Bob Monkhouse on BBC Four

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Bobbo's video machine may have cost an arm and a leg, but the fact that it is still functioning perfectly well today says a lot about the quality of the item: built to last!!

I got my first video-recorder in 1984 [after recieving my first ever paycheque from D C Thomson] and it lasted well, and was constantly in use, but in no way was it as durable as Bobbos 'dream machine'. He also had projectors and cans of film as well, which must have been also pretty expensive to fund: I dreamed of owning all this sort of gear in the late 60s and early 70s, but alas I had no talent as a smarmy but successful games show host or standup performer........

[Raven]

That's right the much missed Philips N1500- still hardly a 'domestic' product at the price it was, and the format was dead by 1980 or so.

Well, it was there for the public to buy, but at about £1,600 you had to be well off, and I expect the majority were bought by schools (and also universities, maybe?). I wonder if you could rent them anywhere.

And Bowie buying Jagger a staggeringly expensive Christmas present... well, best not think about that!

Apparently Jagger bought him a tie in return, which Bowie was rather peeved about!

Nothing extraordinary stood out though - mainly variety shows and sitcoms.

Still, even things like original broadcasts of some of the Monty Python shows had things later missing. And hopefully he recorded his own now fairly obscure things like Quick on the Draw in the afternoons. (I think TV Cream mention seeing lots of intros to The Kids From 47A on some of his tapes, which made me wonder if he'd just left the tape running from Quick on the Draw, which was on at 3.50pm the same day!)

Seems like Reg Varney had one too, as episodes of his wiped ATV sitcom Down the 'Gate were obtained from his own off-airs.

And movies of course, probably 70% of his archive was movies-he must have taped every movie that BBC and Thames/London Weekend broadcast in the 1970s and 1980s!

I noticed 'Undying Monster' on one of the tapes on the BBC documentary!

[Black Max]

A terrfic piece of telly. Most stunned was i by the Frank Bellamy Garth art hanging on the walls

[ogtec]

The Garth was nice, and easily identifiable, but I swear there was a brief glimpse of a Krazy Kat page, which is amazing - assuming my eyes aren't playing up(!)