William "Capt Kirk" Shatner re-appeared on our screens in 1982 in the all action (!) TJ Hooker... yet another American soft cop show of the ChiPs genre (remember ChiPs.... the California Highway Patrol... 2 tanned, v cheesy, dayglo-white-smiled, always wore sunglasses blokes on motorbikes... it was nauseating).
Far more memorable in that same year (1982) though was the launch of something that was going to transform music, offering incredible sound quality.
(it was digital don't you know... and at the time everything digital was almost god-like)
It was also sold as being close to indestructible (I can't hear that word without thinking of Captain Scarlet... "This is the voice of the Mysterons..."
As we were to discover, it was true that it was more resilient than what had preceded it i.e. vinyl and cassette tapes.
But it was DEFINITELY not indestructable.
And each programme that talked about it seemed strangely obsessed with showing you how you could spread butter and marmalade all over it, wipe it clean... and then play it perfectly.
I wonder how many people tried that for themselves and proceded to wreck their brand new CD player which had probably cost them hundreds or thousands because they just had to be "early adopters".
I remember first seeing the butter and marmalade demo on the still very new BBC Breakfast Television programme with Selina Scott (probably) and the sweatered Frank Bough (definitely) - him off Grandstand who was like a god on the BBC at the time but who disappeared almost instantly when revelations about his off-screen activities appeared in the tabloids.
Here's a demo of CDs on Tomorrows World showing how CDs were scratch-proof... naughty fibber Tomorrows World presenter who'd clearly been taken in by everything the Philips marketing department had told him.
And this one is from "Stephen Fry's 100 Greatest Gadgets" and it shows a presenter smearing a CD with a sticky substance (which isn't jam) and then pouring coffee all over it. Blimey it'll take you back...
Not the most realistic demo of a product, in my opinion.
Don't be shy... you can tell me... did you try doing it? I won't tell!
I can still remember the first CD I ever bought... it was this one:
Quality!
Can you remember yours? Do you dare to share?
Enter the code in the box below: