I never saw Threads, can someone explain the cat reference? (Use the spoiler code if it’s really horrible.)
It’s one of the thing that makes me feel old sometimes, realising that there are adults running around today who have absolutely no idea how seriously the threat of nuclear war was taken not so long ago.
Hey, I’d run to the pub too, although I might not think fast enough to come up with the “cellar” excuse. 
Horrible for your mum, - rather a “War of the Wotrlds” situation. Seriously - it was a nifty bit of thinking - I am sure I’d realise, that, yes, pubs really must have cellars, but it might take longer than 3 minutes. 
In the '80s I had nuclear angst dreams - anyone else have them? They were incredibly vivid and ‘realistic’. I grew up by the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire, and in one dream I was walking through the village and looking up to the hills, where to my horror I realised a missile was racing across the sky. It suddenly disappeared, and where it had been was a huge, expanding disk of blinding white light. It was totally silent. I woke up in total terror. Years later I realised that in my dream, the bomb had gone off roughly above the missile command station, a few miles away at High Wycombe. Clearly my subconscious is more imaginative than I thought.
yeah, my nightmares were always about fallout and radiation poisoning, i still think it’d be the worst way to go.
And, as msmith537 mentioned, those bloody giant cockroaches would be a real pain
(however that third arm i’ll grow may be quite useful)
Despite growing up in the 80s the whole nuclear fear thing passed me by – I think I thought my mum and dad would protect me from anything. (Ah happy innocence!)
But very recently I visited Hack Green Nuclear Bunker. More info here:
And here:
I very highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area, or indeed, in the UK. All the rooms have been basically been preserved as it was in the early 80s – crappy old computer terminals and dial phones – it’s like being in an episode of Blake’s 7. There are loads of old posters, governmental public service announcements playing, and best (or worst) of all, when you’ve reached the belly of the place and are properly frazzled, they have The War Game playing continuously in a dark video room. When I saw it I’d never heard of it and for a while thought it was true! Since then I have had an unhealthy fascination with the whole subject and have had the dreams jimm mentioned.
Yes, I’m reliving the childhood I never had. Brrr.
I finally got a copy of Threads off of ebay a few years ago. I’m glad I never saw it as a kid. The Day After, Testament, and that episode of the new Twilight Zone with Ralphie’s mom were enough to saturate my childhood with nuclear nightmares.
That’s not one where some woman somehow gets the ability to stop time so that she is the only one aware - then she stops it as nukes begin to fly?
I saw an episode of some show that had this and it’s driven me batty for a while
ruadh, the cat thing is just simply that. A cat.
Specifically, when the balloon goes up, and the nukes start dropping, there’s a shot of a cat (seen earlier in the film, it may have been the female lead’s pet, but I don’t recall for sure) basically falling over on command amidst the wreckage and rubble, on the sidewalk.
Another fairly memorable image from that bit of the film is a woman walking down the street when the first mushroom cloud appears, who stands frozen in shock, pissing down her leg.
I can understand that reaction.
Kaspar Hauser, can you elaborate on that Twilight Zone episode? Only one of the type I recall all that well is the old Burgess Meredith, “Time enough at last” one.
If I might be permitted a tiny hijack back to one previously mentioned - “When the WInd Blows” - 'cos I think it interesting, it being the one that would normally have been seen first, in public, in a cinema, rather than at home on television.
Now there were people going to see this, in the sense of “ooh it is Saturday, let’s trot up to Leicester Square, catch a new film” , really, and being taken aback by the fact that what they had somehow imagined to be a sweet little cartoon film, was rather less cheerful.
I was struck by the fact that, as the film ended, there was not the usual, “that’s that, that was fun, OK , now, what next, perhaps a pizza?”, reaching for jackets etc, hoping to exit before getting stuck in a queue. Rather there was a silence and stillness - people just did not move for a minute.
Once out of the auditorium, I left my b/f, saying " must go to loo, catch you back here"… minutes later - I was commenting on the fact that “there seem to be a lot of young ladies having great trouble with the mascara, or the contact lenses causing tears” - he said " ah yes, lots of blokes appear to be having trouble with the contact lenses too".
Well - OK - a trivial tale, but I remember it simply because I had the impression that for many, this might have been the first time they had given any thought to, or even had heard of, the dear old government’s wonderful “Protect and Survive” advisory booklet.
Yes, it was wonderful, and a work of some creative imagination (or “misleading load of nonsense” as it can also be spelled).
I am not explaining this at all well, am I? I mean that people can sit through fantastcal “horror” films, and happily enough, get up from seats, all keen on either the journey home, or the next plan for the evening, yet , with this seemingly sweet cartoon…!
Reminds me, I keep meaning to write and enquire politely what IS the most recent form of the “Protect and Survive” bit of nonsense. The answer ought to be interesting.
End of diversion - back to your regulary scheduled thread, or, indeed, “Threads”
coinkeedinkally i just found Threads on video in a foaf’s house. I watched it on Monday. I’d heard a lot about it . It gave me nightmares. In the dreams i was looking for a room with no windows so i could escape the fallout. I’m too young to remember the film when it was originally shown. Although the cold-war ended when i was quite young, 9 years old, I still remember the anxiety about nuclear conflagration. All those dodgy books about Nostradamus used to mortify me when i was 10/11 after the immediate threat of WW3 had receded.
Mogi
Heck - I am struck by the amount of posters in this thread who seem to have been aged about between 9 and 12 years at the time.
“What a drag it is getting old”.
That’s the image that stayed with me, too.
Pah, I was 16.
Can’t remember, between 13 and 15 for me.