Looks Unfamiliar: Mark Thompson – I’m Quite Happy With My Passport Colour To Be Honest

The Drak Pack (Hanna Barbera, 1980) - listen to Mark Thompson and Tim Worthington chatting about it in Looks Unfamiliar!

Looks Unfamiliar is a podcast in which writer and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington talks to a guest about some of the things that they remember that nobody else ever seems to.

Joining Tim this time is political commentator Mark Thompson, who’s wondering why nobody else ever does ‘WHACKO!’-accompanied high fives over computer-fixated eighties action series Whiz Kids, Crash ZX Spectrum Magazine and its habit of running legally contentious parodies of competitors, ITV Night Time reality show filler Night Shift, Public Information Film family The Blunders, late nineties dystopian thriller series The Last Train, and Hanna Barbera horror-adventure hybrid The Drak Pack. Along the way we’ll be finding out why there should be more government warnings about the dangers of hallucinating a disdainful Emma Bunton, how to distinguish an American teenager on a BMX from Arthur Mullard in a school cap, and when it is and isn’t appropriate to address Colin Bennett as ‘Vince Purity’.

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Crash ZX Spectrum's Sinclair User parody Unclear User (Newsfield, 1986) - listen to Mark Thompson and Tim Worthington chatting about it in Looks Unfamiliar!

About Mark

Mark Thompson is a political commentator and radio presenter. You can find his blog Mark Reckons here and follow him on Twitter at @MarkReckons.

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You can find a feature looking at The Last Train and the many other equally unsuccessful attempts by the BBC and ITV (and Channel 4, Channel 5 and even Sky One) at ‘doing’ sci-fi while Doctor Who was off the air in Well At Least It’s Free, a collection of some of Tim’s columns and features. Well At Least It’s Free is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Alternately, if you’re just feeling generous, you can buy me a coffee here. If you get it from one of those metal stands they used to have in city centres late at night you might even bump into Colin Bennett there.

Further Listening

You can also find Mark on Looks Unfamiliar talking about Libby’s Moonshine, A. Mazing Monsters, Agony, Being Erica, Hawkeye Collins And Amy Adams – Can You Solve The Mystery? and We Know Where You Live plus an extra secret bit about watching television on holiday here, and V: The Series, Dirty Dick, The Giftie, The Mad Death, The Different Story (World Of Lust And Crime) by Peter Schilling and Space Shuttle here.

Mark has also appeared on Tim’s Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast It’s Good, Except It Sucks talking about Iron Man 2; you can find it here.

Stephen O’Brien joined us for a chat about Crash ZX Spectrum‘s spin-off youth magazine LM on Looks Unfamiliar here, while Mitch Benn had plenty to say about Night Shift‘s ITV Night Time contemporary Get Stuffed! here.

Mark also appears in The Best Of Looks Unfamiliar alongside Ben Baker on Fiendish Feet, Emma Burnell on The Patchwork Monkey, Phil Catterall on the Platoon computer game, Stephen O’Brien on The Morecambe And Wise Game, Garreth Hirons on Food Fighters and Tim on the radio talking to Georgey Spanswick about seventies board games, which you can find here.