Pilot Episode With Tony P: Llama Lies, Laughter & Telly

Hello, strangers, welcome to Television Times Podcast with me, your host, Steve Otis Gunn.

Now, this is episode one.

It isn't exactly tight, it's a little loose, our mics weren't perfectly placed, and I don't think either of us knew what we were doing.

This one features my friend, Tony the Pony, Tony Page, Tony P, whatever you want to call him.

It's a little loose, the format wasn't tight yet, but we had a lot of fun, and I hope you do too.

I just want to say a big thank you for tuning in to this episode.

As I know there are a million choices online, and you could be listening to something that you know, and this is an unknown quantity at this point.

But I hope we can deliver and not waste your time.

Thanks for tuning in.

I say tuning in a lot.

I know you're not tuning in, but that's what we say, it's part of the pod.

So come back for more next week.

This is episode one.

Here we go.

Welcome to Television Times, a new podcast with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

Welcome to Television Times with me, Steve Otis Gunn and.

My name is Tony, Tony Page.

As we call him.

Tony the Pony is using my hand sanitizer, which I keep in the studio in case the postman comes.

When I'm in the middle.

Because the postman only comes once, isn't it?

Seems to come about four in the afternoon these days.

So yeah, this is Television Times podcast.

I will ask you all, are you sitting comfortably?

Are you sitting comfortably?

I'm sitting down.

So this is a part of cucumber, by the way.

Okay, I don't know if I'm going to let that horrible sound be the first thing people hear for those who are into ASMR or what's the thing when you can't listen to people eat or drink?

I don't know.

It's got a name anyway.

We'll find that out.

Sepharia.

Anyway, I'm not doing any of that.

Okay.

They do things like this, don't they?

They get a pen and they go.

Someone wanks in Malaysia.

It is very annoying.

I don't mind people whispering in my ear, but you know.

Right, we're editing all this out.

None of that's staying.

So are you sitting comfortably?

I am, thank you very much, Stephen.

Good.

This is, my mom seems to be here.

Someone just call me Stephen.

Well, coming from now on, you may call me Anthony.

Well, I've got a funny story about that.

My mom, when I was 12, 13, she was pregnant with my brother.

So I was like an only child when I was 13.

And she named me Stephen after having a dream when she was seven, even though she married a man with that name as well.

Although I found out that wasn't his name, let's not get into that.

But when I was about 13, I was going down the shops in Lewisham.

She was off to buy more baby products.

And she just turned to me in the street and she went, you'll always be a Stephen, you'll never be a Steve.

I was like, why are you dissing the name that you gave me and trying to make out like, I'm never gonna be cool enough to pull off the Steve.

So it was like immediately, I then said, in my mind, I just went, yeah, fucking I'll show you.

I never used Stephen again after that with anyone I knew I ever met.

Never at all.

No, I hate the name actually.

It's just one of those King's names, isn't it?

So anyway, this is a podcast predominantly about television, although it's a bit free flow.

So it might lead us down some other paths.

Let's just see where it all takes us.

So question one.

So earlier we had a little chat, but being the first episode of the podcast, of course, I didn't record it.

Tony's mic was off, which was rather annoying.

And we did get some nice insight, but luckily that one has been deleted because it was full of racism, sexism, homophobia.

So we might be using that one.

All from his mic, of course, that's why it was off.

Okay, so what's just happened this weekend was the Eurovision Song Contest, 2023, in which Sweden won, which was, it was a good song, a little bit repetitive.

I really wanted Finland to win.

Did you watch it?

You know what I mean?

See, I've never watched it since the mid-90s, I reckon, all the way through.

I've never watched Eurovision.

It's never really been high on my list of things to do.

No, I mean, mine neither, because it was considered NAF for a very long time, but I used to like the sarcastic Terry Wogan voiceover and also Graham Norton does it.

Mel Givow did a fantastic job of being sarcastic this time.

But I found that there were quite a lot of really just normal, good songs, and I want more crazy, you know, dressed in uniform, acting weird.

There was one like that, but I did really want Finland to win because they had a really mad, sort of Eurovision style song.

I think a lot of people were behind that one.

But what I found mainly was that there was a song by Israel, oh yeah, it was something about a unicorn, and it was performed by a young, you know, good-looking, sexy woman.

And because I was sitting there watching Eurovision with my first-born son, I did sort of look to my left to see if he would react in any way because we're sort of waiting for him to sort of show signs in any direction, you know.

So my son is sitting beside me watching this quite raunchy performance in the middle, and I was looking over and there was nothing.

I was like, well, if anything's going to make him, you know, perk up, it's going to be this.

But he showed no signs.

So that made me sort of think, when did I first feel anything from like watching something on TV?

And I would argue that that for me would be Charlie's Angels.

Charlie's Angels theme is nothing like this, but we can't afford to play the original.

And Charlie's Angels was obviously a massive deal when I was a kid, and everyone sort of fancied the other ones, but I fancied the brunette among the group.

And I believe she was called Sabrina.

I can't remember, was it Kate Jackson?

Is that the name?

Yeah, it was Kate Jackson.

And that's who I fancied.

And I remember feeling really funny and always being really happy when she was on television.

And I would have been what, seven, eight, nine, something like that.

So yeah, I think that's probably the first time I felt like that.

So my question to you, Tony Tone Tone, is when did you first feel any kind of desire, I would say, without knowing what it was for someone on television?

Without knowing what it was, it was probably Susan Strunk's on a program called Magpie.

I remember Magpie.

Yeah, one for sorrow, two for joy and all that.

Magpie, Magpie, Magpie, Magpie, that's not the theme either.

What was the guy in that?

Was it your big curly haired fella?

I don't know, but he was a bit of a tango, whiskey, alpha tango to me.

We're not gonna get like, we're not gonna stop and Google these things.

So it was like, if we don't remember it, you guys are gonna have to check it out yourself.

But check out Magpie, it was kind of like a weird kids, half Top of the Pops, half magazine show, I'd say.

Oh, more magazine show than Top of the Pops.

They're bands though, didn't they?

But they didn't have as much sticky like plastic as Blue Peter did.

Blue Peter, no, yeah.

I never wanted like a Blue Peter badge when I was a kid.

That never like appealed to me.

It was something like, something prefecty about it.

Like it seemed like, why would I want that?

Walk around with that.

But what I did want of course was a Jim Orfixit badge.

Which in retrospect was a terrible choice.

And I do remember writing to that absolute fucking nonce, or at least the TV show.

And I do remember, cause I was really into the band Madness.

And I remember writing saying, could you please make it for me that I could meet Madness?

And thankfully, he never fucking replied.

Otherwise we might be having a different kind of podcast.

Can you imagine what would have happened if you had written the Jim Orfixit and asked us to meet Gary Glitter?

Someone must have actually done that.

Double whammy.

Anyway, Google all these faces kids.

They're all perverts.

For me, it's a bit like Gary Neumann to Bowie, do you know what I mean?

You got Bowie, you know, who I love, and you got, I mean, I don't mind Gary.

Like in Discount Bowie.

Well, you know, here in my cars, I go greatest of all.

I mean, it sounds a bit Bowie, doesn't it, you know?

It's the only way you live in cars.

I mean, it's basically a tribute act.

Talking about Blue Peter Badgers, where I grew up, if anyone went out of the house wearing a Blue Peter Badger, they would have had the crap kicked out of them.

Really?

Why?

Oh, yeah.

Why, because it was a posh thing or just to kind of look at you?

They used to get discounts and stuff with it.

Was it like having a club card or something?

I remember like there being, if you had a Blue Peter Badger and you went to like Thorpe Park, you get a discount or something like that.

Something like that.

But if you get a golden one, I think that entitles you to certain things.

I mean, there's a lot of weird TV when I was a kid in that my favorite probably something we could talk about on this that I would say is quite pivotal is the show.

I wonder if you saw it, Why Don't You?

Do you remember the show called Why Don't You?

I've heard it, but you see, I must explain to any listeners out there that I spent a long time away from the shores of the UK.

I left here in 82 and came back in the early 2000s.

So I missed huge swathes of popular TV.

But you would have been exposed to like, maybe all the American stuff like Knight Rider and TJ.

Hocker, all those sort of 80s things.

Of course, you know what I mean?

King of the Hill and everybody loves Raymond.

Right.

And Seinfeld, I mean, Seinfeld was a big one for me, but it was never really on at the right times here.

It was always like a, I think I first saw it on a plane, because it was like a random episode.

It never had a proper time slot here.

Like in the 90s, I do remember, like on a Thursday, I used to work, I used to deliver pizzas to pizza hut.

And I'd always take Thursday night off.

And the reason I would take it off is-

No, I'd always take it off because it was friends and ER.

And being in the 90s and being typical, I watched both of those avidly like everyone else did.

And it just seemed like a fun night to like get a little, get some drinks in and sit with your friends and just watch those two shows back to back.

And I remember doing something very similar in Australia in 99 where I would take a certain day off because there was, I was working at a burger bar in Sydney when I was backpacking.

And I do remember taking a certain night off because there was again a series of shows on, all quite shit.

One of them was Charmed, which I didn't even like, but it was more to do with like, oh, there's some good shows, some fun, silly shows on that night.

So we'll get food in and we'll sit and watch that.

So yeah, the scheduling of your nights being denoted by what is on television is actually something that's gone now.

Yeah, what I love is the opportunity to sit down in front of a screen now and just blitz yourself with a particular program.

I never watched The West Wing when it was first on general release.

I was quite late to that myself, yeah.

And that was in, I think it was 2001.

Was it 2001?

I think it started in 99.

Okay.

And it went to about 2008, something like that.

Seven series and there's between 21 and 23 episodes per season.

Fantastic show, I agree.

And over the last couple of weeks, I think I've seen about 85 hours of The West Wing.

Right now?

Yep.

Oh, right now you're doing that?

Wow, that's great.

I've only got another 75 to go.

It's funny when you do that because especially in the sort of what they call the post-truth era, a show like The West Wing will probably seem quite dated and quite innocent with the things that they're discussing, I would imagine.

One of the things that really worried me is because, you know, like, what's the other one with Robin What's-A-Face and the other pedophile?

House of Cards.

Yes, House of Cards.

I can still watch Spacey.

I must admit.

Oh, Spacey, yeah, that's right.

He's very good, Nick, because he's a **** in it and he is one.

So, you know, we can say that.

He's a Democrat.

Yeah.

And so they have a Democratic White House.

And The West Wing is a Democratic White House.

Was this done deliberately?

Is it that Republicans aren't as lovable?

No, there was one.

There was one called...

Republicans aren't as lovable?

Well, I think because it was...

I mean, The West Wing would have come out in 1999.

So Bill Clinton is about to be turfed out.

And I think people expected Al Gore to win.

Some would argue he actually did win.

I might be on that camp.

And yeah, I think it was just...

People thought that that was where it was going.

So it wasn't like a...

Eventually it became obviously a sort of counterpoint to the Bush administration, but certainly not in the beginning.

Especially when you're watching the West Wing, you can really see the mechanics of all that.

Have you got to the last season yet, I don't know?

No, I'm on season five.

Okay, so obviously they do deal with the, a president can only do two terms situation.

I think it's done really, really well.

Tony is Chinese, of course.

So how do we get to the West Wing?

So anyway, yes.

Oh, no, it was the way that, you know, it's great that you can go and immerse yourself in a season or several seasons you can binge watch.

Yeah, and also like, oh, so I was talking about scheduled television and how that's sort of dying.

And although I do miss it, when I see something good and I have to wait a week now, it does sort of wind me up a little bit, you know, like, come on guys, you're making me wait a whole week for this shit.

Absolutely necessary.

But then again, if you blitz something too fast, I do feel that a certain level of enjoyment is lost if you watch everything in one go.

Because what happens then, of course, is you watch it all in three days and then you have to wait a year.

By the time you watch it again, you have to go through recaps where people are going, hey guys, just letting you know what's happening on my feed, subscribe, subscribe.

And okay, we're just going to have a recap of season one.

Well, shut the fuck up.

You know, so that's the problem with that.

If you span it over 10 weeks like say I'm doing right now with Succession or whatever and it's ending, you know, you can savor it.

I feel like certain shows have to be savored.

Certain shows have to be watched when the kids are in bed.

Certain shows I can eat with because I don't care about it like Queer Eye or something like that.

I can just watch that and eat my dinner.

I don't have to focus on it.

I wouldn't eat my dinner with Succession.

You know, I want to watch that when everyone's definitely not going to come in and ruin it.

I mean, I rarely watch scheduled TV.

Race Around the World was on recently, we quite like that.

I kind of like watching that live if I can.

Stuff like that, or maybe 10 minutes after it's on, you know.

And the bus go by.

Loudest bus in the world.

We could open the window, of course.

I tried to when I was doing the mic thing, and it was like I was on a runway.

It was like, fucking hell, it was like air crash investigation.

But going back to what I was saying is this long burn, you know, with scheduled TV, but with binge watching, it's somewhat akin to binge drinking.

You know that when the program finishes, when the season finishes, you're going to crash because you don't have that fix.

And there's a hollow feeling because even though your ass hurts from sitting in front of the television for 10 hours straight, you want that extra numbness because where's it gone?

And then you start this frenzied search on all of the streaming platforms.

Oh, I'll tell you what, I'll go back and I'll watch Better Call Saul just one more time.

Oh, people rewatching, yeah.

I can do a rewatch, but it has to be way later.

Like I did rewatch the first two seasons of Succession with my wife because she hadn't seen it and I wanted her to maybe catch up if she was interested and she loves it now.

Talking of that point that you just made about there being an empty hole when a show ends, I do remember the first time that happening was when Friends ended, I think in 2004 or 2005, is that when it was?

And there was a helpline set up for people who were like, you know, affected by its end.

And I know there's subsequent shows that that has happened for.

I'm trying to think of one recently when a show ends.

And I felt a little bit like that.

Have you seen Traitors?

Okay, so Traitors is a very addictive show.

We watched that earlier this year, and it's really not the kind of TV I watch.

I'm not a big reality guy.

I kind of watch The Apprentice, although it's getting boring, and Dragons Den, the classics.

And this did not appeal to me, but it hooked me in, and I couldn't wait to see the next one.

Was it because of Claudia's Fringe?

It wasn't, it was the whole premise.

And for me, if you buy my book, You Shot My Dog and I Love You, you'll find out that I have a life of a little bit of deception, a little bit of lying in my past, that I'm quite good at.

So I was really intrigued to see how well these people would do lying to everyone.

But if you haven't seen it, we'll discuss this with someone else.

But that was, there was a hole after that.

I was like, when's the next one?

And I even made myself watch the, we watched the Australian one, and then we watched the American one as well, which I really didn't want to watch, because it seemed that the music was different, the production was all very, you know, kitchen nightmares.

Jum, jum, do, do, do, boom, boom, cook, bit of, bit of, bit of, bit of, bit of.

And it's too fast, guys, like, slow the fuck down, you know?

Let's bring everything around to TV.

When was the first time you saw a back of seat television on a plane, and how did you feel about that?

What did you watch?

This, I think the first back of seat must have been on the flight from Gatwick Airport to Bahrain on my way to Korea the first time.

Did you know it was gonna be there, or was it an added, were you ready to like, it was not an added bonus, it was amazing because the air hostess, am I allowed to say air hostess?

They were called-

Cabin crew?

No, they were called air hostesses.

That's okay, call it what it was in the time, that's fine, as long as it's not racially sensitive.

No, of course not.

You know I'm not a racist.

Of course he isn't, not with the mics on anyway.

No.

I used to love, I had this love hate relationship with the pneumatic headphones.

Pneumatic headphones.

As a qualified sound engineer, I do not know what these are.

Okay, the sound used to come out of two little holes in the arm of your seat.

And you had what was basically a plug.

Not an electronic plug, it was a physical plug, like a pipe insert.

Oh, was this like an in-ear?

In-ear.

Like a hospital radio from the olden days?

Yeah, so it was just like empty pipes and you'd stick these things in your ears.

Like a stethoscope.

Yeah.

And so the sound was distributed to each seat via...

What you used to basically put on your bath to make a shower when you didn't have a shower.

Exactly.

And you used to stick these in your ears.

So I'm intrigued by these mad headphones, stethoscope headphones as I'm gonna think of them in my mind.

Because the first time I saw a back of seat television on a plane, I think was 1999, 2000, around then, when I went on Virgin and they had it.

And I was just blown away by it because I'd gone across the Atlantic a couple of years before and had to watch like, I think it was...

It was like projected onto the wall of the aircraft.

I mean, say a screen, it wasn't, it was like, you know, one of the walls between classes.

So I was really blown away, but I just remember that being a sort of two plug thing, but they were headphones that you were given by Virgin when you got on board.

Did you have to buy those by the way?

No, there was no buying.

The one with the screening on the wall, yes, we had to buy those and they were ridiculous.

It was air, which is equivalent of a freight plane at the time.

If you watch aircraft investigation, they do feature.

I'm not joking.

The plane was so full and so heavy.

I mean, in my mind, there was a goat in the arse.

There wasn't, but in my mind now, looking back, there was.

It shook its way across the Atlantic, shitting the life out of me.

And it was to Toronto and it couldn't make it.

So we had to land in some airfield to refuel.

This is someone who's like, you know, nervous about flying.

This was my first, I think that was my first transatlantic flight or the second maybe.

And it was not good.

It was a terrible experience.

But we had normal headphones on that.

So I'm intrigued by these tubular stethoscope shower head headphones that you had.

Are you sure it was not like some kind of eight track cartridge or maybe it was laser disc or something?

No, it wasn't, it was not at all.

Put a big disc in the side of the seat.

It comes up on the screen.

You have to turn it over halfway.

You said that you are nervous about flying.

I've always been a nervous traveler and I still fly, but what I'm surprised at is it never really goes away.

So I'm always fearful of it.

It just never leaves me.

I'm never more, sometimes I'll build it up too much and I'll think about it too much.

And then when I get on, I'm absolutely scared.

Sometimes I just don't, I'm like an actor going on stage.

I just don't think about it until I'm on it.

And then it hits me sometimes, but there is a fuck it factor once it takes off.

But this turbulence really, when it gets too turbulent, I really do get, you know, I've cried.

I'll admit it.

I've really teared up on planes before from absolute fear.

And I don't feel that in any other part of my life, but I do feel that on planes.

So actually having a television on the back of a seat, I would argue has made it a lot more palatable because at least I can spend a good chunk of time deciding what to watch, Seinfeld episodes, Mr.

Bean, whatever they've got.

I usually go for comedy because I need to fucking laugh because it ain't funny.

I did watch several seasons of Two and a Half Men on Emirates, on my travels, not so long ago.

Well, a few years ago.

Is that the Charlie Sheen seasons and stuff like that?

I watched Charlie Sheen and that other, what's he called?

The one that married that.

Ashton Kutcher took over.

Yeah, he took over.

I did watch, the only episode I've ever seen of that show was him taking over because we were intrigued to see what that would be like.

And I don't really watch Chuck Lorre TV shows apart from The Kaminsky Method, which I really liked.

Have you seen that?

I think.

With Michael Douglas.

I think so.

Yeah, that left a massive impression.

That was a good one.

That was recommended by a friend of mine whose viewing tastes I massively admire.

I was very surprised when she suggested it to me because I was like Chuck Lorre, am I gonna watch like that kind of Big Bang Theory type shite or not?

Does he make that?

But you know, people love those shows.

So I don't want to disrespect them.

Have you ever paused on the Chuck Lorre TV?

There was always like a lot of blurb at the end.

It's only on screen for a couple of seconds.

What's there?

It's like ramblings.

I do like those things.

I do like those things.

Like the one I remember from childhood is Stephen Jay Cannell Productions.

He's always at the end of like, I'm gonna say like Knight Rider or TJ Hooker.

Things like that.

And he'd pull a piece of paper out and he'd be typing in a piece of paper and he'd throw it and it would turn into a cartoon.

And I've always remembered that.

A bit like other 70s TV shows like The Streets of San Francisco.

It'd always go, a Quint Martin production.

You'd know who produced the fucking thing before you knew who was in it.

They always used to do that.

And it sticks in your mind.

It never ever leaves.

And you remember that Fred Quindy had been the sort here.

I can see your signature.

I can see your signature.

That's amazing.

That's like a brandy.

Disney is there before you see the movie.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, I have to be careful where I tread with this conversation.

So I'll probably steer clear of Disney for a bit.

And that's filmed anyway, luckily.

Well, not anymore, but.

No, Disney Plus, of course.

Disney Plus.

Muscling in the television.

Okay, so I will talk about it very briefly.

I've not been a fan of Disney generally.

Since you found out that it was somebody else in a Mickey suit.

No, I just, I was a Warner, like this happened, right?

So for my 30th birthday, I was in LA and I'd convinced myself that I wanted to get to Disneyland because that's what you do.

Having never liked anything Disney, TV, film, whatever.

And at the last minute, I thought, well, what do I like?

I like Warner Brothers.

I used to love Warner Brothers cartoons.

You know, Hannah Barbera, all of that sort of stuff.

Hong Kong Foodie, all this sort of thing.

And for some reason, it never occurred to me not to go.

So I had to sort of sit there and go, hang on a minute.

Why am I going somewhere I don't like?

I don't even like what they make just because I'm in the place where that is.

And then I found out that you could actually go to Warner Brothers Locked and it was only six or 12 people a day.

And I got on the list with my then girlfriend.

And we went on my birthday to Warner Brothers and we went around in one of the little carts.

So I'm going around the Warner Brothers lot, seeing like Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney playing basketball, went on various sets, saw a show called Jack and Jill being filmed.

They showed us where Seinfeld was filmed and I went back and I saw where ER was filmed.

And then right at the end, they were like, oh, this is where Friends is filmed.

This is a bit Friends heavy this episode.

I'm not a massive fan of Friends, but I did like it at the time.

Like everyone else, I know it's one of those shows where I probably know way too much dialogue, way more than I should, even though I haven't watched it for years.

We went to the lot where Friends is filmed and they said, oh, this is on hiatus at the moment, so we can't go in.

But if you guys want to book, and I said to the guy, it's my birthday.

The magic key.

So I said to the guy, any chance we can go in, he went, sorry, we can't go in, it's locked up.

And then someone else I was with, oh, go on, open it up for him, it's his birthday.

The guy went and contacted someone on the walkie talkie, got a message back, and then he just opened up the set, turned on the lights, click, click, click, and then there I was, standing in like the real central perk, and just there, like walking around.

It was absolutely amazing.

Was Gunn still there?

That guy died recently, I don't know.

Yeah, unfortunately.

Bad name to bring up.

But no, I was quite impressed, and what I remember feeling the most was how small the corridor was between the apartments, and I was standing there like looking at it, going, there's a door here, there's another door, like a meter.

How do they make it look so wide?

But anyway, cameras.

And I had seen, around that time, I did go to quite a lot of filmings.

I went to see King of Queens, an episode of that being filmed.

I had no idea what these things were.

Oh, I love King of Queens.

Yeah, I was in the audience for that.

I remember being in the audience of, what's, in England, was called Celebrity Squares when I was a kid.

Hollywood Squares, that was it.

Oh, I remember that, yeah.

Did they actually sit on top of one of them?

They did, yeah.

It's actually like that.

It's not like a university challenge.

They're actually on top of each other.

It's a big square, and the guy from Dharma and Greg was in it, and Whoopi Goldberg, some other people.

I didn't know who they were then.

Dharma and Greg.

Remember Dharma and Greg?

She was somebody who would make me feel strange.

Jenna Elfman.

I pulled it out of my brain, guys.

I know it sounded like I pulled it out because like Tony the Pony, I had those same feelings.

And they all went away when I found out she was a Scientologist.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah, I know, right?

Voluntarily or?

Well, I don't think she was like dragged into it.

I don't know if she was a fan, like grew up in it or if she converted for...

Because that lady was in The King of Queens.

What's she called again?

She is a big, big exposer of it.

Her name, we will try and pull it out.

We'll pause while I go into my Google brain.

Yeah, we can't not know.

I know her name.

I know her name.

Me too.

I just can't remember.

Hey, Siri, who is the female lead in King of Queens?

An organism sexist female of it produces the ovum, the type of gamete that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction.

And if you can hear that, that is why Siri is absolutely shit.

Enough.

Hey, Siri, is it going to rain today?

I don't want a cup of coffee.

I mean, what the hell is wrong with this thing?

One can't know everything, can one?

Oh, you fucking don't.

So you mentioned Leah Romini there, who, who is the wife of Kevin James in King of Cords.

She used to be part of the Church of Scientology.

Yeah, yeah, she grew, I believe she did grow up in it.

And she was, she's now an advocate for people who've left.

And I believe there is a TV show that she has done, which are lots of episodes, which you should check out.

It's quite exposing, along with Louis Theroux's, I mean, I'd say it's a TV show, he says it's a film, his Scientology film, but for the purposes of this podcast, it's television, it's an hour and a bit long, isn't it?

So Louis Theroux's stuff aren't, I wouldn't say they're films, Louis, but you're fantastic and we love you.

Moving on, let's try and sidestep all this Scientology stuff as much as we can, because I don't want to get sued, because I don't make any money yet.

Okay, Tony's just had a little thought about some television that might have stirred his lines.

So let's see what he's got to say about that.

I used to love coming home and watching the old Grey Whistle test, specifically for the retro dancing to music, because at that time, they didn't have dedicated...

Was that like a hot gossip Pans People type thing?

No, it wasn't.

There was music put to clips of old movies, which had been edited so that it matched the beat of the...

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That's what people do now with Beyonce.

They get her song and they put like an old 40s dance routine on and they match it up with all the single ladies.

This was many, many years ago and it was the old Grey Whistle test.

Yeah.

And it was Friday night, come back, of course.

I was young, I was living at home.

How old are you talking here?

Teen age?

Oh yeah, like 18.

Right.

You know, you've got to have a couple of surreptitious brews with the boys.

Just get home at the right time to pass your parents on the stairs.

They're going to bed, so you've got the living room.

Make sure your dad leaves his cigarettes downstairs because you're going to steal at least two of them.

Did you have one of those big ashtrays in the lounge?

They used to have like a lighter made out of marble and then next to it an ashtray next to the TV, like fucking Jim O'Figg's basically, without the nonce behavior.

No, we never had that.

Never had that.

I was more of a top of the pops guy, and what was the other stuff around my time?

Probably The Tube, which I wasn't really allowed to watch.

It was one of Channel 4's flagship shows with Jules Holland and Paula Yates.

During one of my trips back to Newcastle, I used to travel light, because it was basically arriving on Cathay Pacific into Gatwick at one end, and I used to run along through the terminal to get the Dandair flight to Newcastle.

Dandair?

Dandair flights.

Should be an airline podcast, this one, today.

It should be, it should be.

Anyway, I run down to the gates, and I get on, I'm the last person.

I'm shown into one of the front seats, and I sit next to this pretty scruffy looking guy.

He looked at me, and the door closes, and we take off.

And you get chatting to the guy sitting next to you.

Was it Andrew Lloyd Webber?

No, it wasn't.

I was, we were talking about, you know, where have you come from?

And I told him, I said, where are you going?

He said, I'm going to Newcastle to do a show.

Where did you come from?

Where did you go?

You sit next to Cotton Eye Joe.

I was.

And turns out he was going to appear on The Tube.

And yes, I was sitting next to Sir Bob.

Oh, Bob.

Bob of Geldof.

Yeah.

And you wouldn't have known because you were out of the country.

So your live aid must have been a thing, though.

I mean, talk about television.

Live aid was like the 86 or 85.

85.

Remember, it was live aid in the same year that the space shuttle exploded.

So Christmas 1984 was the song, Do They Know It's Christmas.

Summer of 85 was the massive Wembley gig.

And then the shuttle exploded, I believe, in early 1986.

I can't.

I can't.

It's the same.

It's the same.

Same like, you know, last summer to about now, really, isn't it?

It's that distance of time.

Talk about television.

We bring it back to TV briefly.

That space shuttle incident is one for me.

You know, I really do remember that vividly.

Where you were at the time you saw that.

Just because I was going through a really weird period where I was having what people who believe in such things would call premonitions.

I was having dreams about things that would then happen, but they'd be subtle.

They would be like a dream that I'm walking with my friend and he turns into my girlfriend.

And then I'd be walking along the street with him the next day saying, I had a dream last night that you turned into my girlfriend.

And the minute I say it, she taps me on the shoulder and he disappears into a shop.

And I'm like, but it was, it got a little bit weird.

But I did have a very vivid dream about the space shuttle blowing up a few days before.

And I told him, and then we used to do, he used to help me with my paper round after school.

And we came back and my nan and granddad had the telly on.

And they were just sitting there like, what the fuck, you know, it just happened, you saw the explosion.

And I walked in and my mate just looked at me, he went, fucking hell, that's what you, and I went, yeah, and I was glad I had a witness.

Of course, I know that is a coincidence because I would have probably been reading in the news that it was going to, there was a thing, you know, it was going to take off, there's going to be a launch.

I think it was going over the UK again.

And I remember seeing it once upside down, like we all went outside to sort of see it in the sky, like really far away, like a little dot in the sky.

So I was probably just aware of it.

And I had that thing.

But at the time I was like, oh, fucking hell, that's it, I'm psychic.

Because my granddad and my nanny and granddad were heavily into that kind of thing.

They would go to psychic meetings.

I would deliver their newspapers in one.

My granddad would order the psychic news.

You would think they didn't need it, wouldn't you?

And yeah, so I was sort of exposed to that.

And yeah, I remember that being probably before 9-11, I would say that was probably the biggest television event, which leads us on to, I mean, I can happily say here that we did do a little test record before, and I stupidly didn't record one half.

And we talked about this already, but I'm happy to revisit this, which is that when people say that they remember where they were when JFK was killed or 9-11 happened, or the moon landings or whatever it is, I think what they're actually remembering is where they were when they saw it on television.

And that is actually what people remember.

They don't remember, you know, a newspaper or maybe some people with some radio and the old War of the Worlds thing that happened whenever that was.

But I do think people remember, when I think of 9-11, I was backstage at the Sheffield Theatre Royal, I want to say.

And it was on the screen at Stage Door.

I was there, I was a sound engineer on a Woman in Black tour.

And it was a very weird afternoon where we went to the Stage Door every time we could to see what would happen next.

And I remember like, are we going to do this show tonight?

You know, remember?

And then halfway through the rehearsal in the afternoon, the guy behind me doing the lighting went, they've got the Pentagon.

And we thought, fucking hell, is this like a war starting?

I missed the exact start of this.

I saw, I didn't see the first plane go into the towers.

I saw the second plane go in.

And this is before you could record live TV, so you couldn't like just rewind it?

Couldn't rewind it.

Of course, the major networks were rewinding and replaying.

Some would say re-editing.

I'm not saying that.

I wouldn't say that at all.

Came back to my apartment, turned the TV on, went, got some milk, chugged it back, sat down, and bam, this thing on the TV was just shocking.

You know, it was instant.

No, it was the crash of the second plane into the second tower.

And I was honestly, I felt like I wanted to cry.

Because it was unbelievable.

Am I being trolled?

You know, is this only happening on my TV?

Right.

And the only other time that I could remember feeling such raw emotion at something that was happening on TV was the moon landing.

I have a line in my book, You Shot My Dog and I Love You, available in all bookshops and online, about being present for that, even though, because I was in my mother's stomach.

Not in her stomach, that would be weird, wouldn't it?

I was in my mother's womb, but I didn't, it wasn't a womb with a view, so I couldn't see what was happening.

So I always say that I heard New Armstrong's immortal words from the muffled womb, because I was present, but obviously I was a, you know, jelly bean or something.

No, I'd have been bigger than that.

It was three months before I was born.

So, yeah, I'd have been, I'm sure I didn't hear anything, but what I'm saying is I was, I'm old enough to be present for that in some weird form.

That's something I've really struggled with and have only really dealt with recently, if I'm being very honest.

I had an issue with my age.

I never lied about it, but I was reluctant to tell people what it was because I do feel youngish.

You know, I don't feel my age.

I'm now 53, which is insane to me because I do not feel anything like that.

And I've always felt younger than I am.

And maybe there's something, maybe it's because I went to college in the 90s when I was in my 20s.

I was seven or eight years older than everyone else.

I felt like the 90s to me is like a second childhood, even though I actually grew up in the 80s and to some degree the 70s, well, a lot in the 70s, let's be honest.

So it's like I had two and a half decades of growing up instead of one or one and a bit.

And then I think when I got to 40, I had a real issue with that.

I really, really struggled with being that old, which is ridiculous now.

But the 50 thing really, really, really fucking got to me.

And it was only talking of television when I saw the Beatles documentary last year.

And I finally, I'm not a Beatles guy.

Definitely not a Beatles guy.

But I definitely appreciate them way more than I did.

And I would argue, apart from maybe Jim and Andy, that mad fucking Jim Carrey on Man and the Moon documentary, the Beatles one has got to be a close, close to.

It's just absolutely amazing watching them produce an album out of thin air.

And when they played that gig on the top of the Apple building in January 1969, I sort of was annoyed that I wasn't alive.

I was like, that's the year I was born.

That's what London looked like.

That's what I was being pushed around in a pram in that era when it looked like that.

And to me, that's now a good thing.

That's a positive thing.

It's like, oh fucking hell.

I was like, although I don't think my eyes were open in the 60s because I was born like 10 weeks before the end of the decade, but it's nice to have a visual of something that's actually very cool and you should want to be from that time.

And instead of pretending I'm not, it was only when I saw that I thought, huh, it's actually pretty cool to be from then.

And that's literally last year when I finally accepted fucking who I am and where I'm from.

Anyway, back to television.

I'm just going to briefly talk about the difference between what I...

I don't want to be like the kind of person that says, when I was a kid, I used to brush my teeth with a fucking yard brush and piss in.

I mean, I grew up in Ireland for a bit, and I actually did have a house toilet in like the 80s.

So I don't resent my children having the things they have, and I don't think they're spoiled when it comes to television.

My God, they're spoiled.

I mean, the idea of like running home to watch like Grange Hill or Blue Peter or one of those things, like actually getting there for a scheduled show, like I used to like...

It's funny how this all goes in.

Like I used to watch a cartoon called Fred Bassett, and I can still do the tune now.

It's just in my head.

I haven't seen it for decades, you know?

And I just...

I wonder if things like that made more of an impact to say you and me because we had so little to choose from as to come in home now.

My kids come home from school today.

They can put on Netflix, whatever.

They've got so much to choose from.

I think it's almost...

I think it's too much.

It's like when iTunes came out and suddenly like, I don't know what to listen to.

I've got 10,000 albums.

How the fuck do I pick, you know?

I think there's an element to that.

What do you think about that?

I use my kids as a filter.

So, yeah, I used to watch cartoons on a Saturday morning when I was growing up.

I also used to go to the matinee.

Oh, the Saturday morning pitches.

Yeah, I got thrown out, apparently, for being an arsonist.

But all I did was I just took a piece of paper and I threw it over the balcony.

And of course, as it passed through the projected image, yeah, it looked as if it was on fire.

So this woman with misty blue hair came down on me like a ton of bricks.

And this is when they used to, obviously, everything was clockwork and the lighting was done by gas.

And we were winky.

There was no electricity then.

That's really, really harsh.

So, but I mean, I used to watch the cartoons.

I used to watch the things I was allowed to watch.

I'd sit with my parents when I was a teenage and I think Rumpel of the Bailey came on.

Yeah.

And my parents, staunchly Catholic, and they used to enjoy the reasoning of this guy until for some reason he started talking about Penetrate of Sex.

Oh, I've never seen my mother move so quickly.

Because we didn't have remote control.

I mean, I was the remote control, you know.

She used to poke me and tell me which button to press.

Well, there was a weird sort of halfway point when they were doing remote control.

So it was going up to the telly, touching the button itself, pressing the button.

And then for a while there were these sort of boxes on the string from the telly, kind of remote controls.

But the wire was never long enough to reach the sofa.

So you'd have to get off the sofa to get the box anyway.

Brilliant.

No, just because you touched on it there about your parents, you know, running for the television when any kind of sex came on, which is a massively common trait, and everybody has their version.

My version is slightly different in that it occurred around a time-

When you were 27.

No, that you might not know about, because if you left in 1982, but in around, I'm gonna say 1984, I lived with my grandparents, and I lived in Peterborough.

I'll say nothing about that.

So my granddad's in the lounge, my nan's in bed, and I come down from my room, I've been up there, like, you know, listen to music, whatever, had my headphones on, always did.

I had a little reel-to-reel, and I would like make up fake radio shows.

Why have I not done a podcast till now?

I used to put little things in and act like a DJ, and go, okay, and coming up next, it's Paul Hardcastle with No, 19.

And I'd do all this, and I'd edit it on the tape, and I'd get the tape, and I'd actually fucking cut it, and join it back up, and put it in like a man's head.

I'd physically cut it with a-

You'd sullet it?

I'd splice it, and you'd sullet it, yeah.

You could use sullet tape then.

So anyway, I come downstairs, my granddad's watching something.

You know, he's in the room, like the TV, the image is like flashing on him, because there's no light in the room.

And I sit down, and he's watching two lesbians going at it.

And I'm like, what is happening?

It was channel four, and they did this thing called Red Triangle.

And they would show like actual proper pornography, like full, I'd never, this is the first time I'd seen anything like that.

The only time I'd ever seen anything like that before was Jazz Mag that went around the school with a massive closeup of a woman's bits.

And I just remember thinking, fucking hell, if that's what it looks like, no thanks.

Yeah, I mean, that was not what I was expecting.

I went downstairs and my granddad was watching this fucking thing.

And he went, and then he said something derogatory about it.

He just turned around and goes, oh, fucking whatever.

And I was like, you're the one watching it.

And you seem not be wanting to turn it over.

And I just sort of sat there for a minute.

And I thought, is he going to turn this off or whatever?

And he just sat there and goes, okay, I'll just go to bed then see it.

He goes, all right, see you later.

He just sat there watching it.

I mean, what would he have been, 65 at that point.

So I mean, we all know what he was doing to me.

We know what he was up to.

But I found it really funny.

And then again, at some time later, I came down again and he was watching what I can only consider to be Japanese rope torture.

I mean, I do not know what they were showing on Channel 4, but I mean, it was a hell of a time to be alive, was for that.

Which year was this?

So it's about 1984.

So it's definitely at the height of my prowess at searching for imagery.

And it's Mary Whitehouse amongst all of this.

Yeah, I don't know why it was allowed.

It seems really weird.

Like it would be a problem now.

I mean, now you have like Naked Attraction and things like that, which I still, when I see that show, I do actually think, if my granddad knew what was on television nowadays, he'd have a fucking heart attack before he did.

You know what I mean?

The funniest, I've never watched Naked Attraction.

I've seen like, I know what it is.

I've seen like little flashes of it.

I'll let you have.

I didn't realize that it starts off a bit like, like when you're selling a horse, you know?

You know, it's like somebody will check the hocks, whereas on this, it's...

What do you want to see if you start on the feet?

Start on the feet.

Yeah, I know, it's like, you know, the door opens up progressively higher and higher.

Is that correct?

Yeah, until you get to the face.

And usually it could be like someone very, very good looking with a face like a fucking horse.

I'm not going to say anything derogatory, but yeah, it is a very odd thing.

And I, well, I have seen it.

And there was a little bit of time where I go to like, if I'm in a hotel or something, I watch a bunch of films.

And when I finished watching like a horror film or something, I just throw on terrestrial television to like make me not have nightmares.

And I would put the TV on and there it is.

It's always on at like 1.32 in the morning.

And you'd be like, well, I'm not watching this, but then you'd watch it.

Not for any, and I do really mean this, not for any sexual, like, oh, she's fit, none of that.

It's just weird.

It's just plain weird.

And what I find very strange about naked attraction is how unattractive people can look without a head.

Like, I know this sounds-

It doesn't matter how, without a head, it just looks weird.

And you realize that, oh, that only looks nice with a head attached, do you know what I mean?

Like, just a nice pair of boobs or something like that.

It doesn't really matter.

Or when they're not that nice and then the face is nice.

But you know what I mean?

It just looks really, it looks like an inanimate object, like an animal.

It's the weirdest thing.

You ever been to Shanghai?

I have been to Shanghai, but I haven't seen anything dodgy there.

Oh.

I mean, when I was in Shanghai, people were constantly asking me if I wanted a massage.

When I was out, actually shopping for a toy for my son.

And I was like, I'm out buying a toy for my son.

Would you stop asking me if I want a massage?

There are shops in China where you can buy a torso.

I mean, it's like in full view.

What do you mean a torso?

All over China are sex shops and they sell sex aids.

You can get it.

Does this have to do with television?

I don't know.

I can't remember, but it seemed like a decent thing to talk about at the time.

You've got this torso, so it's like a piece of silicone fashioned in the shape of a buxom woman with no legs, no arms, no head.

Right, oh, you mean like a, yes, I know what you mean.

What would that do for you?

Nothing at all.

I mean, I've seen things like that.

I have seen like people buy like a vagina or whatever, right?

And then they do something to the thing on its own.

That's fucking bizarre.

That is really weird.

That's really, or torches or something.

Honestly, I don't know what that's all about.

If you're into that, good luck.

We'll get sponsorship from one of those guys at some point.

But yeah, that is odd.

And the thing with, I don't want to go on about naked attraction too much.

I'm no prude, but every time I see that it's on, I kind of can't believe it's on.

I can't believe it.

I can't believe that's a TV show.

It got pitched and they put it on and now it's just on and that's normal.

I mean, it's good, but it's weird.

There was nudity in television and film anyway before, but television has always been a bit more prudish.

I mean, I remember like seeing things, like I'd come down stairs.

Was there even a watershed?

Was that a thing?

I mean, there was always like-

Nine o'clock, wasn't it?

Has that always been a thing?

But the thing is, you see, whenever you're here in the UK, my wife thinks it's disgusting that they drop the F-bomb in the middle of dinner on the television.

What time would they do that?

They wouldn't do that, they would they?

I mean, that's definitely later.

See, I don't have a problem with swearing on television because I think people swear.

And there's nothing worse to me than when you see Kitchen Nightmares or something like that, and they've cut all of Gordon Ramsay's fucks out.

I mean, it's not fun watching a bleeped show.

It's ridiculous.

We are all adults.

We all swear, our children will swear.

I know you don't want them walking around going fuck this, fuck that.

Like I said, I'm no prude, but I'd rather my kids heard a swear word than saw some fucking.

You know what I mean?

On television.

It's just monkeys making noises.

I understand it and I agree to some extent, but I also think they're going to hear it.

You heard it in a playground when you were a kid by the age of 10.

I mean, we're all going to hear it.

It's just words.

You cannot stop them learning it.

I say to my son, you can hear it, but you can't repeat it.

That's kind of our rule.

We watch Taskmaster.

My son is nine.

I don't watch the ones that are bleeped and all the sex stuff seems to go over his head for now.

And there's nothing funnier than watching his reaction when someone says a swear word.

And I know it's not for nine year olds and you're probably going to have a go at me about it, but he loves it.

He loves comedy.

He loves all the comedians on it.

It's part of our world.

I think that's one I can live with rather than a Disney movie where the fucking parent is dead immediately and they've got, everyone's always dead.

There's always a dead parent in everything made for children, television, film, all of it.

And, you know, that to me is, yes, it's character building and all of that.

And they have to deal with these things of reality.

Does a five year old need to know about death?

I just want to make my way to one other subject.

You got time for one more?

Sure.

Okay.

Right, so Tony, Tony, Tony.

Television show you saw as a kid, which scared the shit out of you.

Go.

Without a doubt, first thing has got to be Torchy the Buttery Boy.

Now I've never heard of this, but Tony was nice enough to show me a clip of this before this podcast.

I cannot fucking believe.

Mate, anything with a like, I mean, it's not just a puppet, it's more like a sort of ventriloquist doll looking thing, isn't it?

They're always bad news.

Scary.

Think of Chucky on steroids.

I have never seen anything.

Made from metal.

With a rocket of his arse.

Yeah.

I mean, that can't have been made for children.

What was it?

60s, I'm guessing.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it looks insane.

If you made that now for kids, you'd be, are you sure you haven't made a fucking Blumhouse horror film?

What are you talking about?

That cannot be for children.

It was for children.

And you know, even though it used to scare the shit out of me, and it used to give me nightmares, once it came, it was like this hypnotic effect it had on me.

Even if I was sitting in front of the television when it came on, I was clamped into position and I could not move until that thing was over.

I don't know why, but it was scary shit.

Kids do, yeah, don't check it out is my advice.

Fucking hell, not if you want to sleep.

I mean, I thought it was going to be more like Captain Scarlet or something.

But for me, I'm 10 years younger than Tony.

So for me, that will be something from the 70s, late 70s.

And I'm not sure if it was an episode of Rent a Ghost or something like that, which I did love.

But there was two things.

I don't remember which is which or if it's the same show, but there was something to do with getting in a lift.

These kids got in a lift and it went down and down and down.

It just fell and it went, I'm assuming, to hell.

Right?

And I don't know if it was the same thing, but there was also another episode of either something similar or the same show in which some kids went on a London Underground chain, which I used to take to school, by the way.

And so it was right in my fucking, you know, wheelhouse of terror.

They got on the tube and it went past the station that it should have and got faster and faster and faster and then sort of went down at a very long angle going into the ground, into the ground, into the ground.

And then when they got out, everything was green.

And you knew they were like in, again, hell or dead or whatever.

And I remember being absolutely fucking scared of that.

And I remember that going into my brain.

And I still have nightmares about underground.

I still have nightmares about lifts all the time.

And I really do attribute it to whatever those shows were.

If anyone knows, please let me know, because I don't know.

It would have been late 70s, early 80s maybe.

But absolutely terrifying.

And one other, which I know other people share, because people think it's a film, but it wasn't a film.

It was a TV series.

A serial?

What would have been called those days?

A serial?

Not fucking Cornflakes.

It was a series, an American TV.

Now they're called limited series, limited season, limited series.

Limited season is for like four or five?

Yeah, this was a specific, what they used to call things like, you know, winds of war and things like that.

Things that were just like stand alone, few episodes, boom.

This was David Soule in Salem's Lot.

Now I've got a friend in Canada who agrees with me 100% on this one.

There was a scene in that.

And I don't know how I saw it because I didn't sit down and watch it.

Again, it would have just been on.

For those under 20 years old, something just being on is when you walk in the room and you haven't fucking chosen what you're watching.

It just happens to be on.

And as a kid growing up then, you didn't really have a say in what you saw.

I'd come downstairs, my grandparents would have the Sweeney on, and it'd be like John Thor smacking around a hooker or something.

I'd be like, what the fuck is this?

Yeah, exactly.

And one day I came down and they were watching Salem's Lot with David Song.

Yeah, exactly.

And I remember he went to the window and he opened the curtains of this window.

This is fucking terrifying just to say.

And outside the window was a child with a big white face, and he was just floating outside with his legs and everything.

I couldn't open the curtains for about fucking 25 years after that.

I'm telling you, it went straight in, straight in.

I don't think it's left me yet.

Even when I walk through the house at night, I look outside.

I always expect to see something, if not a floating boy, a man just staring at me from the lane, you know, some shit.

We were exposed to stuff that we shouldn't have been.

Not swearing, not sex, but definitely scary stuff.

So let's end on something that people might be able to relate to, rather than weird obscure mini series that we're on in the winter of 1969.

Recently, people have said that we've just experienced a golden age of TV.

I believe that if you grew up anywhere between the 60s and the 90s up to 2000, you definitely grew up in television times.

If you've grown up after that point, there's nothing wrong with it, but you've grown up in more of an internet era.

You've grown up in internet times, not television times like myself and most of my guests.

We will have guests on who have not grown up in television times, and we'll find out what they think about all this.

But as a way of ending this podcast, I now wanna ask one more very serious and important question.

Okay, let's discuss just one piece of television, completely okay when you're a kid considered fine to watch by everybody, that today would be considered absolutely unacceptable.

And for me, which I can't quite believe, it went as late as it did.

I do remember watching it with my nan and grandad as it being-

Before you say it, Steve.

Go on, I bet you're gonna guess on it.

I mean, I'm totally in concert with you because I know what you're gonna say.

I think I just remember two or three things as a kid that we would watch around Christmas.

One of them I used to love, which was the Stanley Baxter Show, which was fantastic.

I still think he's brilliant when I see clips.

We used to watch Malcolm and Wise, Christmas Day Show, brilliant.

Dave Allen would be on.

It's fantastic stuff, all of it.

But then at some point it would take a turn and there would be a black and white minstrel Christmas show.

Now I've looked this up and I cannot believe, I'm gonna ask you, what year do you think that show finally got taken off the air?

This is white people blacking up, singing.

When we got taken off air, I would say probably 2006.

No, luckily we're more progressive than that.

2006, fuck off.

Could you imagine that going through the Britpop period with Tony Blair and everyone just black and white minstrels hanging out with Oasis and Blair, you know, hanging out in Parklife?

No, it was not as early as I would have thought.

I definitely, well, I know it was on when I was a kid, but I would have thought it would have ended in the 70s.

It went in, the last one is 1981.

Now, I know that's a long time ago to listeners, but that is actually recent history in my mind for something like that.

That seems insane.

Little caveat, I found out after this podcast was recorded that the black and white minstrels actually toured the UK and even did summer seasons at Butlins, all in front of children until the year 1989.

Just to sit with my grandparents on a Sunday evening and watch the black and white minstrel show.

It's mad, right?

It's mad that that was a thing.

I'm sure it was, but I mean, okay, well, let's not get into that.

Well, that's my answer, what's yours?

Oh, come on, I said before you even gave your answer, it was gonna be exactly the same because that's something that sticks in my mind.

And because we used to watch it every week.

It was on every week?

It used to be.

Was it a weekly show as well?

It was a black and white minstrel show, it was a weekly show, Sunday evening.

That is insane.

So it was like songs of praise.

Songs of praise.

Some like antiques.

Black and white minstrels.

Whatever the Lovejoy type TV show was and then black and white minstrels.

Fantastic.

Thanks Okay, so that was episode one, the de facto pilot of Television Times Podcast with Tony the Pony, Tony P, Tony Page, however you'd like to call him.

He'll no doubt grace our ears again at some point, as he is a family friend and he lives locally to where this podcast is recorded.

Now, after the session was over, we went to the High Street, me, my wife and Tony P, for lunch where we descended upon a brand new cafe where Tony the Pony demanded that they feed him dog biscuits, which were there for the dogs, obviously not for human consumption.

As he was eating them, he tried to get me to eat one.

I was worried they might not be vegetarian, but turns out they were, so I ate it anyway.

They weren't actually bad.

It was a lot better than what I ordered for my lunch, which was a vegan carnation chicken sandwich.

It was absolutely foul.

If a big pile of chickpeas and two slices of bread is your thing, then go for it.

It really was not my bag.

Anyway, it's been a couple of days since that recording now, and we've got the format down a bit more after a few more records.

So that was a kind of loose, two guys in a room version of the podcast.

I'm not sure how much of that will stay or if the format will change.

The subsequent recordings have been, a couple of them have been a bit more serious.

Some of them are more silly.

We'll just see how it goes.

Now to how we close this podcast.

Every episode, I will be going back in time to my former incarnation as a songwriter, which I still am, to play you a song which nobody's really ever heard.

This time, we're gonna go all the way back to 1996 to the original concept album of Television Times, where it all began.

Now the final song on that album was called Sitting Comfortably.

And I haven't played with it or remixed it or re-edited it in any way.

The vocal's a little bit high, I think.

And yeah, I'm just gonna leave it here.

If you like it, you like it.

If you don't, skip it.

Not a problem.

Not a problem.

So this has been my first episode of Television Times Podcast.

I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

Oh, that's a spooky ending.

Apparently you've got to try and fly now.

I think that's what I was trying to convey in 1996.

As you can hear, my vocals back in the day were a little bit higher than they would be now.

Anyway, well done if you got to the end.

I'll see you on the next episode of Television Times Podcast.

Bye for now.