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Happy Days, and other TV shows that baffled your childhood mind

DID certain TV shows leave you confused and even quite anxious as a child? Here are some you lacked the life experience to realise were bollocks.

Happy Days 

What decade was it meant to be? The 1950s apparently, but it was suspiciously like the 1970s. Suzi Quatro’s glam rock look in particular was clearly not from the era of President Eisenhower. The confusion was so distracting you could never get into the show itself, which was just as well because it was shit. 

Animal Magic

Much-loved by TV nostalgia buffs, but you couldn’t work out why Johnny Morris made up tedious, rambling conversations with parakeets. His partner in crime, Terry Nutkins, was always on hand with an interminable description of penguins’ eating habits. Possibly the only animal programme in history that made children less excited about going to the zoo.

The Dukes of Hazzard

So many questions. Why did absolutely everything that Bo and Luke did involve their car? Your dad didn’t spend all day in his Mini Clubman. Why were the police the bad guys? Why did the Dukes all live together? What were General Lee and Dixie? Do Americans from rural areas normally shoot sticks of dynamite from bows? What was that strange feeling in your corduroy trousers when Daisy Duke was on? 

The Adventure Game

Looked like it was for kids, due to guests like Derek Griffiths, but you needed a degree in physics to solve the first f**king puzzle. The value of a drogna is its position in the visible spectrum times the number of sides, so now you finally know. It’s just a shame the series finished 36 years ago. 

Doctor Who

This posed the question: HOW DID THEY MAKE THE MONSTERS SO TERRIFYINGLY REALISTIC? Answer: a small child’s brain can’t fully distinguish between reality and fantasy, which is why you shat yourself at the Autons etc. Now, of course, it’s obvious it was just bored, sweat-drenched extras in cheap costumes. The early Cybermen had lace-up shoes, for f**k’s sake. 

Tiswas

After the structured, well-supervised, BBC-approved fun of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, Tiswas was worryingly random. Even aged six the Phantom Flan Flinger was pretty tiresome. Who gave a shit if Annie Lennox got a bit of foam on her? It’s actually testament to your maturity and good taste that you weren’t interested in seeing Benny from Crossroads dicking around in an unfunny way.

Blackberrys, poking, watching Lost: really-quite-recent things young people haven't heard of

YOUNG people were put on this Earth to make you feel old and irrelevant. Here are five recent things which, depressingly, will mean nothing to them.

Susan Boyle

SuBo was the most famous person in the world for a bit, thanks to her magical rags-to-rich tale, which was basically ‘scruffy downtrodden woman can sing’. Nowadays you’ll be lucky to find a young person who watches the once-mighty Britain’s Got Talent. So save your rave reviews, Susan has gone the way of Wagner, Jedward and Stavros Flatley. Lost in time, like tears in the rain.

Poking

Before you could instantly send high-resolution images of your genitalia to a potential romantic partner, people used to ‘poke’. Youngsters won’t believe this online flirtation was done on Facebook, the site for grandparents, anti-vaxxers and dodgy adverts for cheap Ray-Bans. Talk to anyone under 30 about poking and you’ll get the same blank stares you used to give your dad when he droned on about 8-track tapes. 

The Ice Bucket Challenge

For the youth of today, explain this as ‘a bit like donating to Captain Tom’s walk’. Except you didn’t have to donate anything and you made it all about yourself. Allegedly for charity, it was mainly an excuse for famous people with absolutely nothing to hide, like Will Smith, Tom Cruise and Tiger Woods, to look altruistic. 

Watching Lost

TV on demand has ruined the youth of today. Not so long ago, the entire country was hooked on patiently watching one episode a week of Lost. Six series and 121 episodes. Imagine how good it would’ve been if you’d known what was going on. Now kids can watch anything, any time, anywhere, and it definitely won’t be this massive f**king con trick which JJ Abrams made up as he went along.

BlackBerrys

The device du jour less than a decade ago. But mention them to a young person and they’ll spit in your face because Android is a dirty word to them. And they might be right. Tiny, unusable keyboard – check. Awful software – check. Used mostly by wankers – double check. Maybe it’s only fair that youngsters missed BlackBerrys. We’re already leaving them with financial and environmental disaster, so while the world burns they should at least be able to send a text.

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