The Old Gaa Crowd!!

VeryHappyPig remembers when the only thing that mattered about a sporting jersey was the crest that hovered over your heart whilst you sported it with pride.

The type of fabric used, the jerseys shape or in some cases, even the colour did not matter. Once it advertised your allegiance to a certain team, you were content.

Today, however things are far from that simple when it comes to sporting kits. In fact, the sporting jersey has become more complex than VeryHappyPig boss, the Boss Hog’s weight watcher diet sheet.

There are more designers working for the annual jersey change than a Versace fashion show. Gok Wan along with Trinny and Susannah are consulted come design time and advise what colour best brings out a players eyes, not to mention what shape best accentuates their figures.

Now when someone mentions style when taking in their favourite sport, they are commenting on fashion acumen rather than style of play.

Current teams also have more change of clothes than a West Life concert. There is the home jersey, the away jersey, and the training jersey. Then in soccer, you have the Saturday kit, the Sunday kit, the league kit, the third strip and the champion’s league strip. In fact, the only strip football teams do not have is the one found in a lap-dancing club!

The varieties of colours are equally as plentiful as are the modern day designs. Patterns not even seen in the paisley and tie-dye seventies have replaced the simple hoops or strips of the retro jersey.

Some kits even double up as hi-viz vest and can be used as night safety gear. The florescent oranges and yellows now doing the rounds would prompt you to think you are supporting a team of glow worms on occasion.

The jersey and kit evolution is also “sizest“. Current rugby jerseys are the modern day girdles. The kits, which look like they are painted on, are so tight that they have, on more than one occasion, stopped the blood flow of an athlete and forced them to pass out. More energy in the modern dressing room is spent trying to squeeze into the skin-tight kit before kick off and trying to wrestle your way out of it after full time, than is expended on the pitch.

VeryHappyPig yearns of the old school retro kit.

Jerseys made of rain soaking cotton. Strips that only hung onto the crest for 11 washes and kits that were sympathetic to a beer gut. Just think how the ample guts of Jan Molby, Vinnie Murphy, Neville Southall, Razor Ruddock, Joe McNally, the Quinell brothers and the like would have managed without the breathing space provided in the old school kit.

Unlike today, where kits are changed nearly bi-annually, some retro jerseys would last for years on end. The only time you felt the need to change your jersey was when you grew too big for it and it resembled how Eric Banners shirt looked on the Incredible Hulk. Then when it was time to change you upgraded to your older brother’s kit, and were delighted to get a hand me down, which in some cases, particularly in the world of GAA could have came through four generations and still be in fashion.

The old kits were also a lot more simplistic. You had a home and away kit, which was generally just one colour and if they were not a plain red, white or green they were simply hoped or striped. The most extravagant deviations were when the arms were a different colour to the body and the only other patterns were blots of blood from your clashes with your opponents.

In saying all that, VeryHappyPig still purchases all newly released kits of VHP’s favourite teams.

The Real Punk Rockers…… Where Did They Ever Go!

Now when we say the real “Punk Rockers” we’re talking about the guys who used to hang around city centres in the 80’s and 90’s…… the guys and girls who had hair which was about as tall as the average 12 year old and had more colours in it than a crayon set….. The guys and girls who wore jeans which were ripped to shreds, manky dirty and looked like they wouldn’t fit one of their legs, never mind two.

They made a statement and a serious one at that! They were saying “look at us, we don’t care, we have no money (even though most of them were properly loaded), we haven’t had a shower since we were born and if you think we can’t fit another piercing on our heads, you would be very wrong! We also wear t-shirts that, if we’re lucky, have one sleeve and are usually black. We wear the biggest pair of Dr. Martins humanly possible which hopefully come up to our chins….. and if you think we care about anything, just look at the amount of black leather and chrome studs we can wear!”

Back to the statement of “no money“ though, those Dr. Martin boots cost about as much as a average car at the time not to mention all the black leather and chrome studs which this pig is sure cost a pretty penny too! I always reckoned it was a statement to their parents like….. “this is who I am, now accept or else I’ll rock your world to pieces with that really expensive Hi-Fi system sitting up in my room which you got me for being good!”

Ahhhh they were a good race…. The real Punk Rockers were basically here to put the fear of god in to the youth around……. Now what are we left with!? The most depressing Punk wannabes ever! You know who I’m talking about….. the lads and lassies who hang around outside schools, looking paler than a corpse wearing a black hoodie which was actually made for a 100 stone person! You know the ones I’m talking about, the lads who look like the whole world owes them a favour just for being born! I say bring back the tight jeans, the huge ridiculous hair, the Dr. Martins which were made from a herd of cows and the hundreds of piercings! Bring Back The Real Punk Rockers!

Veryhappypig was a punk rocker deep down but never had that cash to live the dream! Plus, I was as bald as an egg since hitting puberty at the age of 8!

MacGyver The Man With The Master Plan! Pig+Rasher=Atom Bomb! Makes Sense!

VeryHappyPigs is not proud to admit but In the mid to late 80’s VHP began to become somewhat disappointed with Television especially its Saturday evening efforts. Its constant repeats of fantasy Island and Charlie’s Angels not only bored VHP but also threatened to harm the status of such classics.

But my disillusionment was not long lived because as it has done time and time again the old box totally redeemed itself. It gave us a fresh new exciting program that would ultimately challenge the immortal status of the aforementioned shows, resulting not only in VHP’s eternal gratitude but a slight fear of criticizing TV ever again. If you don’t believe one program could be the catalyst of such a change in emotion I urge you to watch TV’s savoir McGyver.

McGyver was a breath of fresh TV air, it was different to the programs of the time. So you can say it was extraordinary and mainly because McGyver was certainly no ordinary hero.
He hadn‘t a cool sidekick, he couldn’t destroy hundreds of ugly baddies in your classic brawl and he certainly had no comic book or X-Men style powers. But put him in a room with nothing but his blond mullet, a stick of chewing gum and a piece of string he could make a devastating bomb. McGyver could escape from any scenario by using ordinary ever day items, if you put McGyver in your kitchen he’d basically be more armed than Saddam Hussein was suppose to be.

For the first time in Television land we were presented with a leading man, who when confronted with violence or a sticky situation stopped, reflected, used his extensive knowledge of chemistry, physics and machinery mixed it with plenty of imagination and got himself out of all types of danger.
As a result school kids became confused and more and more bullies retired their fists in favour harmful chemical weapons and bombs concocted from a mixture of such raw materials as Tipp-Ex, rulers, staplers and your ordinary biro.
It might seem funny a man with an in-depth knowledge of science and an adversity to violence replaced BA and the gang as every school boys hero and even more amazing was never perceived as a brainiac weed.
But no swot could have been that brave, charismatic or more importantly been as appealing to the ladies as our McGyver was.

The action packed series ran for seven successful years between 1985 and 1992. Richard Dean Anderson played the king of improvisation, McGyver ,an ex special forces operative now working for the Phoenix organisation, a group dedicated to defeating baddies all over the world.
Each week we followed McGyver on one of his assignments, which were given to him by his boss Peter Thornton (Phoenix’s director of field operations) and each week we watched in awe as he performed heroics with such items as a paper clip. He never carried a weapon, instead used brains rather than brawn and was a great advertisement for ingenuity over force. Using mundane items he managed to defeat a convoy of baddie soldiers, bring down a helicopter and rescue friends from the securest secret bases ever built.

Some of McGyvers most famous moments include using the aforementioned paper clip to short circuit a nuclear bomb, a bar of chocolate to stop a acid leak and a Flu tablet to ignite a makeshift bomb. Not only did he save the world with his resourcefulness but he did it with out any preplanning. McGyver never came prepared he always managed to cobble together something to get himself out of trouble with items he just happened to find. He also lived by the knick of time last minute rule which makes TV so exciting, he never stopped a bomb with 1 second to go he managed to do it with a hundred of a second remaining after scavenging around a room picking up knick knacks and using his scientific skills to apply them to the situation at hand.

Although Mac was an original and unique champion there were some stereo typical characters in the show, who it must be said were essential to its make up and success. The evil Murdock a master of disguise became McGyvers arch enemy and provided tension galore and some scary episodes, Mac’s friend Dalton provide comic relief. And when your as good as McGyver there certainly isn’t a shortage of love interests he was no Face (of A-team fame), no one could match a girl an episode ratio, but he certainly had his admires including the beautiful Nikki and Penny Lane (played by Teri Hatcher).

MacGyver is one of the all time greats, it wasn’t as violent as the program’s in its era but it certainly wasn’t any less entertaining. We were given a fresh hero a cross between a boy scout and a somewhat modest James bond. We sadly said goodbye to the show in 1992 as McGyver drove off into the sunset on a motorbike with the son he just discovered he had, never to be seen again. Unless Mac Jnr learns a few tricks and comes back to the worlds aid in the new century?

VeryHappyPig will be up all night watching repeat after repeat of his hero! What a man..What a God Dam one hell of a man!!

The Lovable Yogi Bear... The Fact Behind The Fiction..

Yogi Bear is a fictional anthropomorphic bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. He was the first break-out character created by Hanna-Barbera Studios, and was eventually more popular than Huckleberry Hound. In 1961 he was given his own show, The Yogi Bear Show, which also included the segments Snagglepuss and Yakky Doodle. Hokey Wolf replaced his segment on The Huckleberry Hound Show. A musical animated feature film, Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!, was produced in 1964.

Yogi was known around the woods as the bear that wore a hat and a tie and always carried around a brief case. Here's one of the facts that people didn’t know about everybodies favourite bear, Yogi was actually a nudist and that’s why he only wore a tie and a hat, also in that brief-case held all the names of the local nudist colonies and all the people who took part in these rituals. There was also rumours that he was a high standing member of a local swingers club which was never confirmed..

Now we all know that Yogi and the park ranger had their differences but underneath it all they were good buddies, or so Yogi thought. As it turned out, the park ranger actually had a weird obsession with bears and was caught by the local police department spying and video taping Yogi’s estranged wife. The park ranger is now serving a 889 year stretch in Mountjoy! And is a bit of a star on “Ireland's Hardest Prisoners”!

Now as everyone knows a park needs a park ranger, so a new ranger was appointed and he really didn’t like bears..... Actually, he despised bears, all because he was bullied in school and got bear hugs everyday of his school-going life! Yogi introduced himself as the bear in town, but was soon given a serious warning “Stay out of this park or else”.. Now Yogi, being a light-hearted bear just took the comment on the chin.

After a few pints in his local one night, he spotted a big lump of steaming ham on the way home and Being a bear, he went to investigate.. After taking a couple of nibbles, the bear trap snapped and so came the end of Yogi! Unbelievably, he is now a rug on the park wardens mansion floor and some say the park warden even has poor Yogi's hat and tie sowed permanently to the mat!

VeryHappyPig is shocked at the pile of crap I just wrote! Although.... it is true! Sort of.... Ah no, it's all a load of crap!

Winnie The Pooh And Friends! The Piggy Facts!!!

Here’s some facts about The Honey Bear! In 1961, Walt Disney Productions licensed film and other rights to the characters, stories and trademarks from Stephen Slesinger, Inc., and The Estate of A.A. Milne and made a series of cartoon films about him. The early cartoons were based on several of the original stories and the distinctive images made popular by Stephen Slesinger, Inc. during the 1930s through 1960s.
Disney's storytelling style and characterisation have little in common with Milne's tales, and were greatly disliked by the Milne family. Alongside the cartoon versions, which Disney adapted from Slesinger. Slesinger's simplified lines and pastel color adaptations of Shepard's classical drawings are now marketed under the description "Classic Pooh".

But here is the real facts about what really went on behind the scenes!! Well “Pooh Bear” was actually a wild bear caught by hunters in the highlands of the Wicklow mountains and was taken into captivity where he was then shaved and painted yellow. The poor bear was put on a special diet which consisted of just honey until his digestive system got so used to the taste that he couldn‘t actually eat anything else! Some more of the facts that we never knew were that “Piglet”, one of the main characters in the series, was actually the 15th pig star as the pooh bear ate the first 14 piglet candidates, “Tiger” was the 4th tiger as bears and tigers really didn’t get on and so a fight to the end would usually erupt and “Eeyore” was the only donkey as bears and donkeys have a weird, erotic relationship!

All was going well in front of the cameras until one Monday afternoon when the cast and crew were having a piss up in the local and Tigger made a smart remark directed at Piglet! Piglet was full of Vodka and decided to throw a dig at Tigger but missed and hit Eeyore. His primal donkey instincts kicked in and he lashed out, hitting Pooh in the head with a hoof! There was a 20 strong animal and human brawl that lasted until the wee wee hours of the morning!

When the show producers got wind of the drunken actions of the cast and crew, they decided to make the programme an animated series instead of using real animals! They decided the most humane thing to do was to bring the whole cast to the local vets and have them all destroyed!!

There really is never no happily ever after!!

VeryHappyPig is shocked at this new revelations! Shocked! Oh just in case you were wondering is this true.. Its 100% true! If true meant false!

The Smurfs Weird Little Blue Things! Why Did They Stop!? We Know!

Here’s the Smurfie facts! The Smurfs (Les Schtroumpfs) are a fictional group of small, sky blue creatures who live in Smurf Village somewhere in the woods. The Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced Smurfs to the world in a series of comic strips, making their first appearance in the Belgian comics magazine Le Journal de Spirou on October 23, 1958. The English-speaking world perhaps knows them best through the popular 1980s animated television series from Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Smurfs.

And here's the inside story into why they suddenly stopped! Smurfs were a rare breed of animal or mammal, no one really knew which! They were rare for the simple reason that they were genderless, in other words they had nothing downstairs.... They did wear boy or girl clothes, however, this was purely their choice! Scientists were baffled, how did they reproduced? They wondered how there could be every range of Smurf from Grandpa Smurf to Baby Smurfs to simple men and women Smurfs, with no way of making bacon.... if you know what I mean! Action had to be taken to discover the raeson behind this strange mystery. So they decided to catch a Smurf and run simple tests on them which included electrocution, gentle dissecting and a few more run of the mill every day tests.

After many, many tests on different types of Smurfs, scientists discovered something which shocked the science world. Every time a Smurf tipped their freaky white hat at another Smurf, they were actually making out. They were not just being friendly to each other.... they were being very, very, very friendly to each other, right in front of the innocent viewers eyes! The broadcasting parental advisory board got wind of this and deemed the popular morning time programme a terrible x-rated series of weird Smurf love! The shows producers were also shocked by the new found facts and they decided to cancel the show and cage all Smurfs for the good of humanity!

We have a exclusive interview with the top scientists who discovered the Smurf secret! Dr. V.H Pigounal said ”Smurfs are shocking, truly shocking!

Sorry that interview couldn’t be longer..... We could only afford 5 words from him!

VeryHappyPig says I always knew those little blue things were up to no good! And in the words of the best priest ever, Father Ted, “Down with that sort of thing!”

Betty Boop..... Every Boys Dream! Until Now!

Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character designed by Grim Natwick, appearing in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop series of films produced by Max Fleischer and released by Paramount Pictures. With her overt sexual appeal, Betty was a hit with filmgoers, and despite having been toned down in the mid-1930s, she remains popular today. She has been featured in two different comic strips, one in the 1930s and another in the 1980s. Now they're all the facts about the sexy legend..... Or so you thought! Again, VeryHappyPig has the real inside story!

Betty Boop was actually born as “Borris Booty”, son of a Mayo goat farmer! After years of working the land in the Emerald Isle, Borris developed a keen interest in the farm animals and decided to try and change into a goat! He went to a back-street plastic surgeon, who enjoyed a drop of the old devils mouthwash, and decided to start the transformation from boy to goat. However, things didn’t quiet go to plan with his transformation and Borris ended up with long sexy legs, big boobs and a abnormally large head! While, he was shocked when he woke up, he soon learned to live with it.... well sort of!

He got lots of attention from the men in the town, which didn’t sit well with Borris so he decided to try live the 'American Dream'. He set sail from Mayo harbour and never looked back. He met up with Grim Natwick after getting off the boat in the states and explained the whole story to him. Grim had a fabulous idea to get back at the world after he fell out with everyone over an incident with a common house fly and so “Betty Boop” was born. Borris and Grim became multi billionaires together and the real secret was never known.... until now!

VeryHappyPig says wow! This is the most amazing piece of crap I have ever written! Yeah me!!

The Black Eye, Also Know As A Shiner! The Bigger, The Better!

There was not a prouder moment in a young man's life than walking into school supporting a proper, big shiner! It was a statement, saying.... look at me, I’m not the most popular in the class but look at me,this is my moment, I was in a serious scrap and this is the trophy! You would walk the corridors and the yard of the school with your head held high, so everyone who passed you would have a look on their face as if to say “Wow that lad is hard, wonder how he got that Shiner”!

You would hope it would take a year to wear off! Now if someone asked you what happened you would say “ Ah don’t ask” Basically, you would want to leave them wondering 'what the hell happened' and 'how big was the lad he scraped?'

Now the real story behind the shiner could be one of a couple of things! The first thing that could have happened was that you fell out of your bed after waking up and getting a fright because you were in the middle of wetting the bed! The second reason for the shiner could have been that you and your younger, weaker brother/sister got into a scuffle and he/she got the better of you! The third and more likely reason was that you were leaving school, you looked a someone the wrong way and he started with the words “Are you starting Fat-head?”, to which your only answer could be, "What!?", which is when you would receive an almighty box! That clatter would send you running home at around 700mph to your mother roaring crying.

They are usually the only ways a young lad would get a black eye.... but a black eye was still a proud moment in a young man's life!

VeryHappyPig says I used to get proper 'Shiners', I was hard as nails!....... I usually gave them to myself but still I was hard!

Shoulder Pads, What The Hell Were They All About!

Look at any dodgy old photos in your house and you are sure to find one with a family member sporting a set of serious shoulder pads which made them look like they spend hours every day in the gym, just working on their upper body! Women especially, took advantage of the tower block look! I think I can talk for everyone when I say, they were just down right awful! They seemed to be a particular favourite of busy business women who liked to wear the biggest pads under a stylish shirt, it was fashion statement for them.... saying “The more successful I get, the bigger my shoulders get!

I often wondered what the hell they were all about. Now I know people who purchased these awful inventions will say they were all the rage at the time, sparked by popular shows like Falcon Crest and Dallas. Now those shows didn’t just have shoulder pads, they had mattress-like pads! How there wasn’t a health warning attached to these things is beyond me! Surely, they were a driving hazards, even getting into a car with them on must have been a problem. They were extremely dangerous for passers-by who could have had an eye taken out from about 30ft away from their severe corners!

As you can see, I have very strong views about these horrid creations. So unless there’s a fancy dress going down or a seventies and eighties night, don’t for the love of god ever ever ever wear or purchase these things! Remember they're bad for your health! And a little known fact before I go, between 1970 and 1990, every eye injury recorded on medical records was due to a shoulder pad!

VeryHappyPig says piggy facts will never stand up in a court of law, so it's probably best to bypass them during legal proceedings! In other words, they're completely and utterly inaccurate, 100% of the time!

A Good Healthy Mustache! A True Sign Of Wealth!

In the yesteryears there wasn’t a wealthy man on the land without a serious bit of a
mustache, also known as a nose neighbour or the old soup strainer. Anyaway you get the point. Now I’m not talking about one of the things you see every night on RTE’s 6 o'clock news when a little head comes out of court supporting a bit of bum fluff on his upper lip while trying to cover his face and his middle finger up waving respectfully at the TV cameras! I’m talking about the real deal...... I’m talking of the real sign of wealth under your nose, the tash that weighed around a stone and could only be cut with a garden sheers!

Like think of all the greats that supported one of these, Jesus had one and things eventually worked out alright for him. Ron Burgundy from Anchor-Man, great film because of a great Mustache. Dr. Phil, he has a nice nose neighbour! Big Paulie from American Chopper, now that’s a serious one, he went for the old handle bar look! Tom Selleck from Magnum PI, now that tache was made of steel! Freddie Mercury, one of the kings of rock had one! So basically what I’m trying to get at here is, I think all our leaders need to grow mustaches to be taken seriously! Everyone who has been successful and memorable in the past has had one.

A slight warning though, if you can’t grow one, don’t try, it will just end up looking ridiculous. If you’re a woman, please, please definitely don’t grow one! If your around 13 and are trying to grow one to be hard, STOP! If you want to really make impact in a interview, go in clean shaven and if your going for a second interview, go supporting a handle bar soup strainer and the job will be yours.... and you should be at the top within a matter of hours! Remember unless you can grow one that would scrape glass if you rubbed up against it, don’t ever try an attempt to grow one! Your best bet is to go back through your family tree and see if there is any history of supporting a good tash!

VeryHappyPig tried to grow a nose neighbour many a time but has finally accepted defeat! Facial bum fluff is not a good look!