Looks Unfamiliar #3: Mark Thompson – I’m Quite Happy With My Passport Colour To Be Honest

The Drak Pack, as discussed by Tim Worthington and political commentator Mark Thompson in Looks Unfamiliar.

Looks Unfamiliar 3 – Mark Thompson

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 radio host and political pundit Mark Thompson, who’s wondering why nobody else he knows ever seems to have heard of computer-assisted action series Whiz Kids, Crash ZX Spectrum Magazine and its legally contentious parodies of competitors, ITV Night Time filler Night Shift, Public Information Film family The Blunders, late nineties dystopian thriller 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’s appropriate to address Colin Bennett as ‘Vince Purity’.

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Looks Unfamiliar is hosted by Podnose.

You can find another appearance by Mark on Looks Unfamiliar, with more about his late-night nineties viewing habits (and a hidden extra mini-edition), here.

You can find more recollections of ZX Spectrum games in other editions of Looks Unfamiliar with Emma Burnell on The Lords Of Midnight here, Garreth F. Hirons on Saboteur here and Frankie Goes To Hollywood here, Michael Livesley on Clumsy Colin Action Biker here, Phil Catterall on Platoon here, Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence on Deus Ex Machina here and Jem Roberts on Dizzy here. Crash ZX Spectrum‘s close rival Load Runner features in the edition with Chris Hughes here.

Along with fellow Looks Unfamiliar guest Emma Burnell (who you can hear on Looks Unfamiliar here and here), Mark is a regular contributor to the political debate podcast House Of Comments, which you can find out more about here or follow on Twitter at @HoCPodcast. You can also hear my guest appearance on House Of Comments on the Audio page here.

There’s a huge feature on The Last Train, and the many other 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 Tim’s book Well At Least It’s Free, available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Mark also appears in The Best Of Looks Unfamiliar alongside Ben Baker, Emma Burnell, Phil Catterall, Stephen O’Brien and Garreth F. Hirons, which you can find here.