Tuesday 26 August 2014

My Wife's Shocking TV Obsessions! Part 2

Welcome back to the second installment of this exploration of my wife's quirky viewing habits!


Next -  a ridiculous, but oddly entertaining programme was:

"Columbo"

Described by Wikipedia as:

"... an American detective mystery television film series (1968–1978, 1989–2003), starring Peter Falk as Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department."  

The formula for each episode was pretty much the same: the characters and story are introduced, one of the characters murders the other, attempts to cover it up, just when he/she thinks they have gotten away with it,  Columbo (After nearly an hour in)  comes chugging up in his car-wreck & raincoat.  

Our detective is never at full health, usually experiencing either: food poisoning, lack of sleep, general fatigue, or headache.  He is routinely not recognised as a superior by low ranking officers, until he wearily flashes his badge.  

This guy never misses a detail, scrutinising every aspect of the case ,asking and re-asking seemingly unimportant questions, which later proved to be central to solving the case.  This skill is regularly employed by Mrs Rockford, who herself has the reputation of getting to the bottom of any situation/challenge.
  
So great was Mrs Rockford's love for the programme, that a few years ago we found ourselves watching a small theater production of Columbo. This special one-off starred the A-Teams's Dirk Benedict as our dishevelled hero.  We were at first skeptical about anyone filling the Falk's shoes, but fill them he did, and with style! 

There's just one more thing: While always fun to watch, continuous viewing finally begs the question "at what stage did he know?" Because our hero is clearly onto the murderer from the very start, and just seems to spend the whole time harassing the person until they 'fess up or slip up! So is Columbo psychic? I guess that will remain a mystery...


Next Time: "Alias Smith & Jones"


Monday 25 August 2014

The comics are coming!

I've just started using a comic book creation app on my tablet, it's really good!

I have tried a few today & they were good for free apps, but didn't quite give me the freedom I needed.  
For the small price of 99p "Comic Strip It Pro" used in conjunction with an art app does everything I need!

Soon I will be creating some comic strips about my experiences for your entertainment.  In the meantime enjoy my experiments below:

Monday 18 August 2014

My Wife's Shocking TV Obsessions! Part 1

Welcome to a new post who's regularity is out of my hands, instead depending on:


Mrs Rockfords Quirky Current TV Obsessions!


few years ago we decided to go with Virgin as we live in a basement & can't receive Freeview. This gave us the opportunity to catch up on endless repeats of ancient TV shows.

Peculiar TV obsessions arose within my wife


Before these obsessions firmly took root however, one of the first shows we enjoyed together was the fantastic Rockford Files - hence my blogger name. James Garner plays the private detective who prefers to talk, rather than fight his way out of a scrape. 

The title sequence was superb, with the highly original theme tune voiced by the Minimoog synthesizer. Each episode begun cleverly with a different answer machine message, usually concerning Rockford owing money etc. The title visuals used a series of stills of the city & Jim, rather than the usual clips of previous episodes - brilliant! We loved this show and then it just stopped...which if you're familiar with Virgin/Sky and their endless repeats - seems incredible!

It may be this sad loss that drove my wife into the arms of Bodie & Doyle in:

"The Professionals"

Starring a rugged Lewis Collins & a tough but slightly more sensitive Martin Shaw. Every week the excellent Gordon Jackson as their shrewd, dour Scottish boss, kicked Whitehall ass as our boys kicked actual ass in the field! This programme running from '77 to '83 was in my opinion one of the finest on TV at the time. The well thought out, action-packed stories, contained just enough plot twists & humor to keep us coming back for more.  The fight scenes were well choreographed, which was almost unique in the era of wobbly sets & "no one will notice" attitude of programming. 

It of course seems ridiculously sexist to our modern eyes & was clearly one of the influences to Gene Hunt & other characters in "Life on Mars" Like a piece of quality clothing though, it largely stands the test of time. Today this great programme remains sadly underrated & strangely absent from modern retro-culture.  

Newsflash: I've just heard that a modern-day film of the series could be being made at this very moment - alright!

Next Time: Columbo