Looks Unfamiliar: Stephen O’Brien – The Classic ‘Four Calculators’ Sketch

The Morecambe And Wise Game by Denys Fisher - listen to Stephen O'Brien and Tim Worthington talking 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 writer Stephen O’Brien, who’s wondering why he gets blank looks all round whenever he mentions Steven Moffat sitcom The Office, early ‘lad mag’ LM, eighties puzzle cash-in paperback You Can Do The Cube, KLF-affiliated early Stock Aitken Waterman act Brilliant, The Beachcombers and other last-minute ITV emergency schedule replacement standbys and The Morecambe And Wise Board Game. Along the way we’ll be finding out how many issues of ‘Razzle And Wise’ were published, how many characters Stefan Dennis can play on stage at once, and which seventies action serial is slightly less preferable to actually being at school.

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LM Issue 3 (Newsfield, 1987) - listen to Stephen O'Brien and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

Kiss The Lips Of Life by Brilliant (WEA, 1986) - listen to Stephen O'Brien and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

You Can Do The Cube by Patrick Bossert (Puffin, 1981) - listen to Stephen O'Brien and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

The Beachcombers (CBC, 1972-90) - listen to Stephen O'Brien and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

About Stephen

Stephen O’Brien is a writer and a historian of eighties pop music; you can get Stephen’s book 80s UK Christmas Singles from Amazon here. You can find Stephen’s Stock Aitken Waterman fan site Kean Canter Mattowski here and follow him on Twitter at @stephenobrien.

Buy A Book!

You can find the full story of the Rubik Cube’s ill-advised follow-up Rubik’s Magic – along with much more about the bookshop where we found all those copies of You Can Do The Cube – in Tim’s book Can’t Help Thinking About Me, a collection of columns and features with a personal twist. Can’t Help Thinking About Me 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. Not in a novelty Rubik’s Cube mug though. I mean for a start they’re entirely the wrong shape.

Further Listening

Stephen has also appeared on Looks Unfamiliar talking about his favourite forgotten eighties Christmas Singles – taking in The Snowmen, Frank Sidebottom, George Cole And Dennis Waterman, Band Aid II, Run DMC and Madge and Harold from Neighbours – here, and what it was like to watch The Box Of Delights on its original broadcast – and to spend a long time afterwards hunting down the tie-in paperback and theme single – here.

Stephen has also appeared on Tim’s Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast It’s Good, Except It Sucks talking about Captain America: The Winter Soldier here and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier here.

Rubik’s Clock features in Looks Unfamiliar with Darrell Maclaine here, while Mark Thompson joined us for a chat about LM‘s stablemate Crash ZX Spectrum here.

Stephen 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 tie-in computer game, Garreth Hirons on Food Fighters, Mark Thompson on Night Shift and Tim on the radio talking to Georgey Spanswick about Denys Fisher’s TV tie-in board games, which you can find here.