Blast From My Past Pt5 - Old TV programmes

I grew up watching TV... LOTS of TV. Back in the late 70s and early 80s, the prime entertainment a kid had at home was TV. My earliest memories of TV was of the old black and white TV we used to have at home with the rotary channel changer that would click into place as we switched channels. I remember watching Birdman in B&W. Warta Berita (I can still remember the theme song) played around 5.30pm or 6pm. When transmission was interrupted, the 'Siaran Tergendala' image would play. I was so terrified of this image since the man in the chair looked like a headless chicken.

Cumi dan Ciki featured prominently in the early colour TV years. Back then, European TVs were the rage. Before the Quintrixes of National, we had the Luxors, Grundigs and Telefunkens complete with sliding screen doors which parents could lock to prevent children from watching TV (dammit). Bing and Bong, the 2 English speaking clowns were a favourite on ETV (TV Pendidikan).

I loved the old Terrytoons which had Super Six and Deputy Dawg. Plus the older superhero cartoons like Space Ghost. Space 1999 was a hot sci-fi hit followed by Battlestar Galactica.

In the 80s, apart from the Hulk, we had 6 million dollar man (Lee Majors also went on to star in the popular Fall Guy) on TV as well as Rich Little's You Asked For It! There was also Voyagers! Oh how I loved Voyagers. I also REALLY enjoyed QED (Quentin E Deverill) and the Robin Of Sherwoodseries from the UK (which starred Jason Connery). Nasir the Saracen was so cool with his twin scimitars!

The emergence of TV3 brought forth a whole slew of TV programmes from Airwolf to A Team, from Automan to Knight Rider and from He Man to Thundercats.

On the local front, Drama Minggu Ini was a boring memory. There was Bintang RTM which gave us the talented Sudirman. Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah never failed to educate us about our past. Empat Sekawan (all 4 actors are quite old today... including Lai Meng and Ying Cheh and they all feature prominently in HVD productions now) was a staple and so were the old P Ramlee movies.

On Saturdays, my grannie made me read the Malay subtitles of Hindi movies to her as she loved them so much. It was taxing since Hindi movies are quite long (up to 3 hours)!

TVB shows were prominent during the emergence of VHS. We had Ting Lek vs Hui Man Keong in The Bund. We also had the ultra cool Loh Sei Hoi (Tse Yin) in The Shell Game.

Valuable memories indeed...