Joey Deacon was shot to fame on the television programme "Blue Peter". The earliest known sighting of the fabled Deacon was in 1976, although he was seen in his superchair until 1984. He is now dead, having lived well into his 70's, but it's all too long ago for anyone to get offended. Except perhaps his mother. Sorry, Mrs Deacon. But why did you have to call him Joey? If you'd called him James, no-one would have cared!
He had three friends. One acted as a translator, and another had the use of a typewriter. Together, they could topple an empire. Separately, they just dribbled a bit. No, that's unfair. They dribbled a lot. Ernie, Tom, and - oh, fellamelad, you know - used nicknames for each other. Joey was Dinkypuds, Ernie was Denver The Last Dinosaur, Tom was Papperkacks, and the other one, you know who I mean, was called Shitty Lips.
Joey may - or may not - have developed the skill to type with a pole that was strapped to his forehead. This is put forward by Julian Berry. I am doubtful. Firstly, Joey suffered from severe CP, wildly affecting his motor skills. I mean wildly! Whee! What use would a forehead pointer be, apart from erratic "push and pray" jousting competitions between the crueller nurses on the ward?
JOEY SONG
The songs are now available in authentic "sung" format, here.
So I've replaced this box with the dance competition anecdote. [adopts
voice] There was this time when Joey Deacon won the regional championships
in a freestyle street dance competition. The amusing thing is, that he
had only got up for a bag of peanuts. Ma-ha. Thanks again, Julian Berry.
The new saviour of Deacon.
JOEY'S DEATH
Misinformation abounds as to the death of our pal. Electrified by his
own wheelchair is a popular speculation (along with the observation that
you probably wouldn't be able to tell anyway, and people would just say
"yes, that's right Joey," until his hair caught fire). I believe,
however, that he ate himself, until he was just a mouth. Then he ate his
own mouth by flipping it backwards until his teeth met on the other side.
Belisha - Belisha Beacon. And that's about it really. I'm not very good at making up rhyming slang. I didn't even know that one until Dylan Gee sent it to me. I don't really like rhyming slang - cunts use it, don't they? As if life wasn't complicated enough, without making everyone outside the East End want to punch your fucking head in. Insufferable cockney nobsocks.
In 1980, Blue Peter held a Bring & Buy Sale for the Disabled. One of the aims was to build four bungalows for disabled people, in England, Ireland, Scotland..and, erm, the other one. One hand picked spaz would live in each house, and reared to battle the other three, in a Highlander like epic conflict spanning three centuries, and the future.
This Morsel sent by Twisticles
Further research by someone else (again, Mr Young) shows that his translating friend's name was "Ernie Roberts". Eddie, therefore, is either the secretary or a red herring. Ah, do remember Red Herrings in text-only adventures? To begin with, they were useless, but then the programmers got clever, and you had to use the Herring to placate a cat who was stuck in a keyhole. Those were the days!
I was told off for calling the class dunce "Joey Deacon" when I was nine. Apparently this was cruel. Louise Smith did a similar thing, but she didn't know who Joey was. After finding this page, she was overcome with guilt and dedicated her life to God.
The laborious and complex process of the three men writing Joey's autobiography was doomed to failure. The typist only used two fingers, there was no real way of telling if the translator was just making it all up, and in any event, what did Joey have to say? A load of rubbish, that's what. Rubbish.
That joke where you tell someone to clap with the backs of their hands and try to bite their own shoulders, that was Joey Deacon who started that joke. And he didn't even know it - his comic nature was such ingrained genius that he didn't even know he was funny.
Joey's most tragic moment was on a boat trip. Somehow, nobody actually knows how, Joey's shoe fell off the side of the boat. This tragedy was apparently reconstructed. As though somebody was going to phone in and say "Yes, I have Joey Deacon's shoe, this must never be allowed to happen again". Staggering.
SO CRUEL
A Joey Deacon related joke (oh, children can indeed be so wonderfully
cruel!) is the timeless classic..
"What do you do if you see Joey Deacon in the bath?"
"Throw in the washing"
"I see Joey won the dancing competition... and he was only opening a bag of peanuts!"
Playground fun was had with the it-picking tune of
Joe-A Joe-B Joe-C Joe-D Joe-E!
Joey A-Con, Joey B-Con, Joey C-Con, JOEY DEACON!
If you were Joey Deacon, then you had to run around until you touched someone - that's because you were playing dobby, or tag.
You remember Phoenix? That arcade game where you fought your way through loads of birds to get to a big spaceship that you have to shoot at loads of times to get to that thing with the flailing legs and weird head? Well, it seems that a lot of people referred to that thing (pictured opposite) as Joey Deacon, and that his massive spaceship was simply a padded cell. Thus, another name for Phoenix was "kill Joey Deacon in his padded cell".
(thanks to Evan for bringing back this memory)