...80s stylz...and i can't believe how much my year 7s and 8s love it. we're reading the book and i was going to watch the new movie afterwards to do the old compare and contrast. i thought that the 1982 series would be too naff for them so didn't bother trying to find it. boy was i wrong. one of my boys got it out from the library and they were keen to see it. they think they're 'getting out of working' by watching it. little do they know they are actually doing some learning.
a few observations...the shirt slashed to the navel look is interesting in a show for children. and what is the difference between the short shorts they wore then and the ones they wear now? i guess calling them 'canterburys' makes them more appealing. i forgot that billy t james was the traffic cop. he was channelling eric estrada and doing a great chips impersonation (of course that was lost on today's youth). despite the special effects being 1982, the students still think they're cool. the acting is appalling (even compared with the actors on shorty st) and the accents are ever so slightly british sounding. auckland has no sky tower. there were a lot of vivas back in the day. i loved my viva.
one of my boys remarked that the twins just went with mr jones even though he seemed like a pervy old man (i can't blame them though, he was wearing his pants very high). in fact they asked if there was no stranger danger back then. i replied, in a quote from the show, that they should just tell a policeman. they also thought it was weird that another old man was following them round in a hearse. i remembered that my 11 year old self would have thought nothing of it. another reminder of how the times have changed.
we had an interesting discussion about how when this was made homosexuality was actually illegal (context...the weird driver dude for the wilberforces who is not mentioned in the book. the students wanted to know if they were gay because a wife is mentioned in the book but she hasn't been in the show yet). they wanted to know if they would go to a female prison if they were arrested (!). i explained no because they were still, in fact, men.
there are pauses for ad breaks. the ads have been removed. my class would have loved for the ads to still be in there so they could watch them. they have a point. the ads would have been fascinating for them to watch.
we're going to do a threeway now. compare and contrast the book with the series with the movie...(what were you thinking?)
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