'Tom, Jerry, Benny & Ernie'

Thinking back to my earliest memories of Christmas in the 70's is impossible to do without remembering the hi-jinks of the cartoon characters that were constantly on television then. 'Wacky Races', 'Stop The Pigeon', 'Pepe Le Phew', Daffy Duck', Top Cat', 'Dangermouse', 'Buggs Bunny', 'Ivor The Engine', Michael Bentine's Potty Time', 'Foghorn Cleghorn', 'Trumpton', 'Camberwick Green', 'The Magic Roundabout' and so many others all bring an instant smile to my face!

The one cartoon that always used to make you laugh though was 'Tom & Jerry'. They were almost like the cartoon version of the bit at the end of every Benny Hill show where he perpetually got chased by all and sundry. However many times you'd seen the same joke and same slapstick stunts it was impossible not to laugh your head off! 

While there was an element of violence in the Tom & Jerry cartoons a lot of it was balanced out with a healthy amount of humour and the way little Jerry pulls faces and blow raspberries at Tom whenever he gets away is still incredibly funny today. So many of todays kids television is full of combat, weapons, fighting and big explosions the humourous side of things seems to have fallen by the wayside. I think thats a real shame and in spite of what the 'so called experts' say, I still don't think it is healthy viewing for young people to grow up watching violent cartoons that appear to make violence acceptable.

Take a look at this Christmas Tom & Jerry cartoon  and you will see what I mean...

Oh, and while we are on the subject of dear old Benny Hill (GOD knows how he would have coped in todays PC world!) he had the Christmas No 1 in 1971 with this hilarious little ditty...

Poor old Ernie! They won't forget him!

'The Christmas Special'

I have always loved the idea of 'Christmas special editions' of things. Even as a kid my eyes would light up at the sight in the newsagents of a festive edition of my favourite magazine or comic. There is something wonderfully universal ( or was) about the holiday season and glamming up everything once a year to make it seem special seems like a great idea anyway! Communication has also always been a big thing for me. In the 70's I used to invite friends round and we would record 'The Tony May Show' on  a cassette in my bedroom. I used to do the presenting, interviewing, make up a pop quiz  and produce the whole thing and my friends would help me pick the records to play and sometimes contribute by making up a mix of current records or by doing a stint on record reviews etc. It was all great fun...

Ironically, three of the friends I interviewed on 'The Tony May Show' went on to be people well worth interviewing! Martin Curcher became a well-known musician and Martin Smith & Darren Ash ended up as two of the 'Mastermixers' associated with 'Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers' of numerous number 1 hits fame! Martin & Darren also had a hit record ('Time To Make The Floor Burn') and a couple of hit albums under the name 'Megabass' and saw their song appear on TOTP and themselves in Smash Hits! 

Another late 70's/ 80's hobby of mine was writing my own magazine - 'Amayzing'. As well as a love of presenting, singing, songwriting and film making I have always been a journalist at heart. I peddled my home-made magazines around a few of the local newspapers etc back in the day but was never able to get an offer of a job in that field. The world now is OBSESSED with qualifications and bits of paper but it was a little better back then. I have always been a 'flair' person rather than an academically brilliant one and thus thrive on inspiration, gut feeling and passion to help me produce work. The finer art of 'dotting t's and correct placement of punctuation marks' has never really interested me and so I have perpetually found learning stuff like that difficult. If I am not interested in something it tends to go 'in one ear and out the other' which often seems like arrogance to others. I don't see it as arrogance though. I am always a buzzing hive of ideas and just need to get them down on paper with all of the passion still fizzing off the page. Trying to think about how to

put things down in a grammatically correct way and struggling to do that just hampers my flow and blunts my artistic bent. Once you have the full body of an idea you can always get someone else to help you with all that if needs be but if your writing is soulless, dry and boring who is going to want to read it?

Anyway, I guess because of my inability to cope with the finer points of learning I have ended up where I am in life. People (employers) don't want to take on individuals with 'flair' - they want to take on those who have shown that they have the ability to do the job by taking the relevant exams. The snag for me is that I really don't want to try to 'rein in' my natural way of doing things because I am quite happy with the results  and don't want to turn into a 'regimented, trained robotic writer'. I guess this is why, however, in 2013 I am sitting here writing this blog and others in jobland are getting paid a fortune!

Anyway, the real point in this particular post here is to (ironically, seeing as this is the Internet) mourn the continuing decline in the need for physical magazines (or indeed printed material of any kind) these days. Kids still have a great selection of comics with free toys, stickers or gifts attached to them but most of the more adult mainstream magazines have now either disappeared or been reduced to 'monthly' editions. With the Internet taking up more and more of peoples time and attention it seems inevitable to me that one day the printed word will become virtually commercially dead. Things have already gone the same way in the music world (mp3's have killed the physical format) and it is getting harder and harder to sell physical newspapers, magazines and books these days (kindle and free online newspaper reading). So I am writing this little blog entry as a kind of tribute to the days of the printed word and as a little reminder to the child in you of 'The Christmas special'...

'Now For Some Telly Welly!'

If there is one programme that is essential viewing in my house at Christmas every year other than 'A Christmas Carol' (the Alastair Sim version) it has to be 'A Cup Of Tea And A Slice O' Cake' - The Worzel Gummidge Christmas special from 1979? Worzel Gummidge was and still IS my favourite programme of all time. I know its a kids show but the acting is so wonderful throughout and the interaction between John Pertwee (so brilliant as Worzel) and The Crowman (played by my favourite actor, Geoffrey Bayldon - I met him for the first time earlier this year and told him so) really pulls on my heartstrings. Not only are there many adult jokes hidden in the script the programme says so much to me about the harshness of the world and how that can often be seen in such an innocent yet black & white way by children. If, like me, you really don't feel like you've ever grown up (and don't really want to either!) then a healthy dose of crazy Worzel comedy slapstick is just what the doctor ordered over Christmas. Have a watch here of this wonderfully British piece of festive magic and remember to raise your glass this Christmas Eve to dear old John and the rest of the cast who have now sadly departed - Geoffrey Bayldon is still with us (aged 89) at the time of posting but raise a glass to him anyway!

'Lonely This Christmas'

Talking of this blog serving as a Christmas Hits Jukebox I'd like to start off the festive hit selection with this No 1 single from MUD from 1974.  For a number of years in the late 70's and early 80's (typical me to go mad on someone or something when their/its most successful days were over) MUD were my favourite band. I used to love Les Gray especially and used to dream about being a singer like him. The strange thing though was the fact that I never really considered MUD to be a Rock N' Roll band but more of a rock group. Hits like 'Dyna-Mite' and 'Rocket' seemed more rocky to me that Rock N' Roll  but then I always have been an awkward git who sees and feels things other people don't (or simply wouldn't bother to!).

However I remember the band, there is no denying that MUD's performance of this song on the Christmas TOTP where its snowing and Les Gray has a ventriloquists dummy on his knee has to be one of the most memorable TOTP performances of all time. The decapitation job Les performs on the poor little guy Tommy Cooper would have been proud of! But then that is what I love so much about the 70's Glam Rock era. Bands/artists did not take themselves so seriously as they do today. There were a lot of 'charachters' in the charts (Alice Cooper, Roy Wood (more about him later), Alvin Stardust, Mark Bolan, David Bowie, and my idol (O.k. I made a bad choice but its true!) Gary Glitter and along with bands like The Sweet, Slade, the aforementioned Glitter Band and others musicians had real identities then. Today, I would not recognise most of the most popular musicians if they sat down next to me in a bar and offered me a drink? I mean, how many people in the 70's would have recognised Dave Mount - the drummer with MUD but can you even tell me who plays the drums for Coldplay?
I met Les Gray's brother, Pete, once but thats a story for another day - now on with the music...