Where are they now... companies that bit the bullet

[Neil Jones]

Netscape (Internet Provider)

Now part of AOL.

Beezer (UK Comic)
Topper (UK Comic)

Both of these are now closed down but I believe a couple of characters were merged into The Dandy and/or The Beano or variations of the original characters. I know the Dimples character (was he a Topper character?) went into The Dandy and paired up with Cuddles. Beryl The Peril, originally a Topper character, has since turned up outside of Topper though I forget where. Blinky, the son of the short sighted Colonel from The Beezer, turned up in The Dandy comic. Probably other examples as well.

Our Price (Music Shop)

Our local branch was rebranded to Virgin (as Our Price was owned by Virgin) and has now disappeared altogether.

Maginifico (Larger version of Cornetto)

I think, but not 100% sure, this was rebranded to something else and then just ended up being a cornetto.

Lookin (Old magazine I remember from 1989)

Was still around in 1987, as demonstrated here:


picture from knightmare.com

Only cost 30p then. I don't know why but I get the feeling it died about the same time as Oracle Teletext disappeared if not shortly before/after...

[russnet]

Here's an 1991 annual of Look In



Just saw this on Ebay, a Look In spin off featuring How with a nice drawing of our Fred Dinenage!

[DJGM]

Netscape (Internet Provider)

Now part of AOL.

The acquisition of Netscape Communications Corporation by AOL started in November 1998, and
was finalized about 3-4 months later. As for Netscape being an ISP, there was Netscape Online,
which was available in the UK between 1999 and 2001. It was discontinued when AOL began
it's own flat rate unmetered subscription based internet service.

A few months ago, when it seemed there'd be no more Netscape browsers, AOL established
a low cost "AOL Lite" dial up internet service in the US, branded with the Netscape name.

Of course, as we know by now, AOL recently announced the surprise resumption of NS
browser development based upon future stable builds of the Mozilla Application Suite.

[MarkN]

Granada Rental Shops

Granda Rentals, along with Radio Rentals, merged to form Box Clever in around 2001 (although even today they still haven't changed all the signs over). Although has Box Clever itself now gone bust too? I ask because a lot of them seem to have suddenly closed down a couple of months ago?

Boxclever is still going, but is moving away from operating from shops (the two shops near to me have both closed in the last year).

[Big Brother]

Whatever happened to Fads, the shop selling decorating stuff?

Oh so Fads shut down everywhere, I though they had only shut down in Ilford because that is a present trend at the monent.

Fads is still clinging on in a high street near me. In attempt to get in more stock they have the isles spaced out by about 50cm with room for about one very thin person to walk down. I dont imagine it will remain long, very poor choice - often only one large tin of paint per colour.

I believe the Fads brand is part of Homestyle, who have a more substantial store in the city centre.

We still have a Fads in my town, they do have a website I'm sure they do. Their Arbroath store is of a fair size and is always full of people, it's one of the main stores for that stuff, there is a Focus but that's way on the outskirts about 2miles away.

[MarkN]

We still have a Fads in my town, they do have a website I'm sure they do.

If you can call it a website:

http://www.fads.co.uk/

The site summed up in one sentence: "Sorry - This Website is Currently Unavailable"

[nwtv2003]

What ever happened to Rabbit? As in the early 1990's that was all over the place! Plus Philips, Amstrad and Memorex seem to be laying a low profile these days. Also whatever happened to Channel 5 Video? As that completely went by the time the real Channel 5 started.

[Ed Hammond]

Rabbit were one of the first mobile phone companies, weren't they? Because the cells were very sparse in those days, when making a call you had to be close to a "Rabbit" sign that signified that one of their masts was near. If you live in London you can still see one of those signs at the bottom of North Gower Street (junction with Stephenson Way, I think).

I've seen Amstrad hi-fis in the shops all over the place. I'd always understood that they were doing quite well.

As for the others... when Our Price was taken over by Virgin, they closed some of them down, changed some of them into Virgin Mobile shops and the rest have become Virgin Megastore Expresses. It's dead obvious when you go to a Virgin shops that used to be an Our Price, as they are all insanely small and pokey.

Another one is MCA, who used to own Universal. The script "An MCA Company" disappeared from under the Universal logo in the late eighties - who took them over? Am I right in thinking it wa Sony?

[nwtv2003]

As for the others... when Our Price was taken over by Virgin, they closed some of them down, changed some of them into Virgin Mobile shops and the rest have become Virgin Megastore Expresses. It's dead obvious when you go to a Virgin shops that used to be an Our Price, as they are all insanely small and pokey.

Warrington had an Our Price and that was very small, but that closed in 1997 and moved round the corner to become a Virgin, they didn't use Megastore as it wasn't that big! But compare it to Our Price it was better, but Virgin closed down in 2003. Though it's still going strong in Central Manchester, they had an Our Price but that closed, got demolished and rebuilt, that was for Superdrug (By the Market Street Metrolink stop) There was also another one but that changed into a V Shop and now thats Virgin something or other.

If you want to see a load of closed shops I suggest you take a walk into Altrincham, in the past year or two the following shops have closed:

Our Price, Dixons, The Link, Dolcis all closed down in 2003, there aren't many good shops left there.

Now for MCA TV, I don't know, as they had the same style captions as Universal, but they've gone.

What happened to Castle Vision (Video), Screen Gems/Legends (Can't remember exactly but they released loads in the 1980's), Pickwick Video (Had an ident like LWT Blinds for some reason) Plus I seem to recall there was a Virgin Video as well?

[Bail]

We still have a Fads in my town, they do have a website I'm sure they do.

If you can call it a website:

http://www.fads.co.uk/

The site summed up in one sentence: "Sorry - This Website is Currently Unavailable"

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[Re-it-er-ate]

"The Leeds" Building Society was taken over by Halifax, which is now HBOS - after merging with Bank of Scotland.