Golden Sunsets Redux - 60 Years of Memories - Part 10 - 1976

I didn't get where I am today without knowing a thing or two about British situation comedies...

1976:

The trivia:

• In May 1976, Los Angeles County physicians staged a month-long strike as part of a protest over medical malpractice insurance premiums. During the strike, researchers observed that the mortality rate appeared to decline by about 18%, compared to the same period in previous years. This statistic quickly had some critics implying that modern medicine might be doing more harm than good. The truth was that around 11,000 fewer non urgent operations were performed during the strike. The drop in mortality likely reflected the avoidance of surgical complications in older patients. It didn’t stop the conspiracy theorists though. 

• On 1 April 1976, the beloved British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore appeared on BBC Radio 2 and announced a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event. At exactly 9:47 a.m., the planets Jupiter and Pluto would align in such a way that their combined gravitational pull would temporarily counteract Earth’s gravity. He told listeners that if they jumped in the air at that precise moment, they would experience a “floating sensation”. Hundreds of listeners called in to say they had felt lighter, floated around the room, or even bumped their heads on the ceiling. One woman claimed she and eleven friends had been “wafted from their chairs and orbited gently around the room”. Of course, it was all a hoax.

• 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. Mars just decided to withdraw the colour  to avoid "public confusion", replacing them with orange ones. A series of protest groups were set up including the ‘Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&Ms’ and thousands wrote letters to Mars demanding their return. In 1987, Mars quietly reintroduced red M&M’s after the panic subsided.

• Ronald Wayne is often referred to as the “forgotten founder” of Apple. He co-founded the company alongside Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and held a 10% stake in the newly formed Apple Computer Company. But just 12 days later, he sold his shares back for $800, concerned about financial liability. Had Wayne held onto his 10%, his stake would be worth over $95 billion today. It would have made him one of the richest people on Earth. Surprisingly, Wayne has said he doesn’t regret the decision. 

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 everything C.J. Says and insist 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...

So 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, Reggie keeps succeeding. "Grot", a shop that sells only useless things (square footballs, tins of melted snow, empty cardboard boxes, etc, etc) becomes a commercial phenomenon. His commune, where people can retreat from modern life, is embraced by the very people he’s trying to escape from. 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 an almost note perfect display of a man going through a mid-life crisis - questioning the meaning of existence and needing to break out of the confines of everyday life and go off and do something - anything - more adventurous. Rossiter manages to play this with just the right mix of madness and pathos so that you genuinely feel for the man and the stresses he is going through, even when he is acting in the strangest ways. His physicality, his timing, his ability to shift from deadpan to manic within a single sentence. It veers close to the cliff-edge of over-acting,but never quite goes that step too far.

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.
• No matter how bad Reggie’s disguises are, no one recognises him. 
• The Sunshine Desserts meetings are filled with meaningless buzzwords - and whoopee cushions.

The belated 1996 fourth series, "The Legacy of Reginald Perrin" 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. I know I have. I don’t imagine my mother-in-law is a hippopotamus though…

Honourable mentions:

• Action comic (UK) - Let’s be honest, this should have been my number one choice. The huge impact this title had on the UK comics industry and on me as a reader cannot be emphasised enough. So why isn’t it? Well, partly because I’ve written about it once before, many years ago here. The other reason is that it seemed too obvious. It probably would top many peoples lists for 1976 - the comic is still spoken about fondly nearly fifty years later -  but I like to mix things up a little bit. So anyway, here it is, deservedly at the top of the 'honourable mentions'. A comic that had no silly jokes or cheerful sports stars - just an unstoppable shark lunging out of the water and ripping people to pieces. And it was the star of the strip! Then there was 'Death Game 1999', a dystopian future sports nightmare with manic cyborgs and violent deaths a regular occurrence. It both scared and thrilled me. Buying "Action" felt different, naughty even. I continued to read it even after the five-week ban. Sure, it was a shadow of its former self, but I still loved all the iterations of "Spinball". The merger with "Battle" was a step too far though - at the time I wasn't interested in a comic mainly about war and anyway, I'd discovered this new publication called 2000 AD...

• Imperial Stars - The first in the ten volume "Family d'Alembert" sequence written by Stephen Goldin is based on a novella by space opera grand master E.E. 'Doc' Smith. The titular family hail from DesPlains, a high-gravity planet that has endowed them with extraordinary strength, agility, and coordination. They perform in the Circus of the Galaxy, but in reality it is a front for intelligence operations for the Empire of Earth. Brother and sister Jules and Yvette travel the galaxy to investigate corruption, invasions and a conspiracy that threatens the Emperor himself. I adore this series. It’s pulpy serialised space opera at its best, full of twists, turns and a great dynamic between the lead characters. I may have come for 'Doc' Smith's name (given that he wrote another absolute favourite, the epic "Lensmen" saga), but stayed for Goldins ever-escalating plot. He’s the first author I ever corresponded with, when he sold me copies of two of the novels that were unavailable in the UK (this being the days before eBay). It also resulted in my first ever author dedication and autograph.

• The Big Bus - A spoof of the disaster movie genre which follows "Cyclops", the world's first double-decker, 32-wheeled, nuclear powered bus (yes really) on it's non- stop maiden voyage. No Leslie Nielsen (it beat “Airplane” to the big screen by four years), but it does have Stockard Channing, René Auberjonois, Larry Hagman and Lynn Redgrave, all playing it dead straight - plus lots of very silly jokes. The bus is a character in its own right - over-equipped (it has a swimming pool, bowling alley and a piano bar) and constantly on the verge of exploding. The film bombed at the box office, but for me it really is a guilty pleasure, up there with the best of the genre. An overlooked gem. 

• The Eternals - After a period at DC creating (amongst other things) the grand opus of the “Fourth World” saga, Jack “King” Kirby returned to Marvel and launched into a similar tale of gods, monsters and aliens. This time he took his inspiration from the many “ancient astronaut” theories popular at the time and the cosmic mythology of the Celestials, Eternals and Deviants was born. At a young age, I knew nothing of the legendary writer / artist and his vast impact on the comics industry.  What I did know - finding an issue of “The Eternals” in a seaside newsagent - was that I was hooked from the first panel. The tale of genetically enhanced humanoids living in secret and the arrival of the “Fourth Host” to judge humanity, is full of Kirby’s brand of bombast and mythic storytelling. Weird characters like the red-skinned Karkas or Brother Tode, plus the cosmic power of the Uni-Mind. To someone like me just starting a journey into US superheroes, it was like catnip. I couldn’t get enough, scouring every shop and spinner rack to find more issues. It would begin a life-long fascination with the great man’s work - and what a journey that would become. 

•  Oxygène  - I didn't really get addicted to the sublime electronica of Jean Michel Jarre until 1981’s "Magnetic Fields", but I can clearly remember hearing "Oxygène Part IV" on the radio and being very, very interested. What struck me most was how unlike anything else it was at the time. It wasn’t pop, or lift muzak or a TV theme - it felt like something…special. Both looking to the future and yet blending the influence of melodic themes of the past - and linking to my burgeoning interests in technology. Truly a piece of music that got stuck in my head. When I discovered the whole album a few years later it was more that just a new sound - it helped solidify my love for electronic music as a whole. From that point on I have continued exploring what the genre offers, always willing to look for something new - but “Oxygene” and it’s soundscape remains one of the benchmarks which I measure other music against.