Garry Gum

When chewed, it stimulates the brain and improves mental agility. Though it does have some side effects. For instance; diarrhoea.

I love Boards of Canada, me. And you should do too. But why mention them? Well, they conjure up the same sort of creeping nostalgic dread that Look Around You does. Like a portal back into the late 70s / early 80s, when everything seemed to be captured on tatty old VHS tapes, degraded by the overwriting of a thousand accidentally recorded ad breaks. The production values remind me of the Protect and Survive adverts, which anyone who was a kid at the time will tell you, are fucking terrifying.

Back in those days, they had the ‘Programmes for Schools and Colleges‘ situation, which involved the BBC scheduling loads of educational programmes in the middle of the night that your teacher would record and then play the following day (that’s if they could work out how to use the programming function of their VCR, which they usually couldn’t). The first series of LAY is basically that, but mental.

A prime cut of which is Garry Gum. Supposedly an integral part of any school child’s pencil case – along with pencils (obviously), a protractor, a ridiculous two inch ruler, a pair of compasses (jokingly being two navigational versions rather than the spiky mathematical variety) and, er, anti-Garry Gum. Garry Gum supposedly increases your brian power but then also gives you the shits. Which is why you’d need the antidotal qualities of anti-Garry Gum. Like I say, mental.

So, gum, then. I originally was going to go for something Hubba Bubba-esque, but realised that although that was suitably 80s, it was a little bit colourful for what I wanted to achieve. Which was the washed-out and bland look of the aformentioned PfSaC programmes. What I’ve settled on is a bit of a mish-mash of an incredibly famous one and a weird cinammon one that I liked the writing of.

The first series of Look Around You was played out in this fashion, in ten bite-sized mini-episodes and it worked an absolute treat. But then they got some budget and it turned into a more conventional 30 minute sitcom. Which made it become a lot more Tomorrow’s World-y; still astutely observed, but in my view, lacking the charm and – dare I say – slight undercurrent of fear of the first series.

Either way, all availble on the old iPlayer (at time of writing) if you fancy it.