Here is a personal list of some favourite tv shows from the Eighties. The first part of it experienced without any aid or idea of VHS recorders. It was all catch it as it was transmitted or miss it altogether. No way to catch it otherwise. That did give things a level of excitement and energy that the modern world is missing. These are in no particular order, i was just catching them as they came to mind.
I should also say we lived in the UK for a lot of the 80s and often tried to escape into American cultural experiences. We loved American music the most also. In some ways I am mystified why we were in the UK, why didn't we head to the USA? Of course we also loved a lot of British culture as well and probably felt as close to that as we did to the Yankee stuff.
SCTV. Second City Television. Canadian origins. So many great stars came from this theatre/show. Rick Moranis, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine OHara, Joe Flaherty. Our favourite characters were Tex and Edna Boil and the McKenzie Brothers.
Mickey Spillane's MIKE HAMMER - starring Stacy Keach. Shot on film and with a real film actor in the lead. Quite gritty with a great theme tune (Harlem Nocturne).
Phillip Marlowe- Private Eye was a 1983-86 show made by the BBC and HBO. A great actor in the lead, Powers Boothe - most recently seen in Deadwood as Al Swearingens saloon/pimp rival, Cy Toliver.
Crime Story 1986-88 starring Dennis Farina. This show was ambivalent about justice. the good guys didn't always win.
Miami Vice. One of those shows that is used to define a decade. Great theme music, incredible guest appearances by the likes of Miles Davis. Great vehicle for Don Johnson who was a cop who drove a very expensive car and lived on a boat. The corruption was palpable in this show.
My favourite actor and character was Edward James Olmos as Lt Castillo. He was so downbeat and serious. Often talking with his back to the camera or to the person he was talking to. Gravitas!
Moonlighting. Cybill Shepherd was in Bogdanovitch's THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and also in Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER. Powerful, manipulative characters. She will live for decades through those films alone. Bruce Willis debuted in this. In many ways he was to Mickey Rourke as America were to Neil Young and Men At Work to the Police. A nicer, more available version of something more authentic.
Cybill and Bruce had a nice wisecracking chemistry and also the Al Jarreau theme tune was great.
Married With Children . The first season was great. Excellent cast all around and a Sinatra theme tune.
Sledgehammer. 80s deadpan dumbness. Very funny. A really dumb and violent cop who has one solution to everything - his gun. His Hunter S Thompson like catchphrase still rings about with a few friends, "trust me! I know what I'm doing!"
Night Court. The 80s were great for things still being allowed to just happen. No explanations given or required. Shows like this found their audience or even created a new one.
Cheers. So many great characters. So many great actors. Launched the careers of Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson and Kirstie Alley. (Though the latter two replaced equally as brilliant characters in Dianne and Coach). The barflies - Norm and postal worker Cliff kept it real. (The actor who played Norm reputedly a fan of the Replacements). The Boston accents and the spin off series Frasier that was equally as good.
Family Ties. My interest in this was solely to do with Justine Bateman. A very twee soft rock theme tune. Though I have come to love those jams as well.
Edge Of Darkness. Uk drama, theme by Eric Clapton. Anything with Joe Don Baker is worth watching for him alone. This was a great, gloomy series that seems to have been remade with Mel Gibson, which seems to happen too often. If not him in Point Blank its Stallone in a remake of Get Carter. Nah.
Bullseye! In the Moodists we watched this show in baffled confusion. WTF! It never failed to dazzle us. We never worked out what it was all about but it was rivetting viewing. Psychedelic fare.
3-2-1! Even more incomprehensible than Bullseye! It featured a character of a dustbin. Dusty Bin! Samuel Beckett would have loved this stuff. The way the presenter said the title and flashed his fingers at the same time.
Blankety Blanks hosted by comedian Les Dawson. In the UK they had laws against making prizes on game shows too extravagant. Les Dawson was a master at lampooning showbusiness itself.
World Snooker Championships. We used to love watching this stuff. The players were all pale skinned, dodgy underworld figures suddenly thrust onto daytime television screens. Great characters like Alex "Hurricane" Higgins (who once had a tipsy Marianne Faithfull cheering him on from the gallery) and Jimmy White (who was reputed to be only able to read and write two words, Jimmy and White).
Saint and Greavesie. 1987. This was the closest I could get to watching LEAGUE TEAMS which had been left behind in Melbourne. Two characters who were pretty raw and seemed to have been champions in their past lives, perhaps ten years previously.
Ok, lets close with some Jack Dyer.
2019 shows
Dec 20th Dave Graney and Clare Moore inducted into AMC SA Hall of Fame in Adelaide at the Jade Monkey.
Feb 7th Dave Graney and Clare Moore play Hardys Bay Club, Central Coast NSW
Feb 9th Dave Graney and Clare Moore play Smiths in Canberra with Coral Snake Robin Casinader joining them on mellotron.
Feb 20th Dave Graney and Clare Moore play the Ember Lounge (Memo Music Hall) in St Kilda.
Feb 22nd , Mona Foma, Hobart 1pm show
Feb 23rd , Longley, Tasmania 2pm show
Dave Graney solo dates in WA in February.
Thur 27 Feb - Freo Social, Fremantle WA
Fri 28 Feb - The River Hotel, Margaret River WA
Sat 29 Feb - The Prince Of Wales, Bunbury WA
Sun 1 March - The Indi Bar, Indian Ocean Hotel - Scarborough WA
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