Beyond the Neon

In the second part of this special, Beyond the Neon explores how the Satanic Panic in the US spread to Great Britain in the 1980s. The show looks into how fears about music, board games, films and TV shows, were used to build support for religious crusaders looking to weaponise morality against everything from homosexuality and home video horror movies to suicide.

The first of a two-part special exploring the history and explosion of Satanic Panic that spread across America in the 1980s. Real-life criminal cases, dubious media reports, exploitative TV shows, foaming religious fanaticism, and outrageous claims... its all covered here.

Villainy in 1980s popular culture and how the politics and social trends of the decade gave us a wealth of iconic bad guys. The corporate characters and entities that loomed large, the rock star vampires that replaced the traditional gothic monsters and the slasher megastars who crossed over into everything from TV and music to toys and video games. It's all here!

In a special bonus episode, I present my academic paper created for the Gothic 1980s Symposium that took place in June 2019. Re-recorded and re-edited with illustrative clips, I explore how the aesthetic 'gothic' of 1980s cinema is less active than some of the other, more interesting gothic characters of the era.

The final part of the Beyond the Neon film marketing trilogy looks at the end of the 1980s and how popular culture was reacting to the advertising explosion of the decade.

Exploring the superhero landscape of the 1970s, how this translated to decade that followed, and how a new president changed the way Hollywood looked at heroism in comics, tv and film.

The second in a three-part series looking at film marketing in the 1980s, Beyond the Neon look at how home video and the 'high concept' movie defined advertising approaches during the decade.

In the first of a three parter looking at film marketing in the 1980s, Beyond the Neon explores the history, language and landscape of cinema that led to the movie marketing we know today.

In the second of a two-part epic show, I continue my journey into one of the most important toy franchises of the 1980s (and my childhood) The Transformers.

In the first of a two-part epic show, I delve head-first into the most important toy franchise of my childhood - and one I still cherish today - The Transformers. Featuring interviews with The Toys That Made Us producer Brian Volk Weiss, writer/editor of The Transformers UK comic Simon Furman, and animation expert Dr Steve Henderson.

Beyond the Neon plumbs the depths of the 1980s to ponder its wildest, most wonderful moments - and answer some of its most perplexing questions. In episode 1, I ask if the decade was a place of harmless fun, or if it was potentially damaging to kids. I explore the paranoia of the decades that led us there, look the movies and shows of the day, and speak to experts about how our modern world shapes up in comparison.