Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Urney Planet Man

In the mid ‘50s, Joe Lynch compered an Urney sponsored radio programme in front of a live audience. When resident commercial reader, actor Pat Layde, went touring with the Abbey theatre, Gay Byrne was asked to temporarily fill in. This graduated to a more permanent position that would last nine years.
One of those programmes was juvenile science ficton series The Planet Man. Dantro, aka The Planet Man, was a troubleshooter for the League of Planets organization, the law enforcement body for peace and justice in the celestial world - whose headquarters and center of operations are situated on the capital of all planets, Planteria Rex. "From Mercury to Pluto, where ever danger threatens the universe, you will find Dantro the Planet Man fighting for fair play." The Planet Man was transcribed and syndicated by Palladium Radio Productions. Urney must have run a number of promotions for the programme as seen by this badge, property of avid badge collector Frank Setchfield who kindly sent me this image. You can listen to an episode of The Planet Man series here. Enjoy!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Brendan Grace - yearning for Urney!


Yesterday the comedian Brendan Grace was chatting to Pat Kenny on RTE 1. Speaking from his hospital bed where he was recovering from surgery he explained to Kenny that his Diabetes had complicated an infection in his foot. But, he joked, rumours of the demise of his leg are greatly exaggerated. During the interview Grace talked about the huge lifestyle changes he had to make when he was diagnosed with Diabetes type II, fifteen years ago. The dedicated sweet tooth had to give up the chocolates, sweets and biscuits he so loved. His new book Amusing Grace dedicates 7 or 8 pages to all the sweet stuff of his childhood. "Are you old enough to remember Urneys?" he asked Pat as he went on to reminisce about Urney's Milk Tray, Regal Milk and Two and Two bars. It was clearly a struggle to give up his sugary fix, you could still hear the longing in his voice.
Well I hope you get well very soon Brendan and thanks for the memories.