Runarahhhnd, nahhh

By | July 22, 2020

Some things of interest that have popped up in various feeds recently:

  • Talking Pictures TV are going to start showing Runaround with Mike Reid, Saturday this weekend at 7:40am and Saturday and Sundays at 9am from 8th August. This ought to be a great deal of fun, albeit largely for the tour de force hosting. You can find Talking Pictures on Virgin 445, Freesat 306, Freeview 81 and 328 on Sky Digital.
  • Likely of interest, the BBC have put up the first episode of documentary series Games Brittania (originally shown in 2009) on iPlayer. Don’t know if they’re going to show the rest of it, but I don’t think I watched it at the time so it’s nice to have another chance. It’s only available for the next four weeks, so get a move on.

6 thoughts on “Runarahhhnd, nahhh

  1. Simon F

    Games Britannia is being repeated on BBC4 on Monday nights so the other 2 episodes will be on Iplayer after transmission.

    Reply
  2. John R

    A random thought…why isn’t Naked Attraction on UKGS?

    Yes, I really just posed that question, should maybe have waited for the anonymous stool pigeon…:(

    Reply
  3. Steve Williams

    Someone should actually mention Runaround because it really was quite something. Seemingly it was the oldest available episode from 1978 and, er, an experience.

    The contestants were brought on in a cart pulled along by two bulls and accompanied by a dog in a Red Indian-style headdress. Mike suggested we’d see more of that later, but, er, we didn’t. After a few questions – during which Mike stopped any excessive cheering by shouting “Headache!” and kept on reminding the audience to “let the kids play the game for themselves!” – the first item of interest was a traction engine, where Mike was eager to point out that “you’ll never see anything like this again in your lifetime”. The second item of interest was another traction engine.

    This second traction engine caused the biggest derailment to proceedings as it was belching out fumes and making a racket, Mike constantly shouting “Turn it off, George! Turn it off! Turn it off, George!”. When George finally turned it off, Mike asked George to say something funny (he didn’t, really) and then Mike and some Runaround roadies had to help turn it back on again, until it could finally be removed from the studio.

    The third item of interest was a number of fairground attractions. Unfortunately as Mike pointed out, “I can’t say much to Mick, cos ‘e’s a bit mutton”, but he did speak to the other people who had brought things in, at some length, including a lady who’d brought in a barrel organ which was also being used to play in and out all the contestants and traction engines (“keep the barrel organ going, m’darlin!”). Some other questions were illustrated by monochrome film footage accompanied by music seemingly from a blaxploitation film soundtrack.

    At the end there was one winner, which as Mike pointed out was quite rare for this series, and while he chose his prize, Mike signed off by reminding us “Your mum’s your best friend – look after ‘er!”

    As you mention, this becomes a regular fixture in the schedules the Saturday after next. And I can’t wait.

    Reply

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