Remembering with Fondness: Look-In

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when the world was a very different place, there was a magazine called LOOK-IN.

For those of you who are not blessed with memories of this wonderful publication, let me explain.

In the days when we only had three channels to choose from on the television, there were two television listing magazines: the TV Times and the Radio Times. As an off-shoot of the TV Times, which was primarily biased towards ITV programming, a children’s edition was printed and this was called Look-In. It contained facts about your favourite music, film and tv stars, competitions to be won, and was chock-full off comic strip adaptations of your favourite tv shows, such as The Fall Guy, Metal Mickey and Sapphire and Steel. Each week, I seem to remember it being a Thursday, the magazine would be rushed home and I would delve into the world of tv and music.

I seem to remember that the issues contained a lot about Adam and the Ants, and if memory serves me correctly there was a comic strip of the man and his band.

It was also home to statistics of your favourite stars and I remember there was one about Mark Hamill and another about Harrison Ford. It was from this information that my dad created a life-size Indiana Jones figure, that still graces a room in my house all those years later. That would have been in 1984 as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released.

Look-In was a fast and furious publication, also featuring the likes of Man About the House, Tiswas, Worzel Gummidge, The Six-Million Dollar Man, CHiPS and Battlestar Galactica. It was frenetic, and often as crazy as ITV’s flagship children’s show Tiswas, with printed versions of the Phantom Flan-Flinger throwing flans that splattered all over the pages.

Sadly, the publication did not last and in 1994, due to dwindling sales, it closed. But the magazine leaves a lot of memories  and if you Google Look-In, then you would be greeted by a splendid collage of many of the covers from the magazine.

Look-In was part of my childhood and is fondly remembered. Once I had grown out of it, sometime in 1985 and onwards, I moved on the more brutal and political 2000AD, briefly flirting with Battle Action Force in between.  2000AD would change my out-look on things but it was Look-In that got me started and the world was a much better place for it.

Zac Thraves is a storyteller and writer living in Kent; if you wish to book him to come along to your party, young or old,  or to give a speech at your local school then please contact him at zacharystories@outlook.com