Looks Unfamiliar: Ben Baker – The Famous Fourth Universal Monster

St. Ivel Fiendish Feet - listen to Ben Baker and Tim Worthington talking about them 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, broadcaster and quizmaster Ben Baker, who’s filling out a form in the hope of finding a penpal who remembers TV Mayhem, The Onion Bag, Fiendish Feet, the early internet craze for misidentifying every comedy song as ‘by’ Weird Al Yankovic, Betsy Byars’ Bingo Brown novels and the International Youth Service penpal scheme. Along the way we’ll be getting some unconventional yoghurt-related gardening tips, recalling the classic horror film ‘Dracula Vs. The Skeleton’, discussing whether Fangs-A-Lot is an appropriate choice of family heirloom, and finding out how the least politically correct gag in history ended up at the end of a right-on charity fundraising joke book. And Colin Foley, if you’re out there, please get in contact.

If you enjoy Looks Unfamiliar, why not buy us a coffee here?

TV Mayhem (TV-am, 1991) - listen to Ben Baker and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

The Onion Bag Issue 10 (Graham Wray, 1996) - listen to Ben Baker and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

Bingo Brown's Guide To Romance by Betsy Byars (Puffin, 1992) - listen to Ben Baker and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

About Ben

Ben Baker is a writer and broadcaster; you can follow him on Bluesky at @benbakerbsky.social. You can also find Ben’s podcasts ALFsplaining – an episode by episode look at eighties puppet hijinks sitcom ALF – here and Pantosplaining here.

Buy A Book!

You can find more about Chris Evans’ early Radio 1 show Too Much Gravy – and. more notoriously, what happened next – in Tim’s book Fun At One – The Story Of Comedy At BBC Radio 1, a look at all of Radio 1’s comedy shows from Kenny Everett to Chris Morris and beyond. Fun At One 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. They don’t do Fiendish Feet coffee flavour yoghurt though. Thankfully.

Further Listening

You can also find Ben on Looks Unfamiliar talking about Toksvig, The Whizzkid’s Guide, Mysteries Of Old Peking, Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi, Go (the 1999 film) and Making Your Own TV Listings Magazines here, Mr T’s Christmas Dream, There’s Something Wrong In Paradise, God In The House, To Hell With The Devil, Highway, The Flint Street Nativity, the 1990 Bullseye Christmas Special, Adam And Joe’s Fourmative Years and TFI 1998 here, The Goodies: Snow White 2, Roland’s Yuletide Binge and Grange Hill For Christmas here, ITV’s daytime nostalgia show Looks Familiar here, the original version of Now – The Christmas Album here and Bernard And The Genie here. You can also find Ben on The Golden Age Of Children’s TV talking about Round The Bend here.

Ben has also appeared on Tim’s Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast It’s Good, Except It Sucks talking about Ant-Man here, Cloak And Dagger here, Avengers: Endgame here and I Am Groot here.

Ben also appears in The Best Of Looks Unfamiliar alongside 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, Mark Thompson on Night Shift and Tim on the radio talking about Denys Fisher board games, which you can find here.