Scratchy and Co clips (c.1995/6)

A few short clips of two episodes from the early 'Max Headroom' era of Scratchy and Co, circa 1996, featuring a handful of Mark Speight links, glimpses of the teen segment Massive with Denise and Malcolm, plus some ad breaks and promos. Yes, I'm back and uploading again, I'm very well thank you, but we must talk, a few things need to change around here, it's not you it's me, etc. etc. Before proceeding, this is my first upload since Oliver who ran ‪@ADCTVCollection‬ sadly passed away. I've offered my condolences privately, and I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to say publicly beyond how sorely missed he will be. I think Oliver was the very best at what he did, and I can only dream of being as good as him in this crazy niche of YouTube we both shared. Beyond that, though, he was an unbelievably nice, polite, generous person, and his 6500-video channel stands as a monument and a better tribute to him than I could ever pay. It was actually Oliver who sent me these Scratchy and Co clips several years ago, and I'm not certain they've otherwise seen the light of day, so I hope I'm not out of line in sharing them alongside this message. It's the sort of situation that gets one thinking perhaps a little too deeply, and pondering what in the world my own channel is these days has led to the following mini-manifesto... 1) Quality control is out the window. Honestly, I waste hours trimming, colour-correcting, and processing a video, only to scrap it, go back, and do it all again because I notice the audio sync has drifted by a couple of frames - and all for an upload that struggles to reach 1000 views. Well, no more. It's all about the content now, not the superficials. Did you even notice that this video is 720p rather than 1080p? Point proven. 2) Thumbnails are irritatingly time-consuming to get right and do little good anyway. Usually at least one of the three randomly-generated ones will do (this video being an ironic exception), so I'll be going with those as much as possible. 3) Expect more one-line descriptions. I'm neither as interesting nor as funny as I used to be, and I'm sure you've noticed over the last couple of years that I now make a lot less sense in general, too. I reckon fewer than 100 people read them anyway. My thanks and appreciation to those who do, of course, but this is time better spent digging up videos. 4) Twitter is no longer public-facing (which was the only reason I had it in the first place), so you can now also find me on Bluesky under the same username. That's only in case notifications from my channel stop coming through, or if it disappears altogether. 5) The number of commenters determined to start a culture war is exhausting, so from now on, I'm just hitting the block button on anyone who negatively brings up race, sexuality, politics, religion, or uses words like "woke" and "snowflake" as an entirely unironic way of saying "Waaaah, I don't like it" about anything. I don't mean people who are having a sensible discussion about how things have changed; this is a nostalgia channel, after all. What I'm saying is that if I think there's even a 1% chance you're trolling for a Daily Mail reaction, you're gone. This is your one and only warning. 6) Just for the record, my "Please don't buy The Sun" crusade has nothing to do with culture wars or politics. Someone in my class at school died, and, while most outlets were respectful (and some didn't see the justification in covering it at all), The Sun made up a backstory that simply wasn't true. They decided that lying about a teenager's death was fair game in order to sell a few papers, and I saw the fallout at close quarters. Please don't buy The Sun. 7) Accuracy and detail. One minute I'm trying to work out (say) a broadcast date, the next I've spent an hour down a rabbit hole reading about what a minor character's actor has been up to for the last few decades. Not good. I'll now be leaving details like this to my learned friends in comment sections. 8) What's off-limits and what isn't is now such a tangle of blurred lines that I can't keep up. I was editing a video recently that featured in quick succession clips of Puff Daddy, R Kelly, and Gary Glitter. Then I thought I saw Stuart Hall in another, but wasn't sure. And Prince Andrew. Then a performer made up to look mixed-race. In short, I'm admitting defeat, and from now on I'm just going to upload stuff and not draw attention to wrong 'uns or dated attitudes. It's the past, and nothing can change it. I don't aim to offend - quite the opposite - but if any of my uploads upset you, I apologise right now, once and for all. Like I said, things are going to change a bit around here, but the result should be more and better content from me in general. Hopefully that's a decent trade-off. (If you're a copyright holder and have any objections, please feel free to contact me. Alternatively, I haven't monetised the video, so you're welcome to do so, and that way everybody wins.)