1976:
The trivia:
- In this year doctors in Los Angeles went on strike. The mortality rate dropped by 18%.
- On April 1st, the BBC convinced many radio listeners that a special alignment of the planets in our solar system would temporarily decrease gravity on Earth. Phone lines were inundated with callers who claimed they felt themselves lift off the ground.
- There were no red M&Ms between 1976 and 1986 due to a controversy involving a synthetic food dye. However that dye was never used in the colouring of M&M's at all - the colour was just withdrawn to avoid "public confusion".
- In 1976 Ronald Wayne sold his 10% co-founders share of Apple for $800. Today it would be worth 35 billion.
The memory:
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
Reginald Iolanthe Perrin lives in suburban Climthorpe with his wife Elisabeth. Every day he walks the same route to the same railway station, to sit in the same carriage, across from the same faces on the same train (which is invariably late) to the same office at pudding and ice cream manufacturers "Sunshine Deserts" to do the same sales executive job he has done for the past goodness knows how many years.
Every aspect of Reggie's working life is grating on his already fragile nerves. His boss C.J. is a pompous oaf, who talks in mis-quoted cliches and how he "didn't get where I am today without...". His two subordinates Tony and David are next to useless yes-men who just parrot that everything is "Super" and "Great". The new sales campaign for Exotic Ices seems utterly pointless. It's all so boring. It's enough to make him want to scream...
Reggie begins to imagine having a passionate embrace with his secretary Joan across her desk and pictures his mother-in-law as a waddling hippopotamus. He starts to act very oddly - writing rude letters to the train company, arguing wildly with the tea lady about pieces of cake and experiencing more and more outlandish daydreams. As time goes on his eccentricities get crazier and his friends and family begin to worry. Reaching crisis point, Reggie ends up giving a drunken rambling speech at a conference and vows to end it all. Walking to the beach he leaves his clothes there and... well a story of apparent death and rebirth is just getting started...
Across three increasingly absurd series, Reggie keeps trying to leave his past behind and live a life of anonymity, individuality and peace, but finds himself drawn back to his family, firstly in disguise and then under a false name. Incredibly no matter how bizarre the schemes he comes up with - including "Grot", a shop that sells only useless things (square footballs, tins of melted snow, empty cardboard boxes, etc,etc) or a commune where people could learn to be better human beings - Reggie keeps succeeding. It's exactly what he doesn't want.
It's perhaps hard to imagine a show about the apparent utter pointlessness of modern 1970s life and a desire to escape it all being funny, but it is - enormously so. This is partly down to the subtle, clever and satirical writing from creator David Nobbs, and partly to the ensemble cast of oddball characters - each with their own catchphrase - that surround Reggie Perrin. Sunshine Desserts boss C.J. is my favourite, but there is also wonderful humour to be had from politically correct son-in-law Tom ("I'm not a ---- person..."), company quack Doc Morrisey and especially Elisabeth's brother Jimmy, played with typical world weary laconic charm by the always reliable Geoffrey Palmer ("Bit of a cock-up on the catering front I'm afraid...").
Of course the glue that holds all this together is the wonderful central performance from Leonard Rossiter as Reggie. Already a household name for his turn as grubby landlord Rigsby in ITV's "Rising Damp", this series sees him take his particular form of frenzied acting to new heights. It also helps that he is able to reel off the writers occasionally stream of consciousness dialogue at an incredible pace, adding to the manic nature of Reggie's character.
It's a performance and a programme that always makes me laugh, no matter how many times I have seen the episodes. While it's true that series one and two are the best, there are glorious absurdist moments throughout all three. Those character catchphrases have entered into everyday use (each time my wife tells me to have a good day at work, I respond just like Reggie with "I won't!"). But it's also the little things that delight -
- The letters gradually falling off the Sunshine Desserts sign.
- The fact that the computer picks the best flavours to start the Exotic Ices brand with as "bookends, pumice stone and West Germany"
- The ever more bizarre reasons why the trains are late ("Twenty-two minutes late, escaped puma, Chessington North").
- The fact that Doc Morrissey always has the same symptoms as the patient he is diagnosing and his prescription is *always* two aspirin.
- Son-in -law Tom's odd choices for home-made wine, including sprout, turnip and banana gin.
The belated fourth series "The Legacy of Reginald Perrin" from 1996 features many of the original cast but is sorely missing it's late star. It raises a few smiles, but it feels a bit like a corporate TV decision with a lack of originality, rather than having something worthwhile to say about 90s Britain. The Martin Clunes "Reggie Perrin" remake from 2009-2010 is just awful. Avoid it like the plague.
As I get older, I have more and more appreciation for Reggie and his frustrations. At times I am sure we can all feel trapped by the confines of the roles we have defined for ourselves - whether that be exhausted parent in the middle of the night, middle-manager dealing with a difficult employee or high-powered executive with the responsibility of a huge company. Some days we all just want to escape...
Honourable mentions:
- Action comic (UK) - This would have been my number one choice - except for the fact that I have already (albeit briefly) written about it here.
- Imperial Stars - The first in the ten volume "Family D'Alembert" sequence written by Stephen Goldin based on a novella by space opera grand master E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Brother and sister circus performers Jules and Yvette are really the Empire of Earth's top agents and travel the galaxy to investigate a conspiracy that threatens the Emperor himself. I adore this series and will be writing *much* more about it later, along with 'Doc' Smith's epic "Lensmen" novels. It's also part of the story of how I got my first ever author autograph...
- The Big Bus - An "Airplane" style spoof of the disaster movie genre which follows the world's first double-decker, 32-wheeled, nuclear powered bus on it's maiden voyage. No Leslie Nielsen, but it does have Stockard Channing, René Auberjonois, Larry Hagman and Lynn Redgrave - plus lots of very silly jokes. It really is a guilty pleasure.
- The Eternals - Finding an issue of this cosmic Marvel Comics series in a seaside newsagent was my first real exposure to the story and art of Jack "King" Kirby. I was hooked from the first panel. The tale of genetically enhanced humanoids living in secret parallels his early work with the "Inhumans" or the magnum opus that is the "New Gods", but with a mid-1970s spin.
- Oxygène - I didn't really get addicted to the sublime electronica of Jean Michel Jarre until 1981s "Magnetic Fields", but I can clearly remember hearing "Oxygène Part IV" on the radio and being very, very interested. There's an ongoing story about my musical tastes in the re-named "Reminiscence Bump" strand which I started in August 2015. One day I'll get back to it...
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