Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 2186
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 03/04/2001
Subject: Matthew Smith on Thumb Candy!
I saw Thumb Candy on Channel 4 on Saturday, and
it was amazing!
There was a section about
home computing in the UK, featuring Clive Sinclair
with the one-millionth Spectrum ever made (which was
distinguished by having a white rather than black case). It
said that the British software industry came out of
fetid teenage bedrooms in the early 1980s, and then the
Manic Miner tune, Grieg's "In the Hall of the
Mountain-King" (they also used Grieg's original for the opening
and closing credits of the programme!), started
playing in the background just before the adverts, like
the breathing of Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars
Episode I.
I was so excited as I waited through
those adverts, knowing that Matthew Smith would be on!
It was the first time I'd seen him - or any MM/JSW
author - on TV (Adam Britton was on BBC TV last year, in
his capacity as a crocodile scientist, but sadly I
only found out about it after I missed it). It was
also the first time I'd seen Manic Miner on TV (except
when I've videod myself playing).
Matthew Smith
is an intriguing character, very charismatic, witty
("Where does the boot come from at the end of the game?"
- "Out of the top of the screen!"), and very
photogenic with his wild, staring eyes and comical facial
expressions (see his website at
http://www.the-good-stuff.freeserve.co.uk/ target=new>http://www.the-good-stuff.freeserve.co.uk/> or the bit where he said "I got the most
compliments on the telephones!"). In fact, Matthew Smith now
looks like I imagined him in 1983 - early thirties,
brown-haired and bearded (I never saw any photos of him before
I first surfed the Internet for MM/JSW in
1996).
The interview was set in what appeared to be Matthew
Smith's bedroom, playing Manic Miner on a Spectrum 48K,
and there was a full frontal view of the house. I
wonder how many obsessed fans will be crawling the
streets of Wallasey, looking for that house? ;-)
I
believe that the Matthew Smith on the Internet is the
same Matthew Smith that they interviewed for Thumb
Candy, because they look alike. He doesn't look anything
like he did back in 1983 (seventeen, long-haired, fat
and slightly Oriental-looking), but it's not unusual
for people to radically change their appearance. They
both have similar high-pitched voices. I don't believe
they would have featured Matthew Smith on TV if they
weren't sure that it was the real Matthew Smith. They
also scored interviews with other pioneers: the guy
who wrote the first computer game (Space War in
1959), the guy who wrote Space Invaders and the guy who
wrote Pacman.
They even showed Stephen Smith's
"Where is Matthew Smith?" page
[http://www.jonlan.demon.co.uk/spectrum/matsmith/ target=new>http://www.jonlan.demon.co.uk/spectrum/matsmith/> ], and asked Matthew about his famous exile. He
lived in a commune in Holland in 1995, and applied for
a job in a fish-gutting factory at the wrong time
of year.
"Everything goes around and comes
around. Five years after I did it, I was a wash-out. Ten
years after I did it, I was history. But it's coming up
to twenty years now, and I'm a
legend!"
--
Andrew
Broad
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/ target=new>http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/>
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/ target=new>http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/>
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/ target=new>http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/>
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