the red and white car, Huggy Bear and David Soul's flares. It was marvellous. And the theme sounds as great now as it did then. What I learned today: Aaron Spelling produced this. I did not know that!

Enjoy!

Opening credits - Knots Landing

Here we are with an all-time classic theme to Dallas spin-off Knots Landing. You know what I love about this? The fact that the camera zooms in on each house to show you each couple. Genius.

I never really watched this show although the credits are very familiar to me. If I wanted to catch up with it now, it would take me some time as it ran for fourteen seasons! Wow - that's pretty impressive. It also starred William Devane who is one of those actors I know when I see him in something but can never place. I just had to look him up. He was, of course, in 24.

And Donna Mills naturally. This is classic soap territory with a California setting and blonde, glam women. Marvellous.

Opening credits - Falcon Crest

When I think of Falcon Crest, I think of Jane Wyman (Ronald Reagan's first wife) and I think of Lorenzo Lamas (Tom in Grease!) and of course, I think of the wonderful theme tune. What a show! It was eclipsed by Dynasty and Dallas but it really was a fine soap.

Opening credits - All Creatures Great and Small

I read in the paper today that the composer of the theme to All Creatures Great and Small died last month. His name was Johnny Pearson and he also composed the theme to Superstars, a classic of our time.

I had a little listen to ACGAS and such a wave of nostalgia came over me. This was one of my nan's favourite programs and I have such fond memories of Sunday afternoon with a tray of tea and sandwiches watching this as a family. I haven't blogged about many (if any) British TV shows here as mainly, I grew up on a diet of Americana but this is British television at its best.

Join me in memories of it all being much simpler back then.

Melrose Place

Melrose Place was the soap fan's soap of the 90s. If you didn't watch this, then I pity you as it was fantastic. A spin-off from Beverly Hills 90210, it was more grown-up and set, funnily enough on Melrose in LA.

It had a wobbly start because they just made everyone nice and dull so nobody cared. But then Aaron cast Heather Locklear and sexed the whole show up and suddenly it was unmissable. This coincided with a year I spent in the US doing my degree and on Wednesday nights they would show 90210 followed by Melrose. Man alive, were me and my roommates happy! We used to love it. Those were the days.

The storyline all Melrosians (just made that up but we'll go with it) remember fondly is the Kimberly one.  She went from:

to:

to:

OMG! It was the best television at the time! Kimberly was played by Marcia Cross who became a big star in Desperate Housewives. I was really pleased to see her pop up there as I always thought she was excellent in Melrose. Daphne Zuniga was also in this and I believe they brought her in as she was quite hot property having been in The Sure Thing (we'll save that classic 80s movie for another day) and she was good in this but her character was never well written. Heather was as good as she always is (ie brilliant) as the bitchy Amanda. The show was let down for me by the utterly tedious Billy and Alison (played by Courtney Thorne-Thomas - truly a drab actress) but no matter. We had Dr Mancini, Sydney and this show introduced us to Kristen Davies as Brooke.

It was simply the trashiest of television and all the better for it. Back in the days before the internet, it was hard to watch this once I came back to the UK as it was on Sky (and nobody had Sky back then - unimaginable I know!) but again my sister came up trumps as she videoed all the episodes in Sydney (where she lived at the time) and posted them to me. That, my friends, is love!

Classic opening credits, enjoy!

Veronica Mars

Yet another show I have my sister to thank for. She told me to watch this and bought me the first season on DVD and yes, another obsession began.

Veronica Mars is about a 16 year old girl who solves crimes. That sounds really lame but it's awesome and the reason it is so awesome is down to some great writing and the wonderful Kristen Bell (the voice of Gossip Girl) who is fantastic in this. She's the outcast at school (having once been the popular girl) and the first season shows what happened in a series of flashbacks. Her best friend Lily is murdered and Veronica finds out who did it. Lily is played by Amanda Seyfried who is also excellent. The usual romance ensues along the way with the deeply yummy Logan (Jason Dohring) who I developed quite the crush on.

The best thing about this however, as if all that isn't enough, is that Harry Hamlin is in it! Yes, Mikey from LA Law! Always loved him, always will and he has great fun playing a sadistic dad.

There are three seasons of this and to my mind, there should have been more. Season two dipped a little in quality but season three was stellar. It's an intelligent show with teen appeal but also appeals more broadly. I heartily recommend it. It has some marvellous opening credits courtesy of the Dandy Warhols. Interestingly, they did a very different version for season three to reflect the darker nature of the show.

I present both for your delectation.