The Randall and Hopkirk (Declassified) website – an unofficial fan website dedicated to charting the history of great ITC adventure series of the late 1960s, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), has just added a guide to the legendary production company’s ITC’s Home Media output.
The 100-page ITC Home Media section, collated by Alan Hayes with help from a huge number of contributors, including Martin Cater, Alistair McGown, Andrew Pixley and many more, catalogues the history of ITC Entertainment on home media formats and includes genre series such as The Prisoner, Danger Man, The Saint, The Champions, The Persuaders! and, of course, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).
“It’s still a work in progress,” says writer Alan Hayes of this impressive research, a 100-page website in itself, nestled within Randall and Hopkirk (Declassified), “and has taken more than a year to get to the point where I am happy to launch it.
The focus of the new section is exclusively on British releases. “This isn’t because Randall and Hopkirk (Declassified) is insular or dismissive of what has been issued elsewhere in the world – far from it, judging from our shelves! – but rather it is a gargantuan task to document just the British merchandise and the section had to be kept to a manageable size. We might occasionally allude to international versions and present peeks at foreign covers, but essentially, the criteria is that if an item wasn’t published in the United Kingdom it doesn’t feature.”
Additionally, as an extra-special treat, there are two additional sections: Multi-Series Releases, where you will find those instances where episodes of more than one series were issued together, for instance ITC Video’s Classic TV Heaven range; and TV Themes Collections, where VHS, vinyl record, audio cassette and CD releases of TV theme compilations are recorded – as long as they have at least one ITC theme included. (This latter section is a huge rabbit-hole of a section, so forgive the team for it not being totally comprehensive).
Needless to say, the work that has gone into compiling this is simply astonishing, and if you’re a fan of any of the TV shows mentioned, there’s plenty to spark memories here.
“It wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Martin Cater, Simon Coward, Rick Davy, Discogs, Bernard Dunne, Fred Edwards, Alys Hayes, Craig Robins, Al Samujh, Sheena Samujh, David Stimpson, Stephen Thwaites, Sharman Towers, Jaz Wiseman, Jonathan Wood and the Roobarb’s Forum Network Releases researchers. Enjoy!”
• Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) ITC Home Media Guide
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
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What a delight to be featured as a news update on Down the Tubes! This has been a labour of love so far and grew from the thought of doing this sort of thing for Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) only. Then it grew… and grew… to the point where this section takes up nearly half the number of pages in the whole website and deals with 18 additional ITC series too. I hope people enjoy it! Thank you. 🙂
The amount of work that must have gotten to this stage is simply astonishing. Hats off to you, and the rest of the team!