Sunday, February 10, 2008

Guilty Pleasures

There seems to be a recent trend certainly amongst music fans to admit to having ' Guilty pleasures' ie a secret love of things considered kitsch or cheesy....I can step up to the plate and admit to liking Kylie Minogue, Abba...you see what I mean?The sound you just heard was my credibility hitting the floor!

So whilst I take a break today from my art work, I thought I'd share my 'Guilty Pleasure'!

UFO was produced and broadcast in England from 16 September 1970 till 24 July 1971 and comprised of 26, 50 minute episodes..Created by the legiondary Gerry Anderson (Thunderbirds,Joe 90,Stingray,Fireball XL5,Space 1999,Captain Scarlett...) it featured a secret organisation hidden beneath the studios of a film production company. S.H.A.D.O. (Supreme Headquaters Alien Defence Organisation) was commisioned to intercept a growing threat from Aliens from a distant world who came to Earth to harvest living organs to transport back to their homeworld where beings had lost the abilty to reproduce and therefore needed fresh body parts to keep themselves alive.

The show used state of the art special effects which to my 9 year old eyes was mindblowing. The creators of these effects went on to form the 'Industrial Light And Magic' production company used by George Lucas to make Star Wars and everything after that! there many website. fansites dedicated to the show...and i'll not bore you with them here...if you're that interested I'll be happy to point you in the right direction.

The photo shows my little collection of memorobilia...As a young man I had a crush on the character played by Gabrielle Drake...Purple Wig wearing 'Lieutenant Gay Ellis' commanded the forces of Moonbase..In 2001 my brother Tim gave me a lovely birthday present which was an autographed photo of Gabrielle and the other main star of the show Ed Bishop.(see framed picture)..I also managed to get all the remastered episodes on DVD. Tim then went on to surprise me this Christmas by giving me a 'talking Gay Ellis' figure...Now, along with my 2003 drawing I'm turning into a right little 'Fan Boy'.

Maybe you could tell us what 'Guilty Pleasure' you have?

3 comments:

Devil Mood said...

Ah! You should be so lucky ;)...about knowing my guilty pleasures.

I haven't heard of that show but it must have been big if it had talking figures! Let's see...I like a lot of crap music, to be fair, and there's two songs I really like from one of those TV-movies that would probably offend any music-critic.

Julie Kwiatkowski Schuler said...

So many guilty pleasures! I will go with- loving our little locally produced "hosted horror" program -THE IT'S ALIVE SHOW!

Julie Kwiatkowski Schuler said...

I should add, musically, everything I listen to is a guilty pleasure. I freely admit that I have little taste.