Uncle Traveling Matt .com — the personal site of Matt Gifford

The A-Team

1983-1987

The A-Team was the coolest program ever when I was growing up, with a good deal of gun fire, action and blowing stuff up. They'd often modify vehicles and jimmy stuff up during the episodes, usually involving a lot of welding and shit. The series was on too late for me to watch, since it was after my bedtime which was 8pm if I remember rightly. So my dad's friend would video it for me, (back then we only owned a small 14" TV), and lend us the video machine and the tape once a month so I could watch it. It was seriously ass when he decided not to lend us his video anymore, as I didn't see any more A-Team after that.

The A-Team Theme (MP3 / 1.2MB)

CHiPS

1977-1983

"CHiPS," stood for California Highway Patrol, followed two motorcycle cops Poncherello (he had like the coolest name ever) and Baker. This series was the usual TV cops show stuff, nothing particularly special but good entertainment all the same! I used to watch this back when we still lived at our first house on Bremworth Ave over in Dinsdale, back when my little sister had only just been born. We used to ride our bikes around Bremworth Park doing the whole pretending to be on motorcycles thing, one of my friends (I can't remember which now) crashed down a ditch whilst doing this, though he got away with only a sprained wrist. Hehe, good times!

CHiPS Theme (MP3 / 900KB)

The Dukes of Hazzard

1979-1985

I come from a family who are really into cars, so it's no wonder this show went down well. I sooo wanted a car with a Dukes of Hazzard horn when I grew-up, lol, (oh the shame), and to do all those cool jumps with the car. The closest thing I had though was an orange matchbox General Lee (the Dodge Charger from the series), and we used to make up jumps for it in the drive-way. As an aside, I have in fact done a Dukes of Hazzard style jump in my Familia—got the car about a metre airborne, though it tore the steel rear anti-swaybar mounts in half on landing! Was a lot of fun though, lol :)

The Dukes of Hazzard Theme (MP3 / 737KB)

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids

1972-1984

This show was neat, the opening credits "Hey, Hey, Hey..." was seriously good shit, lol. Back in the very early 80's when I was sporting a big blonde aff, a yellow t-shirt and brown stubbies, hehehe, comon' it was cool back then (wasn't it?). The kid on the show with hat that went right over his head with eye holes, was too cool for skool. I remember seeing a girl on K-Road in recent times with a tattoo of that character on her calf actually.

The Fat Albert Theme (MP3 / 882KB)

Fraggle Rock

1983-1987

Of course, Fraggle Rock couldn't be omitted from this list! With it's hellofa catchy theme tune who could resist. This series absolutely rocked, and it's also the reason this site has its title. My sister and I had a whole series of Fraggle Rock books, plus a number of episodes we'd recorded to video—by this time my family had got a VCR. I think one of main things that made this series cool, the range of characters and different areas they had in it—Doc and Sprocket, the Fraggles, the Trash Heap (Marjorie), the Doozers and the Gorgs. This is undoubtedly Jim Henson's finest work.

Fraggle Rock Theme (MP3 / 1.2MB)

The Gummi Bears

1985-1991

This show would have to be #10 on the list, and closely squeezed out Battlestar Galactica for this position. Battlestar Galactica was a cool series but I didn't see quite as much of in comparison, and I think I was too young to understand it properly. My little sister used to love the Gummi Bears, and hence I saw quite a bit of it too.

The Gummi Bears Theme (MP3 / 545KB)

Knight Rider

1982-1986

I think the only reason Knight Rider was cool, was due to the car KITT with its stealth-mode and turbocharger—which in retrospect after having owned/driven several different turbocharged vehicles sounded more like a vacuum cleaner than an actual turbocharger spooling!! But hey, to a 7 year old, it was one seriously cool car! I don't remember much about the series, though I do recall the storylines were often a bit so-so—good thing he moved on to Bay Watch, lol

Knight Rider Theme (MP3 / 889KB)

MacGyver

1985-1992

After the A-Team, MacGyver was my all time favourite TV series. By this time I was old enough to watch it at its regular viewing time, so no problems with VCR's here. I used to like making stuff, so this series really appealed to me—the improvising with stuff just lying around was cool. I really liked the trick he did with the cut-up credit card to change the traffic lights in one episode, though I suspect traffic lights probably don't actually work like that in real-life! lol and the first episode were he slid down the sand dunes on the map. Hehe, I even have a mini Leatherman (kinda like a Swiss Army knife) on my key-ring to pull out MacGyver styles when I'm out and about. The first season was by far the best, since after that one they decided the program was too violent / scary for younger viewers (it totally was not) and toned it back. However the following seasons were no-where near as good.

MacGyver Theme (MP3 / 408KB)

The Smurfs

1981-1990

For anyone that grew up in the eighties, the Smurfs was an all round favourite. Hehe, and I still say "Are we there yet Papa Smurf" to this day, lol. My sister and I had about a million of the Smurfs figurines when we were little, she had the Smurfette one and I had Papa Smurf, in addition to scores of the standard blue and white ones we had.

The Smurfs Theme (MP3 / 120KB)

Terrahawks

1983-1986

I'd so seriously forgotten about this show when I first did this post, well forgotten it's name to be exact. However, in a moment of enlightenment it just came to me this morning. In the same league as the Thunderbirds, both were made by Gerry Anderson, but way cooler. I had all the Zeroids figurines (the little round silver balls), and they were so cool. I didn't have any of Zelda's corresponding Death Cubes (that fought the Zeroids) so I used to make my own out of white ice cream containers and cellotape, lol. Man I loved this show!

Terrahawks Theme (MP3 / 377KB)

Posted by: Matt at June 7, 2006 7:51 PM

Posted by: Red Fraggle at November 29, 2006 8:49 PM

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