Steve Berry’s BIG In The Nineties

by Todd Rivers · July 21, 2024

You might recall Steve Berry from the 90’s version of BBC’s Top Gear. More realistically, you might not recall him at all as you may have been too busy, or may have not been alive at the time, and well, things move on so quickly anyway, that you can not really be bothered with watching old episodes of the classic TV show. Not to worry, the Lancashire elaborate tongued host is now on Youtube with his own channel, so now you can enjoy his entertainment and wit once more.

Actually, Berry didn’t really leave the media world, you can find him on radio and print media… but that aside ! Youtube; Yey !

Each episode has Steve and his co-host, Paul, who is referred to as “the Wookie” [based on his resemblance with the Star Wars character Chewbacca], drive a car and just chat. Sometimes, the chat is about the car too! Steve does much of the chat with Paul trying to keep the show’s on track. Paul also does the camera work and behind the scenes editing to keep ‘the talent’ away from such technical practical aspects.

Although the earlier episodes do talk about the cars, the channel has evolved in the 2 months since the channels’ inception with the latter seemly more of an excuse for Steve to demonstrate his vast knowledge of all things, and to reminisce about his earlier years on Top Gear (the “Biggest factual TV programme in the World” [as confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records – and pointed out by Berry in a joyful manner, although he also has to qualify the statement by saying “not when I was on it“].

Episodes are interspersed with the pair’s own strange and random [fake-]adverts for such things as “Athletic Beans” to improve your bowl conditions, a World of Biscuits Olympics offer for 5 biscuits stuck to a placard, and the “Fugthatmate” [the already broken thing that you have the joy of talking about fixing, as a hobby, but you never do].

As they drive the chosen car, the episodes become road trips around Midlands, or at least the prettier parts, such as Bury and Prestbury. They also allow Berry to reel off various interesting snippets of information; sometimes connected, but more so unconnected, with the car, and soon you realise that you are watching just two good friends bantering about whatever comes to mind which is very warming and sometimes quite funny. …

“Why do we just not bother with Girls?!
Look at us, all we ever do is drive around together in soft top cars,
It’s obvious that we are gay“

.. an example of their banter moves from the Jeep Wrangler Sahara to Christopher Biggins and Julienne Taylforth from the 80’s TV show “On Safari” to the Muppets characters of Statler and Waldorf, to the Kemit’s resemblance of Tom Hanks [Actor] to Carl Sagan [Astronomer and planetary scientist] and so on…

The episodes are surprisingly entertaining, especially, if you are an 80’s and 90’s kid and you enjoy cars and irrelevant humour. Also surprising is that these episodes only really get 1 to 2 thousand views, and whats more, [as of publication] the channel only has 1,700 subscribers in the 2 months that it has been running.