Crackerjack

Can you say Crackerjack without saying Crack-er-Jack?

"It's Friday, it's five to five... it's Crackerjack"
"CRACKERJACK!"


As the time and place suggested, it was going to be 45 minutes of games, comedy and music. Whether Jack Douglas, Ronnie Corbet, Don Maclean, Peter Glaze and The Krankies or Leslie Crowther, Michael Aspel, Ed Stewart or that weird Stu Francis, you knew that you would have a barrel of fun.

Back in 1955 Crackerjack was originally presented by This Is Your Life's Eamonn Andrews. The last presenter gave it the kiss of death with, Stu 'Ooh, I could crush a grape' Francis.

We probably all remember Double or Drop, where children were picked from the audience to answer questions, winning prizes for a right answer and cabbages for a wrong answer. All had to be held for the duration of the game. No wonder kids hate cabbages these days.

There were no losers, however, with everyone going home with the much-coveted Crackerjack pencil. How much did that cost the BBC budget, even a pen would of been better!

Do you have any memories of Crackerjack?

Towering Inferno

In the Seventies, every director had to make a disaster movie, With Airplanes, Ships and Earthquakes on cities a Towering Inferno was yet another way to stick hundreds of big names into a movie and guarantee a blockbuster movie.In 1974 Irwin Allen featured an all-star cast led by Steve McQueen and Paul Newman the big names at the time.


With 138 stories, the skyscraper is the tallest building in the world. The movie is set at the dedication party. Being a new building there are still areas of concern. The power surge also sparks a fire in a storage room on the 81st floor, which because of problems with the building's security system, goes undetected for many hours.


Of course the last thing anyone would want is an issue on such an important night so its a while before anyone takes it seriously. As the department struggles to fight the spreading fire from inside, the 300 party guests in the 135th floor Promenade Room are trapped. The remainder of the film follows the rescuing of the guests, and depicts many escape attempts and deaths. Rooftop escape by helicopter is abandoned when winds cause the first attempt to crash into the roof and explodes. The tower has only two stairwells. One is filled with smoke and the other is rendered impassable by subsequent explosions and collapses.

A few hundred die in the end and a moral to the story is left behind, in the same way the Titanic and words unsinkable link.

The reason this stood out for me was just seeing so many great actors in the movie. Towering inferno is very Corny, but great for a Saturday afternoon in.