TCR Racing (although not that set) and Frustration are two things that would have been around our house in ‘81, although I think Xmas ‘81 is when I got my ZX81 so toys were left in the cupboard after that.
Even though it appears to be a commercial break in the middle of a kids programme, talk about carpet bombing saturation! Every ad is for some toy or other.
Thunderbirds was on at 1:30pm on that Sunday afternoon, but only in the ATV and Granada regions. Most of the rest of the network was seeing their region's farming programme, whilst Londoners were digesting a programme about race relations along with their Sunday roasts. The question is, was this ad break sold entirely locally by ATV, or is this a national advertising break that aired identically across the ITV network at the same time regardless of what programme they were seeing in each region? Or maybe the same break was just for ATV and Granada if one was sending Thunderbirds up the line to the other and sent the ad break through too?
@@MrDannyDetail The commercial break will have been sold locally by the ATV Sales department for transmission across the Midlands. The presence of the ATV logo on the Thunderbirds title slide confirms that ATV was running the programme locally for Midlands transmission only. When feeding programmes and films to other regions they used generic slides, if required, with no ATV branding.
"There are millions of things you can do with Spirograph"...I think I'd have to disagree with that bold claim. You can make spiral patterns...that's pretty much it, yeah?
@@Wavygravydressedinnavy we had a spirograph under our telly back then. but I REALLY wanted one of those TCR sets... ...and intellivision... ...and Atari... expectation was high, income was low. :-(
You'd have to have rich parents to have afforded Intellivision. £199 and £12.95 for the cartridge would be well over £1000 in today's money. I do recall someone at school who had the Atari games console and he was considered well off.
Yes, that was 'rivetting realism' for computer gaming in 1981!
TCR Racing (although not that set) and Frustration are two things that would have been around our house in ‘81, although I think Xmas ‘81 is when I got my ZX81 so toys were left in the cupboard after that.
43 years ago.
I remember having Frustration with the pop'o'matic dice. A bit like Ludo if I remember correctly.
Even though it appears to be a commercial break in the middle of a kids programme, talk about carpet bombing saturation! Every ad is for some toy or other.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
Thunderbirds was on at 1:30pm on that Sunday afternoon, but only in the ATV and Granada regions. Most of the rest of the network was seeing their region's farming programme, whilst Londoners were digesting a programme about race relations along with their Sunday roasts. The question is, was this ad break sold entirely locally by ATV, or is this a national advertising break that aired identically across the ITV network at the same time regardless of what programme they were seeing in each region? Or maybe the same break was just for ATV and Granada if one was sending Thunderbirds up the line to the other and sent the ad break through too?
@@MrDannyDetail The commercial break will have been sold locally by the ATV Sales department for transmission across the Midlands.
The presence of the ATV logo on the Thunderbirds title slide confirms that ATV was running the programme locally for Midlands transmission only. When feeding programmes and films to other regions they used generic slides, if required, with no ATV branding.
I got Hungry Hippos and Frustration that year. Best Christmas ever, aged 5.
"There are millions of things you can do with Spirograph"...I think I'd have to disagree with that bold claim. You can make spiral patterns...that's pretty much it, yeah?
@@guy3point14 we had much lower expectations back then!
@@Wavygravydressedinnavy
we had a spirograph under our telly back then.
but I REALLY wanted one of those TCR sets...
...and intellivision...
...and Atari...
expectation was high, income was low.
:-(
You'd have to have rich parents to have afforded Intellivision. £199 and £12.95 for the cartridge would be well over £1000 in today's money. I do recall someone at school who had the Atari games console and he was considered well off.
Not quite. According to the Bank of England, £212 in 1981 is the equivalent of £794 today.
@@bigredsock1 Still a lot of money and many workers were only making £100 a week then.
Suddenly, the PS5 Pro doesn't feel so expensive, does it?🤔