"Not aimed specifically at the adult generation" – Me, 2004
21,000 words waxing nostalgic in far too much detail about a random assortment of children's programmes from the 1960s–90s, irrespective of quality or memorability.
Written for dooyoo.co.uk from 2003–2007 (aged 18–22. An adult, then).
80s Kid: TV Challenge
Written on 14.07.04
Shadowhawk has posted an A-Z TV show challenge, so I thought I would try and challenge myself further by limiting myself to a specific genre and by giving personal reasons for my choices. I don’t know why I do these things.
I have decided to limit this to children’s TV shows and specifically the fact that they used to be a lot better than the rubbish you get nowadays. It’s not just that I’ve grown up and have fond childhood memories overpowering my more adult perspective now, it isn’t. And if any older people consider their rubbish old children’s shows like Trumpton to be loads better than the rubbish I used to watch then they are just weird. These are best.
A bit like when I limited my A-Z Music Challenge entry to the metal genre, but different because this is kid’s shows and therefore no place for sweaty men playing loud and swearing (except in that episode of Tom and Jerry where a pirate said “bloody” and parents phoned in to complain).
I don’t watch these shows now though (I’m not strange), but all of these shows had some effect on me growing up. Whether it was influencing my judgement, educating me or making me laugh, they all represent some of the best quality children’s shows produced by the BBC and American organisations from the late eighties to the early nineties. As usual, some letters were less popular than others.
ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES
A classic cartoon series that spawned comics and poster magazines but was never repeated, this saw some regular American teenagers joining the Ant-Killer Tomatoes league (or something) in wiping out the evil, flying, huge tomatoes crated by an evil scientist who was green. He didn’t like being called a mad scientist though, he preferred ‘angry’ scientist, but aside from the fact that the tomatoes came in different colours and different types (the big red ones were the scariest) I can remember little about this series. I could do with seeing it again really, I remember really loving it.
BENN, MR
An older one I think, judging by the quality of the animation, this was a show that had a very limited run but was repeated again and again. I always watched it though. Mr. Benn himself was a very boring person until he went into the clothes shop where the fez-wearing shopkeeper appeared “as if by magic” and showed him to the changing room. The theme tune was very memorable, although the only episode I can clearly recall is a George & the Dragon-style story.
CHUCKLEVISION
One of my favourite programmes from my youth to the extent that I even wrote a review on it a while ago, this saw Paul and Barry Chuckle botching up every job they ever took on in their multi-skilled organisation transported by a rubbish pedal cart thing. I saw the Brothers live in 1995 and I loved the show; despite its target audience it seemed a lot more dedicated to providing genuine laughs than most other shows and is still going today.
DREAM STONE, THE
I can only remember this vaguely, but I think that’s why it left such an impression. A cartoon series with a comparatively epic storyline concerning two green furry animal things and their innocent, holy quest to recover the sparkling eponymous stone from the fiery pits of a huge demon man who was basically purple Satan. This is the programme from the list that I would really love to see again, even if it ruined the memories, as I was gripped by what seemed like a truly huge storyline between good and evil.
EARLY BIRD
This early morning show was like the CBBC broom cupboard in that it introduced shows from a studio, but it was better because instead of having a cool puppet like Edd the Duck, Otis the Aardvark or that stupid computer animated cat (remember that?) and a boring human it simply had a big blue bird thing that talked. Early Bird (for ‘twas his name) read out some jokes on his show and that was where I learnt my very first joke: what do you get if you cross an elephant with a fish? Swimming trunks. I laughed all day. Early Bird featured shows such as Dangermouse, Penny Crayon and the Gophers, some strange American sitcom about a family of people in gopher suits. Like Dinosaurs (remember that?) but rubbish.
FUNHOUSE
One of my clearest memories of my very young youth, aside from colouring pictures with my Granddad, is seeing Pat Sharpe’s long hair and wondering why he had girl’s hair. ‘Funhouse’ was the ultimate in messy kid’s gameshows until the less impressive ‘Get Your Own Back’ came along, but the only real points of interest were the red and yellow cars racing around and collecting tokens and of course the Fun House itself with all its hidden delights. I must have seen every episode of this, even though they were all exactly the same.
GHOSTBUSTERS, THE REAL
My second craze when I was young (the order went: Batman, Ghostbusters, Turtles. Each conveniently corresponded to a Christmas), this was either based on the film or on the original comic series, if there was one. I never did understand the ‘real’ part, but this was quite well animated and seemed to be based loosely on the Japanese anime style in terms of the character movements. This was actually no better than a lot of other cartoons but it had a brilliant title sequence and song and I did have most of the merchandise. I liked Slimer bestest.
HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
A cartoon that has now become a cult hit among many obese, geeky Americans (no, not the entire population. Good joke though, if a little racist), He-Man was one of the most exciting and well-devised cartoons from my youth, and one that I can’t remember seeing after the age of about four. Like Conan (the Barbarian, not the O’Brien) if he was drawn and had companions with stupid names such as ‘Buzzoff’ (a bee) and ‘Extendar’ (who could extend his neck). My friend has a very old Masters of the Universe annual which superbly fails to capture the spirit and atmosphere of the show.
INSPECTOR GADGET
Forget the fact that they made a film a couple of years ago or something like that, the cartoon is a definite reminder of my childhood. Gadget worked for the police or some special intelligence division I expect, and his body had been altered so he could extend his limbs and neck out to vast distances and also fashion appliances and transportation from said limbs. Accompanied for some reason by his niece Penny and some orange dog, Gadget’s enemy lived in a submarine and had a deep, booming voice. Aside from the nostalgia, this was a fairly average cartoon but it did have a weird atmosphere that I can’t put my finger on.
JIMBO AND THE JET SET
Jimbo was a fat plane with a face who lived in ‘London Airport’ with a load of other fat planes with faces, all with different personalities. It was a bit rubbish, but I’m amazed I used to watch it as much as I did – I can remember the theme song so clearly it’s scary, especially the ginger bearded controller shouting “Jimbo-o-o!” at the end after the cheeky plane smashed his windows. Very short.
KNIGHTMARE
When I saw this being repeated on Challenge TV recently I received the biggest blast from the past since [insert rubbish fart/curry joke here if you like]. Young people, some a little older than they should have been really, guiding their friends around a bluescreen environment covered with images of dungeons, forests and Smirkenorff the dragon. Presented by Hugo Myatt as Treguard, this was the brainchild of Tim Child who saw the potential of computer game-style shows to appeal to the late eighties to early nineties kids. Yes, I’ve done my research: I wrote a review of this a while ago as well. One of my favourites here, this took me to the brink of fear, happiness and grippedness.
LIVE, GOING
The forerunner to Live & Kicking and obviously better because it was less popular (you must know that’s how my mind works by now). Presented by Philip Schofield, Gordon the Gopher and a woman that was possibly Anthea Turner, but I can’t remember. No, it probably wasn’t. Cartoons included Muppet Babies and the virtual reality competition was very basic – some kind of fishing thing. I could obviously write a whole lot more about Live & Kicking, but this was earlier and has fonder memories.
MAID MARIAN AND HER MERRY MEN
A long-running live action series created by the great Tony Robinson, who also starred as the cunning Sheriff of Nottingham. Maid Marian led her band of merry men, which included the foolish Robin Hood, into situations where they would somehow end up helping Ye Peasants at the expense of the bad guys. This was highly enjoyable and featured several familiar faces from TV including Danny John-Jules (‘Cat’ from Red Dwarf) as Barrington, who would often sing. Kind of like Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Jabberwocky if they were scaled down for kids.
NARNIA, THE CHRONICLES OF
One of the Sunday evening children’s drama series, this was the successful television adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s fantasy books, even though the cast was mainly the kind of children I used to find really annoying and Aslan the lion was incredibly fake. That didn’t matter at the time though. The BBC continued this series to cover some of the other books in the series, my favourite of which was ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader.’ I read some of the books in later years and found them even better, but I wouldn’t like them now. I’m not a child any more, how many times do I have to tell you?
OVIDE
An anagram of ‘video,’ something the show never tired of mentioning, this was a Sunday morning cartoon on Channel 4 about some Australian or New Zealandic animals living in trees or something like that. I remember getting quite into it when it was on, but I would never think about it the rest of the time. I think Ovide himself was a duck-billed platypus, but I can’t remember any other animals except for those things that hang upside down on trees and are furry, whatever they’re called. My Dad was quite familiar with this show.
PLANET, CAPTAIN
The ultimate in environmentally friendly kid’s TV, every episode of this popular cartoon series dealt with ecological issues, although I didn’t realise this until a couple of years later. The blue Captain Planet wasn’t particularly impressive, but he was summoned when the Planeteers (five people representing just about every creed, colour and sex on the planet) combined their magic rings and the elements earth, fire, wind, water and heart (because that’s an element isn’t it?) It was quite good and must have been quite high-budget for all the famous voice artists it attracted, including Whoopi Goldberg.
QUICKDRAW MCGRAW
A bit too mainstream and old for this list, but this Hanna Barbera cartoon series does register as a powerful childhood memory: when I was about five I had a terrible nightmare that the house was on fire and I couldn’t get out, and when I looked at the floor I saw red, fleshy squares that had fallen off my body. When I awoke I went downstairs and put the TV on and Quickdraw was on – after a couple of minutes he was hit by some enemy and comically shattered into squares. That was scary. Anyway, Quickdraw McGraw there.
ROLF’S CARTOON CLUB
The best thing Rolf Harris ever did before he started messing with animals, the wee-drinking Australian gett. I loved everything about this show and always wished I was a little bit older so I could have sent some pictures in or even joined the elite kids on their Amiga 1200s in the studio. The biggest lasting impression this show left is that I can never look at Ireland on a map without thinking it looks like a koala thanks to a Rolferoo gag on one episode. The opening sequence was again a highlight as Rolf exploited his strange breathing noises, didgeridoo and wobble-board skills to the max.
STOPPIT AND TIDY-UP
This was one of the weirdest and therefore obviously coolest Children’s BBC shows for very young children, shown early in the day along with Playdays, Family Ness and the birthday cards. It was based on some odd land where creatures that looked a little bit like Monster Munch monsters (the old sort, not this new rubbish) hung out and did stuff. ‘Stoppit’ was an orange hairball thing that lived in a rubbish dump while ‘Tidy-Up’ was a purple guy with a tie who lived in a clean house. The title sequence featured a parade of each character, including some bees I can’t remember the name of, ‘Clean-Your-Teeth’ and the only nasty guy, ‘The Big Bad I Said No!’ I’d like to see this again, I think it was narrated by Terry Wogan.
THUNDERCATS
No I’m not going to put the Turtles, even though they technically had more of an influence on me judging by the assorted posters in my room (then, not now). Thundercats is similar to He-Man in that many people growing up in the eighties still love it. The fools – it was excellent at the time though, the time being between about 1989 and 1993. The Thundercats were alien cat-based humanoids who had crashed on a lush forest world and defended their base against the attacks of the evil Mumm-Ra, one of the best-looking cartoon enemies ever. Even though they did re-use the same animation every single time he morphed from his haggard to beast forms.
UNCLE JACK…
A live action show that had several series, each based on a single plot spread over a number of episodes. ‘Uncle Jack and the Loch Ness Monster’ was the first series (that I know of) which I can hardly remember. ‘Uncle Jack and the Dark Side of the Moon’ was repeated far more and involved a mad woman called the Vixen summoning tidal wives with the power of the moon and ‘Uncle Jack and Cleopatra’s Tomb,’ or something like that, was fairly self-explanatory. It did rely on the same joke of a man’s name Mustafa Peepee far too much though. Well acted and quite funny, as well as exciting.
VICTOR & HUGO: BUNGLERS IN CRIME
The least well-known of the three great Cosgrove Hall cartoons (Dangermouse, Count Duckula), this was actually my favourite. Victor and Hugo (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert and David Jason) were French criminals who drove a ramshackle yellow van and hung around London getting into all sorts of bother. The Cosgrove Hall cartoons (created in Manchester) were all aimed at a larger audience than simply young children and as such I still enjoyed watching my Victor & Hugo video until about the time I grew hair in new places.
WATT ON EARTH
A live-action series about a quite camp alien on Earth, staying with a child for protection (that’s realistic). His name was ‘Watt’ and although a series based completely on a mistaken line in the very first show should have been doomed to failure, this was actually quite good. Watt was the prince of some alien land and his shape-shifting skills were not up to the standards of his nemesis Jemmadar – in the first series Watt’s ears were backwards (excellent prosthetic work, or probably not) but in the second series they were green. This actually got quite tense and gripping sometimes as the ominous Jemmadar was a very, very scary enemy who could never quite be seen.
TOXIC CRUSADERS
Okay, I was stuck for an X and I had to give this series its due credit! The characters in this series were genetically mutated freaks of nature who lived in a rubbish dump and who fought against pollution caused by the evil Dr. Smog. Toxie was a green, hideous guy in a ballerina tutu with a mop that was alive (he had fallen in a drum of toxic waste. In reality this would obviously kill him), Nosone was previously a pilot and had an enormous conk, Major Disaster was a plant-based ex-army guy, Junkyard was a dog-man who liked humping trees, Yvonne was just some woman who liked hanging around with them all (for some reason) and there was a two-headed guy who was a fusion of a surfer ‘dood’ and a grumpy scientist. It was somehow an amazing cartoon though!
YOU AND ME
This wasn’t that good, and it was basically two Geordi-speaking puppets in a studio who would talk to the human presenters a bit, but it represents the only time I saw a book that I owned being read from on the TV. It was a Billy Goats Gruff book of the same edition that I had, although probably without the wax crayon scribbles on all the blank pages, and had some nice artwork. The title theme was annoying though and had clearly been developed in about two minutes: “you and me, me and you, lots of fun, and things to do.” I used to watch some rubbish too, I admit it.
ZED AND THE ZEE ZONE, CAPTAIN
Clearly a bit of a forced choice for the Z, but I did enjoy this programme a lot. It’s one that I can’t remember too well but that I remember being quite funny, in a cheesy US cartoon kind of way (which means it was less impressive than Dangermouse, etc.) I remember once having a dream when I was about seven that I was hanging out with one of the female sheep characters from this series and having a good time, but there was no affection. I am not, as I have stated many times, strange.
CONCLUSION
I hope this has brought back memories of bygone days for some people as it did with me. There are plenty more shows where they came from, so here are some names that could hopefully stir more of that nostalgic feeling:
Bangers and Mash, Bitsa, Conan the Adventurer, Count Duckula, Dangermouse, Defenders of the Earth, Eggs and Baker, Greenclaws, Greenfingers, Grotbags, Happy Families, Highlander, It’ll Never Work, Pigeon Street, Pirates of Dark Water, Quackula, Robinson Sucroe, Rod and Emu, Rude Dog and the Dweebs, Sharky and George, Shoe People, Space Vets, Spiff and Hercules, Wacaday.
Advantages: Nostalgia overload, Some genuine classics, Mixture of live action and animation
Disadvantages: Not too many shows began with Z or X, I would find some quite rubbish now, You might have grown up in the 70s
Top Ten Children's Programmes
80s Kid's Pointless Nostalgia
Written on 06.08.06
So I finally gave in and wrote a top ten review. On one of my favourite subjects no less: completely worthless self-indulgent nostalgia that wastes everyone’s time! Here are the ten best children’s shows from the late 80s and very early 90s, as decided by my three- to six-year-old self at the time, I expect. None of this is new to me, as I had a big nostalgia craze a couple of years ago, which led me to write a ridiculously detailed and overlong opinion on this site. This one is much shorter.
It would be unfair to put these into some kind of ascending order, as I liked them for different reasons. So instead, I’ve grouped them into three rough categories.
BRITISH LIVE-ACTION STUFF
Tony Robinson’s Maid Marian and Her Merry Men was an action packed historical-based sitcom for children, with the spirit of Blackadder and the budget of ‘The Brittas Empire.’ In fact, most of my favourite programmes when I was growing up were British sitcoms, but this category’s not really the place. Episodes were usually exciting, the actors were all pretty professional and familiar, and I remember a fair amount of funny stuff too, unlike the BBC’s attempt to create a kids’ version of Red Dwarf with ‘Space Vets,’ which was rubbish.
My favourite gameshow of all time is still Broadsword’s Knightmare. I’ve written about it on here before so I won’t go into too much detail again, but produced by an aspiring computer programmer and Dungeons & Dragons geek, Knightmare saw child contestants attempting quests in a virtual reality fantasy environment. The program was repetitive in a good way, just like a real computer game of the time, but full of interesting scenarios, crude graphics and genuine terrifying moments, if you’re five.
Finally, I have to admit to loving Chucklevision. Seeing brothers Paul and Barry get into predictable scrapes every week never got tiresome for the young idiot that I was, and although it was kind of annoying, I really enjoyed the brothers’ repetitive banter (‘to me, to you,’ ‘oh dear oh dear,’ you know the stuff). I saw them live in 1995, but the only thing I remember is the two real-life brothers collapsing into laughter as Paul prepared to slice a cucumber that Barry was holding as if it was his penis. These guys have inexplicably been going for 19 years.
CORPORATE AMERICAN ACTION FIGURE CARTOONS
I was never a big ‘Masters of the Universe’ or ‘Transformers’ fan, the two most notable cartoons that were created entirely as half-hour advertisements for action figures, but I did get heavily into some of the other crazes, conveniently around Christmas time. I was so sickeningly mainstream in those days. The least prominent in my collection was Thundercats, which was nevertheless a great series that followed the adventures of some rebel alien feline-humanoids who were stranded on a jungle planet. The heroes were inconsequential in comparison to their mummified enemy Mumm-Ra, who was clearly the coolest bad guy in history, and who I attempted to dress up as last Halloween. I looked more like Little Red Riding Hood with a blue face.
The Real Ghostbusters was an animated spin-off of the 1984 film, and probably became equally popular in its day, to the extent that ‘Ghostbusters 2’ was deliberately made more appealing to children, and therefore quite a rubbish film. The series was pretty good, and the plots were nicely consistent throughout its run, even when the show became increasingly about Slimer, the friendly green ghost who was nevertheless limited. None of the characters looked much like their film equivalents, with the possible exception of Ray Stantz. Ghostbusters toys were the coolest of the lot.
Again I confess, I loved Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. They’ve re-made it now, with a plot more in line with Eastman and Laird’s original intentions when they parodied Frank Miller’s dark graphic novels with their ninja turtles in 1984. TMNT (which was called ‘Hero’ rather than ‘Ninja’ in the UK and Germany on the insistence of worried adults) lasted for a surprising seven years before switching formats, but its descent from interesting, serialised action show to daft kid’s comedy didn’t take all that long. The first couple of series are still pretty good, despite the Saturday morning cartoon flavour, and are available on DVD.
BRITISH CARTOONS
My favourite cartoon series were produced by the excellent Cosgrove Hall, though I was a bit too young to properly get into their most popular series, ‘Dangermouse.’ I loved Count Duckula, the adventures of a vegetarian vampire duck and his creepy housekeepers whose castle can teleport across the globe. As if that wasn’t enough, David Jason provided the enthusiastic voice of the lead character, and did a fantastic job. The series was only very very loosely based on Dracula, although Duckula did have an enemy in the form of Doctor Von Goosewing.
My favourite Cosgrove Hall cartoon was sadly their least successful, and the one that finally convinced them to move on to other pastures. Victor & Hugo: Bunglers in Crime had a similarly weird premise to Duckula: two incompetent French criminals, who can’t speak French very well, attempting to commit great crimes across London in the service of the unseen Mr. X with the aid of their ramshackle yellow van. Victor and Hugo were brilliantly inept, and the characters had some excellent banter. Jimmy Hibbert and David Jason again provide the voices of the main characters, Jason handling the beret-clad Hugo, the stupider of the two. I’d love to see this one again.
My penultimate choice wasn’t produced by Cosgrove Hall. Stoppit and Tidy Up was a short cartoon shown early in the morning on Children’s BBC, around the time they did the birthday cards and ‘Playdays.’ Terry Wogan narrated, as there were no character voices, making this obviously his best work to date. The opening titles were great, and consisted of a march from all the characters, one of whom would be the focus of the episode. Stoppit was a red ball of fur who lived in a rubbish dump, while Tidy Up was neat and purple and lived in a nice house. Their friends and enemies included Bee Have and Bee Quiet (who were bees), Clean Your Teeth and The Big Bad I Said No. It was a nice cheap thrill.
For the sake of completeness, I have to conclude with my baby favourite, Postman Pat. It didn’t have the stylistic action scenes of Thundercats or the dialogue of Chucklevision, but Pat’s simple, early morning deliveries to the residents of rural Greendale were very comforting when I was two. My mum assumed that I liked ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ better, to the point that my room was covered in Thomas wallpaper and bedclothes, but she guessed wrong. Pat and friends had enormous noses too.
They don’t make them like they used to. Well, maybe they do, and I’m just too old to notice now. Nah, I was right the first time. I’m sure that if your own nostalgia predates mine, your superior kid’s shows will put my stupid greedy ones to shame, that’s how these things work. Most of these shows are available on DVD. I also used to like ‘The Fiddly Foodle Bim Bam Boodle-oo Diddly Doodle Oodle Bird,’ but I think I was mainly won over by its name. Ha ha, it’s dead long! Ace.
Advantages: Helped shape the person I am today.
Disadvantages: Helped shape the person I am today.
***
Written on 13.11.07
In the mid-nineties, Children’s BBC began negotiating a serialised dramatisation of popular children’s author Mark Haddon’s ‘Agent Z’ books, culminating in the one-off, six-part adaptation of the third, ‘Agent Z and the Penguin from Mars,’ in the first months of 1996. I enjoyed it at the time, but drifting back through the mists of time, and struggling to veer around the rose-tinted areas of my unreliable brain, I now realise it was a fairly average storyline with some really unlikeable characters and a plot that’s ludicrous and pointless even by CBBC drama standards.
The story centres on the eponymous Agent Z, a mysterious organisation operating in the Crane Grove area, wherever that is, leaving a trail of mild destruction and slight irritation in its wake. In reality, Agent Z’s secret identity is revealed to the viewers as three young school friends: Ben, Barney and Jenks (played by reasonably skilled child actors Duncan Barton, Andrew McKay and Reggie Yates), who set up the initiative as a way to have a laugh at the expense of those they didn’t like. That’s not to imply that these young whippersnappers are thugs or bullies; in fact, their pranks are primarily carried out as a form of justice or revenge, and their over-zealous attitude towards academic achievement, leading to Ben revising the next day’s school lessons beforehand so he can show off to the teacher, reveal Mark Haddon’s fairly unrealistic grasp of the child’s mind-set. Who would revise as a ‘prank?’ Even the ten-year-old me, a child geek watching this series and then reading the book on holiday through oversized square glasses when I was supposed to be running around on a beach, scoffed at the main character’s lack of cool.
Agent Z’s agenda in this series will necessarily take a bit of explaining, considering its rather confusing, sci-fi title. Apart from Ben’s elaborate, recurring dream sequences that the viewers are invited to intrude upon over the course of the series, the story is grounded in reality, at least according to Haddon’s view of how the world works. The target of this latest prank is Dennis Sidebottom, a wealthy lottery winner who moves in next-door to Ben’s family and who is just as pompous as his name would suggest. Blessed with a fiery temperament, an irritating delinquent of a son and a talented daughter who captures Ben’s young passion, the budding astronomer very soon grates on Ben’s nerves as he discovers Agent Z’ secret base of operations and accuses Ben of being a bad influence on his thieving son Todd, so Agent Z formulates an insanely complicated plan to drive him over the edge into insanity... or something. I was never quite sure to be honest, but it was convoluted enough to take up three hours of kid’s TV.
As Sidebottom is a space enthusiast, Ben and his gang of geeks devise a scenario in which Sidebottom will believe he has been visited by a Martian. They set about finding the ingredients: a suitable body for the creature, suggested as one of the robotic penguins outside a display in the shopping centre; a suitable vessel to act as its spaceship; a series of lighting and audio stimuli to enhance the experience; and the all-important final touch of a genuine meteorite left in Sidebottom’s possession as proof of his unearthly contact, bearing an unintelligible message that can nevertheless, through careful precision, be deciphered to read: “Dennis Sidebottom is a pompous wazzock.” You’ve got to hand it to those kids, they don’t mess around when it comes to expressing their opinions in a succinct, no-nonsense fashion.
In a way, this series was a load of complete rubbish, but it somehow worked and remained enjoyable throughout. Haddon’s book was the third in his Agent Z series, so by that point he had got to grips with the characters and their penchant for over-elaborate japes, and the TV series benefits from adapting it fairly loyally. The main changes are the substitution for a robotic penguin stolen from a shopping centre rather than a live one from a zoo as in the book, which would doubtless have proved very difficult to film (working with both children and animals together can’t be a pleasant experience), and in the casting changes, with a black actor for Jenks (as the book series received criticism for its lack of minority characters) and ignoring Haddon’s comments that Barney was supposed to be overweight. Whether you find them talented, cute or just annoying, the young actors were all plucked from the BBC’s ever-trusty bank of young, prepubescent talent, and I rarely had a problem with child performers on British TV (though I had it up to here with American kids...) The production values were fairly good, with Ben’s dream sequences being filmed in a far more elaborate location than his more lowly neighbourhood (however middle-class it may be), and the long-awaited alien visitation was ultimately pulled off with a commendable degree of success at the end of episode five, leaving the finale open for its unexpected and quite entertaining consequences, and a great twist that sees Sidebottom receiving an even greater comeuppance than even Agent Z could ever have imagined.
I never read any of the other Agent Z books so I can’t judge whether they would have made equally successful adaptations, but it seems that ‘Penguin from Mars’ was deemed the most viable. It’s well adapted to the format and for once most of the changes actually improve upon the original, as the idea of stealing a live penguin was a little far-fetched, though at six episodes it did drag on a little towards the end and wouldn’t stand up too well to repeat viewings, though I do remember it being repeated at least once a year or so later. It was never released on video or DVD and perhaps wasn’t quite original, classic or Eighties enough to be deemed a cult classic and worshipped through worthless fan websites, but give it a few years, and a few more successes for Haddon in the vein of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,’ and it may end up being rediscovered or better yet, re-made. The original actors have all reached their twenties now and appeared in various supporting roles in BBC sitcoms and dramas (they’re still recognisable in an entertaining way), but I’d guess that they hold fond memories of this production. I suppose that means the characters are all grown up now as well; I wonder if Ben ever got off with Samantha in the end?
Advantages: Silly, overcomplicated fun, presenting an interesting take on thoughtful youth rebellion.
Disadvantages: Significantly stretched in terms of both length and believability.
Alfred J. Kwak
****
Written on 14.12.07
Herman van Veen's often heartwarming, sometimes unnecessarily distressing cartoon series was one of the more memorable imports of Saturday morning television in the early 1990s. The original Dutch version is naturally superior to the slightly lacking English dub, but numerous versions made for other nationalities have remained popular with repeat runs, VHS and DVD releases to this day, particularly in countries where the title theme was still sung by the jolly van Veen rather than a dull Englishman, and Alfred himself rendered likeable rather than irritating. It's surprising, the difference one voice actor can cause to reception.
'Alfred J. Kwak' (the J stands for Jonathan in the English version, rather than the original Jodocus, and so loses any subtle meaning) is a highly detailed cartoon series for children that mixes light-hearted fun with gritty realism and very serious social commentary. Like 'Animal Farm,' 'The Animals of Farthing Wood' and any other works in which speaking animals can die, the ensemble is comprised of sentient creatures, mostly birds in this case, and in this story they appear to have usurped the place of humanity; they wear clothes, work, vote and have wars with each other. Alfred himself is a brave and noble yellow duck (I assume of the rare Swedish Yellow lineage rather than the more common rubber bath variety) who interestingly grows up over the course of the series, rather than remaining static and invincible as is customary for cartoon characters. The first episode sees Alfred hatching after his parents finally get it together, and already proving his adventurous spirit by wandering off in reckless exploration. This curiosity ironically saves his life in the second episode, and that of the Kwaks' diminutive mole friend Henk who chases after the young scamp, as Alfred's entire family is killed by a reckless driver on their exodus to a safe haven away from the spreading industry that evicted them from their original home.
While moments such as the above tend to push stark realism to an unreasonable extreme designed for nothing more than making children cry (did they really have to dress the doomed ducklings up in bows, and make them chirp so contentedly?), this series' mature themes are what made it stand out in the summers of my childhood, though the fact that it was the first thing to come on at 6am after I'd been watching the test card for half an hour probably helped. Watching the characters age, mature, love and lose was a novel idea for me, making the series (which eventually stretched to fifty-two episodes - there's no way I saw all of them) akin to a lengthy children's novel. This did present one slight drawback, particularly in the English version, as the early episodes had a pleasant innocence about them with Alfred as a duckling (excluding family apocalypse), and seeing an older Alfred getting up to all sorts of high adventure in the opening credits made it clear that this age of innocence would be over all too soon. Just like life, but with a talking duck. The English dub adds to this insult by casting a particularly snotty actor as the teenage and adult Alfred, which robs his bright scarf of any jolly connotations and instead makes the character seem like the obnoxious sort that cycle around Cambridge getting in people's way.
Just in case the songs that bookend the show aren't enough to convince viewers of Alfred's kind and noble heart, he is provided an arch nemesis in the form of Dolf, an evil crow who bullied Alfred at school and disturbingly fails to learn his lessons as naughty people are supposed to (one of my favourite episodes saw he and Alfred trapped in a well, the inevitable bonding completely failing to occur). Dolf grows up to essentially become a crow Hitler; in case his name wasn't enough of a clue, he attempts to push his fascist regime the 'National Crows Party' and insists on racial purity, but of course this is for children (and to be honest, I'm not sure I made the connection at the time). Needless to say, this lends a darker tone to many of the later episodes, but it's really nothing kids don't see all the time nowadays, and quite like. Just as impressive as its take on evil and violence is how the series deals with prejudice, third world hunger, apartheid and endangered species among other issues - there was even an episode where Alfred was trying to promote electric cars for the good of the environment - so it's a shame the show wasn't more well-known in this country. At the same time it was dealing with these hard issues, there was always time spare for some daft antics, often in a style reminiscent of Japanese animé, but anyone looking for Looney Tunes style humour and slapstick would be disappointed, it feels more like a serialised animated feature.
The English incarnation of Alfred Jonathan Kwak was slightly too nasal and pompous to act as a serious role model for my younger self (though I haven't subscribed to fascism or attempted genocide yet, so there may have been some subtle influence), but the series was helpful in broadening my perception of what cartoons could achieve. At fifty-two episodes spread across two series it's a very substantial run, though not too long for the quality to lapse as it would in a daily syndicated show, and the DVDs are available in several markets with various language dubs over Harald Siepermann's pleasant animation, though it hasn't (yet?) been released in the UK. Comparing clips on YouTube confirms that the English version was one of the less impressive and thought-out transfers, especially in the daft alterations to the title songs that fall back on tell-tale archaisms in order to fit the rhyme scheme ("a little town called Waterland / where life is grand" and "Alfred is so merry / so very, very merry" being stand-out examples of curiously old-fashioned phrases), but as long as the main character sounds chirpy and shrill, the enemy cackles, and the adoptive mole father in dungarees has a homely West Country accent, British kids will know where they're at.
The German closing theme in particular is amusing in a slightly sad way, recruiting some bubbly kids to sing the mentally scarred Alfred's song, "Warum bin ich so fröhlich?" ("Why am I so happy?") His life does get better after the initial setbacks, trust me.
Advantages: Effective use of realism in a cartoon series, with well-developed characters.
Disadvantages: English dub isn't the best.
Chucklevision
And No Slackin'
****
Written on 01.06.04
Perhaps the most effective and long-running BBC sitcom for the younger generation, 'Chucklevision' has been on Children's BBC in its various incarnations for 17 years. I grew up with the programme, viewing the antics of the ineffective odd job men and eventually having the privilege of seeing them live in 1995.
PREMISE
Paul and Barry Chuckle are brothers; one is slightly taller and somewhat domineering, the other is a submissive wrinkly fool. Both are moustachioed. In each episode, Paul and Barry are given a job to do, whether it be decorating, washing windows, taking care of a house or a multitude of other tasks, and they always manage to botch the task up, usually ending with the brothers on the run from the angry character known as "Mr. No Slacking" due to his catch-phrase.
Paul is slightly more wise than Barry and often allows his wrinkled brother to carry out the more difficult or risky tasks, but they are very close and have no hatred for each other. Their principle form of transport is a pedal cart with a striped sunroof, and throughout the years they live together in a number of low budget habitats including a caravan and a mill.
The show was aimed at the "8 to 12" age group, which seems a little too precise considering I loved the show when I was about six, but this shows that the level of humour, plot development and character dialogue is above what would be considered "childish."
CAST
The Chuckle Brothers are played by real-life brothers and comedy duo Paul and Barry Elliot, and the show has a fairly extensive writing staff, including but not only extending to the stars themselves. The recurring character of No Slacking (as he is credited off-screen), is played b y Jimmy Patton, who is apparently another of Paul and Barry's brothers.
The Brothers have mysteriously avoided showing any major signs of ageing throughout the show's 17 year run, and the only change of note is that in the most recent series which aired from January to March 2004, Barry had shaved off his moustache. If that's not a valid reason to check the listings on the CBBC channel, I don't know what is.
CHANGES
When the series was first commissioned in 1987 it was of a much different format than that which it became. The brothers acted as presenters, addressing the young viewers, fronting regular magical acts and attempting to explain about topics as diverse as sport and Halloween.
With the third series in 1989, the format became that of episodic television, with the Brothers bungling every task they attempt. This was obviously a much more successful style of show and served to capture the attentions of children nationwide, leading to the series continuing on and off for the next thirteen years.
In 2002, the format was changed again somewhat in a further attempt to keep the show interesting. The series was now filmed in a very clear, almost cinematic style and plots would continue serialised over a number of weeks. I only saw a couple of these episodes (accidentally of course) and the show has lost a little of its charm with the grandiose format, but I still noticed plenty of the old jokes:
PAUL: Can I take your coat Mr. Carrington-Smithe?
SMITH: It's pronounced "Smith."
PAUL: Sorry, Mister Smith-Smithe.
As I have said, the humour is not aimed specifically at the adult generation, and the comical incidental music and sped-up chases, not to menti on the amount of paint splats, clearly show the generation this is aimed at. The Brothers also presented a gameshow for children in 1996, titled 'To Me To You,' but this was far less influential and only ran for one series.
VERDICT
Chucklevision is a children's show, but a very good children's show despite what some aggravated parents may think. The format has become old by now, but those it is aimed at will not remember the early series and so theoretically the show could go on forever, although reality dictates that the Chuckle Brothers will expire at some point. [RIP Barry.]
I loved Chucklevision when I was young, it was one of the highlights of my televised days, aside from Knightmare obviously. I saw the Brothers live at Scarborough when my family were on holiday in that particular seaside town, but my only memories of that event are a risqué routine involving a cucumber placed through a barrel in front of Barry's genital area and the brothers running through the crowd with cream pies. My brother got covered, I did not.
A scarily extensive episode guide can be found at TVtome.com, including such aspects of the show as a list of everyone who has ever appeared as a guest star and continuity errors. Honestly. [You can talk.]
APPENDIX
Chucklevision catch-phrases for you and a friend to try (preferably effecting Rotherham accents):
Together: "Ello-o"
^ Greeting
- "To me."
- "To you."
- "To me then."
- "To you then."
^ When lifting heavy loads between places
- "Silly me!"
- "Silly you."
^ Light-hearted realisation that you have made an error
- "Oh dear."
- "Oh dear oh dear."
^ When something has gone seriously wrong (again)
"And no slackin'."
^ When foolishly trusting a pair of middle-aged idiots with moustaches, forgetting that they have let you down many times in the past.
Advantages: The Brothers clearly enjoy what they do, Humour is aimed at children, and it works, Memorable characters and events
Disadvantages: Has been going for too long, Not too original any more
*****
Written on 19.11.07
Cosgrove Hall was my favourite television production company as a child – that’s right, I was disconcertingly aware of labels even back then – and ‘Count Duckula’ was one of its most prestigious successes, never quite reaching the heights of its predecessor ‘DangerMouse’ in terms of pop culture acclaim, but rivalling it in terms of character, humour and voice acting, and succeeding in terms of animation. It perhaps loses out slightly in the wackiness field however; it would be tough to top the premise of a duo of secret agent rodents operating from a post box in Mayfair.
Count Duckula, as can be clearly deduced from the title, is at its foundation a basic parody of the Dracula premise. But with a duck. As the fantastic opening titles clearly demonstrate, the concept is a little more convoluted and silly than that; the Counts of Duckula are a long line of vampire barons in a cartoon universe populated almost entirely by human-like birds, whose reign of tyranny has hung over Transylvania for centuries, interrupted only when the bloodsucking ducks are “destroyed by a stake through the heart, or exposure to sunlight.” Fortunately for the Duckulas, and their sinister vulture assistant Igor, the Count can be resurrected once a century through a macabre ritual that the feather-brained housekeeper Nanny has botched up considerably this time round, substituting tomato ketchup for the key ingredient of blood and resulting in a very different Duckula for the late twentieth century.
Thus, our Count Duckula is far removed from his predecessors, a pacifist who follows a strict vegetarian diet and who has an insatiable desire for fame and fortune, usually based around his (non-existent) musical talent. Accompanying Duckula on his travels across the globe in pursuit of these ends are his loyal butler Igor, a rather dark character with dastardly hobbies who is ever hopeful that his master’s old vampire instincts will return, and Nanny, a ridiculously incompetent and dim-witted housekeeper whose lack of brains are nevertheless balanced out by incredible strength that is almost always demonstrated by accident, most commonly revealed in her blind spot for doors that leads to her moving between rooms by obliviously crashing through brick walls. Their method of transportation around the world is Castle Duckula itself, which teleports according to its master’s whim, but automatically returns to its craggy mountaintop by dawn, Eastern Transylvanian Standard Time.
Count Duckula was one of my all-time favourite cartoon series, and this budget DVD release of the first six episodes catches it at its peak, before the strain of a mammoth weekly schedule over a number of years inevitably saw the writing quality slip a little into repetition or desperation. There’s nothing in the way of an introduction/origin episode for Duckula’s resurrection, the premise being covered very succinctly and neatly by the opening credits and the unique opening and closing narration provided for each episode by Barry Clayton in his best Vincent Price impersonation, before being oddly contradicted completely by the lyrics to the end credits that categorically list Duckula’s non-existent terrifying features, either as an ironic coda or perhaps the result of an early idea of the series being left unchanged. I still found it funny as a child anyway, and it was probably my introduction to irony and sarcasm, something I’m sure many people will hold against it – either way, this is one of my favourite cartoon theme songs of all time (and that’s saying something), clearly owing a little to Michael Jackon’s ‘Thriller’ in its sinister narration and funky rhythm.
The six episodes on this collection are:
1. No Sax Please, We’re Egyptian
2. Vampire Vacation
3. One Stormy Night
4. Transylvanian Homesick Blues
5. Restoration Comedy
6. The Mutinous Penguins
It’s pretty obvious why the safer option of the second episode was chosen for the collection’s title rather than the usual first, something that was mirrored by the original VHS release containing the first episode simply omitting a sub-title, and the little Ladybird book of that story being blandly re-christened ‘The Mystic Saxophone.’ You have to wonder whether Jimmy Hibbert and the other writers were being deliberately cheeky through including smut like that in a kid’s show, but regardless of its potential controversy, ‘No Sax Please’ remains the best Duckula episode by a clear margin. It’s not merely a case of Hibbert using up all of his best vampire- and horror-based jokes in the first episode, particularly as this story’s Egyptian setting makes it unique in the canon, but the dialogue is sharper, the jokes more frequent (hilarious and terrible in equal measure), and the animation spectacular, in some scenes more than others which implies that these were made first when everyone was excited about the new project and wanted to show off their improved talents since the DangerMouse years.
This first episode sees Duckula growing disillusioned with his depressing surroundings, suffering another lecture on his family’s prestigiously wicked ancestry from Igor in the portrait gallery as a means to nicely explore the series’ concept further at this early stage, something that would be continued by encounters with further surviving members of the family line in the next few shows. Duckula pipes up at the mention of the fabled Mystic Saxophone that one of his ancestors sought out, and Castle Duckula is transported to the Valley of the Kings, taking along some reluctant passengers in the form of a group of crows intent on robbing the Castle, but now more interested in dispatching Duckula and his companions to obtain the saxophone for themselves.
Probably the most fondly-remembered scene from this first episode is the brilliantly frustrating introduction of the characters Humite and Ubi (the clip’s on YouTube), but there’s also an excellent and balanced exploration of each main character, from Duckula’s preoccupation with fame to Igor’s wickedness and Nanny’s clumsiness, that apparently caused the accidental deaths of the rest of Duckula’s housekeeping staff. It’s not quite perfect, spoiled by a couple of jokes that I found strangely nonsensical even as a child (such as Duckula guessing two peoples’ names as “Sylvester and Stallone, right?” for no apparent reason), and there’s the plot hole of how exactly Igor knows about the Archduck McGanza’s discoveries in the Pharaoh Upshee’s tomb if he never came out alive to tell the tale. Of course, some would argue that this is just a cartoon and doesn’t demand such a severe analysis. I have wasted my life.
The other episodes don’t quite reach the heights of this opener but are all above average, the most relevant being ‘Vampire Vacation,’ which introduces some bona-fide vampire ducks as Igor persuades the Count to take a holiday to his cousin Don Diego’s home in Spain, hoping once again to turn Duckula’s mind to evil. This is also the introduction of Duckula’s nemesis Doctor Von Goosewing, an incompetent wampire hunter mit un pronounced German accent and only the first of many dodgy racial stereotypes employed by the writers, continued here with Spaniards who are more like a caricature of Mexican bandits with absurdly long names and ponchos, and later with French revolutionaries in the time-travel adventure ‘Transylvanian Homesick Blues’ and thawed Viking soldiers in ‘The Mutinous Penguins,’ whose language basically consists of variations on the words “hurdy gurdy.” As well as the core cast and recurring players such as Von Goosewing and the wise-cracking occupants of Castle Duckula’s cuckoo clock, each episode brings further memorable characters into the Duckula universe, from the depressed Frankingstein’s monster style robot in ‘One Stormy Night’ to the mutinous penguins themselves, and the slightly camp, Llewelyn-Bowen style interior designer who Duckula drafts in to renovate the castle in ‘Restoration Comedy,’ whose obsession with mirrors leads to his ultimate, terrifying reflection on Duckula’s true nature.
While their animation of the earlier ‘DangerMouse’ often appeared quite basic and lacking in detail, Cosgrove Hall’s talents (and, presumably, funds) had evolved by Duckula’s 1988 introduction to realise a vivid, colourful and fluid artistic style, crediting an impressive number of character and background artists on the closing credits. The trio of Duckula, Igor and Nanny are all designed to look completely dissimilar and as such work together fantastically on screen (you can even see it on the DVD cover), and the level of detail means that the distinct animation style hasn’t dated badly at all. The voice acting is similarly superb, the prominent star being a pre-knighthood David Jason in the main role as Duckula as well as many other roles, particularly Duckula’s family and ancestors, and he really puts in an energetic performance with every second, whether Duckula is criticising his staff, cracking a feeble joke or screaming in gargled panic.
Brian Trueman, one of the prominent writers of Duckula and other Cosgrove Hall series, delivers a convincingly senile and convincingly female performance as Nanny (at least I thought so), while Jimmy Hibbert voices Von Goosewing and the majority of guest characters. The only voice actor unique to this series is the late Jack May who brings the evil bass tones of Igor to life, a versatile voice actor and veteran of the Archers among other projects. David Jason, of course, is slightly more famous for another long-running television role, by which I mean DangerMouse of course, and he would later portray the titular Hugo in the third and final Cosgrove Hall cartoon series ‘Victor and Hugo: Bunglers in Crime,’ along with Hibbert and Trueman, but it’s presumably his portrayal of the vampire duck that earned him that knighthood. I think he might also have had a role in some BBC sitcom or other that everyone’s probably forgotten by now.
‘Count Duckula’ remains one of my all-time favourite cartoon series, though obviously I don’t enjoy it quite as much now as I did when I was six; I am not mad. Cosgrove Hall produced some of the funniest, most entertaining and most enduring British cartoon series of all time, and there’s nothing aside from some easily ignored pop culture references that would date these episodes for young viewers today, making a nice excuse for parents in their twenties to indulge in some nostalgia under the guise of buying their child a DVD. Although complete box-sets of individual seasons have now been released, this more modest volume contains about as much Duckula as I would deem essential, and it’s still widely available at a budget price of less than five pounds from Amazon and stuff, but more notably from charity shops such as British Heart Foundation as one of the DVDs sold brand new in sealed packaging on a rack (at least this was the case in Lancaster earlier this year, so I presume it’s still true elsewhere). How about that? Every once in a while, a charitably opportunity comes along to make pointless nostalgia that little bit less indulgent.
Advantages: Some of the best dialogue, animation, voice acting and characters in British cartoon history.
Disadvantages: Some plots are a little weak.
Incredible Games
Wicky Woo
****
Written on 08.11.07
A show that was forgettable only in title, ‘Incredible Games’ was one of the more inventive and exciting children’s game shows produced in the 90s, following a similar format to Channel 4’s hugely successful ‘The Crystal Maze’ but taking a far stranger, fantastical and psychedelic approach. As with most children’s game shows of the time (‘Get Your Own Back,’ ‘Funhouse,’ etc.), each episode saw young contestants facing a number of individual challenges to amass points and aid their progress to the final game, where they could collaboratively win the star prize. Also like these shows, there was a fair amount of gunge involved, requiring players to change costumes between some games.
The show was set in a ludicrously tall building consisting of 999 floors, each level of which was allegedly taken up by a different game, though due to the usual prohibitive costs and the rather outlandish games produced, there was a large amount of repetition between episodes. The players are transported between levels by the talkative and somewhat hyperactive Lift viewed on a monitor, originally played by David Walliams in a crazy plastic wig (similar to Mark Speight in CITV’s rubbish ‘Scratchy and Co.’), and later re-cast with Gary Parker as a multi-coloured bald head named Sam. The banter between the young contestants and the Lift was one of the highlights, particularly in the Walliams era, and created a great laid-back atmosphere as it was clear the kids were enjoying themselves immensely and not taking the whole thing too seriously (at least, not as seriously as it appeared on TV after all the editing and effects work tried to convince viewers they were watching reality). Like all good children’s presenters, Walliams never talked down to his passengers, and there are some nice running jokes as he appears unable to add up their scores as fast as they can, though he insists otherwise. The players were usually between the ages of eleven to fourteen, and would usually consist of three school friends of mixed genders.
The games were the usual mixture of physical and mental challenges, with extremely imaginative sets and conceits. The series was conceived by Stephen Leahy and Andrew O’Connor, and features such memorable, high-energy delights as the glow worm hunt in an eerie swamp; a jet-pack powered tidying of ‘Planet Susan’; the hasty construction of a system of pipes in a flooding room, and of course, the final hunt for magnetic letters at the bottom of a huge soup bowl in an extremely convincing oversized set reminiscent of ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.’ The more logical puzzles were a little duller for the most part, often consisting of simple, money-saving question and answer sections hosted by the Lift on their travels, but also memorably by the ghost of a Victorian headmaster (don’t ask me) who would unleash gunge upon any wrong answer. Without a doubt the most frightening part of the show was the journey across the dreaded Dark Knight’s chess board, which was brilliantly conceived and seemed a genuine challenge to complete, one I was always sure I would have failed miserably. Players could move forwards on one move, followed by a sideways move on their next turn, all in pursuit of the green exits at the far end; the catch was that the Dark Knight (Simon Shelton in a Darth Vader-like cloak and mask) could see the glowing squares they had left behind, and was able to formulate a strategy to track them down, more often than not succeeding and eliminating them (the losing players would have to be tracked down afterwards).
This was a truly fantastic game show for children, and mainly due to its rubbish, non-descript title it’s probably one that’s caused a great deal of frustration and confusion over the years as aging fans have struggled to remember exactly what it was (I hope I’ve helped). Like all the best game shows it clearly wasn’t staged and wasn’t patronising in the least, frequently sneaking a deliberately tricky question in that even older viewers wouldn’t know the answer to, and requiring genuine mental and physical skills, just like a younger and trippier version of The Crystal Maze. Some of the ideas were a little daft or clichéd – especially catch-phrases that never caught on like “press my button!” and “we’re going throoooough the roof!” in the first series – but the games really were works of genius, and among the most entertaining things I have ever seen on Children’s BBC. The alphabet soup game was particularly enjoyable, as there was usually a clear tension in the air as the dry player struggling to spell out words on the ‘fridge’ would insist that the poor swimmers had to dive for specific letters so he or she could complete the word they had in mind, though amiable players were more willing to adapt to what they were given. The ghostly headmaster and the zombie-like arms reaching from the walls in the glow worm game were unnecessarily spooky, and if that didn’t provoke nightmares then the Dark Knight, the embodiment of evil itself, clearly would. Perhaps that’s the reason the show was never revived for a third series.
Letting this show slip off the airwaves so soon was a truly disappointing decision on the BBC’s part, especially in light of the rubbish they’ve produced since, though I once saw a low-budget segment on CITV a few years ago called ‘The Eliminator’ that seemed to be essentially a less scary version of the Dark Knight game, so its influence and memory surely live on. Perhaps the BBC executives had intended to re-commission it all along, but couldn’t... quite remember... the name, what was it, “the Lift Show” or something? It must have been something quite specific, surely? Ah, no matter, it’ll come to me one day – what’s that? The Chuckle Brothers want to present a flimsy tropical-island-based game show named after one of their catch-phrases, and that’s all there is to it? Brilliant, someone give those lads a studio!
Advantages: Highly imaginative, bizarre and terrifying game show for children.
Disadvantages: Overly repetitive, but unfairly cancelled after only two series before this could present a problem.
Knightmare
****
Written on 10.04.04
When I was young I watched a huge array of programmes aimed at the child audience; I had my favourite cartoons, 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,' 'Victor and Hugo,' 'Count Duckula' and the unimaginative 'Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles,' but when the live action shows came on I would usually change channel, or simply rewind and watch the tape that had recorded the cartoons from the other channel. Yes, I was that obsessed. By far the most inventive and exciting of the live action shows I watched was the team-play dungeon quest game, 'Knightmare.'
Thanks to the wonders of digital TV, I've recently been able to re-watch episodes of this show from bygone days on the otherwise appalling channel 'Challenge TV,' and while all the flaws in computer effects are clearer nowadays, and I fail to have the same respect for the nerdy adolescents playing that I used to revere so much, it's still a good blast from the past.
PREMISE
Developed and created by Tim Child, a reviewer for 8-bit video game magazines and someone who saw the potential of computers as far back as 1985, the show was introduced and presented by struggling actor Hugo Myatt in the guise of the wise dungeon master Treguard from his cosy room above the dungeon. Teams of four children or teenagers, three of which would sit with notepads and attempt to solve quite simple riddles and offer advice to their helmeted comrade who got to explore the bluescreen world and meet all manner of terrible actors. The dungeon questers would search for a special item (chalice, crown or sword) and the shows would detail their attempts to complete the game. Several did, but most bit the bullet part-way through; I remember one episode where a dragon emerged from a wall in the very first room and ended one poor team's game straight away!
OBSTACLES
Many obstacles the adventurers would come across were traps that could be avoided using common sense or a riddle solved earlier, usually given to them by a Keith Chegwin look-a-like in an unconvincing jester outfit, but the more interesting dilemmas were the ones that were really scary. Staring too long through the spyglass, which provided insight into the plans of Lord Fear and his minions, would produce a flaming fireball that could fry the player, while the huge giant that had to be tip-toed around often was one of the most tense memories from my youth. And hearing the ominous sound of the goblin horn still sends shivers down my spine even today.
SERIES
Knightmare;s first five series were pretty basic and not too imaginative, as the obstacles were all pretty much the same. It was with the introduction of more exterior locations in series 6 to 8, as well as the evil Lord Fear (played by Mark Knight) that the series really got interesting, and besides, that's when I started watching.
These outside locations were mostly photographs and recorded film that were digitalised slightly and added to the bluescreen, the most memorable of which was the flights of the tamed blue dragon Smirkenorff.
AFTERMATH
Eventually, Knightmare failed to be recommissioned for another series, and was replaced with another virtual reality gameshow that attempted to show the abilities of computer effects in the mid-90s. Called 'Virtually Impossible' (virtual, do you see?), this was crap. Plenty of people realised the enjoyment and appeal of Knightmare, but ITV's main reasons for cancelling it after seven years was that their audience were being affected by the computer games industry of t he 16-Bit consoles, and they wanted something a little less scary for the younger viewers.
For more information on the seasons, the show's development and the rather hopeless 'Bring Back Knightmare' campaign, I'd recommend you visit the genuine and slightly worrying knightmare.com. Despite its originality, appeal and almost award-winning success, Knightmare is essentially still a kid's show.
Advantages: Very scary and exciting for a children's show, Nostalgic in a great way, Improved towards the end
Disadvantages: Could get very repetitive, Often unconvincing CGI effects, Pretty bad actors
The Secret Service
***
Written on 09.09.07
I’m a bit of a sucker for overlooked or prematurely cancelled TV series, which tend to take on a false sense of maverick awe and unrecognised genius in my clearly distorted mind, even though their brief spell is usually due to them being a bit rubbish.
A bit rubbish, unpopular and deservedly almost completely forgotten is the final project of Gerry Anderson’s highly lucrative Supermarionation franchise of the late sixties, continuing in the tradition of its predecessor ‘Joe 90’ to distance Anderson’s work from the action-packed science fiction clichés of his more popular projects. It was also allegedly Anderson’s personal favourite of his puppet series in a prime example of the “I have done other things” frustration often experienced by creators of a disproportionately popular phenomenon such as ‘Thunderbirds,’ who feel that their best work was yet to come. Claims that this silly show is better than the classic ‘Stingray’ are quite clearly unreasonable, but watching this series back as an adult (or something in that general area), it has a lot to offer as a self-conscious commentary of Supermarionation in its twilight year. Even owning the video as a child, I found it amusing for somewhat different reasons than I suspect were intended.
Where Thunderbirds, Stingray and most of the other, previous, better series focused on an intrepid group of young men racing around the globe, underwater or into space to save lives, ‘The Secret Service’ is centred around the far more laid-back premise of an old vicar who travels around the local area in his vintage car, generally stopping crime by confusing the culprits with his odd speech and senile mannerisms. The Secret Service succeeds admirably in its quest to distance itself from Thunderbirds, but the success mostly ends there. The changes are plain right from the opening titles, replacing loud explosions and rapid editing with a slow overview of a country church and the star Stanley Unwin looking out of a window at the Nothing that’s happening outside.
While there are abundant rumours concerning the supposed resemblance of Supermarionation puppet characters to real-life individuals, the lead character of this final series was the first to be based almost entirely on the celebrity star voice actor who shared his name. The problem with this as a publicity stunt (which it clearly was not) is that the celebrity in question was Stanley Unwin, a well-liked old man whose respectable broadcasting career has been overshadowed by his unusual manner of talking, the much-imitated ‘Unwin-ese,’ and who not a lot of people may have been familiar with, particularly outside Britain. For this role, providing the voice of a puppet who shared his name and approximate likeness and occasionally performing live-action work when the character was in the background or required to do something technically complex like knock on a door, Unwin was provided with scripts for all thirteen episodes which he then partially translated into Unwinese to intended hilarious effect, generally changing a few words around and adding ‘-bold’ to the ends of nouns.
Father Unwin’s day job as a Priest serves as a cover for his spy-battling activities in the employment of an organisation called B.I.S.H.O.P. Assisting the vicar in his service of their unseen boss ‘the Bishop’ is Matthew, Stanley’s gardener who travels around covertly inside the vicar’s briefcase, having been shrunken down to two feet in height by some sort of ray in each episode. It’s all rather odd, but fantastically quaint and eccentric, and acts as a fitting final chapter for Gerry Anderson’s sixties career before he moved on to live action projects. What makes it so enjoyable for me is the obvious tongue-in-cheek approach taken with the show, as Supermarionation balances on the edge of farce; not only are viewers treated to Anderson’s most convoluted acronym yet (in this case standing for ‘British Intelligence Secret Headquarters, Operation: Priest’), but the entire premise seems determined to make fun of undercover spy series of which Anderson was clearly fond, Matthew’s mode of transport even paying homage to ITV’s earlier series ‘Man in a Suitcase’ by appropriating its title at face value. The concept is quite thin and would have needed to be significantly stretched to encompass the usual thirty-something run of these series, were it not cancelled mid-way due to poor performance and probably no small degree of confusion from executives who had hoped for another ‘Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons’ as opposed to ‘Old Vicar and the Incredible, Moderately-Shrunken Man.’
The contemporary countryside setting provides another striking contrast to the rest of Anderson’s series, and also avoids the need for large explosions, exotic sets and operational miniatures each week, which must have saved the show an enormous amount of its budget, but is also a little sad considering the heights that Supermarionation had reached by the end. ‘Captain Scarlet’ had finally seen the end of bulbous, oversized heads in place of a more realistic appearance (apparently by moving the mechanisms down into the body rather than inside the skull), and the strings were becoming less obvious all the time. While this is the most realistic of Anderson’s puppet series along with its predecessor ‘Joe 90,’ this is at a cost to its entertainment value, as the high frequency of live action inserts draws uncomfortable attention to the puppets when they reappear. This raises the question of why this was created as a puppet show at all, and not a live action show along the lines of ‘U.F.O.’, which was produced around the same time. I’m personally very happy with the unique mixed format, as it allows for perhaps the series’ finest in-joke, as the shrunken Matthew is exactly proportional to the ‘real’ size of the puppet, allowing for several amusing scenes of the character being manoeuvred around actors’ legs and normal-size sets that I suppose were intended to be taken seriously, despite overflowing with irony.
The repetition of scenes common to these series are still present and are always highly anticipated, particularly Stanley’s question, “are you ready, Matthew?” that inaugurates the hilarious shrinking sequence. The Unwin-ese may not be enjoyed so much now as it was in Unwin’s heyday – personally I don’t find it particularly funny, certainly not as much as the thought that Matthew is curled up inside the vicar’s briefcase as he speaks – but it was a well thought-out contrivance to use it in the service of secret messages between them, satisfyingly communicated through the vicar’s hearing aid right under the stupid villains’ plastic noses. Father Unwin may not be as cool as Steve Zodiac or Troy Tempest, but his jabbering old man is a memorable protagonist, and aids the realism of the dialogue.
‘The Secret Service’ isn’t a stroke of forgotten genius or a lost gem, but it’s an amusing treat for fans of similar puppet series or perhaps even live-action spy series of the time, though it requires a significant suspension of disbelief even compared to those. It has much to offer if viewed as a postmodern self-parody, but in its serious focus on realistic espionage it lacks the high-energy thrill of ‘Thunderbirds,’ the intelligent sci-fi adventure of ‘Captain Scarlet’ and ‘Stingray,’ and the stupid, slightly racist, scientifically-inaccurate-fi fun of ‘Fireball XL5.’ I’d rather watch it than ‘Supercar’ or ‘Joe 90’ any day, but I guess it was a bit rubbish after all.
The complete series is now available on DVD, but so are a lot of better shows that you should check out first.
Advantages: A bravely boring exit point for Gerry Anderson’s puppet career.
Disadvantages: It doesn’t really work.
Holy Guacamole!
***
Written on 25.06.07 [2014 rewatch]
The first season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which a country-wide conspiracy tricked thousands of young British fans into thinking was actually called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, the ‘hero’ being apparently more parent-friendly than ‘ninja’) is vastly different from the original comic book series by Eastman and Laird on which it is based. That said, despite its different medium, largely different plot and younger audience, it’s a great deal closer than the subsequently massively syndicated and merchandised series would ever be. This drastically short first season essentially crafts a large-scale ‘pilot’ episode for the long-running series that would follow, a two-hour story split into five distinctive parts that are nevertheless linked by a larger overall plot to defeat the villain who calls himself The Shredder, and hopefully restore the Turtles’ mutated rat sensei Splinter back into the human he once was.
The basic premise of the Turtles phenomenon is still probably ingrained into many peoples’ minds, whether they grew up with the show, had to stand in a queue outside Toys-R-Us at 5am because their children were growing up with the show, or if they’ve watched the more recent animated series that apparently sticks closer to the creators’ original intentions. Regardless of its authenticity, it was the 1987 Turtles cartoon that kicked off the craze, and became its most popular incarnation; the colourful bandanas and cheesy dialogue, ranging from Leonardo’s melodramatic ‘Turtles fight with honour’ at one end of the scale to Michaelangelo’s ‘cowabunga, dudes’ at the other, somehow captured the imaginations of an entire generation. I was as stunned as anyone, looking back on my stupid childhood obsession, until I finally tracked down these early episodes that I’d previously only read in a series of books, as the episodes were never shown on UK TV.
It’s no ‘Thundercats,’ but the first season of Turtles is actually pretty good, and though clearly aimed at a young audience, it doesn’t shy away from using minimal violence – only against robots and oversized mutants – and introducing aspects of writing such as plot twists and actual characterisation beyond different colours of masks. Admittedly, it takes until episode three for Donatello to tinker with a machine and prove why he was always my favourite Turtle, and from that point on, there’s no stopping him. The setting is the bleak and weirdly out-of-time New York City, populated by street gangs, stereotypical grannies and impressionable kids whose dialogue comes from the seventies, and the majority of action takes place in the subterranean underworld of the Turtles’ cosy sewer lair and the Shredder’s mobile Technodrome fortress. Although each episode takes place on a different day, has a unique title, and is concerned with a specific plot, the Turtles’ larger goal remains consistent.
‘Turtle Tracks’ is the necessary introductory episode, in which the viewer learns all there is to know about the lean green fighting machines that wasn’t covered in the silly opening theme song (‘Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines’ –great character profiles, guys). Although set in and under New York, the story really begins some years ago in a slightly racist depiction of Japan, where the noble Foot Clan ninja Hamato Yoshi was set up for humiliation and exile by Oroku Saki, who is later revealed as Shredder. It was he that sent radioactive Mutagen into the New York sewers to wipe Yoshi out, but instead it evolved him into a rat, due to his contact with his rodent friends, having a similar effect on four baby turtles accidentally dropped into Yoshi’s dwellings by a clumsy kid. Over the course of these episodes, the viewer is introduced to the Turtles’ annoying human contact April O’Neill and her camera crew, as well as the disgusting brain monster Krang from Dimension X, easily one of the most entertaining and duplicitous characters whose affiliation with Shredder is a little less than amicable. Also appearing briefly is the timid scientist Baxter Stockman before he was famously turned into a fly in the second season, and last and least, Shredder’s bumbling henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady who would go on to spoil many years of the programme to come.
The overall look and feel of this first season isn’t wildly different from the later serialised episodes, largely due to the presence of jokes at regular intervals that prevent the seriousness of the plot from ever really taking over. The Turtles are drawn a little differently, especially in the very first episode where additional facial creases and accessories change between takes before finally settling down, but the great incidental music is still there, as are the frequent errors in colouring that cause a Turtle to speak another character’s lines an average of about one time per episode. The extended plot makes it easier to really get into the show, especially when viewing them at leisure on a DVD, and the internal basis and real investment of the characters makes it probably the only essential piece of the Turtles series, before plots had to start coming from elsewhere – the next story arc, spanning four episodes in season two, is all based on the cliché of a spaceship plummeting to Earth, revealing a lack of ideas after the first season pretty much tied up the mythology.
The peculiar thing about this DVD is the inclusion of four episodes from the final season of the show, season ten (!), which were also never broadcast on UK TV for perhaps different reasons. As these box-sets are being released one at a time, and interest may wane before season ten sees the light of day, I can understand them selecting far off episodes to bulk out the package, but it’s still a little irritating and annoying as the series had moved so far on by then, not least in terms of character voices and animation style, that it’s largely unrecognisable and doesn’t add any value to a season one set. What would have been really fantastic would be some real special features interviewing the people behind the phenomenally successful series, saying the same kind of rubbish I have about it actually being really good at the start before merchandising took over and story potential dried up. I saw a piece covering the show, with the Raphael voice actor amongst others, on the BBC’s ‘I Love 1990s’ series, so it wouldn’t have been too much to ask for something similar to be included here. Even the younger audience that this DVD is half-aimed at (the other half is sad people like me who want to re-live their childhood) would enjoy the dissection, I would have loved the excess of DVDs as a child.
This DVD set is not without its problems, but the important thing is that it contains the best episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, although ‘Hot Rodding Teenagers From Dimension X’ is weak in comparison to the others. The longer second season of thirteen or so episodes, though more desperate and more obviously kid-oriented, is the only other necessary purchase for Turtles fans, as the third season and beyond see the concept stretched very thin indeed. Had this been a bumper collection of seasons one and two I would label it an essential purchase, but the drag of irrelevant season ten episodes makes it a little more dubious. The DVD transfer is spotless, preserving the original, slightly fuzzy 80s quality of the print (this can be seen when compared to the sharper 1996 episodes on the disc) and preserving that great bassy and repetive incidental music intact. It may be a corporate perversion of Eastman and Laird’s highly enjoyable parody of grim ‘Sin City’ style comics, retaining Baxter Stockman’s Mousers intact but giving the scientist an irrelevant race change to a white man among other significant differences, but it’s still a historically important cartoon series that can be guiltily enjoyed on DVD.
Most importantly, it’s the first chance UK viewers have had to see this original mini-series, twenty years later. Excerpts were originally only available in the horribly edited VHS release ‘How It All Began,’ which cheated by mixing a clip show with original source material and rendering everything unnecessarily confusing.
Advantages: The classic original mini-series finally released intact.
Disadvantages: Bulked out with irrelevant 'bonus' episodes to avoid charging a lower price.
Teletubbies
****
Written on 26.03.04
The internationally watched "Teletubbies" by Anne Wood has received much criticism for failing to educate children as much as other programmes, however I never found that that was its purpose. The hulking, innocent monster things were designed to be something that the youngest viewers could relate to, with their limited vocabularies and body suit-style fur. And I know it would have entertained me if I was young.
For anyone who has never seen the programme, it is aimed at very young children and features the various activities and food-related mishaps of four alien mammal things with aerials on their heads and televisions on their bellies. Through a complicated spinning windmill device they pick up transmissions of children making cakes and going to farms, things of that nature, and play them again. The mysterious voice on the speakers seems to be the only adult equivalent, while the Teletubbies' Noo-Noo vacuum cleaner cleans up all their mess like a mother. There are also plenty of rabbits to represent rabbits, which lead to a very funny complaint to points of view from one parent who claimed to have seen a dead rabbit on the screen. The BBC assured her that it was simply sleeping, which seems a little similar to a famous Monty Python sketch involving a parrot. There are no real hidden subtleties to the show as it is aimed at children, but the Teletubbies are free to play for a while before they are told that they have to go "Tubby bye bye": essentially to bed, or somewhere else dull such as the supermarket.
Teletubbies was one of those programmes that even if you're a teenager or adult, you can watch with your brother/children and keep amused. Personally it was the fact that it was annoyingly repetitive and featured blatantly homosexual actors (why was the guy fired when this news became public? The replacement played Tinky Winky in the exact same way) that made it something to laugh at and also appreciate.
My youngest brother used to be very entertained by the chase sequences inside the Tubbytronic Superdome- that's right, look impressed, I know the name of their house- and marvelled at the computer generated sequences involving an animal parade, a dancing bear, a tree growing and dying and a set of boats floating around. And nothing else; the child audience's short memories were certainly a help to the show's CGI budget. I also found it interesting how the repetition was deliberately forced, with every episode having the same structure and the videos of children being played Again Again, being linked with a child's habit of watching the same videos again and again.
What Teletubbies did was attempt to reach the youngest viewers in a way that I don't think had ever been attempted before or since. Comparisons with programmes such as the Tweenies and Playdays don't seem particularly fair as their target age group would be children immediately pre-school, around the ages of three to five or six. I've seen Teletubbies' positive effect on babies as young as one year old, and despite its lack of educational material it makes up for this in simple entertainment. It even entertained me when I was twelve years old, the programme's been going longer than I thought. The show also used to have Christmas specials, which may have upset non-Christians in the community, although it was all about the gift and decoration aspects of the holiday as this is all children will ever care about at that age.
The nursery rhymes sung by those shower-head speakers and the varied games won't teach a child anything it can't learn from its parents, but there are plenty of other programmes to do that. Teletubbies i
s fast-paced, playful, colourful fun.
Advantages: Fun and likeable characters children can get to know
Disadvantages: Repetitive, but this is only a problem for those it is not aimed at
Thundarr the Barbarian
***
Written on 01.11.2007
In the wake of ‘Star Wars,’ and with the hype surrounding Arnold Schwarzenegger’s upcoming role in a filmed version of Robert E. Howard’s ‘Conan the Barbarian,’ it’s easy to see why comic writer Steve Gerber saw a potential market for his sci-fi/fantasy cartoon creation Thundarr in 1980. With a main character clearly based on Howard’s archetypal barbarian; a hairy, sharp-toothed companion who is one step away from a Wookiee; and a butt-kicking female donned in the skimpiest clothing imaginable for a kid’s series, it’s no surprise that the relatively short-lived ‘Thundarr the Barbarian’ has taken on a legendary status in today’s internet nerd culture almost comparable to its successor ‘Masters of the Universe.’ It’s also a lot better, not merely acting as a front to sell overpriced toys to capitalist parents.
The premise of Thundarr is interesting and inspired in the way many 80s cartoons could boast, set in a post-apocalyptic far future two thousand years after a seemingly natural cosmic disaster shattered the Moon and devastated the thriving Earth in 1994. In this new world, overgrown wasteland is punctuated by the occasional relic of the present-day, revealing the area of America through which Thundarr and his companions are travelling and perhaps even humbling young viewers with a reminder that nothing lasts forever... unless it’s made of stone, obviously. Mirroring the famous last scene of ‘Planet of the Apes’ that I obviously wouldn’t want to spoil if you haven’t seen it – just as I didn’t want it spoiled when I saw the Statue of Liberty towering over the landscape on the video cover before I’d even put it in the machine – that famous symbol of American liberty is the first point of reference used in episode one, before the discovery of a small group of refugee humans is discovered in the remains of the New York subway system. It’s a nice idea, and these often subtle indicators provide something to look out for in almost every episode as the freedom fighters tour the regions and even bizarrely end up in London at one point.
The mighty Thundarr and his companions Princess Ariel (a powerful sorceress) and the brilliantly named Ookla the Mok (sharp-toothed Wookiee thing, allegedly named hastily by the writers as they passed a sign for the UCLA) live in an age where magic reigns and evil sorcerers rule the kingdoms, enslaving and destroying the surviving humans through their armies of naturally mutated giant animals. Their self-appointed mission is simple: combat injustice and rejuvenate the American dream. Without a helpful but time-wasting introductory episode to explain how this merry band came together, and more importantly whether Thundarr was ever intimate with his scantily-clad companion, or even the Princess (ha ha, do you see what I did there?), the audience is dropped into the action with a thoughtfully crafted first episode that sets up their situation and goals through demonstration, and provides them with even more incentive to seek out other groups of persecuted humans. The series ran for twenty-one episodes across two seasons between 1980 and 1982 on US channel ABC, before being sold into syndication and soon being usurped by more popular successors. The animation style appears fairly primitive by modern standards, but follows the same tried-and-tested style as Ruby and Spears’ earlier creations such as ‘Scooby Doo.’
As with many sci-fi/fantasy crossovers like this, and the shows it perhaps inspired (‘Masters of the Universe’ and the excellent ‘Thundercats’ among them), the dystopian environment features an intriguing mix of archaic and futuristic technology, rooted in a primeval wilderness. Thundarr appears to have had little experience with advanced technology, calling motorbikes “motor steeds” and making numerous other cute mistakes, but the more privileged Ariel is always on hand to explain it to him and forge a link with the viewers. They wish (again, I am making a sort of sexual innuendo there). The show seems to be making some sort of vague point by placing the advanced technology in enemy hands, in contrast to the heroes’ more modest horses (or whatever that thing is that Chewbacca rides), but as the Earth’s destruction was shown to be due to a natural phenomenon rather than man’s own foolishness as is often the case with these things, it’s most likely a simple demonstration that the good guys can triumph through their natural wits and power. Being a woman and therefore obviously weak, Ariel is able to compensate with her magical abilities that allow her to unleash energy missiles and to do plenty of other, more interesting things too, like bring the Statue of Liberty to life years before ‘Ghostbusters 2’ thought of that. While Ooklabacca never tires of chucking enemies around like they’re nothing more than Jawas, Thundarr is aided by his magical Sunsword, with its beam made of energy that retracts into the hilt when he’s done. Hmm...
‘Thundarr’ was a classic 80s cartoon that I was fortunate to see repeated at a later time when I wasn’t too young to be alive, and one that’s certainly been unfairly treated and overlooked in comparison to the hugely popular ‘Masters of the Universe.’ Thundarr would trash He-Man any day, but Conan would still pulverise them both before ravishing Ariel and binding Ookla, letting Extendar sneak in to have his wicked way. I bet that video exists on the internet somewhere. In case I haven’t made it clear, this is fairly typical macho swords and sorcery fantasy action for boys, tomboys and overgrown boys who prefer it if you refer to them by rank rather than name (which tends to be Melvin or Norm), but unlike many similar series it has something to offer viewers beyond the opening titles and non-existent action figure range, in terms of actual plots and some entertaining recurring villains. It’s a great alternative to having a more authentic Conan cartoon, however excellent that may have been (another company tried in the 90s, but it wasn't that good), but at the same time it’s no ‘Thundercats,’ and the evil Gemini is no match for Mumm-Ra. As for the merits of Princess Ariel versus Cheetara, that’s a discussion for a different website.
Advantages: Classic swords & sorcery cartoon series for Conan fans.
Disadvantages: Short-lived and unapologetically masculine.
Thunderbirds
No Strings Attached
****
Written on 04.12.03
That's right, I've written a review on Thunderbirds. Gerry Anderson's sci-fi adventure series starring fake people on strings captured the imaginations of an entire... well, my Dad anyway.
The story behind Thunderbirds is that it is the year 2065, and multi-millionaire widower ex-astronaut Jeff Tracey and his family of only men have set up an incredibly secret yet famous organisation, International Rescue. The purpose of this organisation is to offer assistance to people who really need it, similar to Superman but more wooden. The woodenness of the Christopher Reeve acting versus puppets could be argued if you thought you were a bit clever, however it's obvious that it was meant literally.
Jeff's five sons are carrying out their father's dream and flying all over the planet while he lies down on his tropical island drinking and talking with that old woman that's only in a few of them.
1...
Scott is in charge of Thunderbird 1, which is the best as it is small enough to travel quickly in Earth's atmosphere and can manouvre into some smaller spots. A noteable T1 episode was the pyramid one, which I remember being great but can't remember what happened in it. The chute into which Scott's plastic and wood body would be delivered into Thunderbird 1 was clearly the most exciting part of the character's otherwise very dull life, alone on an island with only his family for company.
2...
Virgil commands Thunderbird 2, which is the best because it's a huge green hulk that can go all the places the first one can as well as drop smaller vehicles out of its central pod. This was also the Thunderbird that everyone had the toy of. A noteable T2 episode featured the pod "the Mole," which had to dig out the crew of another c
raft called "the Sidewinder" which was burrowing into a volcano because the people inside had trusted machinery over man or some moral like that.
3...
Thunderbird 3 was the best one because it was huge and could fly into space, the only problem was that it was commanded by the annoying Alan Tracey. Thunderbird 3 always impressed me simply because of the space aspect, and a noteable episode is one where some Sun Probe malfunctioned, probably because the people within had trusted machinery over man or something along those lines, and T3 had to go to the rescue with Brains and some stupid robot Brains had built which was probably vital in the rescue. Seems a little unfair making International Rescue into Intergalactic Rescue, but that was one of my favourites when I was young.
4...
Thunderbird 4 was NOT the best because it was small and rubbish, and commanded by the most annoying of the Tracey sons, Gordon. Thunderbird 4 had to be carried to its destinations by Thunderbird 2's pod system, and as such is surely the least loved Thunderbird. Still, there was a noteable episode in which a sunken spaceships called the Firefly had to have its engines cut off by T4 so it could float to the surface; I don't know how it had crashed, but you get the picture. Machine v. Man, etc.
5...
There has been a very strong rumour since the show came out that John Tracey was sent to the orbiting satellite Thunderbird 5 because Gerry Anderson found the puppet very annoying. Although it doesn't rescue anything, T5 is responsible for receving all the radio communications which are sent to IR's headquarters, because this couldn't be done from the advanced Tracy island obviously. There were never, and never will be, any noteable Thunderbird 5 episodes.
OTHERS
Jeff's London contact was the sultry and wealthy Lady Penelope, another example of an operative of the 'secret' organisation holding immense status and fame in society, always accompanied by the rather feeble Parker. I know they were only puppets, as I've said, but there was chemistry between them two, unless that was just a horrible dream I had. The main adversary of International Rescue was a bald, Eastern man known as 'the Hood' who had the ability to influence another of the old men living on Tracey Island. The one who had the daughter, Tintin, who was clearly the only available young lady on which the lads must have based their sexual affections, but we never saw this for some reason. I'm not going to make a joke about them getting wood, oh damn. Sorry.
Thunderbirds presented children and adults with adventure, tension, excitement, explosions, mystery and pretend people. Often criticised for the fact that it used puppets, Thunderbirds was simply too expensive to use real actors and locations in, and it's more original than it being a cartoon. Many adults find no problem in loving what could be described as a childish show, and personally I disagree to some extent. I can appreciate how I liked it in my youth, but I think it's a little foolish to be watching it for entertainment now. Obviously my Dad wouldn't agree, he's just bought both of the 'films' (extended episodes) off eBay. Even if you aren't a child, which I hope you're not because I think I wrote 'crap' in this review somewhere, Thunderbirds' slight dodginess through age can still be a source of merriment, as you watch people take several seconds to perform a jump and explosions that are clearly one thousandth their theoretical size.
Thunderbirds also presents a view of a possible future, in which televisions and household appliances have reverted to a 1960s style, but in which we can explore space and commmunicate through pictures with eyes that illuminate. Still as able to fascinate and entertain children as it ever was, and possibly having a come-back in a while when the live action feature directed by Star Trek's Jonathan Frakes (Riker) is released, I hope to see Thunderbirds on BBC 2's early morning schedule for many years to come.
Advantages: Original and interesting
Disadvantages: Looks incredibly fake, but that is part of its charm
To Me To You
Desert Island D*cks
*
Written on 18.11.07
In the mid-nineties, during the height of the Chuckle Brothers’ fame, the hapless comedy duo were granted a pointless spin-off in the form of ‘To Me, To You!’, originally advertised as ‘Chuckle Island’ on one particularly memorable early Saturday morning of my childhood, when I was absolutely convinced I had dreamed it. Unfortunately, a week or so later, like some kind of uncharacteristically accurate Nostradamus who focused on children’s light entertainment rather than natural disasters, my vision was proved all too disappointingly true. The Chuckle Brothers were presenting a children’s game show based around the flimsiest premise imaginable.
Similar to Reeves & Mortimer’s ‘Shooting Stars’ from the same era, the show relied on the wacky nature of its presenters and the shameless publicity stunt of a weekly “celebrity” guest. That is where the comparison to ‘Shooting Stars’ ends. The actual games were basic, repetitive and entirely devoid of imagination, and were clearly the final annoying detail the creators were forced to hastily work out in this questionable production. I still have no idea where the tropical island theme came from; the Chuckle Brothers were typically based in Rotherham after all, a town not renowned for its tropical climate. The set design reflecting this theme was routine enough, with palm trees and sand, while the props took the form of coconuts, a bamboo shopping trolley and custard pies. The last one doesn’t have that much to do with a desert (dessert?) island admittedly, but how else would viewers be treated to the hilarious sight of two middle-aged, moustachioed man being splatted in the face by children every single week in the ‘Chuckle Chuck?’
Whether this endeavour was the Chuckles’ own idea or merely an idea by some idiot elsewhere in Children’s BBC, the brothers Paul and Barry (real names Paul and Barry Elliot, just to spoil the magical illusion) are utterly wasted in this format, making a few cracks at each other as opposing team captains, but never getting the chance to carry out a ludicrous, hare-brained scheme ending with them knocking over a load of shelves and Barry getting various shades of paint all over him with a comical “sploik!” sound effect, as tended to be the format of their more well-known ‘Chucklevision.’ I actually found it quite disappointing to see them basically act as normal grown-ups around the young contestants rather than the childish loonies viewers were more accustomed to, and the dynamic they had in their other series – namely, Paul being the controlling, lazy one, and Barry his long-suffering, hard-working assistant – is also all but absent, as the custard pie finale threatens to undermine their conflict of status.
The games repeated in each episode must have taken all of twenty seconds to come up with, and are all mere variations on old staples. The main feature that repeats throughout is a sort of board-game-based tug-o-war between both teams as they throw an oversized dice to move the bamboo trolley a number of squares towards their home, spurred on by the ever-irritating enthusiasm of the shrill child audience. When it finally reached its destination and the electric atmosphere dispelled, the winning team would get to keep whatever popular-in-the-mid-nineties items were inside, and the trolley would be re-stocked so that exactly the same game could be played again. And then in every other episode. For three years.
‘To Me, To You!’ was a classic example of a weak premise hanging about as loosely as is possible on the “celebrity” of its presenters and weekly guest from the world of children’s entertainment. I think dooyoo’s description is quite revealing in terms of the calibre of celebrity in question, as the most impressive guest it can cite is Richard McCourt. As you all remember, McCourt was one of the biggest celebrity household names in the mid-nineties even before becoming Dick from the disappointing Dick and Dom double act; everyone at my school had the Richard McCourt pencil case and sticker album with 150 stickers of his smiling face to collect, there was the SNES game adaptation of his career, and even that limited edition range of crisps renamed to ‘Salt and McCourt’ flavour in his honour, so I’m impressed that they managed to snag him for this show instead of all those popular singers, footballers and actors who they presumably couldn’t be bothered with, but totally could have afforded.
Even the briefest description of this show’s content – the Chuckle Brothers present a children’s desert island game show with a trolley full of stuff to win – will probably give you a 100% accurate idea of how pointless and terrible this show was. Nothing can account for it spanning three series (especially when gold like ‘Incredible Games’ only lasted for two), but it was presumably low-budget and generic enough to provide adequate schedule filler when CBBC couldn’t quite dish out for another expensive American cartoon series. Contrary to the opinion I might have given across in this review, I was actually a big fan of the Chuckle Brothers and still have a degree of respect for them, though more in a laughing-at-them way these days (and they were never as funny or inventive as Trevor & Simon, but miles ahead of the aforementioned Dick and Dom that kids have to settle for these days), but this was so far removed from the glory of ‘Chucklevision’ that their very presence was more like an insult. Against all odds, ‘Chucklevision’ is still being produced on a yearly basis, and celebrated its twentieth anniversary this year. Oh dear oh dear.
Advantages: Probably inexpensive to make, and kids went away with prizes so some happiness came from it.
Disadvantages: The show in general.
Ulysses 31
I'm So Retro
****
Written on 16.10.07
Another cartoon series frequently used (fairly accurately) by geeks in their late twenties to justify why old cartoons were better than the rubbish kids have to put up with nowadays, ‘Ulysses 31’ was a science fiction retelling of famous Greek myths that will never see a revamped, updated version given to the likes of He-Man, Transformers and the Turtles simply because it’s just about the most Eighties cartoon that was ever made.
The idea is brilliantly simple; clever and crazy at the same time. Just as George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy consciously updated the classical monomyth for contemporary audiences, and then set it in space, Jean Chalopin and Nina Wolmark of French cartoon production company DIC took the basic outline of Homer’s Odyssey and then, well, set that in space too. (Remember DIC? Oh, we had endless laughs about that one. “Bwah-bwah, bwah – DIC.” Ha ha ha). The end result is the typical high space adventure of many early 80s cartoons, but with quite good plots all adapted in some way from the Greek stories of Homer and others, featuring space age extrapolations of the stories of Sisyphus, Orpheus, the Sirens, the Riddle of the Sphinx, the Minotaur’s Labyrinth, the witch Circe, as well as the gratuitous name-dropping of other Greek figures and places.
The sci-fi transformation is just about as obvious and uncomplicated as it could possibly be, with the kingdoms and ports of old now represented by planets and orbiting space stations, the galactic ‘sea’ also posing dangers to the crew of the spaceship Odyssey in the form of space storms and unlikely space glaciers. Equipment and weapons are similarly given the hi-tech treatment, and no attempt is made to disguise Ulysses’ energy sword as anything other than a lightsaber. The series only lasted for a single run of twenty-six episodes before ending conclusively and finally as the Odyssey reached its intended destination of the Kingdom of Hades, and this grants an unexpected level of class and modesty to the series at a time when syndicated cartoons would seem to last forever, but never really go anywhere (it also means that there really aren’t all that many to sit through if you intend on watching them all).
While the writers may have feared cancellation and upsetting young fans if they had left the plot open for a second season that never arrived (like ‘Pirates of Dark Water’ – what was that all about? They only found about half of the Thirteen Treasures before it suddenly vanished from the airwaves), I would guess that the decision was also a matter of necessity: Homer was doing most of their writing, and they’d adapted most of his ideas now, even leading to some drastic deviation with episodes like ‘Before the Flood’ which tells the story of Noah’s Ark, taken from a completely different work of classical fiction altogether. Despite the focus on single episode stories, the larger plot objectives of the series loom constantly in the background, the need for star maps to Earth figuring loosely into each adventure. And just in case any forgetful viewers or newcomers were confused about the constant referrals to Zeus, the Odyssey’s comatose crew or the general aimless space-faring that dominates the series, each episode’s memorable opening sequence features the customary plot outline before the cheesy and ever so enjoyable 80s electro-rock theme begins in earnest.
As a DIC production, the animation and production values are all high and impressive, even if the series now looks very dated in a cool, retro way. The characters are all colourful and distinct, from the bearded, smooth-talking hero Ulysses and his slightly annoying son Telemachus to the more outlandish characters in the form of the telepathic blue alien Yumi and Telemachus’ really annoying robot buddy Nono, who fulfils the same role of small, pointless, child-pleasing idiot as Slimer in ‘The Real Ghostbusters,’ Snarf in ‘Thundercats’ and Orko in ‘Masters of the Universe.' The stylised realism of the characters and the detailed, lavishly painted backgrounds and space shots reveal the production’s ties with Japanese anime, and like many imports there’s a tendency for the voice actors to speak their lines incredibly fast to keep up with the translation, making it a little exhausting and difficult to get into at the beginning. Still, despite these drawbacks and the fairly formulaic plots, ‘Ulysses 31’ remains one of the better animated series from that largely silly decade, winning bonus ridiculous points for basing itself on an extended metaphor that absolutely no-one of the intended viewing demographic, or even many of their older siblings or parents, are going to notice.
Perhaps a little too wordy and exotic for fans of more explosive sci-fi like ‘Transformers’ and ‘MASK,’ or more action-packed sci-fi fantasy in a more traditional setting such as ‘Masters of the Universe’ and ‘Thundercats,’ this series is a fair and slightly overlooked competitor to them all. In particular, as a space-bound show it’s a lot better than that rubbish late 80s ‘New Adventures of He-Man’ that tried to re-launch the characters in a similar setting. It’s a shame DIC never made anything along the lines of ‘Jesus 2179,’ revising the Gospels and Jesus’ parables in an outer space setting and adding an annoying, stupid character to hang around with Luke, but now it’s 18 years too late.
The complete Region 2 DVD has been released by Contender. Watch the opening theme on YouTube, it’s most excellent.
Advantages: Interesting futuristic revision of classical Greek myths for 80s kids.
Disadvantages: Suffers in translation and requires huge suspension of disbelief to avoid realising how stupid it is
***
Written on 04.10.07
‘Uncle Jack’ was an environmentally-themed drama series for children that ran for four series on Children’s BBC in the early 1990s. All four series were written by Jim Eldridge and starred former musician Paul Jones in the title role as Jack Green, a chirpy middle-aged bloke in a woolly jumper with a concern for the environment and some important ties to the science and intelligence industries. Despite the increasingly ludicrous plots, Jack’s nemesis invariably winds up being The Vixen, played by Fenella Fielding of (much earlier) ‘Carry On’ fame, and Jack is able to enlist the help of bumbling MI5 agents in uncovering and hopefully dismantling the fiendish plots.
‘Uncle Jack and the Loch Ness Monster’ was the second series of six episodes, following the previous year’s ‘Uncle Jack and Operation Green,’ which I never saw. Continuing with similar themes of pollution, dangerous chemicals and high-level conspiracies, it’s also the first point at which the series veers into the fantastical territory that would spiral somewhat out of control with the moon bases and mummies of later years. It’s also the last to feature Jack’s family, whose mixture of embarrassment and awe at his actions and his incessant need to involve himself with everything make for an entertaining backdrop that keeps this series grounded mostly in reality; the bickering married parents known only as Mr. and Mrs. Stevens lend a familiar family sitcom feel to the proceedings, and the obligatory children in the form of Michael, Kate and annoying newcomer Tammy are mostly played by competent child actors, the latter being forgivable due to her slightly younger age and need to be an irritating pain due to script demands.
The plot begins with Jack accompanying his sister’s family on a holiday retreat to the Highlands, only to find that their cousin Angus has been missing for several days, leaving his daughter Tammy alone at home (as her mother died a year earlier). Sensing a disturbance in the Force, Jack investigates Angus’ last known whereabouts by the nearby Loch Noch accompanied by the children, despite the claims of local villagers that Angus is always disappearing and it’s nothing to be worried about. Jack discovers the presence of toxic waste, pointing to a suspicious illegal dumping made even more suspect by the sudden fencing off of the whole area, and the eco-friendly adventurer sets about uncovering the sinister plot of the bearded pantomime villains before the Vixen can learn the secrets of the ooze and sculpt her own slime golem in the form of the fabled Loch Noch Monster!
Paul Jones bears the burden of the lead role very well, despite seeming more like someone you’d expect to be presenting a TV show with puppets or actors in animal suits rather than an Indiana Jones/Bond spy hero, and when Fenella Fielding is involved towards the end she manages to steal the show as usual with some fantastically camp pantomime overacting, clearly loving being the villain of the piece. The other notable good guys are M and Agent 7, whose incompetent MI5 operatives would clearly fail if not for the level-headed assistance of Jack and his nieces and nephew, and as cheap comic relief, these were the only characters to return for the later series apart from the leads. Being set and filmed on location in northern Scotland, most of the extras have strong Scottish dialects that add to the realism and also participates helpfully in the BBC’s push towards national representation at the time, in contrast to the Received Pronunciation of Jack and his middle-class kin.
It’s likely a sign of progressive times that the Scottish dialect and customs aren’t played for laughs as they would be in other comedy-tinged series, requiring the humour to come from far more outlandish sources, most memorably the Post Office worker and Jack engaging in an embarrassing conversation of early 90s street slang, according to the out-of-touch writer’s very wrong idea of what this entails. It amused me greatly for this reason alone. On the whole, the humour is more natural and character-based in these early series before the descent into stupid oafishness with ‘Uncle Jack and Cleopatra’s Tomb’ that I remember being really disappointed by even though I was about eight when it first aired (I’ve always been a connoisseur of pointlessness), and the plot develops at a fairly steady pace across the six episodes in the manner customary to BBC serials until recent years, whether written for children or adults. It wasn’t repeated as much as the last two Uncle Jack series, and was never released on video.
The second entry in the Uncle Jack quadrilogy is fairly mediocre for a children’s drama series, providing the necessary laughs and excitement at a fairly slow pace, but conveying its ecological message particularly well, even if its presentation of a pollution-created monster is a considerable stretch of allegory. I remember its successor ‘Uncle Jack and the Dark Side of the Moon’ more fondly than this, for bringing a similarly sci-fi plot more down-to-earth and locating it in a school, but at least this series may have given young and neglected viewers in Scotland something to relate to, even if it does suggest that their country hasn’t evolved much beyond the eighteenth century in terms of architecture and morals. It’s still obviously better than anything churned out for kids today (and by extension, considerably worse than anything from ten years earlier according to people older than me – and so it goes on), but ‘Uncle Jack and the Loch Ness Monster’ was fairly inconsequential in comparison to contemporary shows such as ‘The Tomorrow People’ and ‘Watt on Earth.’ (It was better than the long-running ‘Mike and Angelo’ though, which was rubbish).
Advantages: Entertaining and original children's drama that doesn't talk down to its viewers.
Disadvantages: The humour is sparse and almost always ridiculous, and the plot far too stretched.
****
Written on 09.10.07
The third series of Jim Eldridge's Children's BBC drama 'Uncle Jack' is probably also the best, with a higher level of excitement, involvement and humour than before, although the series' original environmental focus falls by the wayside in favour of a creepy science fiction plot that wouldn't be out of place in 'Doctor Who.' Jack Green's niece Kate writes to her uncle asking him to investigate mysterious goings-on at her boarding school in the fictional West Country town of Brimley-Crompton, where her friend Simon has been detained by the nurse under the suspicious story of a highly infectious disease (that the nurse seems oddly unaffected by). Also receiving a phone call from his old friends M and Dorothy, now expelled from MI5 presumably due to their incompetence and sent to work in a weather monitoring station in the same area, Jack begins to smell a conspiratorial plot involving the highest level of the school, strange stones in its gardens, human weather control and the dark side of the Moon. No, not the Pink Floyd album, the actual one.
Paul Jones returns for the third time as Jack Green and seems more suited to the part now that his grey jumper has been replaced with the more traditional suit of a secret agent, and his arch nemesis the Vixen is once again played to perfection by Carry On's Fenella Fielding. The switch of location to a boarding school is carried off well and actually manages to generate a real interest and involvement with child viewers through its careful and accurate handling of school life (also achieved in other early 90s shows like early 'Bodger & Badger' and the really bad 'Out of Tune'), and means that Jack's other relatives are absent this time round, Kate herself oddly being played by Sarah Lambert, the sister of the original actress Helen Lambert who played the part in previous years. Sarah is teamed up with a self-consciously multi-racial child spy team (played by the young Elaine Tan and Amon Dsane) who assist Jack as he goes against the school's ruling body and the clichéd naughty boy Kevin, who happens to be the conniving headmaster's son. With Roger Hammond and Tricia George returning as the comic relief characters M and Dorothy, and Coronation Street's Jimmi Harkishin getting a larger role this time round for his questionable stupid Spaniard Jose Cuervo, the ensemble is stronger and more relevant here than in previous years, where additional family members tended to get in the way of all the frivolous snooping with their serious attitudes and moralising. There's none of that here.
The plot evolves at a steady and enjoyable pace across the six episodes without ever really becoming dull, and it's clear that Eldridge has mastered the suspenseful cliffhanger by this point, usually being based around increasingly destructive forms of directed weather, from a tornado to an approaching tidal wave. Setting it in a school makes it especially exciting as the children are shown to be in constant danger (sort of like Doctor Who's 'Remembrance of the Daleks' when the Dalek base of operations was revealed to be in the school cellar - yikes!), and once again Children's BBC recruit talented child actors who don't just speak their lines off-key and look in the wrong direction; they're all pretty good. The Vixen's moonbase and the weird cairn stones in the school grounds tie this series to the 1970s tradition of children's sci-fi drama such as 'Children of the Stones' and the original 'Tomorrow People,' and it works just as successfully for the early 90s generation of viewers, myself included. While I didn't glean any valuable ecological lessons from this series as I did with its predecessor, it did teach me what a tidal wave was, and that you should never trust a theatrical sword.
'Dark Side of the Moon' is also much funnier than the previous series, and still makes me laugh through the audacity of its really over-the-top wordplay. The school's moronic Spanish janitor Jose Cuervo is the worst offender (a really positive stereotype there, BBC), messing up his sole attempt to fill in as teacher by giving his whole class detention when they laugh at him and correct him about his use of the term "a flock of cows."
"A herd of cows," Errol corrects.
"Course I've heard of cows, I wouldn't be teaching about them otherwise would I? Detention!" Cuervo yells in his stereotypical Spanish accent, before getting into a similar conversation about the cow's "hide."
Another such forced instance comes when Jack tries to deter the affections of a teacher who is also his biggest fan, with exchanges such as: "Do you know how much I yearn?"/"Um, about £15,000 a year?" and "I think you may be under a misapprehension."/"No, I'm under a fluorescent light." The series starts as it means to go on by cracking a pun about wind and baked beans before the show's even passed its first minute, but with the exception of the possible racism it's all fairly harmless fun, and probably there as much for any parents being forced to watch along with their children. Or just pretending to be forced...
This third series of Uncle Jack finally gets all the ingredients right for a successful children's drama, but has to compromise its roots and look back to successes of the seventies in order to do so. The fourth and final series that followed a year later, 'Uncle Jack and Cleopatra's Tomb,' raised the daft racism and stupid joke quotient to a level that was even intolerable to the eight-year-old me by having a main character named Mustafa Peepee leading to all sorts of "hilarious" dialogue exchanges, and Eldritch wisely decided to call it a day thereafter. Either that, or they just never asked him back. 'Uncle Jack and the Dark Side of the Moon' was repeated regularly enough within a couple of years of its broadcast for me to become fairly sick of it, and it was never released on video or DVD, but still retains a minority fan base by people dedicated to preserving pointless memories. Cool series.
Watt on Earth
Transanimateobjectify
***
Written on 23.10.07 [2016 rewatch]
‘Watt on Earth’ was one of the more memorable children’s sci-fi dramas of the early 1990s, created and written by husband and wife team Pip and Jane Baker, whose previous work included four ‘Doctor Who’ serials from the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy eras as well as episodes of Gerry Anderson’s live-action series ‘Space: 1999.’ Based on the premise of an alien arriving on Earth and being kept safe and hidden by a young boy, it was similar to the ludicrously long-running ‘Mike and Angelo’ and the briefer, more educational ‘Earth Warp,’ with the latter show’s moralistic threat of the corrupt human army replaced with a more terrifying alien in a black car.
The series was first broadcast, quite unusually, as twelve episodes across six weeks in late 1991, with fifteen-minute episodes broadcast on Mondays and Tuesdays, and returned for a second series of twelve in the same style a year later – after this it was repeated a few times into the mid-nineties. Despite seeming initially like a series based entirely on a rather bad pun title, it wasn’t all bad (the alien character’s name is “Watt,” and he is, as I have explained, “on Earth,” hence literally “Watt on Earth.” Do you see? Would you like me to take you through it again?)
The suitably camp and enthusiastic Garth Napier Jones put in a convincing performance as the titular eccentric alien prince, who claims to be over three hundred years old but appears to be a relatively young man with the attitude of an eight-year-old boy, and the child actor who plays the character of Sean opposite him (Tom Brodie) performs at the usual high standard of Children’s BBC performers. Other main characters include Sean’s irritating and duplicitous sister Zoe (Jessica Simpson – no, not that one), their relatively dull parents and one of the most frightening characters from my childhood, the sinister Jemadah.
Although he claims to be next in line for the throne on his home world, Watt has fled to Earth to escape his evil, unnamed, unseen uncle who seems intent on killing him, and who has sent his loyal servant Jemadah to track Watt down in Haxton, where he has somehow ended up. Watt’s race possess the power to transform into exact duplicates of familiar objects (or to use the show’s technical term, “transanimateobjectify”), but true to his foolish character, Watt’s replicas are always significantly flawed imitations, such as a dual-stalked apple and a square golf ball. Although resembling a human most of the time for ease of interaction with his new friend Sean, who discovers him as a malfunctioning lightbulb that his mother throws away (cheesily exclaiming “what on Earth?” as she does so), Watt can be picked out from the rest of homo sapiens for his garish green and black tracksuit and, even more shockingly, backwards-facing ears. Perhaps fearing that the prosthetic make-up wasn’t as convincing as it could be, or that the character wasn’t quite flamboyant enough, the second series saw Watt return in an even more striking pink version of his outfit, the green now having drained to his new forward-facing ears. Fortunately, his bowl-cut provides suitable enough camouflage whenever he is required to be out and about, rather than simply hiding in Sean’s cupboard eating his preferred choice of dog food in tomato ketchup.
This was never going to be a ground-breaking series, or even a particularly impressive one, but Pip and Jane Baker managed to inject enough tension and drama to keep young viewers hooked throughout. Jemadah was an effectively chilling presence, occasionally tracking Watt down and being temporarily thwarted in the nick of time, and as each series moved towards its conclusion, things got about as exciting and nail-biting as they could possibly get in kid’s TV (the spy-glass sequences of ‘Knightmare’ perhaps excluded). When it wasn’t being scary, it was pretty daft, from endless repetition of jokes about Sean’s odd, reclusive behaviour and his ignorant parents, who worked for the local newspaper yet were unable to smell the breaking news occurring within their own house. Watt’s character was largely used for simplistic comic relief, often through his contrived inability to understand human customs, and it’s fairly surprising that it was commissioned for a second series. However, feeling that their work was done at the end of twenty-four episodes, the Bakers rounded things off definitively and blandly with a proper conclusion.
‘Watt on Earth’ remains memorable, but apart from the fear factor I’m not quite sure why. It certainly doesn’t have as large a nostalgia-based presence on the internet as other shows of the time, but it’s always nice to have a trip down memory lane and realise just how many of one’s crucial formative years were wasted in front of the idiot’s lantern. It’s a show that I can’t really see returning in a similar form – the plot of a fully grown man asking a young boy to hide him in a cupboard above his bed and not tell his parents might not be as popular in today’s overly cautious society – but it may have had some small role in shaping the future of similar children’s sitcoms and dramas, such as that really annoying ‘My Parents Are Aliens’ thing that my brother used to watch. This series was definitely repeated circa 1995 as I remember a scene where Sean played ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ in a sleazy bit of BBC product placement and I remember being particularly excited by that. Maybe this show never was that good after all...
Advantages: The enemy was really scary.
Disadvantages: The rest was pretty daft.
I have decided to limit this to children’s TV shows and specifically the fact that they used to be a lot better than the rubbish you get nowadays. It’s not just that I’ve grown up and have fond childhood memories overpowering my more adult perspective now, it isn’t. And if any older people consider their rubbish old children’s shows like Trumpton to be loads better than the rubbish I used to watch then they are just weird. These are best.
A bit like when I limited my A-Z Music Challenge entry to the metal genre, but different because this is kid’s shows and therefore no place for sweaty men playing loud and swearing (except in that episode of Tom and Jerry where a pirate said “bloody” and parents phoned in to complain).
I don’t watch these shows now though (I’m not strange), but all of these shows had some effect on me growing up. Whether it was influencing my judgement, educating me or making me laugh, they all represent some of the best quality children’s shows produced by the BBC and American organisations from the late eighties to the early nineties. As usual, some letters were less popular than others.
ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES
A classic cartoon series that spawned comics and poster magazines but was never repeated, this saw some regular American teenagers joining the Ant-Killer Tomatoes league (or something) in wiping out the evil, flying, huge tomatoes crated by an evil scientist who was green. He didn’t like being called a mad scientist though, he preferred ‘angry’ scientist, but aside from the fact that the tomatoes came in different colours and different types (the big red ones were the scariest) I can remember little about this series. I could do with seeing it again really, I remember really loving it.
BENN, MR
An older one I think, judging by the quality of the animation, this was a show that had a very limited run but was repeated again and again. I always watched it though. Mr. Benn himself was a very boring person until he went into the clothes shop where the fez-wearing shopkeeper appeared “as if by magic” and showed him to the changing room. The theme tune was very memorable, although the only episode I can clearly recall is a George & the Dragon-style story.
CHUCKLEVISION
One of my favourite programmes from my youth to the extent that I even wrote a review on it a while ago, this saw Paul and Barry Chuckle botching up every job they ever took on in their multi-skilled organisation transported by a rubbish pedal cart thing. I saw the Brothers live in 1995 and I loved the show; despite its target audience it seemed a lot more dedicated to providing genuine laughs than most other shows and is still going today.
DREAM STONE, THE
I can only remember this vaguely, but I think that’s why it left such an impression. A cartoon series with a comparatively epic storyline concerning two green furry animal things and their innocent, holy quest to recover the sparkling eponymous stone from the fiery pits of a huge demon man who was basically purple Satan. This is the programme from the list that I would really love to see again, even if it ruined the memories, as I was gripped by what seemed like a truly huge storyline between good and evil.
EARLY BIRD
This early morning show was like the CBBC broom cupboard in that it introduced shows from a studio, but it was better because instead of having a cool puppet like Edd the Duck, Otis the Aardvark or that stupid computer animated cat (remember that?) and a boring human it simply had a big blue bird thing that talked. Early Bird (for ‘twas his name) read out some jokes on his show and that was where I learnt my very first joke: what do you get if you cross an elephant with a fish? Swimming trunks. I laughed all day. Early Bird featured shows such as Dangermouse, Penny Crayon and the Gophers, some strange American sitcom about a family of people in gopher suits. Like Dinosaurs (remember that?) but rubbish.
FUNHOUSE
One of my clearest memories of my very young youth, aside from colouring pictures with my Granddad, is seeing Pat Sharpe’s long hair and wondering why he had girl’s hair. ‘Funhouse’ was the ultimate in messy kid’s gameshows until the less impressive ‘Get Your Own Back’ came along, but the only real points of interest were the red and yellow cars racing around and collecting tokens and of course the Fun House itself with all its hidden delights. I must have seen every episode of this, even though they were all exactly the same.
GHOSTBUSTERS, THE REAL
My second craze when I was young (the order went: Batman, Ghostbusters, Turtles. Each conveniently corresponded to a Christmas), this was either based on the film or on the original comic series, if there was one. I never did understand the ‘real’ part, but this was quite well animated and seemed to be based loosely on the Japanese anime style in terms of the character movements. This was actually no better than a lot of other cartoons but it had a brilliant title sequence and song and I did have most of the merchandise. I liked Slimer bestest.
HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
A cartoon that has now become a cult hit among many obese, geeky Americans (no, not the entire population. Good joke though, if a little racist), He-Man was one of the most exciting and well-devised cartoons from my youth, and one that I can’t remember seeing after the age of about four. Like Conan (the Barbarian, not the O’Brien) if he was drawn and had companions with stupid names such as ‘Buzzoff’ (a bee) and ‘Extendar’ (who could extend his neck). My friend has a very old Masters of the Universe annual which superbly fails to capture the spirit and atmosphere of the show.
INSPECTOR GADGET
Forget the fact that they made a film a couple of years ago or something like that, the cartoon is a definite reminder of my childhood. Gadget worked for the police or some special intelligence division I expect, and his body had been altered so he could extend his limbs and neck out to vast distances and also fashion appliances and transportation from said limbs. Accompanied for some reason by his niece Penny and some orange dog, Gadget’s enemy lived in a submarine and had a deep, booming voice. Aside from the nostalgia, this was a fairly average cartoon but it did have a weird atmosphere that I can’t put my finger on.
JIMBO AND THE JET SET
Jimbo was a fat plane with a face who lived in ‘London Airport’ with a load of other fat planes with faces, all with different personalities. It was a bit rubbish, but I’m amazed I used to watch it as much as I did – I can remember the theme song so clearly it’s scary, especially the ginger bearded controller shouting “Jimbo-o-o!” at the end after the cheeky plane smashed his windows. Very short.
KNIGHTMARE
When I saw this being repeated on Challenge TV recently I received the biggest blast from the past since [insert rubbish fart/curry joke here if you like]. Young people, some a little older than they should have been really, guiding their friends around a bluescreen environment covered with images of dungeons, forests and Smirkenorff the dragon. Presented by Hugo Myatt as Treguard, this was the brainchild of Tim Child who saw the potential of computer game-style shows to appeal to the late eighties to early nineties kids. Yes, I’ve done my research: I wrote a review of this a while ago as well. One of my favourites here, this took me to the brink of fear, happiness and grippedness.
LIVE, GOING
The forerunner to Live & Kicking and obviously better because it was less popular (you must know that’s how my mind works by now). Presented by Philip Schofield, Gordon the Gopher and a woman that was possibly Anthea Turner, but I can’t remember. No, it probably wasn’t. Cartoons included Muppet Babies and the virtual reality competition was very basic – some kind of fishing thing. I could obviously write a whole lot more about Live & Kicking, but this was earlier and has fonder memories.
MAID MARIAN AND HER MERRY MEN
A long-running live action series created by the great Tony Robinson, who also starred as the cunning Sheriff of Nottingham. Maid Marian led her band of merry men, which included the foolish Robin Hood, into situations where they would somehow end up helping Ye Peasants at the expense of the bad guys. This was highly enjoyable and featured several familiar faces from TV including Danny John-Jules (‘Cat’ from Red Dwarf) as Barrington, who would often sing. Kind of like Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Jabberwocky if they were scaled down for kids.
NARNIA, THE CHRONICLES OF
One of the Sunday evening children’s drama series, this was the successful television adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s fantasy books, even though the cast was mainly the kind of children I used to find really annoying and Aslan the lion was incredibly fake. That didn’t matter at the time though. The BBC continued this series to cover some of the other books in the series, my favourite of which was ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader.’ I read some of the books in later years and found them even better, but I wouldn’t like them now. I’m not a child any more, how many times do I have to tell you?
OVIDE
An anagram of ‘video,’ something the show never tired of mentioning, this was a Sunday morning cartoon on Channel 4 about some Australian or New Zealandic animals living in trees or something like that. I remember getting quite into it when it was on, but I would never think about it the rest of the time. I think Ovide himself was a duck-billed platypus, but I can’t remember any other animals except for those things that hang upside down on trees and are furry, whatever they’re called. My Dad was quite familiar with this show.
PLANET, CAPTAIN
The ultimate in environmentally friendly kid’s TV, every episode of this popular cartoon series dealt with ecological issues, although I didn’t realise this until a couple of years later. The blue Captain Planet wasn’t particularly impressive, but he was summoned when the Planeteers (five people representing just about every creed, colour and sex on the planet) combined their magic rings and the elements earth, fire, wind, water and heart (because that’s an element isn’t it?) It was quite good and must have been quite high-budget for all the famous voice artists it attracted, including Whoopi Goldberg.
QUICKDRAW MCGRAW
A bit too mainstream and old for this list, but this Hanna Barbera cartoon series does register as a powerful childhood memory: when I was about five I had a terrible nightmare that the house was on fire and I couldn’t get out, and when I looked at the floor I saw red, fleshy squares that had fallen off my body. When I awoke I went downstairs and put the TV on and Quickdraw was on – after a couple of minutes he was hit by some enemy and comically shattered into squares. That was scary. Anyway, Quickdraw McGraw there.
ROLF’S CARTOON CLUB
The best thing Rolf Harris ever did before he started messing with animals, the wee-drinking Australian gett. I loved everything about this show and always wished I was a little bit older so I could have sent some pictures in or even joined the elite kids on their Amiga 1200s in the studio. The biggest lasting impression this show left is that I can never look at Ireland on a map without thinking it looks like a koala thanks to a Rolferoo gag on one episode. The opening sequence was again a highlight as Rolf exploited his strange breathing noises, didgeridoo and wobble-board skills to the max.
STOPPIT AND TIDY-UP
This was one of the weirdest and therefore obviously coolest Children’s BBC shows for very young children, shown early in the day along with Playdays, Family Ness and the birthday cards. It was based on some odd land where creatures that looked a little bit like Monster Munch monsters (the old sort, not this new rubbish) hung out and did stuff. ‘Stoppit’ was an orange hairball thing that lived in a rubbish dump while ‘Tidy-Up’ was a purple guy with a tie who lived in a clean house. The title sequence featured a parade of each character, including some bees I can’t remember the name of, ‘Clean-Your-Teeth’ and the only nasty guy, ‘The Big Bad I Said No!’ I’d like to see this again, I think it was narrated by Terry Wogan.
THUNDERCATS
No I’m not going to put the Turtles, even though they technically had more of an influence on me judging by the assorted posters in my room (then, not now). Thundercats is similar to He-Man in that many people growing up in the eighties still love it. The fools – it was excellent at the time though, the time being between about 1989 and 1993. The Thundercats were alien cat-based humanoids who had crashed on a lush forest world and defended their base against the attacks of the evil Mumm-Ra, one of the best-looking cartoon enemies ever. Even though they did re-use the same animation every single time he morphed from his haggard to beast forms.
UNCLE JACK…
A live action show that had several series, each based on a single plot spread over a number of episodes. ‘Uncle Jack and the Loch Ness Monster’ was the first series (that I know of) which I can hardly remember. ‘Uncle Jack and the Dark Side of the Moon’ was repeated far more and involved a mad woman called the Vixen summoning tidal wives with the power of the moon and ‘Uncle Jack and Cleopatra’s Tomb,’ or something like that, was fairly self-explanatory. It did rely on the same joke of a man’s name Mustafa Peepee far too much though. Well acted and quite funny, as well as exciting.
VICTOR & HUGO: BUNGLERS IN CRIME
The least well-known of the three great Cosgrove Hall cartoons (Dangermouse, Count Duckula), this was actually my favourite. Victor and Hugo (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert and David Jason) were French criminals who drove a ramshackle yellow van and hung around London getting into all sorts of bother. The Cosgrove Hall cartoons (created in Manchester) were all aimed at a larger audience than simply young children and as such I still enjoyed watching my Victor & Hugo video until about the time I grew hair in new places.
WATT ON EARTH
A live-action series about a quite camp alien on Earth, staying with a child for protection (that’s realistic). His name was ‘Watt’ and although a series based completely on a mistaken line in the very first show should have been doomed to failure, this was actually quite good. Watt was the prince of some alien land and his shape-shifting skills were not up to the standards of his nemesis Jemmadar – in the first series Watt’s ears were backwards (excellent prosthetic work, or probably not) but in the second series they were green. This actually got quite tense and gripping sometimes as the ominous Jemmadar was a very, very scary enemy who could never quite be seen.
TOXIC CRUSADERS
Okay, I was stuck for an X and I had to give this series its due credit! The characters in this series were genetically mutated freaks of nature who lived in a rubbish dump and who fought against pollution caused by the evil Dr. Smog. Toxie was a green, hideous guy in a ballerina tutu with a mop that was alive (he had fallen in a drum of toxic waste. In reality this would obviously kill him), Nosone was previously a pilot and had an enormous conk, Major Disaster was a plant-based ex-army guy, Junkyard was a dog-man who liked humping trees, Yvonne was just some woman who liked hanging around with them all (for some reason) and there was a two-headed guy who was a fusion of a surfer ‘dood’ and a grumpy scientist. It was somehow an amazing cartoon though!
YOU AND ME
This wasn’t that good, and it was basically two Geordi-speaking puppets in a studio who would talk to the human presenters a bit, but it represents the only time I saw a book that I owned being read from on the TV. It was a Billy Goats Gruff book of the same edition that I had, although probably without the wax crayon scribbles on all the blank pages, and had some nice artwork. The title theme was annoying though and had clearly been developed in about two minutes: “you and me, me and you, lots of fun, and things to do.” I used to watch some rubbish too, I admit it.
ZED AND THE ZEE ZONE, CAPTAIN
Clearly a bit of a forced choice for the Z, but I did enjoy this programme a lot. It’s one that I can’t remember too well but that I remember being quite funny, in a cheesy US cartoon kind of way (which means it was less impressive than Dangermouse, etc.) I remember once having a dream when I was about seven that I was hanging out with one of the female sheep characters from this series and having a good time, but there was no affection. I am not, as I have stated many times, strange.
CONCLUSION
I hope this has brought back memories of bygone days for some people as it did with me. There are plenty more shows where they came from, so here are some names that could hopefully stir more of that nostalgic feeling:
Bangers and Mash, Bitsa, Conan the Adventurer, Count Duckula, Dangermouse, Defenders of the Earth, Eggs and Baker, Greenclaws, Greenfingers, Grotbags, Happy Families, Highlander, It’ll Never Work, Pigeon Street, Pirates of Dark Water, Quackula, Robinson Sucroe, Rod and Emu, Rude Dog and the Dweebs, Sharky and George, Shoe People, Space Vets, Spiff and Hercules, Wacaday.
Advantages: Nostalgia overload, Some genuine classics, Mixture of live action and animation
Disadvantages: Not too many shows began with Z or X, I would find some quite rubbish now, You might have grown up in the 70s
80s Kid's Pointless Nostalgia
Written on 06.08.06
So I finally gave in and wrote a top ten review. On one of my favourite subjects no less: completely worthless self-indulgent nostalgia that wastes everyone’s time! Here are the ten best children’s shows from the late 80s and very early 90s, as decided by my three- to six-year-old self at the time, I expect. None of this is new to me, as I had a big nostalgia craze a couple of years ago, which led me to write a ridiculously detailed and overlong opinion on this site. This one is much shorter.
It would be unfair to put these into some kind of ascending order, as I liked them for different reasons. So instead, I’ve grouped them into three rough categories.
BRITISH LIVE-ACTION STUFF
Tony Robinson’s Maid Marian and Her Merry Men was an action packed historical-based sitcom for children, with the spirit of Blackadder and the budget of ‘The Brittas Empire.’ In fact, most of my favourite programmes when I was growing up were British sitcoms, but this category’s not really the place. Episodes were usually exciting, the actors were all pretty professional and familiar, and I remember a fair amount of funny stuff too, unlike the BBC’s attempt to create a kids’ version of Red Dwarf with ‘Space Vets,’ which was rubbish.
My favourite gameshow of all time is still Broadsword’s Knightmare. I’ve written about it on here before so I won’t go into too much detail again, but produced by an aspiring computer programmer and Dungeons & Dragons geek, Knightmare saw child contestants attempting quests in a virtual reality fantasy environment. The program was repetitive in a good way, just like a real computer game of the time, but full of interesting scenarios, crude graphics and genuine terrifying moments, if you’re five.
Finally, I have to admit to loving Chucklevision. Seeing brothers Paul and Barry get into predictable scrapes every week never got tiresome for the young idiot that I was, and although it was kind of annoying, I really enjoyed the brothers’ repetitive banter (‘to me, to you,’ ‘oh dear oh dear,’ you know the stuff). I saw them live in 1995, but the only thing I remember is the two real-life brothers collapsing into laughter as Paul prepared to slice a cucumber that Barry was holding as if it was his penis. These guys have inexplicably been going for 19 years.
CORPORATE AMERICAN ACTION FIGURE CARTOONS
I was never a big ‘Masters of the Universe’ or ‘Transformers’ fan, the two most notable cartoons that were created entirely as half-hour advertisements for action figures, but I did get heavily into some of the other crazes, conveniently around Christmas time. I was so sickeningly mainstream in those days. The least prominent in my collection was Thundercats, which was nevertheless a great series that followed the adventures of some rebel alien feline-humanoids who were stranded on a jungle planet. The heroes were inconsequential in comparison to their mummified enemy Mumm-Ra, who was clearly the coolest bad guy in history, and who I attempted to dress up as last Halloween. I looked more like Little Red Riding Hood with a blue face.
The Real Ghostbusters was an animated spin-off of the 1984 film, and probably became equally popular in its day, to the extent that ‘Ghostbusters 2’ was deliberately made more appealing to children, and therefore quite a rubbish film. The series was pretty good, and the plots were nicely consistent throughout its run, even when the show became increasingly about Slimer, the friendly green ghost who was nevertheless limited. None of the characters looked much like their film equivalents, with the possible exception of Ray Stantz. Ghostbusters toys were the coolest of the lot.
Again I confess, I loved Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. They’ve re-made it now, with a plot more in line with Eastman and Laird’s original intentions when they parodied Frank Miller’s dark graphic novels with their ninja turtles in 1984. TMNT (which was called ‘Hero’ rather than ‘Ninja’ in the UK and Germany on the insistence of worried adults) lasted for a surprising seven years before switching formats, but its descent from interesting, serialised action show to daft kid’s comedy didn’t take all that long. The first couple of series are still pretty good, despite the Saturday morning cartoon flavour, and are available on DVD.
BRITISH CARTOONS
My favourite cartoon series were produced by the excellent Cosgrove Hall, though I was a bit too young to properly get into their most popular series, ‘Dangermouse.’ I loved Count Duckula, the adventures of a vegetarian vampire duck and his creepy housekeepers whose castle can teleport across the globe. As if that wasn’t enough, David Jason provided the enthusiastic voice of the lead character, and did a fantastic job. The series was only very very loosely based on Dracula, although Duckula did have an enemy in the form of Doctor Von Goosewing.
My favourite Cosgrove Hall cartoon was sadly their least successful, and the one that finally convinced them to move on to other pastures. Victor & Hugo: Bunglers in Crime had a similarly weird premise to Duckula: two incompetent French criminals, who can’t speak French very well, attempting to commit great crimes across London in the service of the unseen Mr. X with the aid of their ramshackle yellow van. Victor and Hugo were brilliantly inept, and the characters had some excellent banter. Jimmy Hibbert and David Jason again provide the voices of the main characters, Jason handling the beret-clad Hugo, the stupider of the two. I’d love to see this one again.
My penultimate choice wasn’t produced by Cosgrove Hall. Stoppit and Tidy Up was a short cartoon shown early in the morning on Children’s BBC, around the time they did the birthday cards and ‘Playdays.’ Terry Wogan narrated, as there were no character voices, making this obviously his best work to date. The opening titles were great, and consisted of a march from all the characters, one of whom would be the focus of the episode. Stoppit was a red ball of fur who lived in a rubbish dump, while Tidy Up was neat and purple and lived in a nice house. Their friends and enemies included Bee Have and Bee Quiet (who were bees), Clean Your Teeth and The Big Bad I Said No. It was a nice cheap thrill.
For the sake of completeness, I have to conclude with my baby favourite, Postman Pat. It didn’t have the stylistic action scenes of Thundercats or the dialogue of Chucklevision, but Pat’s simple, early morning deliveries to the residents of rural Greendale were very comforting when I was two. My mum assumed that I liked ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ better, to the point that my room was covered in Thomas wallpaper and bedclothes, but she guessed wrong. Pat and friends had enormous noses too.
They don’t make them like they used to. Well, maybe they do, and I’m just too old to notice now. Nah, I was right the first time. I’m sure that if your own nostalgia predates mine, your superior kid’s shows will put my stupid greedy ones to shame, that’s how these things work. Most of these shows are available on DVD. I also used to like ‘The Fiddly Foodle Bim Bam Boodle-oo Diddly Doodle Oodle Bird,’ but I think I was mainly won over by its name. Ha ha, it’s dead long! Ace.
Advantages: Helped shape the person I am today.
Disadvantages: Helped shape the person I am today.
A
Agent Z and the Penguin from Mars
The Chances of Penguins Coming From Mars Are Ten Billion to One
***
Written on 13.11.07
In the mid-nineties, Children’s BBC began negotiating a serialised dramatisation of popular children’s author Mark Haddon’s ‘Agent Z’ books, culminating in the one-off, six-part adaptation of the third, ‘Agent Z and the Penguin from Mars,’ in the first months of 1996. I enjoyed it at the time, but drifting back through the mists of time, and struggling to veer around the rose-tinted areas of my unreliable brain, I now realise it was a fairly average storyline with some really unlikeable characters and a plot that’s ludicrous and pointless even by CBBC drama standards.
The story centres on the eponymous Agent Z, a mysterious organisation operating in the Crane Grove area, wherever that is, leaving a trail of mild destruction and slight irritation in its wake. In reality, Agent Z’s secret identity is revealed to the viewers as three young school friends: Ben, Barney and Jenks (played by reasonably skilled child actors Duncan Barton, Andrew McKay and Reggie Yates), who set up the initiative as a way to have a laugh at the expense of those they didn’t like. That’s not to imply that these young whippersnappers are thugs or bullies; in fact, their pranks are primarily carried out as a form of justice or revenge, and their over-zealous attitude towards academic achievement, leading to Ben revising the next day’s school lessons beforehand so he can show off to the teacher, reveal Mark Haddon’s fairly unrealistic grasp of the child’s mind-set. Who would revise as a ‘prank?’ Even the ten-year-old me, a child geek watching this series and then reading the book on holiday through oversized square glasses when I was supposed to be running around on a beach, scoffed at the main character’s lack of cool.
Agent Z’s agenda in this series will necessarily take a bit of explaining, considering its rather confusing, sci-fi title. Apart from Ben’s elaborate, recurring dream sequences that the viewers are invited to intrude upon over the course of the series, the story is grounded in reality, at least according to Haddon’s view of how the world works. The target of this latest prank is Dennis Sidebottom, a wealthy lottery winner who moves in next-door to Ben’s family and who is just as pompous as his name would suggest. Blessed with a fiery temperament, an irritating delinquent of a son and a talented daughter who captures Ben’s young passion, the budding astronomer very soon grates on Ben’s nerves as he discovers Agent Z’ secret base of operations and accuses Ben of being a bad influence on his thieving son Todd, so Agent Z formulates an insanely complicated plan to drive him over the edge into insanity... or something. I was never quite sure to be honest, but it was convoluted enough to take up three hours of kid’s TV.
As Sidebottom is a space enthusiast, Ben and his gang of geeks devise a scenario in which Sidebottom will believe he has been visited by a Martian. They set about finding the ingredients: a suitable body for the creature, suggested as one of the robotic penguins outside a display in the shopping centre; a suitable vessel to act as its spaceship; a series of lighting and audio stimuli to enhance the experience; and the all-important final touch of a genuine meteorite left in Sidebottom’s possession as proof of his unearthly contact, bearing an unintelligible message that can nevertheless, through careful precision, be deciphered to read: “Dennis Sidebottom is a pompous wazzock.” You’ve got to hand it to those kids, they don’t mess around when it comes to expressing their opinions in a succinct, no-nonsense fashion.
In a way, this series was a load of complete rubbish, but it somehow worked and remained enjoyable throughout. Haddon’s book was the third in his Agent Z series, so by that point he had got to grips with the characters and their penchant for over-elaborate japes, and the TV series benefits from adapting it fairly loyally. The main changes are the substitution for a robotic penguin stolen from a shopping centre rather than a live one from a zoo as in the book, which would doubtless have proved very difficult to film (working with both children and animals together can’t be a pleasant experience), and in the casting changes, with a black actor for Jenks (as the book series received criticism for its lack of minority characters) and ignoring Haddon’s comments that Barney was supposed to be overweight. Whether you find them talented, cute or just annoying, the young actors were all plucked from the BBC’s ever-trusty bank of young, prepubescent talent, and I rarely had a problem with child performers on British TV (though I had it up to here with American kids...) The production values were fairly good, with Ben’s dream sequences being filmed in a far more elaborate location than his more lowly neighbourhood (however middle-class it may be), and the long-awaited alien visitation was ultimately pulled off with a commendable degree of success at the end of episode five, leaving the finale open for its unexpected and quite entertaining consequences, and a great twist that sees Sidebottom receiving an even greater comeuppance than even Agent Z could ever have imagined.
I never read any of the other Agent Z books so I can’t judge whether they would have made equally successful adaptations, but it seems that ‘Penguin from Mars’ was deemed the most viable. It’s well adapted to the format and for once most of the changes actually improve upon the original, as the idea of stealing a live penguin was a little far-fetched, though at six episodes it did drag on a little towards the end and wouldn’t stand up too well to repeat viewings, though I do remember it being repeated at least once a year or so later. It was never released on video or DVD and perhaps wasn’t quite original, classic or Eighties enough to be deemed a cult classic and worshipped through worthless fan websites, but give it a few years, and a few more successes for Haddon in the vein of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,’ and it may end up being rediscovered or better yet, re-made. The original actors have all reached their twenties now and appeared in various supporting roles in BBC sitcoms and dramas (they’re still recognisable in an entertaining way), but I’d guess that they hold fond memories of this production. I suppose that means the characters are all grown up now as well; I wonder if Ben ever got off with Samantha in the end?
Advantages: Silly, overcomplicated fun, presenting an interesting take on thoughtful youth rebellion.
Disadvantages: Significantly stretched in terms of both length and believability.
March of the Fascist Crows
****
Written on 14.12.07
Herman van Veen's often heartwarming, sometimes unnecessarily distressing cartoon series was one of the more memorable imports of Saturday morning television in the early 1990s. The original Dutch version is naturally superior to the slightly lacking English dub, but numerous versions made for other nationalities have remained popular with repeat runs, VHS and DVD releases to this day, particularly in countries where the title theme was still sung by the jolly van Veen rather than a dull Englishman, and Alfred himself rendered likeable rather than irritating. It's surprising, the difference one voice actor can cause to reception.
'Alfred J. Kwak' (the J stands for Jonathan in the English version, rather than the original Jodocus, and so loses any subtle meaning) is a highly detailed cartoon series for children that mixes light-hearted fun with gritty realism and very serious social commentary. Like 'Animal Farm,' 'The Animals of Farthing Wood' and any other works in which speaking animals can die, the ensemble is comprised of sentient creatures, mostly birds in this case, and in this story they appear to have usurped the place of humanity; they wear clothes, work, vote and have wars with each other. Alfred himself is a brave and noble yellow duck (I assume of the rare Swedish Yellow lineage rather than the more common rubber bath variety) who interestingly grows up over the course of the series, rather than remaining static and invincible as is customary for cartoon characters. The first episode sees Alfred hatching after his parents finally get it together, and already proving his adventurous spirit by wandering off in reckless exploration. This curiosity ironically saves his life in the second episode, and that of the Kwaks' diminutive mole friend Henk who chases after the young scamp, as Alfred's entire family is killed by a reckless driver on their exodus to a safe haven away from the spreading industry that evicted them from their original home.
While moments such as the above tend to push stark realism to an unreasonable extreme designed for nothing more than making children cry (did they really have to dress the doomed ducklings up in bows, and make them chirp so contentedly?), this series' mature themes are what made it stand out in the summers of my childhood, though the fact that it was the first thing to come on at 6am after I'd been watching the test card for half an hour probably helped. Watching the characters age, mature, love and lose was a novel idea for me, making the series (which eventually stretched to fifty-two episodes - there's no way I saw all of them) akin to a lengthy children's novel. This did present one slight drawback, particularly in the English version, as the early episodes had a pleasant innocence about them with Alfred as a duckling (excluding family apocalypse), and seeing an older Alfred getting up to all sorts of high adventure in the opening credits made it clear that this age of innocence would be over all too soon. Just like life, but with a talking duck. The English dub adds to this insult by casting a particularly snotty actor as the teenage and adult Alfred, which robs his bright scarf of any jolly connotations and instead makes the character seem like the obnoxious sort that cycle around Cambridge getting in people's way.
Just in case the songs that bookend the show aren't enough to convince viewers of Alfred's kind and noble heart, he is provided an arch nemesis in the form of Dolf, an evil crow who bullied Alfred at school and disturbingly fails to learn his lessons as naughty people are supposed to (one of my favourite episodes saw he and Alfred trapped in a well, the inevitable bonding completely failing to occur). Dolf grows up to essentially become a crow Hitler; in case his name wasn't enough of a clue, he attempts to push his fascist regime the 'National Crows Party' and insists on racial purity, but of course this is for children (and to be honest, I'm not sure I made the connection at the time). Needless to say, this lends a darker tone to many of the later episodes, but it's really nothing kids don't see all the time nowadays, and quite like. Just as impressive as its take on evil and violence is how the series deals with prejudice, third world hunger, apartheid and endangered species among other issues - there was even an episode where Alfred was trying to promote electric cars for the good of the environment - so it's a shame the show wasn't more well-known in this country. At the same time it was dealing with these hard issues, there was always time spare for some daft antics, often in a style reminiscent of Japanese animé, but anyone looking for Looney Tunes style humour and slapstick would be disappointed, it feels more like a serialised animated feature.
The English incarnation of Alfred Jonathan Kwak was slightly too nasal and pompous to act as a serious role model for my younger self (though I haven't subscribed to fascism or attempted genocide yet, so there may have been some subtle influence), but the series was helpful in broadening my perception of what cartoons could achieve. At fifty-two episodes spread across two series it's a very substantial run, though not too long for the quality to lapse as it would in a daily syndicated show, and the DVDs are available in several markets with various language dubs over Harald Siepermann's pleasant animation, though it hasn't (yet?) been released in the UK. Comparing clips on YouTube confirms that the English version was one of the less impressive and thought-out transfers, especially in the daft alterations to the title songs that fall back on tell-tale archaisms in order to fit the rhyme scheme ("a little town called Waterland / where life is grand" and "Alfred is so merry / so very, very merry" being stand-out examples of curiously old-fashioned phrases), but as long as the main character sounds chirpy and shrill, the enemy cackles, and the adoptive mole father in dungarees has a homely West Country accent, British kids will know where they're at.
The German closing theme in particular is amusing in a slightly sad way, recruiting some bubbly kids to sing the mentally scarred Alfred's song, "Warum bin ich so fröhlich?" ("Why am I so happy?") His life does get better after the initial setbacks, trust me.
Advantages: Effective use of realism in a cartoon series, with well-developed characters.
Disadvantages: English dub isn't the best.
C
And No Slackin'
****
Written on 01.06.04
Perhaps the most effective and long-running BBC sitcom for the younger generation, 'Chucklevision' has been on Children's BBC in its various incarnations for 17 years. I grew up with the programme, viewing the antics of the ineffective odd job men and eventually having the privilege of seeing them live in 1995.
PREMISE
Paul and Barry Chuckle are brothers; one is slightly taller and somewhat domineering, the other is a submissive wrinkly fool. Both are moustachioed. In each episode, Paul and Barry are given a job to do, whether it be decorating, washing windows, taking care of a house or a multitude of other tasks, and they always manage to botch the task up, usually ending with the brothers on the run from the angry character known as "Mr. No Slacking" due to his catch-phrase.
Paul is slightly more wise than Barry and often allows his wrinkled brother to carry out the more difficult or risky tasks, but they are very close and have no hatred for each other. Their principle form of transport is a pedal cart with a striped sunroof, and throughout the years they live together in a number of low budget habitats including a caravan and a mill.
The show was aimed at the "8 to 12" age group, which seems a little too precise considering I loved the show when I was about six, but this shows that the level of humour, plot development and character dialogue is above what would be considered "childish."
CAST
The Chuckle Brothers are played by real-life brothers and comedy duo Paul and Barry Elliot, and the show has a fairly extensive writing staff, including but not only extending to the stars themselves. The recurring character of No Slacking (as he is credited off-screen), is played b y Jimmy Patton, who is apparently another of Paul and Barry's brothers.
The Brothers have mysteriously avoided showing any major signs of ageing throughout the show's 17 year run, and the only change of note is that in the most recent series which aired from January to March 2004, Barry had shaved off his moustache. If that's not a valid reason to check the listings on the CBBC channel, I don't know what is.
CHANGES
When the series was first commissioned in 1987 it was of a much different format than that which it became. The brothers acted as presenters, addressing the young viewers, fronting regular magical acts and attempting to explain about topics as diverse as sport and Halloween.
With the third series in 1989, the format became that of episodic television, with the Brothers bungling every task they attempt. This was obviously a much more successful style of show and served to capture the attentions of children nationwide, leading to the series continuing on and off for the next thirteen years.
In 2002, the format was changed again somewhat in a further attempt to keep the show interesting. The series was now filmed in a very clear, almost cinematic style and plots would continue serialised over a number of weeks. I only saw a couple of these episodes (accidentally of course) and the show has lost a little of its charm with the grandiose format, but I still noticed plenty of the old jokes:
PAUL: Can I take your coat Mr. Carrington-Smithe?
SMITH: It's pronounced "Smith."
PAUL: Sorry, Mister Smith-Smithe.
As I have said, the humour is not aimed specifically at the adult generation, and the comical incidental music and sped-up chases, not to menti on the amount of paint splats, clearly show the generation this is aimed at. The Brothers also presented a gameshow for children in 1996, titled 'To Me To You,' but this was far less influential and only ran for one series.
VERDICT
Chucklevision is a children's show, but a very good children's show despite what some aggravated parents may think. The format has become old by now, but those it is aimed at will not remember the early series and so theoretically the show could go on forever, although reality dictates that the Chuckle Brothers will expire at some point. [RIP Barry.]
I loved Chucklevision when I was young, it was one of the highlights of my televised days, aside from Knightmare obviously. I saw the Brothers live at Scarborough when my family were on holiday in that particular seaside town, but my only memories of that event are a risqué routine involving a cucumber placed through a barrel in front of Barry's genital area and the brothers running through the crowd with cream pies. My brother got covered, I did not.
A scarily extensive episode guide can be found at TVtome.com, including such aspects of the show as a list of everyone who has ever appeared as a guest star and continuity errors. Honestly. [You can talk.]
APPENDIX
Chucklevision catch-phrases for you and a friend to try (preferably effecting Rotherham accents):
Together: "Ello-o"
^ Greeting
- "To me."
- "To you."
- "To me then."
- "To you then."
^ When lifting heavy loads between places
- "Silly me!"
- "Silly you."
^ Light-hearted realisation that you have made an error
- "Oh dear."
- "Oh dear oh dear."
^ When something has gone seriously wrong (again)
"And no slackin'."
^ When foolishly trusting a pair of middle-aged idiots with moustaches, forgetting that they have let you down many times in the past.
Advantages: The Brothers clearly enjoy what they do, Humour is aimed at children, and it works, Memorable characters and events
Disadvantages: Has been going for too long, Not too original any more
Count Duckula: Vampire Vacation
He Won't Bite Beast or Man, 'Cause He's a Vegetarian
*****
Written on 19.11.07
Cosgrove Hall was my favourite television production company as a child – that’s right, I was disconcertingly aware of labels even back then – and ‘Count Duckula’ was one of its most prestigious successes, never quite reaching the heights of its predecessor ‘DangerMouse’ in terms of pop culture acclaim, but rivalling it in terms of character, humour and voice acting, and succeeding in terms of animation. It perhaps loses out slightly in the wackiness field however; it would be tough to top the premise of a duo of secret agent rodents operating from a post box in Mayfair.
Count Duckula, as can be clearly deduced from the title, is at its foundation a basic parody of the Dracula premise. But with a duck. As the fantastic opening titles clearly demonstrate, the concept is a little more convoluted and silly than that; the Counts of Duckula are a long line of vampire barons in a cartoon universe populated almost entirely by human-like birds, whose reign of tyranny has hung over Transylvania for centuries, interrupted only when the bloodsucking ducks are “destroyed by a stake through the heart, or exposure to sunlight.” Fortunately for the Duckulas, and their sinister vulture assistant Igor, the Count can be resurrected once a century through a macabre ritual that the feather-brained housekeeper Nanny has botched up considerably this time round, substituting tomato ketchup for the key ingredient of blood and resulting in a very different Duckula for the late twentieth century.
Thus, our Count Duckula is far removed from his predecessors, a pacifist who follows a strict vegetarian diet and who has an insatiable desire for fame and fortune, usually based around his (non-existent) musical talent. Accompanying Duckula on his travels across the globe in pursuit of these ends are his loyal butler Igor, a rather dark character with dastardly hobbies who is ever hopeful that his master’s old vampire instincts will return, and Nanny, a ridiculously incompetent and dim-witted housekeeper whose lack of brains are nevertheless balanced out by incredible strength that is almost always demonstrated by accident, most commonly revealed in her blind spot for doors that leads to her moving between rooms by obliviously crashing through brick walls. Their method of transportation around the world is Castle Duckula itself, which teleports according to its master’s whim, but automatically returns to its craggy mountaintop by dawn, Eastern Transylvanian Standard Time.
Count Duckula was one of my all-time favourite cartoon series, and this budget DVD release of the first six episodes catches it at its peak, before the strain of a mammoth weekly schedule over a number of years inevitably saw the writing quality slip a little into repetition or desperation. There’s nothing in the way of an introduction/origin episode for Duckula’s resurrection, the premise being covered very succinctly and neatly by the opening credits and the unique opening and closing narration provided for each episode by Barry Clayton in his best Vincent Price impersonation, before being oddly contradicted completely by the lyrics to the end credits that categorically list Duckula’s non-existent terrifying features, either as an ironic coda or perhaps the result of an early idea of the series being left unchanged. I still found it funny as a child anyway, and it was probably my introduction to irony and sarcasm, something I’m sure many people will hold against it – either way, this is one of my favourite cartoon theme songs of all time (and that’s saying something), clearly owing a little to Michael Jackon’s ‘Thriller’ in its sinister narration and funky rhythm.
The six episodes on this collection are:
1. No Sax Please, We’re Egyptian
2. Vampire Vacation
3. One Stormy Night
4. Transylvanian Homesick Blues
5. Restoration Comedy
6. The Mutinous Penguins
It’s pretty obvious why the safer option of the second episode was chosen for the collection’s title rather than the usual first, something that was mirrored by the original VHS release containing the first episode simply omitting a sub-title, and the little Ladybird book of that story being blandly re-christened ‘The Mystic Saxophone.’ You have to wonder whether Jimmy Hibbert and the other writers were being deliberately cheeky through including smut like that in a kid’s show, but regardless of its potential controversy, ‘No Sax Please’ remains the best Duckula episode by a clear margin. It’s not merely a case of Hibbert using up all of his best vampire- and horror-based jokes in the first episode, particularly as this story’s Egyptian setting makes it unique in the canon, but the dialogue is sharper, the jokes more frequent (hilarious and terrible in equal measure), and the animation spectacular, in some scenes more than others which implies that these were made first when everyone was excited about the new project and wanted to show off their improved talents since the DangerMouse years.
This first episode sees Duckula growing disillusioned with his depressing surroundings, suffering another lecture on his family’s prestigiously wicked ancestry from Igor in the portrait gallery as a means to nicely explore the series’ concept further at this early stage, something that would be continued by encounters with further surviving members of the family line in the next few shows. Duckula pipes up at the mention of the fabled Mystic Saxophone that one of his ancestors sought out, and Castle Duckula is transported to the Valley of the Kings, taking along some reluctant passengers in the form of a group of crows intent on robbing the Castle, but now more interested in dispatching Duckula and his companions to obtain the saxophone for themselves.
Probably the most fondly-remembered scene from this first episode is the brilliantly frustrating introduction of the characters Humite and Ubi (the clip’s on YouTube), but there’s also an excellent and balanced exploration of each main character, from Duckula’s preoccupation with fame to Igor’s wickedness and Nanny’s clumsiness, that apparently caused the accidental deaths of the rest of Duckula’s housekeeping staff. It’s not quite perfect, spoiled by a couple of jokes that I found strangely nonsensical even as a child (such as Duckula guessing two peoples’ names as “Sylvester and Stallone, right?” for no apparent reason), and there’s the plot hole of how exactly Igor knows about the Archduck McGanza’s discoveries in the Pharaoh Upshee’s tomb if he never came out alive to tell the tale. Of course, some would argue that this is just a cartoon and doesn’t demand such a severe analysis. I have wasted my life.
The other episodes don’t quite reach the heights of this opener but are all above average, the most relevant being ‘Vampire Vacation,’ which introduces some bona-fide vampire ducks as Igor persuades the Count to take a holiday to his cousin Don Diego’s home in Spain, hoping once again to turn Duckula’s mind to evil. This is also the introduction of Duckula’s nemesis Doctor Von Goosewing, an incompetent wampire hunter mit un pronounced German accent and only the first of many dodgy racial stereotypes employed by the writers, continued here with Spaniards who are more like a caricature of Mexican bandits with absurdly long names and ponchos, and later with French revolutionaries in the time-travel adventure ‘Transylvanian Homesick Blues’ and thawed Viking soldiers in ‘The Mutinous Penguins,’ whose language basically consists of variations on the words “hurdy gurdy.” As well as the core cast and recurring players such as Von Goosewing and the wise-cracking occupants of Castle Duckula’s cuckoo clock, each episode brings further memorable characters into the Duckula universe, from the depressed Frankingstein’s monster style robot in ‘One Stormy Night’ to the mutinous penguins themselves, and the slightly camp, Llewelyn-Bowen style interior designer who Duckula drafts in to renovate the castle in ‘Restoration Comedy,’ whose obsession with mirrors leads to his ultimate, terrifying reflection on Duckula’s true nature.
While their animation of the earlier ‘DangerMouse’ often appeared quite basic and lacking in detail, Cosgrove Hall’s talents (and, presumably, funds) had evolved by Duckula’s 1988 introduction to realise a vivid, colourful and fluid artistic style, crediting an impressive number of character and background artists on the closing credits. The trio of Duckula, Igor and Nanny are all designed to look completely dissimilar and as such work together fantastically on screen (you can even see it on the DVD cover), and the level of detail means that the distinct animation style hasn’t dated badly at all. The voice acting is similarly superb, the prominent star being a pre-knighthood David Jason in the main role as Duckula as well as many other roles, particularly Duckula’s family and ancestors, and he really puts in an energetic performance with every second, whether Duckula is criticising his staff, cracking a feeble joke or screaming in gargled panic.
Brian Trueman, one of the prominent writers of Duckula and other Cosgrove Hall series, delivers a convincingly senile and convincingly female performance as Nanny (at least I thought so), while Jimmy Hibbert voices Von Goosewing and the majority of guest characters. The only voice actor unique to this series is the late Jack May who brings the evil bass tones of Igor to life, a versatile voice actor and veteran of the Archers among other projects. David Jason, of course, is slightly more famous for another long-running television role, by which I mean DangerMouse of course, and he would later portray the titular Hugo in the third and final Cosgrove Hall cartoon series ‘Victor and Hugo: Bunglers in Crime,’ along with Hibbert and Trueman, but it’s presumably his portrayal of the vampire duck that earned him that knighthood. I think he might also have had a role in some BBC sitcom or other that everyone’s probably forgotten by now.
‘Count Duckula’ remains one of my all-time favourite cartoon series, though obviously I don’t enjoy it quite as much now as I did when I was six; I am not mad. Cosgrove Hall produced some of the funniest, most entertaining and most enduring British cartoon series of all time, and there’s nothing aside from some easily ignored pop culture references that would date these episodes for young viewers today, making a nice excuse for parents in their twenties to indulge in some nostalgia under the guise of buying their child a DVD. Although complete box-sets of individual seasons have now been released, this more modest volume contains about as much Duckula as I would deem essential, and it’s still widely available at a budget price of less than five pounds from Amazon and stuff, but more notably from charity shops such as British Heart Foundation as one of the DVDs sold brand new in sealed packaging on a rack (at least this was the case in Lancaster earlier this year, so I presume it’s still true elsewhere). How about that? Every once in a while, a charitably opportunity comes along to make pointless nostalgia that little bit less indulgent.
Advantages: Some of the best dialogue, animation, voice acting and characters in British cartoon history.
Disadvantages: Some plots are a little weak.
I
Wicky Woo
****
Written on 08.11.07
A show that was forgettable only in title, ‘Incredible Games’ was one of the more inventive and exciting children’s game shows produced in the 90s, following a similar format to Channel 4’s hugely successful ‘The Crystal Maze’ but taking a far stranger, fantastical and psychedelic approach. As with most children’s game shows of the time (‘Get Your Own Back,’ ‘Funhouse,’ etc.), each episode saw young contestants facing a number of individual challenges to amass points and aid their progress to the final game, where they could collaboratively win the star prize. Also like these shows, there was a fair amount of gunge involved, requiring players to change costumes between some games.
The show was set in a ludicrously tall building consisting of 999 floors, each level of which was allegedly taken up by a different game, though due to the usual prohibitive costs and the rather outlandish games produced, there was a large amount of repetition between episodes. The players are transported between levels by the talkative and somewhat hyperactive Lift viewed on a monitor, originally played by David Walliams in a crazy plastic wig (similar to Mark Speight in CITV’s rubbish ‘Scratchy and Co.’), and later re-cast with Gary Parker as a multi-coloured bald head named Sam. The banter between the young contestants and the Lift was one of the highlights, particularly in the Walliams era, and created a great laid-back atmosphere as it was clear the kids were enjoying themselves immensely and not taking the whole thing too seriously (at least, not as seriously as it appeared on TV after all the editing and effects work tried to convince viewers they were watching reality). Like all good children’s presenters, Walliams never talked down to his passengers, and there are some nice running jokes as he appears unable to add up their scores as fast as they can, though he insists otherwise. The players were usually between the ages of eleven to fourteen, and would usually consist of three school friends of mixed genders.
The games were the usual mixture of physical and mental challenges, with extremely imaginative sets and conceits. The series was conceived by Stephen Leahy and Andrew O’Connor, and features such memorable, high-energy delights as the glow worm hunt in an eerie swamp; a jet-pack powered tidying of ‘Planet Susan’; the hasty construction of a system of pipes in a flooding room, and of course, the final hunt for magnetic letters at the bottom of a huge soup bowl in an extremely convincing oversized set reminiscent of ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.’ The more logical puzzles were a little duller for the most part, often consisting of simple, money-saving question and answer sections hosted by the Lift on their travels, but also memorably by the ghost of a Victorian headmaster (don’t ask me) who would unleash gunge upon any wrong answer. Without a doubt the most frightening part of the show was the journey across the dreaded Dark Knight’s chess board, which was brilliantly conceived and seemed a genuine challenge to complete, one I was always sure I would have failed miserably. Players could move forwards on one move, followed by a sideways move on their next turn, all in pursuit of the green exits at the far end; the catch was that the Dark Knight (Simon Shelton in a Darth Vader-like cloak and mask) could see the glowing squares they had left behind, and was able to formulate a strategy to track them down, more often than not succeeding and eliminating them (the losing players would have to be tracked down afterwards).
This was a truly fantastic game show for children, and mainly due to its rubbish, non-descript title it’s probably one that’s caused a great deal of frustration and confusion over the years as aging fans have struggled to remember exactly what it was (I hope I’ve helped). Like all the best game shows it clearly wasn’t staged and wasn’t patronising in the least, frequently sneaking a deliberately tricky question in that even older viewers wouldn’t know the answer to, and requiring genuine mental and physical skills, just like a younger and trippier version of The Crystal Maze. Some of the ideas were a little daft or clichéd – especially catch-phrases that never caught on like “press my button!” and “we’re going throoooough the roof!” in the first series – but the games really were works of genius, and among the most entertaining things I have ever seen on Children’s BBC. The alphabet soup game was particularly enjoyable, as there was usually a clear tension in the air as the dry player struggling to spell out words on the ‘fridge’ would insist that the poor swimmers had to dive for specific letters so he or she could complete the word they had in mind, though amiable players were more willing to adapt to what they were given. The ghostly headmaster and the zombie-like arms reaching from the walls in the glow worm game were unnecessarily spooky, and if that didn’t provoke nightmares then the Dark Knight, the embodiment of evil itself, clearly would. Perhaps that’s the reason the show was never revived for a third series.
Letting this show slip off the airwaves so soon was a truly disappointing decision on the BBC’s part, especially in light of the rubbish they’ve produced since, though I once saw a low-budget segment on CITV a few years ago called ‘The Eliminator’ that seemed to be essentially a less scary version of the Dark Knight game, so its influence and memory surely live on. Perhaps the BBC executives had intended to re-commission it all along, but couldn’t... quite remember... the name, what was it, “the Lift Show” or something? It must have been something quite specific, surely? Ah, no matter, it’ll come to me one day – what’s that? The Chuckle Brothers want to present a flimsy tropical-island-based game show named after one of their catch-phrases, and that’s all there is to it? Brilliant, someone give those lads a studio!
Advantages: Highly imaginative, bizarre and terrifying game show for children.
Disadvantages: Overly repetitive, but unfairly cancelled after only two series before this could present a problem.
K
Dungeons & Dragons Junior
****
Written on 10.04.04
When I was young I watched a huge array of programmes aimed at the child audience; I had my favourite cartoons, 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,' 'Victor and Hugo,' 'Count Duckula' and the unimaginative 'Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles,' but when the live action shows came on I would usually change channel, or simply rewind and watch the tape that had recorded the cartoons from the other channel. Yes, I was that obsessed. By far the most inventive and exciting of the live action shows I watched was the team-play dungeon quest game, 'Knightmare.'
Thanks to the wonders of digital TV, I've recently been able to re-watch episodes of this show from bygone days on the otherwise appalling channel 'Challenge TV,' and while all the flaws in computer effects are clearer nowadays, and I fail to have the same respect for the nerdy adolescents playing that I used to revere so much, it's still a good blast from the past.
PREMISE
Developed and created by Tim Child, a reviewer for 8-bit video game magazines and someone who saw the potential of computers as far back as 1985, the show was introduced and presented by struggling actor Hugo Myatt in the guise of the wise dungeon master Treguard from his cosy room above the dungeon. Teams of four children or teenagers, three of which would sit with notepads and attempt to solve quite simple riddles and offer advice to their helmeted comrade who got to explore the bluescreen world and meet all manner of terrible actors. The dungeon questers would search for a special item (chalice, crown or sword) and the shows would detail their attempts to complete the game. Several did, but most bit the bullet part-way through; I remember one episode where a dragon emerged from a wall in the very first room and ended one poor team's game straight away!
OBSTACLES
Many obstacles the adventurers would come across were traps that could be avoided using common sense or a riddle solved earlier, usually given to them by a Keith Chegwin look-a-like in an unconvincing jester outfit, but the more interesting dilemmas were the ones that were really scary. Staring too long through the spyglass, which provided insight into the plans of Lord Fear and his minions, would produce a flaming fireball that could fry the player, while the huge giant that had to be tip-toed around often was one of the most tense memories from my youth. And hearing the ominous sound of the goblin horn still sends shivers down my spine even today.
SERIES
Knightmare;s first five series were pretty basic and not too imaginative, as the obstacles were all pretty much the same. It was with the introduction of more exterior locations in series 6 to 8, as well as the evil Lord Fear (played by Mark Knight) that the series really got interesting, and besides, that's when I started watching.
These outside locations were mostly photographs and recorded film that were digitalised slightly and added to the bluescreen, the most memorable of which was the flights of the tamed blue dragon Smirkenorff.
AFTERMATH
Eventually, Knightmare failed to be recommissioned for another series, and was replaced with another virtual reality gameshow that attempted to show the abilities of computer effects in the mid-90s. Called 'Virtually Impossible' (virtual, do you see?), this was crap. Plenty of people realised the enjoyment and appeal of Knightmare, but ITV's main reasons for cancelling it after seven years was that their audience were being affected by the computer games industry of t he 16-Bit consoles, and they wanted something a little less scary for the younger viewers.
For more information on the seasons, the show's development and the rather hopeless 'Bring Back Knightmare' campaign, I'd recommend you visit the genuine and slightly worrying knightmare.com. Despite its originality, appeal and almost award-winning success, Knightmare is essentially still a kid's show.
Advantages: Very scary and exciting for a children's show, Nostalgic in a great way, Improved towards the end
Disadvantages: Could get very repetitive, Often unconvincing CGI effects, Pretty bad actors
S
Speed of Your Penceload Must Defeat My Eyebold
***
Written on 09.09.07
I’m a bit of a sucker for overlooked or prematurely cancelled TV series, which tend to take on a false sense of maverick awe and unrecognised genius in my clearly distorted mind, even though their brief spell is usually due to them being a bit rubbish.
A bit rubbish, unpopular and deservedly almost completely forgotten is the final project of Gerry Anderson’s highly lucrative Supermarionation franchise of the late sixties, continuing in the tradition of its predecessor ‘Joe 90’ to distance Anderson’s work from the action-packed science fiction clichés of his more popular projects. It was also allegedly Anderson’s personal favourite of his puppet series in a prime example of the “I have done other things” frustration often experienced by creators of a disproportionately popular phenomenon such as ‘Thunderbirds,’ who feel that their best work was yet to come. Claims that this silly show is better than the classic ‘Stingray’ are quite clearly unreasonable, but watching this series back as an adult (or something in that general area), it has a lot to offer as a self-conscious commentary of Supermarionation in its twilight year. Even owning the video as a child, I found it amusing for somewhat different reasons than I suspect were intended.
Where Thunderbirds, Stingray and most of the other, previous, better series focused on an intrepid group of young men racing around the globe, underwater or into space to save lives, ‘The Secret Service’ is centred around the far more laid-back premise of an old vicar who travels around the local area in his vintage car, generally stopping crime by confusing the culprits with his odd speech and senile mannerisms. The Secret Service succeeds admirably in its quest to distance itself from Thunderbirds, but the success mostly ends there. The changes are plain right from the opening titles, replacing loud explosions and rapid editing with a slow overview of a country church and the star Stanley Unwin looking out of a window at the Nothing that’s happening outside.
While there are abundant rumours concerning the supposed resemblance of Supermarionation puppet characters to real-life individuals, the lead character of this final series was the first to be based almost entirely on the celebrity star voice actor who shared his name. The problem with this as a publicity stunt (which it clearly was not) is that the celebrity in question was Stanley Unwin, a well-liked old man whose respectable broadcasting career has been overshadowed by his unusual manner of talking, the much-imitated ‘Unwin-ese,’ and who not a lot of people may have been familiar with, particularly outside Britain. For this role, providing the voice of a puppet who shared his name and approximate likeness and occasionally performing live-action work when the character was in the background or required to do something technically complex like knock on a door, Unwin was provided with scripts for all thirteen episodes which he then partially translated into Unwinese to intended hilarious effect, generally changing a few words around and adding ‘-bold’ to the ends of nouns.
Father Unwin’s day job as a Priest serves as a cover for his spy-battling activities in the employment of an organisation called B.I.S.H.O.P. Assisting the vicar in his service of their unseen boss ‘the Bishop’ is Matthew, Stanley’s gardener who travels around covertly inside the vicar’s briefcase, having been shrunken down to two feet in height by some sort of ray in each episode. It’s all rather odd, but fantastically quaint and eccentric, and acts as a fitting final chapter for Gerry Anderson’s sixties career before he moved on to live action projects. What makes it so enjoyable for me is the obvious tongue-in-cheek approach taken with the show, as Supermarionation balances on the edge of farce; not only are viewers treated to Anderson’s most convoluted acronym yet (in this case standing for ‘British Intelligence Secret Headquarters, Operation: Priest’), but the entire premise seems determined to make fun of undercover spy series of which Anderson was clearly fond, Matthew’s mode of transport even paying homage to ITV’s earlier series ‘Man in a Suitcase’ by appropriating its title at face value. The concept is quite thin and would have needed to be significantly stretched to encompass the usual thirty-something run of these series, were it not cancelled mid-way due to poor performance and probably no small degree of confusion from executives who had hoped for another ‘Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons’ as opposed to ‘Old Vicar and the Incredible, Moderately-Shrunken Man.’
The contemporary countryside setting provides another striking contrast to the rest of Anderson’s series, and also avoids the need for large explosions, exotic sets and operational miniatures each week, which must have saved the show an enormous amount of its budget, but is also a little sad considering the heights that Supermarionation had reached by the end. ‘Captain Scarlet’ had finally seen the end of bulbous, oversized heads in place of a more realistic appearance (apparently by moving the mechanisms down into the body rather than inside the skull), and the strings were becoming less obvious all the time. While this is the most realistic of Anderson’s puppet series along with its predecessor ‘Joe 90,’ this is at a cost to its entertainment value, as the high frequency of live action inserts draws uncomfortable attention to the puppets when they reappear. This raises the question of why this was created as a puppet show at all, and not a live action show along the lines of ‘U.F.O.’, which was produced around the same time. I’m personally very happy with the unique mixed format, as it allows for perhaps the series’ finest in-joke, as the shrunken Matthew is exactly proportional to the ‘real’ size of the puppet, allowing for several amusing scenes of the character being manoeuvred around actors’ legs and normal-size sets that I suppose were intended to be taken seriously, despite overflowing with irony.
The repetition of scenes common to these series are still present and are always highly anticipated, particularly Stanley’s question, “are you ready, Matthew?” that inaugurates the hilarious shrinking sequence. The Unwin-ese may not be enjoyed so much now as it was in Unwin’s heyday – personally I don’t find it particularly funny, certainly not as much as the thought that Matthew is curled up inside the vicar’s briefcase as he speaks – but it was a well thought-out contrivance to use it in the service of secret messages between them, satisfyingly communicated through the vicar’s hearing aid right under the stupid villains’ plastic noses. Father Unwin may not be as cool as Steve Zodiac or Troy Tempest, but his jabbering old man is a memorable protagonist, and aids the realism of the dialogue.
‘The Secret Service’ isn’t a stroke of forgotten genius or a lost gem, but it’s an amusing treat for fans of similar puppet series or perhaps even live-action spy series of the time, though it requires a significant suspension of disbelief even compared to those. It has much to offer if viewed as a postmodern self-parody, but in its serious focus on realistic espionage it lacks the high-energy thrill of ‘Thunderbirds,’ the intelligent sci-fi adventure of ‘Captain Scarlet’ and ‘Stingray,’ and the stupid, slightly racist, scientifically-inaccurate-fi fun of ‘Fireball XL5.’ I’d rather watch it than ‘Supercar’ or ‘Joe 90’ any day, but I guess it was a bit rubbish after all.
The complete series is now available on DVD, but so are a lot of better shows that you should check out first.
Advantages: A bravely boring exit point for Gerry Anderson’s puppet career.
Disadvantages: It doesn’t really work.
T
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Season One
Holy Guacamole!
***
Written on 25.06.07 [2014 rewatch]
The first season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which a country-wide conspiracy tricked thousands of young British fans into thinking was actually called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, the ‘hero’ being apparently more parent-friendly than ‘ninja’) is vastly different from the original comic book series by Eastman and Laird on which it is based. That said, despite its different medium, largely different plot and younger audience, it’s a great deal closer than the subsequently massively syndicated and merchandised series would ever be. This drastically short first season essentially crafts a large-scale ‘pilot’ episode for the long-running series that would follow, a two-hour story split into five distinctive parts that are nevertheless linked by a larger overall plot to defeat the villain who calls himself The Shredder, and hopefully restore the Turtles’ mutated rat sensei Splinter back into the human he once was.
The basic premise of the Turtles phenomenon is still probably ingrained into many peoples’ minds, whether they grew up with the show, had to stand in a queue outside Toys-R-Us at 5am because their children were growing up with the show, or if they’ve watched the more recent animated series that apparently sticks closer to the creators’ original intentions. Regardless of its authenticity, it was the 1987 Turtles cartoon that kicked off the craze, and became its most popular incarnation; the colourful bandanas and cheesy dialogue, ranging from Leonardo’s melodramatic ‘Turtles fight with honour’ at one end of the scale to Michaelangelo’s ‘cowabunga, dudes’ at the other, somehow captured the imaginations of an entire generation. I was as stunned as anyone, looking back on my stupid childhood obsession, until I finally tracked down these early episodes that I’d previously only read in a series of books, as the episodes were never shown on UK TV.
It’s no ‘Thundercats,’ but the first season of Turtles is actually pretty good, and though clearly aimed at a young audience, it doesn’t shy away from using minimal violence – only against robots and oversized mutants – and introducing aspects of writing such as plot twists and actual characterisation beyond different colours of masks. Admittedly, it takes until episode three for Donatello to tinker with a machine and prove why he was always my favourite Turtle, and from that point on, there’s no stopping him. The setting is the bleak and weirdly out-of-time New York City, populated by street gangs, stereotypical grannies and impressionable kids whose dialogue comes from the seventies, and the majority of action takes place in the subterranean underworld of the Turtles’ cosy sewer lair and the Shredder’s mobile Technodrome fortress. Although each episode takes place on a different day, has a unique title, and is concerned with a specific plot, the Turtles’ larger goal remains consistent.
‘Turtle Tracks’ is the necessary introductory episode, in which the viewer learns all there is to know about the lean green fighting machines that wasn’t covered in the silly opening theme song (‘Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines’ –great character profiles, guys). Although set in and under New York, the story really begins some years ago in a slightly racist depiction of Japan, where the noble Foot Clan ninja Hamato Yoshi was set up for humiliation and exile by Oroku Saki, who is later revealed as Shredder. It was he that sent radioactive Mutagen into the New York sewers to wipe Yoshi out, but instead it evolved him into a rat, due to his contact with his rodent friends, having a similar effect on four baby turtles accidentally dropped into Yoshi’s dwellings by a clumsy kid. Over the course of these episodes, the viewer is introduced to the Turtles’ annoying human contact April O’Neill and her camera crew, as well as the disgusting brain monster Krang from Dimension X, easily one of the most entertaining and duplicitous characters whose affiliation with Shredder is a little less than amicable. Also appearing briefly is the timid scientist Baxter Stockman before he was famously turned into a fly in the second season, and last and least, Shredder’s bumbling henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady who would go on to spoil many years of the programme to come.
The overall look and feel of this first season isn’t wildly different from the later serialised episodes, largely due to the presence of jokes at regular intervals that prevent the seriousness of the plot from ever really taking over. The Turtles are drawn a little differently, especially in the very first episode where additional facial creases and accessories change between takes before finally settling down, but the great incidental music is still there, as are the frequent errors in colouring that cause a Turtle to speak another character’s lines an average of about one time per episode. The extended plot makes it easier to really get into the show, especially when viewing them at leisure on a DVD, and the internal basis and real investment of the characters makes it probably the only essential piece of the Turtles series, before plots had to start coming from elsewhere – the next story arc, spanning four episodes in season two, is all based on the cliché of a spaceship plummeting to Earth, revealing a lack of ideas after the first season pretty much tied up the mythology.
The peculiar thing about this DVD is the inclusion of four episodes from the final season of the show, season ten (!), which were also never broadcast on UK TV for perhaps different reasons. As these box-sets are being released one at a time, and interest may wane before season ten sees the light of day, I can understand them selecting far off episodes to bulk out the package, but it’s still a little irritating and annoying as the series had moved so far on by then, not least in terms of character voices and animation style, that it’s largely unrecognisable and doesn’t add any value to a season one set. What would have been really fantastic would be some real special features interviewing the people behind the phenomenally successful series, saying the same kind of rubbish I have about it actually being really good at the start before merchandising took over and story potential dried up. I saw a piece covering the show, with the Raphael voice actor amongst others, on the BBC’s ‘I Love 1990s’ series, so it wouldn’t have been too much to ask for something similar to be included here. Even the younger audience that this DVD is half-aimed at (the other half is sad people like me who want to re-live their childhood) would enjoy the dissection, I would have loved the excess of DVDs as a child.
This DVD set is not without its problems, but the important thing is that it contains the best episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, although ‘Hot Rodding Teenagers From Dimension X’ is weak in comparison to the others. The longer second season of thirteen or so episodes, though more desperate and more obviously kid-oriented, is the only other necessary purchase for Turtles fans, as the third season and beyond see the concept stretched very thin indeed. Had this been a bumper collection of seasons one and two I would label it an essential purchase, but the drag of irrelevant season ten episodes makes it a little more dubious. The DVD transfer is spotless, preserving the original, slightly fuzzy 80s quality of the print (this can be seen when compared to the sharper 1996 episodes on the disc) and preserving that great bassy and repetive incidental music intact. It may be a corporate perversion of Eastman and Laird’s highly enjoyable parody of grim ‘Sin City’ style comics, retaining Baxter Stockman’s Mousers intact but giving the scientist an irrelevant race change to a white man among other significant differences, but it’s still a historically important cartoon series that can be guiltily enjoyed on DVD.
Most importantly, it’s the first chance UK viewers have had to see this original mini-series, twenty years later. Excerpts were originally only available in the horribly edited VHS release ‘How It All Began,’ which cheated by mixing a clip show with original source material and rendering everything unnecessarily confusing.
Advantages: The classic original mini-series finally released intact.
Disadvantages: Bulked out with irrelevant 'bonus' episodes to avoid charging a lower price.
Entertainment over Education
****
Written on 26.03.04
The internationally watched "Teletubbies" by Anne Wood has received much criticism for failing to educate children as much as other programmes, however I never found that that was its purpose. The hulking, innocent monster things were designed to be something that the youngest viewers could relate to, with their limited vocabularies and body suit-style fur. And I know it would have entertained me if I was young.
For anyone who has never seen the programme, it is aimed at very young children and features the various activities and food-related mishaps of four alien mammal things with aerials on their heads and televisions on their bellies. Through a complicated spinning windmill device they pick up transmissions of children making cakes and going to farms, things of that nature, and play them again. The mysterious voice on the speakers seems to be the only adult equivalent, while the Teletubbies' Noo-Noo vacuum cleaner cleans up all their mess like a mother. There are also plenty of rabbits to represent rabbits, which lead to a very funny complaint to points of view from one parent who claimed to have seen a dead rabbit on the screen. The BBC assured her that it was simply sleeping, which seems a little similar to a famous Monty Python sketch involving a parrot. There are no real hidden subtleties to the show as it is aimed at children, but the Teletubbies are free to play for a while before they are told that they have to go "Tubby bye bye": essentially to bed, or somewhere else dull such as the supermarket.
Teletubbies was one of those programmes that even if you're a teenager or adult, you can watch with your brother/children and keep amused. Personally it was the fact that it was annoyingly repetitive and featured blatantly homosexual actors (why was the guy fired when this news became public? The replacement played Tinky Winky in the exact same way) that made it something to laugh at and also appreciate.
My youngest brother used to be very entertained by the chase sequences inside the Tubbytronic Superdome- that's right, look impressed, I know the name of their house- and marvelled at the computer generated sequences involving an animal parade, a dancing bear, a tree growing and dying and a set of boats floating around. And nothing else; the child audience's short memories were certainly a help to the show's CGI budget. I also found it interesting how the repetition was deliberately forced, with every episode having the same structure and the videos of children being played Again Again, being linked with a child's habit of watching the same videos again and again.
What Teletubbies did was attempt to reach the youngest viewers in a way that I don't think had ever been attempted before or since. Comparisons with programmes such as the Tweenies and Playdays don't seem particularly fair as their target age group would be children immediately pre-school, around the ages of three to five or six. I've seen Teletubbies' positive effect on babies as young as one year old, and despite its lack of educational material it makes up for this in simple entertainment. It even entertained me when I was twelve years old, the programme's been going longer than I thought. The show also used to have Christmas specials, which may have upset non-Christians in the community, although it was all about the gift and decoration aspects of the holiday as this is all children will ever care about at that age.
The nursery rhymes sung by those shower-head speakers and the varied games won't teach a child anything it can't learn from its parents, but there are plenty of other programmes to do that. Teletubbies i
s fast-paced, playful, colourful fun.
Advantages: Fun and likeable characters children can get to know
Disadvantages: Repetitive, but this is only a problem for those it is not aimed at
There Can't Be More Than Fifty of Them; I'll Be Fine
***
Written on 01.11.2007
In the wake of ‘Star Wars,’ and with the hype surrounding Arnold Schwarzenegger’s upcoming role in a filmed version of Robert E. Howard’s ‘Conan the Barbarian,’ it’s easy to see why comic writer Steve Gerber saw a potential market for his sci-fi/fantasy cartoon creation Thundarr in 1980. With a main character clearly based on Howard’s archetypal barbarian; a hairy, sharp-toothed companion who is one step away from a Wookiee; and a butt-kicking female donned in the skimpiest clothing imaginable for a kid’s series, it’s no surprise that the relatively short-lived ‘Thundarr the Barbarian’ has taken on a legendary status in today’s internet nerd culture almost comparable to its successor ‘Masters of the Universe.’ It’s also a lot better, not merely acting as a front to sell overpriced toys to capitalist parents.
The premise of Thundarr is interesting and inspired in the way many 80s cartoons could boast, set in a post-apocalyptic far future two thousand years after a seemingly natural cosmic disaster shattered the Moon and devastated the thriving Earth in 1994. In this new world, overgrown wasteland is punctuated by the occasional relic of the present-day, revealing the area of America through which Thundarr and his companions are travelling and perhaps even humbling young viewers with a reminder that nothing lasts forever... unless it’s made of stone, obviously. Mirroring the famous last scene of ‘Planet of the Apes’ that I obviously wouldn’t want to spoil if you haven’t seen it – just as I didn’t want it spoiled when I saw the Statue of Liberty towering over the landscape on the video cover before I’d even put it in the machine – that famous symbol of American liberty is the first point of reference used in episode one, before the discovery of a small group of refugee humans is discovered in the remains of the New York subway system. It’s a nice idea, and these often subtle indicators provide something to look out for in almost every episode as the freedom fighters tour the regions and even bizarrely end up in London at one point.
The mighty Thundarr and his companions Princess Ariel (a powerful sorceress) and the brilliantly named Ookla the Mok (sharp-toothed Wookiee thing, allegedly named hastily by the writers as they passed a sign for the UCLA) live in an age where magic reigns and evil sorcerers rule the kingdoms, enslaving and destroying the surviving humans through their armies of naturally mutated giant animals. Their self-appointed mission is simple: combat injustice and rejuvenate the American dream. Without a helpful but time-wasting introductory episode to explain how this merry band came together, and more importantly whether Thundarr was ever intimate with his scantily-clad companion, or even the Princess (ha ha, do you see what I did there?), the audience is dropped into the action with a thoughtfully crafted first episode that sets up their situation and goals through demonstration, and provides them with even more incentive to seek out other groups of persecuted humans. The series ran for twenty-one episodes across two seasons between 1980 and 1982 on US channel ABC, before being sold into syndication and soon being usurped by more popular successors. The animation style appears fairly primitive by modern standards, but follows the same tried-and-tested style as Ruby and Spears’ earlier creations such as ‘Scooby Doo.’
As with many sci-fi/fantasy crossovers like this, and the shows it perhaps inspired (‘Masters of the Universe’ and the excellent ‘Thundercats’ among them), the dystopian environment features an intriguing mix of archaic and futuristic technology, rooted in a primeval wilderness. Thundarr appears to have had little experience with advanced technology, calling motorbikes “motor steeds” and making numerous other cute mistakes, but the more privileged Ariel is always on hand to explain it to him and forge a link with the viewers. They wish (again, I am making a sort of sexual innuendo there). The show seems to be making some sort of vague point by placing the advanced technology in enemy hands, in contrast to the heroes’ more modest horses (or whatever that thing is that Chewbacca rides), but as the Earth’s destruction was shown to be due to a natural phenomenon rather than man’s own foolishness as is often the case with these things, it’s most likely a simple demonstration that the good guys can triumph through their natural wits and power. Being a woman and therefore obviously weak, Ariel is able to compensate with her magical abilities that allow her to unleash energy missiles and to do plenty of other, more interesting things too, like bring the Statue of Liberty to life years before ‘Ghostbusters 2’ thought of that. While Ooklabacca never tires of chucking enemies around like they’re nothing more than Jawas, Thundarr is aided by his magical Sunsword, with its beam made of energy that retracts into the hilt when he’s done. Hmm...
‘Thundarr’ was a classic 80s cartoon that I was fortunate to see repeated at a later time when I wasn’t too young to be alive, and one that’s certainly been unfairly treated and overlooked in comparison to the hugely popular ‘Masters of the Universe.’ Thundarr would trash He-Man any day, but Conan would still pulverise them both before ravishing Ariel and binding Ookla, letting Extendar sneak in to have his wicked way. I bet that video exists on the internet somewhere. In case I haven’t made it clear, this is fairly typical macho swords and sorcery fantasy action for boys, tomboys and overgrown boys who prefer it if you refer to them by rank rather than name (which tends to be Melvin or Norm), but unlike many similar series it has something to offer viewers beyond the opening titles and non-existent action figure range, in terms of actual plots and some entertaining recurring villains. It’s a great alternative to having a more authentic Conan cartoon, however excellent that may have been (another company tried in the 90s, but it wasn't that good), but at the same time it’s no ‘Thundercats,’ and the evil Gemini is no match for Mumm-Ra. As for the merits of Princess Ariel versus Cheetara, that’s a discussion for a different website.
Advantages: Classic swords & sorcery cartoon series for Conan fans.
Disadvantages: Short-lived and unapologetically masculine.
No Strings Attached
****
Written on 04.12.03
That's right, I've written a review on Thunderbirds. Gerry Anderson's sci-fi adventure series starring fake people on strings captured the imaginations of an entire... well, my Dad anyway.
The story behind Thunderbirds is that it is the year 2065, and multi-millionaire widower ex-astronaut Jeff Tracey and his family of only men have set up an incredibly secret yet famous organisation, International Rescue. The purpose of this organisation is to offer assistance to people who really need it, similar to Superman but more wooden. The woodenness of the Christopher Reeve acting versus puppets could be argued if you thought you were a bit clever, however it's obvious that it was meant literally.
Jeff's five sons are carrying out their father's dream and flying all over the planet while he lies down on his tropical island drinking and talking with that old woman that's only in a few of them.
1...
Scott is in charge of Thunderbird 1, which is the best as it is small enough to travel quickly in Earth's atmosphere and can manouvre into some smaller spots. A noteable T1 episode was the pyramid one, which I remember being great but can't remember what happened in it. The chute into which Scott's plastic and wood body would be delivered into Thunderbird 1 was clearly the most exciting part of the character's otherwise very dull life, alone on an island with only his family for company.
2...
Virgil commands Thunderbird 2, which is the best because it's a huge green hulk that can go all the places the first one can as well as drop smaller vehicles out of its central pod. This was also the Thunderbird that everyone had the toy of. A noteable T2 episode featured the pod "the Mole," which had to dig out the crew of another c
raft called "the Sidewinder" which was burrowing into a volcano because the people inside had trusted machinery over man or some moral like that.
3...
Thunderbird 3 was the best one because it was huge and could fly into space, the only problem was that it was commanded by the annoying Alan Tracey. Thunderbird 3 always impressed me simply because of the space aspect, and a noteable episode is one where some Sun Probe malfunctioned, probably because the people within had trusted machinery over man or something along those lines, and T3 had to go to the rescue with Brains and some stupid robot Brains had built which was probably vital in the rescue. Seems a little unfair making International Rescue into Intergalactic Rescue, but that was one of my favourites when I was young.
4...
Thunderbird 4 was NOT the best because it was small and rubbish, and commanded by the most annoying of the Tracey sons, Gordon. Thunderbird 4 had to be carried to its destinations by Thunderbird 2's pod system, and as such is surely the least loved Thunderbird. Still, there was a noteable episode in which a sunken spaceships called the Firefly had to have its engines cut off by T4 so it could float to the surface; I don't know how it had crashed, but you get the picture. Machine v. Man, etc.
5...
There has been a very strong rumour since the show came out that John Tracey was sent to the orbiting satellite Thunderbird 5 because Gerry Anderson found the puppet very annoying. Although it doesn't rescue anything, T5 is responsible for receving all the radio communications which are sent to IR's headquarters, because this couldn't be done from the advanced Tracy island obviously. There were never, and never will be, any noteable Thunderbird 5 episodes.
OTHERS
Jeff's London contact was the sultry and wealthy Lady Penelope, another example of an operative of the 'secret' organisation holding immense status and fame in society, always accompanied by the rather feeble Parker. I know they were only puppets, as I've said, but there was chemistry between them two, unless that was just a horrible dream I had. The main adversary of International Rescue was a bald, Eastern man known as 'the Hood' who had the ability to influence another of the old men living on Tracey Island. The one who had the daughter, Tintin, who was clearly the only available young lady on which the lads must have based their sexual affections, but we never saw this for some reason. I'm not going to make a joke about them getting wood, oh damn. Sorry.
Thunderbirds presented children and adults with adventure, tension, excitement, explosions, mystery and pretend people. Often criticised for the fact that it used puppets, Thunderbirds was simply too expensive to use real actors and locations in, and it's more original than it being a cartoon. Many adults find no problem in loving what could be described as a childish show, and personally I disagree to some extent. I can appreciate how I liked it in my youth, but I think it's a little foolish to be watching it for entertainment now. Obviously my Dad wouldn't agree, he's just bought both of the 'films' (extended episodes) off eBay. Even if you aren't a child, which I hope you're not because I think I wrote 'crap' in this review somewhere, Thunderbirds' slight dodginess through age can still be a source of merriment, as you watch people take several seconds to perform a jump and explosions that are clearly one thousandth their theoretical size.
Thunderbirds also presents a view of a possible future, in which televisions and household appliances have reverted to a 1960s style, but in which we can explore space and commmunicate through pictures with eyes that illuminate. Still as able to fascinate and entertain children as it ever was, and possibly having a come-back in a while when the live action feature directed by Star Trek's Jonathan Frakes (Riker) is released, I hope to see Thunderbirds on BBC 2's early morning schedule for many years to come.
Advantages: Original and interesting
Disadvantages: Looks incredibly fake, but that is part of its charm
Desert Island D*cks
*
Written on 18.11.07
In the mid-nineties, during the height of the Chuckle Brothers’ fame, the hapless comedy duo were granted a pointless spin-off in the form of ‘To Me, To You!’, originally advertised as ‘Chuckle Island’ on one particularly memorable early Saturday morning of my childhood, when I was absolutely convinced I had dreamed it. Unfortunately, a week or so later, like some kind of uncharacteristically accurate Nostradamus who focused on children’s light entertainment rather than natural disasters, my vision was proved all too disappointingly true. The Chuckle Brothers were presenting a children’s game show based around the flimsiest premise imaginable.
Similar to Reeves & Mortimer’s ‘Shooting Stars’ from the same era, the show relied on the wacky nature of its presenters and the shameless publicity stunt of a weekly “celebrity” guest. That is where the comparison to ‘Shooting Stars’ ends. The actual games were basic, repetitive and entirely devoid of imagination, and were clearly the final annoying detail the creators were forced to hastily work out in this questionable production. I still have no idea where the tropical island theme came from; the Chuckle Brothers were typically based in Rotherham after all, a town not renowned for its tropical climate. The set design reflecting this theme was routine enough, with palm trees and sand, while the props took the form of coconuts, a bamboo shopping trolley and custard pies. The last one doesn’t have that much to do with a desert (dessert?) island admittedly, but how else would viewers be treated to the hilarious sight of two middle-aged, moustachioed man being splatted in the face by children every single week in the ‘Chuckle Chuck?’
Whether this endeavour was the Chuckles’ own idea or merely an idea by some idiot elsewhere in Children’s BBC, the brothers Paul and Barry (real names Paul and Barry Elliot, just to spoil the magical illusion) are utterly wasted in this format, making a few cracks at each other as opposing team captains, but never getting the chance to carry out a ludicrous, hare-brained scheme ending with them knocking over a load of shelves and Barry getting various shades of paint all over him with a comical “sploik!” sound effect, as tended to be the format of their more well-known ‘Chucklevision.’ I actually found it quite disappointing to see them basically act as normal grown-ups around the young contestants rather than the childish loonies viewers were more accustomed to, and the dynamic they had in their other series – namely, Paul being the controlling, lazy one, and Barry his long-suffering, hard-working assistant – is also all but absent, as the custard pie finale threatens to undermine their conflict of status.
The games repeated in each episode must have taken all of twenty seconds to come up with, and are all mere variations on old staples. The main feature that repeats throughout is a sort of board-game-based tug-o-war between both teams as they throw an oversized dice to move the bamboo trolley a number of squares towards their home, spurred on by the ever-irritating enthusiasm of the shrill child audience. When it finally reached its destination and the electric atmosphere dispelled, the winning team would get to keep whatever popular-in-the-mid-nineties items were inside, and the trolley would be re-stocked so that exactly the same game could be played again. And then in every other episode. For three years.
‘To Me, To You!’ was a classic example of a weak premise hanging about as loosely as is possible on the “celebrity” of its presenters and weekly guest from the world of children’s entertainment. I think dooyoo’s description is quite revealing in terms of the calibre of celebrity in question, as the most impressive guest it can cite is Richard McCourt. As you all remember, McCourt was one of the biggest celebrity household names in the mid-nineties even before becoming Dick from the disappointing Dick and Dom double act; everyone at my school had the Richard McCourt pencil case and sticker album with 150 stickers of his smiling face to collect, there was the SNES game adaptation of his career, and even that limited edition range of crisps renamed to ‘Salt and McCourt’ flavour in his honour, so I’m impressed that they managed to snag him for this show instead of all those popular singers, footballers and actors who they presumably couldn’t be bothered with, but totally could have afforded.
Even the briefest description of this show’s content – the Chuckle Brothers present a children’s desert island game show with a trolley full of stuff to win – will probably give you a 100% accurate idea of how pointless and terrible this show was. Nothing can account for it spanning three series (especially when gold like ‘Incredible Games’ only lasted for two), but it was presumably low-budget and generic enough to provide adequate schedule filler when CBBC couldn’t quite dish out for another expensive American cartoon series. Contrary to the opinion I might have given across in this review, I was actually a big fan of the Chuckle Brothers and still have a degree of respect for them, though more in a laughing-at-them way these days (and they were never as funny or inventive as Trevor & Simon, but miles ahead of the aforementioned Dick and Dom that kids have to settle for these days), but this was so far removed from the glory of ‘Chucklevision’ that their very presence was more like an insult. Against all odds, ‘Chucklevision’ is still being produced on a yearly basis, and celebrated its twentieth anniversary this year. Oh dear oh dear.
Advantages: Probably inexpensive to make, and kids went away with prizes so some happiness came from it.
Disadvantages: The show in general.
U
I'm So Retro
****
Written on 16.10.07
Another cartoon series frequently used (fairly accurately) by geeks in their late twenties to justify why old cartoons were better than the rubbish kids have to put up with nowadays, ‘Ulysses 31’ was a science fiction retelling of famous Greek myths that will never see a revamped, updated version given to the likes of He-Man, Transformers and the Turtles simply because it’s just about the most Eighties cartoon that was ever made.
The idea is brilliantly simple; clever and crazy at the same time. Just as George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy consciously updated the classical monomyth for contemporary audiences, and then set it in space, Jean Chalopin and Nina Wolmark of French cartoon production company DIC took the basic outline of Homer’s Odyssey and then, well, set that in space too. (Remember DIC? Oh, we had endless laughs about that one. “Bwah-bwah, bwah – DIC.” Ha ha ha). The end result is the typical high space adventure of many early 80s cartoons, but with quite good plots all adapted in some way from the Greek stories of Homer and others, featuring space age extrapolations of the stories of Sisyphus, Orpheus, the Sirens, the Riddle of the Sphinx, the Minotaur’s Labyrinth, the witch Circe, as well as the gratuitous name-dropping of other Greek figures and places.
The sci-fi transformation is just about as obvious and uncomplicated as it could possibly be, with the kingdoms and ports of old now represented by planets and orbiting space stations, the galactic ‘sea’ also posing dangers to the crew of the spaceship Odyssey in the form of space storms and unlikely space glaciers. Equipment and weapons are similarly given the hi-tech treatment, and no attempt is made to disguise Ulysses’ energy sword as anything other than a lightsaber. The series only lasted for a single run of twenty-six episodes before ending conclusively and finally as the Odyssey reached its intended destination of the Kingdom of Hades, and this grants an unexpected level of class and modesty to the series at a time when syndicated cartoons would seem to last forever, but never really go anywhere (it also means that there really aren’t all that many to sit through if you intend on watching them all).
While the writers may have feared cancellation and upsetting young fans if they had left the plot open for a second season that never arrived (like ‘Pirates of Dark Water’ – what was that all about? They only found about half of the Thirteen Treasures before it suddenly vanished from the airwaves), I would guess that the decision was also a matter of necessity: Homer was doing most of their writing, and they’d adapted most of his ideas now, even leading to some drastic deviation with episodes like ‘Before the Flood’ which tells the story of Noah’s Ark, taken from a completely different work of classical fiction altogether. Despite the focus on single episode stories, the larger plot objectives of the series loom constantly in the background, the need for star maps to Earth figuring loosely into each adventure. And just in case any forgetful viewers or newcomers were confused about the constant referrals to Zeus, the Odyssey’s comatose crew or the general aimless space-faring that dominates the series, each episode’s memorable opening sequence features the customary plot outline before the cheesy and ever so enjoyable 80s electro-rock theme begins in earnest.
As a DIC production, the animation and production values are all high and impressive, even if the series now looks very dated in a cool, retro way. The characters are all colourful and distinct, from the bearded, smooth-talking hero Ulysses and his slightly annoying son Telemachus to the more outlandish characters in the form of the telepathic blue alien Yumi and Telemachus’ really annoying robot buddy Nono, who fulfils the same role of small, pointless, child-pleasing idiot as Slimer in ‘The Real Ghostbusters,’ Snarf in ‘Thundercats’ and Orko in ‘Masters of the Universe.' The stylised realism of the characters and the detailed, lavishly painted backgrounds and space shots reveal the production’s ties with Japanese anime, and like many imports there’s a tendency for the voice actors to speak their lines incredibly fast to keep up with the translation, making it a little exhausting and difficult to get into at the beginning. Still, despite these drawbacks and the fairly formulaic plots, ‘Ulysses 31’ remains one of the better animated series from that largely silly decade, winning bonus ridiculous points for basing itself on an extended metaphor that absolutely no-one of the intended viewing demographic, or even many of their older siblings or parents, are going to notice.
Perhaps a little too wordy and exotic for fans of more explosive sci-fi like ‘Transformers’ and ‘MASK,’ or more action-packed sci-fi fantasy in a more traditional setting such as ‘Masters of the Universe’ and ‘Thundercats,’ this series is a fair and slightly overlooked competitor to them all. In particular, as a space-bound show it’s a lot better than that rubbish late 80s ‘New Adventures of He-Man’ that tried to re-launch the characters in a similar setting. It’s a shame DIC never made anything along the lines of ‘Jesus 2179,’ revising the Gospels and Jesus’ parables in an outer space setting and adding an annoying, stupid character to hang around with Luke, but now it’s 18 years too late.
The complete Region 2 DVD has been released by Contender. Watch the opening theme on YouTube, it’s most excellent.
Advantages: Interesting futuristic revision of classical Greek myths for 80s kids.
Disadvantages: Suffers in translation and requires huge suspension of disbelief to avoid realising how stupid it is
Uncle Jack and the Loch Ness Monster
Bond's Tree-Hugging Cousin
***
Written on 04.10.07
‘Uncle Jack’ was an environmentally-themed drama series for children that ran for four series on Children’s BBC in the early 1990s. All four series were written by Jim Eldridge and starred former musician Paul Jones in the title role as Jack Green, a chirpy middle-aged bloke in a woolly jumper with a concern for the environment and some important ties to the science and intelligence industries. Despite the increasingly ludicrous plots, Jack’s nemesis invariably winds up being The Vixen, played by Fenella Fielding of (much earlier) ‘Carry On’ fame, and Jack is able to enlist the help of bumbling MI5 agents in uncovering and hopefully dismantling the fiendish plots.
‘Uncle Jack and the Loch Ness Monster’ was the second series of six episodes, following the previous year’s ‘Uncle Jack and Operation Green,’ which I never saw. Continuing with similar themes of pollution, dangerous chemicals and high-level conspiracies, it’s also the first point at which the series veers into the fantastical territory that would spiral somewhat out of control with the moon bases and mummies of later years. It’s also the last to feature Jack’s family, whose mixture of embarrassment and awe at his actions and his incessant need to involve himself with everything make for an entertaining backdrop that keeps this series grounded mostly in reality; the bickering married parents known only as Mr. and Mrs. Stevens lend a familiar family sitcom feel to the proceedings, and the obligatory children in the form of Michael, Kate and annoying newcomer Tammy are mostly played by competent child actors, the latter being forgivable due to her slightly younger age and need to be an irritating pain due to script demands.
The plot begins with Jack accompanying his sister’s family on a holiday retreat to the Highlands, only to find that their cousin Angus has been missing for several days, leaving his daughter Tammy alone at home (as her mother died a year earlier). Sensing a disturbance in the Force, Jack investigates Angus’ last known whereabouts by the nearby Loch Noch accompanied by the children, despite the claims of local villagers that Angus is always disappearing and it’s nothing to be worried about. Jack discovers the presence of toxic waste, pointing to a suspicious illegal dumping made even more suspect by the sudden fencing off of the whole area, and the eco-friendly adventurer sets about uncovering the sinister plot of the bearded pantomime villains before the Vixen can learn the secrets of the ooze and sculpt her own slime golem in the form of the fabled Loch Noch Monster!
Paul Jones bears the burden of the lead role very well, despite seeming more like someone you’d expect to be presenting a TV show with puppets or actors in animal suits rather than an Indiana Jones/Bond spy hero, and when Fenella Fielding is involved towards the end she manages to steal the show as usual with some fantastically camp pantomime overacting, clearly loving being the villain of the piece. The other notable good guys are M and Agent 7, whose incompetent MI5 operatives would clearly fail if not for the level-headed assistance of Jack and his nieces and nephew, and as cheap comic relief, these were the only characters to return for the later series apart from the leads. Being set and filmed on location in northern Scotland, most of the extras have strong Scottish dialects that add to the realism and also participates helpfully in the BBC’s push towards national representation at the time, in contrast to the Received Pronunciation of Jack and his middle-class kin.
It’s likely a sign of progressive times that the Scottish dialect and customs aren’t played for laughs as they would be in other comedy-tinged series, requiring the humour to come from far more outlandish sources, most memorably the Post Office worker and Jack engaging in an embarrassing conversation of early 90s street slang, according to the out-of-touch writer’s very wrong idea of what this entails. It amused me greatly for this reason alone. On the whole, the humour is more natural and character-based in these early series before the descent into stupid oafishness with ‘Uncle Jack and Cleopatra’s Tomb’ that I remember being really disappointed by even though I was about eight when it first aired (I’ve always been a connoisseur of pointlessness), and the plot develops at a fairly steady pace across the six episodes in the manner customary to BBC serials until recent years, whether written for children or adults. It wasn’t repeated as much as the last two Uncle Jack series, and was never released on video.
The second entry in the Uncle Jack quadrilogy is fairly mediocre for a children’s drama series, providing the necessary laughs and excitement at a fairly slow pace, but conveying its ecological message particularly well, even if its presentation of a pollution-created monster is a considerable stretch of allegory. I remember its successor ‘Uncle Jack and the Dark Side of the Moon’ more fondly than this, for bringing a similarly sci-fi plot more down-to-earth and locating it in a school, but at least this series may have given young and neglected viewers in Scotland something to relate to, even if it does suggest that their country hasn’t evolved much beyond the eighteenth century in terms of architecture and morals. It’s still obviously better than anything churned out for kids today (and by extension, considerably worse than anything from ten years earlier according to people older than me – and so it goes on), but ‘Uncle Jack and the Loch Ness Monster’ was fairly inconsequential in comparison to contemporary shows such as ‘The Tomorrow People’ and ‘Watt on Earth.’ (It was better than the long-running ‘Mike and Angelo’ though, which was rubbish).
Advantages: Entertaining and original children's drama that doesn't talk down to its viewers.
Disadvantages: The humour is sparse and almost always ridiculous, and the plot far too stretched.
Uncle Jack and the Dark Side of the Moon
Straight Outta Brimley-Crompton
****
Written on 09.10.07
The third series of Jim Eldridge's Children's BBC drama 'Uncle Jack' is probably also the best, with a higher level of excitement, involvement and humour than before, although the series' original environmental focus falls by the wayside in favour of a creepy science fiction plot that wouldn't be out of place in 'Doctor Who.' Jack Green's niece Kate writes to her uncle asking him to investigate mysterious goings-on at her boarding school in the fictional West Country town of Brimley-Crompton, where her friend Simon has been detained by the nurse under the suspicious story of a highly infectious disease (that the nurse seems oddly unaffected by). Also receiving a phone call from his old friends M and Dorothy, now expelled from MI5 presumably due to their incompetence and sent to work in a weather monitoring station in the same area, Jack begins to smell a conspiratorial plot involving the highest level of the school, strange stones in its gardens, human weather control and the dark side of the Moon. No, not the Pink Floyd album, the actual one.
Paul Jones returns for the third time as Jack Green and seems more suited to the part now that his grey jumper has been replaced with the more traditional suit of a secret agent, and his arch nemesis the Vixen is once again played to perfection by Carry On's Fenella Fielding. The switch of location to a boarding school is carried off well and actually manages to generate a real interest and involvement with child viewers through its careful and accurate handling of school life (also achieved in other early 90s shows like early 'Bodger & Badger' and the really bad 'Out of Tune'), and means that Jack's other relatives are absent this time round, Kate herself oddly being played by Sarah Lambert, the sister of the original actress Helen Lambert who played the part in previous years. Sarah is teamed up with a self-consciously multi-racial child spy team (played by the young Elaine Tan and Amon Dsane) who assist Jack as he goes against the school's ruling body and the clichéd naughty boy Kevin, who happens to be the conniving headmaster's son. With Roger Hammond and Tricia George returning as the comic relief characters M and Dorothy, and Coronation Street's Jimmi Harkishin getting a larger role this time round for his questionable stupid Spaniard Jose Cuervo, the ensemble is stronger and more relevant here than in previous years, where additional family members tended to get in the way of all the frivolous snooping with their serious attitudes and moralising. There's none of that here.
The plot evolves at a steady and enjoyable pace across the six episodes without ever really becoming dull, and it's clear that Eldridge has mastered the suspenseful cliffhanger by this point, usually being based around increasingly destructive forms of directed weather, from a tornado to an approaching tidal wave. Setting it in a school makes it especially exciting as the children are shown to be in constant danger (sort of like Doctor Who's 'Remembrance of the Daleks' when the Dalek base of operations was revealed to be in the school cellar - yikes!), and once again Children's BBC recruit talented child actors who don't just speak their lines off-key and look in the wrong direction; they're all pretty good. The Vixen's moonbase and the weird cairn stones in the school grounds tie this series to the 1970s tradition of children's sci-fi drama such as 'Children of the Stones' and the original 'Tomorrow People,' and it works just as successfully for the early 90s generation of viewers, myself included. While I didn't glean any valuable ecological lessons from this series as I did with its predecessor, it did teach me what a tidal wave was, and that you should never trust a theatrical sword.
'Dark Side of the Moon' is also much funnier than the previous series, and still makes me laugh through the audacity of its really over-the-top wordplay. The school's moronic Spanish janitor Jose Cuervo is the worst offender (a really positive stereotype there, BBC), messing up his sole attempt to fill in as teacher by giving his whole class detention when they laugh at him and correct him about his use of the term "a flock of cows."
"A herd of cows," Errol corrects.
"Course I've heard of cows, I wouldn't be teaching about them otherwise would I? Detention!" Cuervo yells in his stereotypical Spanish accent, before getting into a similar conversation about the cow's "hide."
Another such forced instance comes when Jack tries to deter the affections of a teacher who is also his biggest fan, with exchanges such as: "Do you know how much I yearn?"/"Um, about £15,000 a year?" and "I think you may be under a misapprehension."/"No, I'm under a fluorescent light." The series starts as it means to go on by cracking a pun about wind and baked beans before the show's even passed its first minute, but with the exception of the possible racism it's all fairly harmless fun, and probably there as much for any parents being forced to watch along with their children. Or just pretending to be forced...
This third series of Uncle Jack finally gets all the ingredients right for a successful children's drama, but has to compromise its roots and look back to successes of the seventies in order to do so. The fourth and final series that followed a year later, 'Uncle Jack and Cleopatra's Tomb,' raised the daft racism and stupid joke quotient to a level that was even intolerable to the eight-year-old me by having a main character named Mustafa Peepee leading to all sorts of "hilarious" dialogue exchanges, and Eldritch wisely decided to call it a day thereafter. Either that, or they just never asked him back. 'Uncle Jack and the Dark Side of the Moon' was repeated regularly enough within a couple of years of its broadcast for me to become fairly sick of it, and it was never released on video or DVD, but still retains a minority fan base by people dedicated to preserving pointless memories. Cool series.
W
Transanimateobjectify
***
Written on 23.10.07 [2016 rewatch]
‘Watt on Earth’ was one of the more memorable children’s sci-fi dramas of the early 1990s, created and written by husband and wife team Pip and Jane Baker, whose previous work included four ‘Doctor Who’ serials from the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy eras as well as episodes of Gerry Anderson’s live-action series ‘Space: 1999.’ Based on the premise of an alien arriving on Earth and being kept safe and hidden by a young boy, it was similar to the ludicrously long-running ‘Mike and Angelo’ and the briefer, more educational ‘Earth Warp,’ with the latter show’s moralistic threat of the corrupt human army replaced with a more terrifying alien in a black car.
The series was first broadcast, quite unusually, as twelve episodes across six weeks in late 1991, with fifteen-minute episodes broadcast on Mondays and Tuesdays, and returned for a second series of twelve in the same style a year later – after this it was repeated a few times into the mid-nineties. Despite seeming initially like a series based entirely on a rather bad pun title, it wasn’t all bad (the alien character’s name is “Watt,” and he is, as I have explained, “on Earth,” hence literally “Watt on Earth.” Do you see? Would you like me to take you through it again?)
The suitably camp and enthusiastic Garth Napier Jones put in a convincing performance as the titular eccentric alien prince, who claims to be over three hundred years old but appears to be a relatively young man with the attitude of an eight-year-old boy, and the child actor who plays the character of Sean opposite him (Tom Brodie) performs at the usual high standard of Children’s BBC performers. Other main characters include Sean’s irritating and duplicitous sister Zoe (Jessica Simpson – no, not that one), their relatively dull parents and one of the most frightening characters from my childhood, the sinister Jemadah.
Although he claims to be next in line for the throne on his home world, Watt has fled to Earth to escape his evil, unnamed, unseen uncle who seems intent on killing him, and who has sent his loyal servant Jemadah to track Watt down in Haxton, where he has somehow ended up. Watt’s race possess the power to transform into exact duplicates of familiar objects (or to use the show’s technical term, “transanimateobjectify”), but true to his foolish character, Watt’s replicas are always significantly flawed imitations, such as a dual-stalked apple and a square golf ball. Although resembling a human most of the time for ease of interaction with his new friend Sean, who discovers him as a malfunctioning lightbulb that his mother throws away (cheesily exclaiming “what on Earth?” as she does so), Watt can be picked out from the rest of homo sapiens for his garish green and black tracksuit and, even more shockingly, backwards-facing ears. Perhaps fearing that the prosthetic make-up wasn’t as convincing as it could be, or that the character wasn’t quite flamboyant enough, the second series saw Watt return in an even more striking pink version of his outfit, the green now having drained to his new forward-facing ears. Fortunately, his bowl-cut provides suitable enough camouflage whenever he is required to be out and about, rather than simply hiding in Sean’s cupboard eating his preferred choice of dog food in tomato ketchup.
This was never going to be a ground-breaking series, or even a particularly impressive one, but Pip and Jane Baker managed to inject enough tension and drama to keep young viewers hooked throughout. Jemadah was an effectively chilling presence, occasionally tracking Watt down and being temporarily thwarted in the nick of time, and as each series moved towards its conclusion, things got about as exciting and nail-biting as they could possibly get in kid’s TV (the spy-glass sequences of ‘Knightmare’ perhaps excluded). When it wasn’t being scary, it was pretty daft, from endless repetition of jokes about Sean’s odd, reclusive behaviour and his ignorant parents, who worked for the local newspaper yet were unable to smell the breaking news occurring within their own house. Watt’s character was largely used for simplistic comic relief, often through his contrived inability to understand human customs, and it’s fairly surprising that it was commissioned for a second series. However, feeling that their work was done at the end of twenty-four episodes, the Bakers rounded things off definitively and blandly with a proper conclusion.
‘Watt on Earth’ remains memorable, but apart from the fear factor I’m not quite sure why. It certainly doesn’t have as large a nostalgia-based presence on the internet as other shows of the time, but it’s always nice to have a trip down memory lane and realise just how many of one’s crucial formative years were wasted in front of the idiot’s lantern. It’s a show that I can’t really see returning in a similar form – the plot of a fully grown man asking a young boy to hide him in a cupboard above his bed and not tell his parents might not be as popular in today’s overly cautious society – but it may have had some small role in shaping the future of similar children’s sitcoms and dramas, such as that really annoying ‘My Parents Are Aliens’ thing that my brother used to watch. This series was definitely repeated circa 1995 as I remember a scene where Sean played ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ in a sleazy bit of BBC product placement and I remember being particularly excited by that. Maybe this show never was that good after all...
Advantages: The enemy was really scary.
Disadvantages: The rest was pretty daft.
Lost reviews
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Vol. 4 ***
