Yes folks, it's time to pay homage to the saturday morning legend that was TISWAS. Tiswas was a Saturday morning children's British Television series which ran from 5 January 1974 to 3 April 1982 and was produced for the ITV network by ATV Network LTD.

It was created by ATV Continuity Announcer Peter Tomlinson (later to become a regular presenter on the show) following a test period in 1973 when he tried out a few competitions and daft stuff between the programmes. It had a fanatical following among students and parents.

The word 'tiswas' means a state of confusion or commotion, but the show's name 'officially' stood for "Today Is Saturday, Watch And Smile

Tiswas began life as a 'links' strand between many 'filler' programmes, such as cartoons and old films. The popularity of the presenters' links soon eclipsed the staple diet of filler.

It was originally produced as a Midlands regional programme by ATV and was first broadcast live on 5 January 1974. The then federal structure of ITV, with its independent regional companies, meant that not all of these operations broadcast the show when it became available for networked transmission. Over a period of time, most ITV regions did, with Granada Television and Southern Television being the last in 1979. Tyne Tees finally decided to take Tiswas for its final series in 1981. The smallest broadcaster in the network, Channel Television, did not carry the programme.

(Sally James with Jeremy Beadle way back in 1982)

Most famously hosted by Chris Tarrant between 1974 and 1981, and later Sally James, it also featured the young Lenny Henry and occasionally Jim Davidson together with Bob Carolgees and his puppet, Spit the Dog. John Gorman, former member of 1960s cult band The Scaffold, was also in regular attendance. On the programme, Birmingham folk-singer and comedian Jasper Carrott was to introduce the nation to the Dying Fly Dance and also to many local hospital casualty wards as the dance at one point soared high in the RoSPA list of common causes of household injury. Like its cleaner BBC counterpart, Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, it had a running order but no script (with the exception of some specific sketches). The programme was broadcast from Studio 3 at ATV Centre in Birmingham; this was the weekday home for the company's regional news magazine, ATV Today.

The show was a stitch-together of competitions, film clips and pop promos, just about held together by sketches and links from the cast. The show also regularly featured spoofs of BBC children's programming.

A feature of Tiswas was The Cage wherein initially the child audience, and later their fathers, were confined and periodically doused in water (one spin-off of the series was the hit The Bucket of Water Song, performed by the Four Bucketeers), whilst the series was also frequently visited by the Phantom Flan Flinger, who would throw flans around the studio at all and sundry. Both Tarrant and the Flan Flinger would take great delight in trying to 'flan' cameramen who would go to great lengths to avoid being hit.

The original logo features the word "TISWAS" in chunky letters. A later version of this logo featured a circle going round the edge with "Today Is Saturday Watch And Smile" embossed upon it. The classic 'Zig-zag' logo appeared in 1977 designed by Stuart Kettle - this initially featured a mechanical bird flying above it, but later, Chris Wroe (who drew all of the classic caricatures of the Tiswas team) replaced this with a drawing of the Phantom Flan Flinger.

The first series was intended to be eleven episodes, purely acting as links between the usual staple fillers of old films and cartoons that ATV would transmit on Saturday mornings. Presented by Chris Tarrant and John Asher from just a desk in a continuity studio, the pair had to rely on ad-libs and jokes sent in by viewers. Within a few weeks, the show was moved to studio 3 at ATV Centre (a studio usually reserved for amongst other programmes, the news magazine programme, ATV Today) from which Tiswas was produced for the majority of its run.

Due to an industrial dispute by technicians at Associated Television, this initial run was only nine programmes in all, but was so well received that a second series was commissioned.

Billed in TV Times as "Today Is Saturday or the Tis-was Show", the title sequence features both "Today Is Saturday" and the original "Tiswas" chunky letters logo, shown over a background very similar to that of The Golden Shot. The sequence featured clips from various films and Disney cartoons, backed by a funky jazz number known as "Atomic Butterfly" (which also seems to have been used for Sports Arena, an HTV Wales sports programme in the early 70s).

Series 2 of Tiswas began from late 1974, and spanned almost every Saturday in 1975, finishing in early 1976. The presenting team was doubled to four presenters, and these were usually culled from ATV's presentation department. Chris Tarrant and John Asher retained their roles as the main presenters, although John would leave during this series. From the ranks at ATV, other regular presenters were established, notably sports reporter Trevor East (later director of sport at Setanta Sports) and announcer Peter Tomlinson (later to become managing director of Saga Radio West Midlands and High Sheriff of the West Midlands).

Producer Peter Harris would leave the show in the summer to help produce another cult TV success - The Muppet Show, at ATV's London-orientated operation in Elstree.

Running from late 1976 to early 1977, Chris Tarrant, Peter Tomlinson and Trevor East were the main presenters. Almost all these shows were produced by Sid Kilbey. The 2 April 1977 show was a landmark edition, as part of the programme was broadcast outside the Midlands for the first time, on HTV Cymru Wales and HTV West, filling up their 'round-the-regions' compilation of Saturday morning programmes called Ten On Saturday. The series, running from late 1977 to early 1978, marked an end to the provincial macro-budget shows of the previous shows, as the initial edition of this series began with some significant changes. Sally James was drafted in as the series' first regular female presenter. She had been the presenter of a regional Saturday morning show in London called Saturday Scene, produced by LWT. Comedian Jim Davidson was intended to be a regular presenter, but left after only a few editions, although he would return for cameo appearances. Peter Tomlinson was axed as a regular, which came as a surprise to him.

Chris Tarrant was still retained as the anchor presenter, and behind the scenes was annoyed with the changes, particularly the inclusion of a woman as presenter. However, he later retracted this viewpoint, having witnessed the progress Tiswas had made with Sally's contribution.

One significant change almost never happened. ATV management were displeased with the visual slapstick element - the hurling of custard pies and water. They believed this was setting a bad example to the young viewers. Newly-drafted producer/director Glyn Edwards managed to retain this vital, messy element by drawing on his experience as a Punch & Judy puppeteer to create a 'villain' character called 'The Phantom Flan Flinger', who would be the black-clad masked nemesis of the presenting team, and the main instigator of pie-throwing chaos. The "phantom" was later revealed to be Ben Mills, a taxi driver from Cheswick Green, Solihull.

Series 5 ran from late 1978 to early 1979. John Gorman became a regular performer from November onwards. Bob Carolgees made his debut in early 1979, having been told to go on the programme by Irish comic Frank Carson. Carolgees appeared again two weeks later, and Chris was so pleased with his contribution that he decided to make a regular fixture out of Bob. Lenny Henry made sporadic appearances throughout this series, but was not established as a regular. Child performer Paul Hardin increased his visits to the studios, and could well be considered as a series 5 team member, likewise Sylvester McCoy (who added an "r" to his first name later in his career) who performed surreal comic interludes.

ITV had been off the air across the nation since August due to a massive strike by technicians. Tiswas returned to the screens in November 1979 for its sixth series, as part of ITV's comeback; this was directly referenced in the first edition of the new series, when the "Welcome Home To ITV" jingle was played to usher the programme in and out of the advert breaks, albeit replacing the vocals by the Mike Sammes Singers with a group of deliberately out-of-tune children. Many ITV regions took the programme for the first time, establishing the show strongly in the nation's consciousness. London-based viewers tended to complain to the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) about some of the edgier moments the show had.

With an almost national audience, the show became inclusive of its increased viewership by making a bigger role out of specially invited viewer performances. Many of these were children who sang songs or performed dance routines. Chris Tarrant, now producer as well as presenter, found most of these contributions to be of little value, until he came across a unique act by a five year old boy called Matthew Butler. Encouraged by his Tiswas-obsessed mother, Matthew auditioned for the series wearing a rabbit costume and sang the song 'Bright Eyes' made famous by the animated film Watership Down, although his own singing ability was rather poor. Chris found this so amusing that he arranged for him to appear on the following Tiswas, as well as many subsequent editions. Also appearing a number of times in this series was Norman Collier, the Yorkshire comedian best known for his broken microphone routine and chicken impressions.

By Series 7, ATV had increased the budget for Tiswas, and Chris Tarrant had more of a say in the programme's production than ever before. A proper theme tune was created for it, and the studio set was based around ATV cartoonist Chris Wroe's caricatures of the presenting team. This series can be considered as the definitive series, due to the material drawn from this era that usually gets an airing on documentaries and clips shows when Tiswas is the subject. In addition, the three video compilations that have been released for sale have been packaged around a seventh series theme, with the bulk of the clips also being from this age.

Midway through this series, Chris Tarrant decided to leave upon the series' conclusion. Also leaving him, on the final edition of series 7, were Bob Carolgees, Lenny Henry and John Gorman. They had decamped to start work on O.T.T., a late night version of Tiswas intended for an adult audience, which would debut in 1982. The only regular Tiswas presenter left was Sally James, who stayed on for series 8.

The last series of Tiswas, beginning in September 1981, and ending in April 1982, had its format heavily tinkered with by ATV management. They believed that the adult audience should be avid viewers of Chris' 'late-night Tiswas', and that Tiswas itself should focus on its child audience. With this well-intended alteration, the original standard of Tiswas, with its adult undertones, deteriorated.

The new presenting team consisted of Midlands DJ Gordon Astley, former Darts frontman Den Hegarty and comic impressionist Fogwell Flax. Veteran Tiswas presenter Sally James stayed on and became the series' Music Editor, but decided to leave towards the series' end. This was likely to be one of the main factors in Central Television's decision not to bring the programme back for a ninth series. Semi-regulars were dwarf actor David Rappaport who played characters such as 'Green Nigel' (in a pastiche of BBC programme Blue Peter) and the Fonz-like 'Shades', Emil Wolk and puppeteer Trevor James with a giant parrot, presumably in a way to fill the void left by Bob Carolgees. One Nine for Santa, was released by Fogwell Flax & the Anklebiters and featured on the show during December 1981. At the end of 1981, a restructure of ITV's broadcast franchises saw ATV win back the franchise for the Midlands on condition of changes in management, regional output and branding. The first part of the final series was therefore produced by ATV and the second part by Central Independent Television.

The decision by TVS, the new ITV station in the south and south east of England, to drop the Central-produced half of the last series in favour of their own Saturday morning programme No 73 saw fans of Tiswas picket outside their Southampton Studios studios. The eighth series was broadcast on TVS upon the end of No 73;s first series. During its ATV days, the legendary chairman of ATV Lew Grade, is said to have taken a personal dislike to the show but was persuaded to let it continue, even arguing in its defence to criticism from the IBA). It was believed that the new management at Central frowned upon the anarchy of Tiswas (and the common popularity of another production, the Soap Opera Crossroads) and in a desire to make the station more upmarket than its previous incarnation as the populist ATV, took the evidence of declining audiences for the new format to axe Tiswas after series 8.

Countdown/TV Action

Countdown was a British comic book published weekly by Ploystyle Productions - ultimately, under several different titles - between February 1971 and August 1973.

Initially it was a high-quality (but expensive) publication, featuring full colour art on the cover and many of the inside pages, and was printed on expensive, glossy paper. The pages in each issue were numbered in reverse order, with page 1 at the end, a gimmick which was derived from the comic's title in order to create a countdown to one each week. Countdown was also unusual in carrying both weekly serials and complete stories, rotating the latter among the various tv shows it featured. In addition, it carried a totally original strip, "Countdown", drawn by John M Burns and including spacecraft designs from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Under the title Countdown it ran for 58 weeks, beginning with the issue cover-dated 20th February 1971. It was relaunched as TV Action + Countdown from issue 59 in 1972, dropping many of the original strips from Countdown and substituting new ones based upon then-current television shows. By issue 100 its title became simply TV Action. The final issue was cover-dated 25th August 1973.

From issue 59 it also dropped the glossy magazine-quality printing which had distinguished it, and reverted to cheap newsprint-quality paper, abandoning also the expensive photogravure printing which had been a feature until then.

(The First Countdown Annual from 1972)

Countdown sought to benefit from the closure of TV21, and the consequent availability of the licence to publish strips based on the 1960s Gerry Anderson puppet shows, which had been popular for many years on television.

The comic strongly featured a strip based on the latest Anderson tv show, the live-action UFO, together with reprints of strips from TV21 based on Stingray, Thunderbirds and Fireball XL5, along with original material.

However, Polystyle had not taken into account the fact that TV21 had folded, something they looked upon merely as an opportunity to acquire the licence to use the Anderson shows, without noting that the popularity of the puppet-based strips in TV21 had drastically declined once those shows were no longer in production and were no longer being seen on television every week.

Moreover, the expense of the high quality paper and photogravure quality printing, needed for the colour pages and photo features, pushed the cover price up, such that it was almost twice as expensive as any other boys comic on the market, with a cover price of One Shilling (against 6d and 7d for competing IPC titles such as Valiant, Lion and Smash).

(The Second Countdown Annual from 1973)

After 58 weeks the publisher cut its costs by relaunching the comic in a much cheaper format, on cheap newsprint paper, and dropped all the Anderson puppet shows, replacing them with strips based on then-current tv programmes that were appearing on television every week (and hence were perceived as potentially more popular than the discontinued Anderson shows), including The Persuders, Hawaii 5-0 and Cannon.

With only a couple of continuing strips, such as Doctor Who, the result was virtually a new comic: TV Action.

In order to capitalise on the continuing popularity of the Doctor Who strip, featuring the likeness of Jon Pertwee (the actor who was then playing the part on television), that strip now became the regular cover feature. As an added inducement, for the first time the publisher obtained a licence to also use the ever popular Daleks in the strip: hence the first re-launch issue had a colour cover featuring Doctor Who and the Daleks. Doctor Who had an unshakeable popularity: it had emerged from, and would ultimately return to, the pages of TV Action's stablemate, TV Comic.

(1st issue of TV Action, 1 April 1972)

Whether the changes were entirely effective is open to question, as the new TV Action lasted just 74 issues: only slightly longer thanCountdown, which had run for 58 issues. Undoubtedly the reduction in production costs from dropping the expensive lithographic printing and magazine-quality paper played some part in TV Action lasting as long as it did. But it nonetheless ceased publication in August 1973.

Like TV21, which had also tried to ride the coat-tails of the popularity of television, Countdown and TV Action had shown that the approach was not sustainable in the teenage market. Nevertheless, Polystyle did achieve a long-running success with the concept in a slightly younger market, with its all-humour offering, TV Comic, which ran for more than thirty years. And, in later years, one of Countdown's strips would show that a weekly comic based on television could succeed in an older market, when Marvel UK launched Doctor Who Weekly in 1979 - the ultimate specialisation: focusing on a single tv show - making a success of it by including factual coverage of the actual show and its production, alongside comic strips based upon it.

Raising a glass to the 60s & 70s.

Changing fashions ruled beer drinking in the 50s, 60s and 70s. First bottled pale ale challenged draught mild as the Nation's favourite drink. Then a few years later, everyone was drinking draught keg bitter, with Watneys Red Barrel the best known brand.

Lager was the drink of the 70s. The hot summer of 1976 provided a reason to try the beverage, but tastes were changing. In 1971 there was a backlash against the relentless spread of keg bitter and lager when CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, formed. In the latter part of the seventies there was a resurgence of some traditional brews; real ale, though, still remained a minority taste.

Mild was the working man's drink for the first half of the twentieth century. The only choice was between mild and stout; bitter was a luxury. In 1900 best bitter was almost unknown and in 1929 it was still only a tiny fraction total beer sales.

At the start of the sixties, mild was the dominant beer. Around 40% of the output of Bass Charrington, Britain's largest brewer, was mild. By 1967 this had fallen to 30%. Mild was losing favour, though it was the cheapest beer. It did have strongholds in the Midlands (notably M & B Mild), but the majority chose best bitter.

Best bitter on draught and its bottled equivalent, best pale ale, were the favourite beers of the 60s. Pale ale was sold as a premium beer; it was a popular luxury.

Perhaps the most well known beer of the 60s and 70s, the much maligned Watneys Red Barrel, can trace its origins back to the 30s; in fact Watneys claimed 1931. Red Barrel was originally developed as an export beer that could be transported for long distances by sea.

Red Barrel, like all keg bitter, was filtered, to remove the yeast. It was then pasteurised and carbon dioxide was added. The "keg" was linked to a tank of carbon dioxide which effectively forced the beer up from the cellar. There was no need for the traditional long-handled beer pump. Keg was usually served chilled and was fizzy, with froth on the top.

Red Barrel was tentatively trialled at the East Sheen Lawn Tennis Club where Watneys' Master Brewer, Bert Hussey, was a member. He was convinced that once sampled it would be instantly popular. By the early sixties, Watneys were able to claim that it was the country's most popular keg bitter. It was also the first.

Of course that other well known name from the 60s was Watneys Party Seven. Its smaller brother Party Four had been available for some time when in 1968 Party Seven was introduced. As a promotion Watneys sold a Sparklets Beertap with a free voucher for a can of Party Seven for 59s 9d. Watneys Party Seven initially sold for 15s. You could have your own bar at home! Read about 70s party. Watneys Party Seven became a staple for parties in the seventies and was available until the early eighties. The beer mat (left) was to encourage customers to take home a Party Seven for later!

Watneys were by no means the only brewer in the sixties and Red Barrel was by no means the only beer. Most of the major breweries had their own keg bitters. Whitbread entered the keg market with Tankard in in 1957. By the early 70s the following keg bitters were on the market. Watneys Red, Whitbread Tankard, Ind Coope Double Diamond (Allied) Younger's Tartan (Scottish and Newcastle) Worthington 'E' (Bass Charrington) Courage Tavern

As well as keg bitter most of the major players offered a "best" as an alterative. These beers were often cheaper than the kegs. Once again these a few of the most well known: Whitbread Trophy, Courage Best, Watneys Special, Younger's Scotch Ale

Action Man - Part Four: Vintage Action Hero

Action Man British Infantryman (1980s)

2nd British Infantryman with tunic, trousers, webbing, helmet, wtaer bottle, bayonet, scabbard, boots and Carl Gustav anti-tank weapon and tripod.

Action Man German Paratrooper (1979)

From the "Internationals" very basic range of uniforms: German Paratrooper uniform consisted of smock, trousers, helmet and boots. Optional accessories shown are belt jumper and Schmeisser Sub Machine Gun.

Action Man RNLI Sea Rescue (1974)

R.N.L.I Sea Rescue: Oilskin jacket and trousers, trousers, woolen hat, life jacket, breeches buoy, black boots, Flare gun, Flashlight.

Action Man American Marine (Internationals)

The basic US Marine Corps uniform consisted of tunic, trousers, brown tall boots, and helmet. Accessories also shown (available separately) are Carbine, webbing, scarf and bayonet,.

Action Man Long Range Desert Group

Shirt, shorts, boots, puttees, socks, goggles, bandanna, arab headressplastic webbing, commando knife, water bottle, Thompson machine gun, grenades and entrenching tool.

Action Man Royal Hussar (1979)

Early figure shown wearing a 1979 Royal Hussars uniform including tunic, trousers, gold waist belt, sword, decorative cross belt and chain, pouch, cap, shoes and spurs.

Action Man Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (1970)

Scottish regimental uniform included tunic, kilt, sporran, hose, glengarry (cap), spats, bayonet and scabbard, black boots, SLR Rifle and belt.

Action Man Desert Fighter (1978)

Simple unform consisted of Australian bush hat, shorts and Thompson sub machine gun (no boots!)

Tom Stone (Action Man Team)

Tom Stone figure, member of the Action Man Team. With realistic hair, gripping hands, camouflage suit, beret, Black Boots and Heckler & Koch SMG

Booo, Hisss....Enders wins Soap Award!

Altogether now, haters of Enders....Boooo, Hissss! Sad to say, EastEnders has retained its crown as best of British at the soap world's Oscars. The BBC One series, which recently caused controversy with its baby-swap storyline, beat stiff competition to win the Best Soap award for the fourth year in a row at the British Soap Awards.

Despite missing out on the top prize, Coronation Street won nine awards, compared with EastEnders' total of four. The dramatic live show that saw a tram crash on to the Weatherfield cobbles, filmed to mark the ITV soap's 50th anniversary, won awards for Best Single Episode and Spectacular Scene of the Year. It also led to the plot that won Coronation Street this year's Best Storyline - End of the line for the Websters and the Dobbs.

Best Dramatic Performance was won by Jane Danson for her role as Leanne Barlow. Her screen stepson Simon, played by Alexander Bain, won the Best Young Performance award at the ceremony, which took place at Manchester's Granada Studios.

Bill Tarmey, who bowed out of the soap after playing Jack Duckworth for 31 years, won the Lifetime Achievement Award and Best Exit gong. Patti Clare, who plays eccentric Mary Taylor in Coronation Street, won the prize for Best Comedy Performance.

Michelle Keegan, Tina McIntyre in the soap, won the viewer-voted prize for Sexiest Female, for the third year running. It was also third time lucky for EastEnders' Scott Maslen, who was named Sexiest Male again.

EastEnders picked up Best On-screen Partnership for Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie's portrayal of Kat and Alfie Moon. Jessie was also named Best Actress.

Hollyoaks actor Emmett J Scanlan was voted both Best Newcomer and Villain of the Year for his role as Brendan Brady. Emmerdale actor Danny Miller (Aaron Livesy) was named Best Actor.

Joe 90

Joe 90 is a late-1960s British Science Fiction television series concerning the adventures and exploits of nine-year-old Joe McClaine, who starts a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and then transferring expert knowledge and experience to another human brain. Equipped with the skills of the foremost academic and military minds, Joe enlists in the World Intelligence Network (WIN), becoming its "Most Special Agent", pursuing the ideal of world peace and saving human life. Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed at Century 21 Productions, one 30-episode series followed the earlier Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

First screened in the UK between September 1968 and April 1969 on the ATV network,Joe 90 is the sixth and last of the Anderson productions to have been made exclusively using the form of Marionette Puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation". The final puppet series, The Secret Service, also used this process, but in combination with extensive live-action footage. As in the case of its predecessor, Captain Scarlet, the puppets of Joe 90 are of a more naturally proportioned design as opposed to the more caricatured appearance of the characters from Thunderbirds.

Although not as successful as Century 21's previous puppet efforts, since its inception, Joe 90 has been praised, besides other aspects, for the charectarisation of its smaller Supermarionation cast and the accomplishment of its model sets and special effects. Commentators read into Joe 90's spy-fi theme and the selection of a child as the main protagonist, either proposing a "kids play Bond" connection or an enshrinement of children and the powers of their imagination. Criticism ranges from the violence depicted in a number of episodes to the frequent absence of female characters, which is viewed either as the inevitable result of Joe 90's development as a "boy's own adventure" or bordering on sexism.

As had been the case for its precursors, Century 21 based merchandising campaigns on Joe 90, including toy cars and comic strips dedicated to the continuing missions of Joe McClaine. Syndicated on its arrival in the United States in 1969, re-broadcast in the UK during the 1990s and released on DVD in most regions in the 2000s, the concept of a live-action motion picture adaptation of Joe 90 has been considered more than once since the 1960s, but without further development. A comparable format exists in the similarly titled Ben 10. While Joe 90 gains the abilities of scientists and pilots while wearing his glasses, Ben 10 gains the powers of aliens while wearing a watch.

Joe 90 is set either in 2012-3 or at another point in the early 21st century, or 1998, according to the official Writer's Guide. Nine-year-old British schoolboy Joe McClaine is the adopted son of Professor Ian "Mac" McClaine, a renowned computer expert. On the outside, the McClaines are an ordinary father-and-son pair who live in an antiquated Elizabethan-style cottage overlooking Culver Bay, Dorset, tended by their housekeeper, Mrs Harris. However, residing in a secret underground laboratory is Mac's latest invention, the "BIG RAT"

(Brain Impulse Galvonoscope Record And Transfer), a machine capable of recording knowledge and experience from leading experts in various fields and transferring it to another human brain. The central aspect of the design is the "Rat Trap", a rotating, spherical cage in which a subject is seated during the transfer of the expert "brain pattern". Sam Loover, a secret agent for the World Intelligence Network, persuades Mac, his friend, to dedicate the BIG RAT to WIN's pursuit of world peace by permitting Joe to assume such knowledge and experience and become a WIN agent. After the requisite skill is transferred, and provided that Joe is wearing special spectacles containing hidden electrodes storing the expertise, he is able to execute such missions as operating fighter aircrraft blasting off into space and performing advanced nuerosurgery, all the while appearing to be an innocent schoolboy to the enemies of WIN. Since no one would usually suspect a child of espionage, Joe is WIN's "Most Special Agent". Reporting to the Commander-in-Chief of WIN's London Headquarters, Shane Weston, he is also provided with a special briefcase, which on superficial inspection appears to be a simple school case but in fact conceals an adapted handgun and WIN tranceiver. There is some inconsistency as to why Joe assumes the codename "90". Promotional information states that, in the pilot, Joe joins another 89 WIN agents based in London, becoming the 90th WIN agent. However, the BIG RAT project is referred to as WIN's "File 90" in the episode "Project 90", and here (according to dialogue from Professor McClaine) Joe's designation originates from this.

In a manner similar to other Gerry Anderson series, Joe 90 features gadgets, rescue operations, secret organisations, and criminal and terrorist threats to the safety of the world. One example of advanced technology demonstrated is the "Jet Air Car", a land, sea and air vehicle invented by Professor McClaine prior to the events of the series. The pun of the "WIN" acronym for the World Intelligence Network is similar to that of WASP, the abbreviated name of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol that appears in Stingray. The Cold W ar, significant in 1968 due to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that August has ended in the futuristic universe of Joe 90. Although, in the pilot, Joe is depicted stealing a new Russian fighter plane to expose its revolutionary design to the West, the story is later revealed to be a speculative scenario imagined by Shane Weston to demonstrate the kinds of espionage in which Joe may be involved if Mac consents to his son starting a second life as a secret agent.

Nevertheless, the Joe 90 universe still sees the Earth's landmasses politically divided into Western and Eastern regions. A recurring antagonist for WIN is the "Eastern Alliance", which dominates Asia and appears in the episodes "Attack of the Tiger" and "Mission -X41". Meanwhile, "International Concerto", "Business Holiday", "Arctic Adventure" and "The Professional" include villains who speak with Slavic accents. "Attack of the Tiger" combines the Eastern Alliance threat with the hazards of nuclear technology. In this episode, Joe must prevent an Eastern nuclear device from being launched into Earth orbit. However, an episode showcasing the benefits of such technology is "Big Fish", in which Joe struggles to remove a crippled nuclear submarine from the ocean floor when it strays into the territorial waters of a hostile Latin American Police state. The series ends on a clip show episode, "The Birthday", in which a number of Joe's missions are recalled as flashbacks when the protagonist reaches the age of ten.

David's Silver Lady!

"Silver Lady" was a popular single by David Soul. Written by Tony Macaulay and Geoff Stephens and produced by Macaulay, Silver Lady was the second and final number one single in the UK for David Soul spending three weeks at the top in October 1977. The single fared less well in his homeland peaking at No 52 on the Billboard Hot 100. It can be found on his second album Playing To An Audience of One.

Tired of drifting, searching, shifting
From town to town
Every time I slip and slide
A little further down
I can't blame you if you won't take me back
After everything I put you through
But Honey you're my last hope
And who else can I turn to

Come on Silver Lady take my word
I won't run out on you again
Believe me
Oh I've seen the light
It's just one long fight, without you
Here I am a million miles from home
The Indiana wind and rain cut through me
I'm lost and alone
Chilled to the bone
Silver Lady

Double talkers, backstreet walkers
At every turn
Seedy motels and no star hotels
Still I had to learn
That the one shining thing in my life
Was the sweet love I had with you
And Honey, you're my last hope
And who else can I turn to

Come on Silver Lady take my word
I won't run out on you again
Believe me
Oh I've seen the light
It's just one long fight, without you
Here I am a million miles from home
The Indiana wind and rain cut through me
I'm lost and alone
Chilled to the bone
Silver Lady

Can't you find it in you to forgive me

Coz here I am a million miles from home
The Indiana wind and rain cut through me
I'm lost and alone
Chilled to the bone
Silver Lady

Come on Silver Lady take my word
I won't run out on you again
Believe me
Oh I've seen the light
It's just one long fight, without you

Preceded by "Way Down" by Elvis Presley

UK Number One single October 8 - October 29, 1977 (3 weeks)

Succeeded by "Yes Sir I Can Boogie" by Baccara