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BBC Casualty in the 1980s

Started by Virgo76, July 05, 2021, 07:56:27 AM

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Quote from: phantom_power on July 05, 2021, 10:58:23 AM
Yeah the squash one stuck with me as well, along with someone getting impaled on some railings outside a house

I've only ever seen two episodes, and they both featured people being impaled on spikes. The first one was in a barn, and the second one was the aforementioned railings.

The former haunted young me for years, but not as much as the episode of Hamish Macbeth where someone hides in a coffin and gets cremated alive because the deaf undertaker couldn't hear them knocking. I think that ruined the summer of '96 for me more than Southgate's penalty miss.

It's absolutely wild that any of these were shown before the watershed.

greencalx

Sorry you (Natnar) were talking about two separate episodes. Josh would have been later on. He got stabbed in the end, I think, something that acted as no barrier to him returning in a later series.

idunnosomename

My favourite 999 episodes were the special bonfire night ones where people died.

Sebastian Cobb

Two casualty ones that stuck with me:
Some young lad getting an electric shock from plugging in a hand blender after dropping the plug in the milkshake they were making while playing their Game Gear.

A young couple go swimming in some murky water and are right by an outlet when the local chemical plant released a load of toxic waste that caused their faces to puff up.

Attila

Another fave:

Guppy being forced to perform an emergency trepanning with a hand-held screw-augur, in a collapsed basement, with instructions shouted down the phone, because a coach full of juvenile deliquents had swerved to miss a group of elderly protestors and crashed into an old age home, collapsing everyone into said basement.

There was one doctor on there for a long time whom Mr Attila referred to as 'Doctor Party Pants.' 

JesusAndYourBush

With Holby ending in March I'm wondering if any of the main characters will start popping up in Casualty.
Actually I'm disappointed characters never pop up in each others shows (apart from the very occasional crossover), what with them both being parts of the same hospital, even if it was just someone greeting the other shows character in the car park or seeing them in the background in the pub across the road or whatever.

El Unicornio, mang

One of the first episodes had naked breasts (think it was a stripper scene) so it was definitely a post-watershed show when it started, before drifting into more family friendly territory in later seasons.

studpuppet

RIP the Scarred For Life Volume Two thread.

Quote from: phantom_power on July 05, 2021, 03:32:10 PM
I think the reason it stuck in my mind is because it is simultaneously horrifying but also utterly ridiculous

The day before we did javelin for the first time at school, micheal buerk did the one about the lad impaled through the neck by a javelin - and LIVED.

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: A Hat Like That on July 06, 2021, 04:57:31 PM
The day before we did javelin for the first time at school, micheal buerk did the one about the lad impaled through the neck by a javelin - and LIVED.

That's reminded me that at school the first time we did javelin the teacher warned us to not run when we were going to retrieve the javelin as a few years earlier some kid had been running and couldn't see the javelin in the long grass and ran into it and impaled themselves on the sticking up blunt end.

Peru

I've long been bugged by what I think is a series 1 episode that I saw on broadcast with a massive motorway pile-up involving barrels. I clearly remember a shot of a screaming girl (a hitchhiker?) being thrown through the windscreen then slowly falling off the bonnet. Traumatised. Found the episode on YT recently and it has everything but is missing the shot of her flying through the window and falling off the bonnet. Did I imagine this or can anyone else confirm?

Glebe

Just finished watching The Tripods online recently, Casualty theme composer Ken Freeman also did the theme for that.

I too found the 'an accident is about to happen' bits unbearably tense. If some bloke is messing around with a screwdriver in his garage or summit, it's time to leave the room as he is most definitely going to lose an eye or worse.

Quote from: Glebe on July 06, 2021, 08:06:14 PM
Just finished watching The Tripods online recently, Casualty theme composer Ken Freeman also did the theme for that.

I too found the 'an accident is about to happen' bits unbearably tense. If some bloke is messing around with a screwdriver in his garage or summit, it's time to leave the room as he is most definitely going to lose an eye or worse.

There was one sequence indelibly stuck in my mind where a woman with a very long, glossy plait was working in a factory and bending over machines a lot.  I actually couldn't bear it after a while and had to stop watching.  I will never know whether she did get scalped or if it turned out to be one of the red herrings.

Glebe

Quote from: rectorofstiffkey on July 06, 2021, 09:05:41 PMThere was one sequence indelibly stuck in my mind where a woman with a very long, glossy plait was working in a factory and bending over machines a lot.  I actually couldn't bear it after a while and had to stop watching.  I will never know whether she did get scalped or if it turned out to be one of the red herrings.

Don't remember that happening in The Tripods! ;)

Quote from: Glebe on July 06, 2021, 09:09:18 PM
Don't remember that happening in The Tripods! ;)

:-) couldn't you kill one of the Masters in the Tripods by punching it in a certain spot, or did I make that up?  (Or was it in the books perhaps, remember reading them).  Maybe there could be a version of Casualty for Tripods, in which lots of Masters were going about their daily business with their sensitive areas perilously close to hard objects.  Or javelins.

Rev+

The accents in the early episodes have been mentioned, but whatwerthatallabout?  Everyone seemed to simultaneously be from Bristol and Cornwall, until they just let the actors use their natural accents after a while.  Come to think of it, where is Holby hospital supposed to be located?

I have two memories of Casualty that I'm not entirely sure are really from Casualty, but from other dramas of the time.  Could other readers please confirm if these were japes that Charlie and the gang got up to:

1.  AIDS.  All the AIDS.  A character with the AIDS is led out of the hospital through a plastic tunnel, with the staff surrounding him in full hazmat suits and respirators.  We see most of it from his perspective.  Seems very extreme and weird, but Casualty started in 1986, so it would maybe track for a first series episode.

2.  Snooker cue.  A pub dispute that spills out into the street in broad daylight, ending with a skinhead snapping a cue in half and stabbing his prone victim through the heart with it while the guy begs him not to.  Definitely at least a couple of years before Saving Private Ryan.  They knew where to go for a disturbing scene.

Glebe

Quote from: rectorofstiffkey on July 06, 2021, 09:35:23 PM:-) couldn't you kill one of the Masters in the Tripods by punching it in a certain spot, or did I make that up?  (Or was it in the books perhaps, remember reading them).  Maybe there could be a version of Casualty for Tripods, in which lots of Masters were going about their daily business with their sensitive areas perilously close to hard objects.  Or javelins.

Yeah, the Masters weak spot is ridiculous, all they have to do is get punched in the gob and they're fucked. Hmmm, a Tripods/Casualty crossover would be great!

Virgo76

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on July 06, 2021, 04:01:51 PM
With Holby ending in March I'm wondering if any of the main characters will start popping up in Casualty.
Actually I'm disappointed characters never pop up in each others shows (apart from the very occasional crossover), what with them both being parts of the same hospital, even if it was just someone greeting the other shows character in the car park or seeing them in the background in the pub across the road or whatever.

I think that has happened quite a bit already actually. Clive Mantle was in both series (as the same character) for one.
I once saw Clive Mantle in an Indian restaurant in Bristol in the early 2000s. I've never seen anyone receive so much unsolicited female attention in my life. That's what being in Robin of Sherwood gets you, I suppose.

Attila

Quote from: Rev+ on July 07, 2021, 02:03:21 AM
The accents in the early episodes have been mentioned, but whatwerthatallabout?  Everyone seemed to simultaneously be from Bristol and Cornwall, until they just let the actors use their natural accents after a while.  Come to think of it, where is Holby hospital supposed to be located?

I have two memories of Casualty that I'm not entirely sure are really from Casualty, but from other dramas of the time.  Could other readers please confirm if these were japes that Charlie and the gang got up to:

1.  AIDS.  All the AIDS.  A character with the AIDS is led out of the hospital through a plastic tunnel, with the staff surrounding him in full hazmat suits and respirators.  We see most of it from his perspective.  Seems very extreme and weird, but Casualty started in 1986, so it would maybe track for a first series episode.


Not the first ep of Casualty (I have the first 3 series on dvd, and they're mostly a lot of talk, very set-bound in hospital rooms).

I always figured Holby was Bristol: in the first episode you see Charlie starting his first day there, approaching the hospital driving across the big bridge there.

Ages back they did a 'Casualty 1907' (several series, actually, advancing the date with each one), that initially I thought 'Yes! Mad Casualty moments except in the days before health and safety (fully expecting Charlie still to be on staff, as he's worked at Holby City Hospital since at least the 18th century) -- but were actually cracking good drama based on case books from the London Hospital and innovative schemes, &c. They'd end each episode with a written text about how whatever horrendous illness/infection devastated the characters that week later became easily cured by antibiotics or whatever. I grabbed them on DVD as soon as they were released, and I think they're out of print now. Grim, but fascinating stuff.


Virgo76

Holby is based on Bristol. They apparently tried attempted Bristol accents early on but gave up trying after a while.
Casualty 1907 was set in a different hospital in London. A good idea but it had nothing to do with Casualty itself really.

Attila

Quote from: Virgo76 on July 07, 2021, 03:23:07 PM

Casualty 1907 was set in a different hospital in London. A good idea but it had nothing to do with Casualty itself really.

That's what I said in my post above -- initially I thought it was going to be some mad 100 year old version of Casualty, but is in fact dramatisations of the case books from The London Hospital (referred to as 'The London' throughout the 2 or 3 series that the show went on). I enjoyed it quite a bit actually, and really should revisit it, as I still have the DVDs (it's sadly out of print, I think).

Ditto Bristol -- in the very first episode, you see Charlie driving to work across the big bridge there.


mjwilson

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on July 06, 2021, 04:08:30 PM
One of the first episodes had naked breasts (think it was a stripper scene) so it was definitely a post-watershed show when it started, before drifting into more family friendly territory in later seasons.

Ah the classic Breaking Bad move.

JarrowMonkey

Quote from: Natnar on July 05, 2021, 04:46:54 PM
Two stories i remember from early Casuality, Two policemen somehow crashing into a lorry carrying some chemical and getting serious melty-skin chemical burns. Then one of the paramedics having his house & family blown up in explosion when during an undetected gas leak one of the family switches a lightswitch on.

I remember the chemical one quite well, however I thought it was some poor young unlucky 1st day on the jobs copper melted and get hosed down from the fire brigade, still pegged it if I remember right

JarrowMonkey

Quote from: Virgo76 on July 07, 2021, 07:02:03 AM
I think that has happened quite a bit already actually. Clive Mantle was in both series (as the same character) for one.
I once saw Clive Mantle in an Indian restaurant in Bristol in the early 2000s. I've never seen anyone receive so much unsolicited female attention in my life. That's what being in Robin of Sherwood gets you, I suppose.

Better than the attention he got in the Travelodge the just down from old flat i lived in on Newcastle Quayside, got his lug chewed off, some you win..

Keebleman

I've been an extra on Casualty many times over the last few years and the attention to detail on the sets is remarkable.  There are racks of leaflets with advice on what to do if you suffer from back pain for instance, and they're all branded with Holby NHS Trust.

Attila

Quote from: Keebleman on July 08, 2021, 02:49:30 PM
I've been an extra on Casualty many times over the last few years and the attention to detail on the sets is remarkable.  There are racks of leaflets with advice on what to do if you suffer from back pain for instance, and they're all branded with Holby NHS Trust.

Fun!

I know he's a Holby man, but I met Hugh Quarshie at an exhibition at the British Museum a few years back. We got to chatting over one of the display cases (it was the big Viking exhibition, where they had an actual longboat! Too cool), and he laughed genuinely at my jokes. He was super nice :3

Leej88

Poor Josh losing his whole family in a fire is what I remember.

jenna appleseed

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on July 06, 2021, 05:02:35 PM
That's reminded me that at school the first time we did javelin the teacher warned us to not run when we were going to retrieve the javelin as a few years earlier some kid had been running and couldn't see the javelin in the long grass and ran into it and impaled themselves on the sticking up blunt end.

Did every fucking 90s sports teacher claim that that as a real thing that had happened?

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: jenna appleseed on July 08, 2021, 11:58:27 PM
Did every fucking 90s sports teacher claim that that as a real thing that had happened?

This was in the early 80's so he can't have seen it on Casualty!

Virgo76

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on July 06, 2021, 04:08:30 PM
One of the first episodes had naked breasts (think it was a stripper scene) so it was definitely a post-watershed show when it started, before drifting into more family friendly territory in later seasons.

It seems not actually. According to the schedules (see below) the entire first series was screened pre-watershed.
It was mad in those days. Even Noel Edmond's Late Late Breakfast Show was on before the watershed then and they actually used to genuinely kill people on that.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_bbc_one_london/1986-10-18