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Mystery TV Programmes Of The Seventies

I remeber reading some time ago that the guy who made Q was a real low budget film maker... and to get the sceen where lots of cops with mechine guns attack the Serpent at the top of a tower block....well he took lots of guys in costum to the top of a tower block and let em blaze away!... attracting the attension of the real Cops who thought a war was going on up there!..
 
Michael Moriarty in Q was just pure genius.It's quite a low budget film but with this really strange kinda pathetic anti-hero played with such passion.Amazing.
 
Mystery 70's TV Series?
BBC2 was the mystery for us young adolescents:

Casanova; Eyeless in Gaza; I Claudius.

There were others.

Classic serials, they called them. Smut! That's what Mrs Whitehouse said.
 
There was even a serial adaptation of Sartre's Roads to Freedom,
of all things! I hadn't thought of that for years.

Mrs. W. was actively courted by some programme-makers so that
she could flag the supposed smut.

I suppose these days the average soap-opera has more incest and
perversion in each episode than the whole of I Claudius.

But Caligula had more style. :(
 
AndroMan said:
Mystery 70's TV Series?
BBC2 was the mystery for us young adolescents:

Casanova; Eyeless in Gaza; I Claudius.

There were others.
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Remember The Cleopatras? Clever idea: minimalist sets, mostly core cast alone, no "oh-look-there's-a-pyramid, we-must-be-in-Egypt-then" shots etc retelling the Ptolemaic dynasty's story and the sheer amount of politics that went into it, culminating in the reign of Cleopatra herself and the involvement of the Roman Empire. And no bugger watched it, apart from people who'd write to the Radio Times and Points of View complaining about no lingering shots of Pyramids, their licence fee being wasted and when was "Just Good Friends" coming back?.

And of course the magnificent pantomime that was The Borgias!

Wish the Beeb would take risks like that again: too many bland sitcoms and people in bonnets these days. Though occasionally it does find some courage (eg League of Gentlemen, Messiah - the sequel to which is on next weekend :))

*EDIT* The sequel to Messiah isn't on this week after all: after all the Sowham unpleasantness the Beeb has postponed it. Can see their point.

Stu
 
Q The Winged serpent

Agreed. Michael Moriarty was superb in Q.
Anyone ever seen another film by the same director (Larry Cohen I think) called "God Told Me To Do It"? It's barking mad where a serial killer turns out to be a yellow glowing Christ who's returned to earth? (I'm not selling this very well am I?) I believe it was also released under the title of "demon" for some reason.
I saw it in the erly 80's before I think it was banned in the video nasty scare. Not sure why.
 
Forgotten 70's Kids Tv Show

Anyone except me remember a programme from the early 70's (72 - 74 probably) called "Timeslip".
It revolved around a boy and a girl (boy wore thick glasses) who found a gap in time (hence the title) which I think was at a disused RAF base (not sure if that was important) that allowed them to go into the past & future. I remember them meeting their adult selves at a base in antartica or somewher bizarre. There were also bits where people suddenly aged that I seem to remember alway creeped me out.
I always bring it up in pub conversations of "do you remember . . . .?" but no - one I know can ever recall it.
Kids shows back then were a lot more adventurous weren't they?
 
Timeslip It revolved around a boy and a girl (boy wore thick glasses) who found a gap in time (hence the title) which I think was at a disused RAF base (not sure if that was important) that allowed them to go into the past & future.
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It used to freak me out too. Very downbeat, a future of overpopulation, exhausted natural resources and longevity drugs.

The RAF base had experimental RADAR technology, installed during World War II, and they'd been using MASERs, (Microwave Amplification throught the Stimulation of ElectRons) for some reason. This caused someone to lose their memory in an accident. Time Warp Bubbles were involved.

If it wasn't already in use I'd change my name to TVGeek too!

Doesn't anyone remember, Captain Zeppos?
 
I am an addict of these shows and I don't recall it. However, I do know a GMTV researcher and they checked it out.
It appears that nothing matches your description. The only thing anywhere close is a rough draft for a pilot originally intended US cable but now being offered to the UK. If they insist on keeping the setting of USAF bases though it seems unlikely to be taken up, but who knows? It might eventually be on our screens.
 
I've always avoided sci-fi tv shows but your post prompted me to give them a chance, and to my surprise I'm starting to really get into them. I've been given some videos to get me started by a mate who collects this genre. He has a just started college in Manchester, and hopes a degree in Media Studies will get him a job in TV. He is determined to become a producer and is adamant he won't end up as doing boring research or anything like that. Let's wish him luck.
 
I remember dutifully watching it as i did with anything Sci-Fi at the time.. and being sligtly unnerved and worried, grim indeed with the base at the pole haveing the childrens parents frozen in boxes outside the base!.. and some odd hapenings with an Atlantic "curtain"....
 
H'mm seemed to be a lot of those Timeslip shows round then.

Anyone recall a series of the same ilk called "Mandog"
 
I remember Timeslip- the music went like this-

da da da da DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
da da da da DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (slightly lower pitch)

Captain Zeppos, yeeeessssssss, what a hero.
I loved that as a little kid. Curiously, the only scene I remember is where the Captain cleverly solved a mystery by standing in a corner and disappearing, to re-appear immediately in the cellar. Ah, a magic corner! So that's how the villain escaped! Simple when you know it.

I tried standing in corners for weeks after in case I found one too.


'The Tripods' anyone? I read 'The Future Took Us' as a teenager and the story is identical, even down to the vestigial French terms for forgotten technology. Never saw any acknowledgement of the book as a source though. Weird.
 
'The Tripods' anyone?
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I read the books, years before the tv show. I was a bit too old for it, by then.

The metallic filligree skull cap and the guy that went from village to village to wind watches. Strange stuff for a kid.

Kapitein Zeppos. The Flemish speaking, north Belgians are still very proud of the series.
 
In the UK, did you guys get all those weird Sid and Marty Kroft shows like H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, ElectroWoman and DynaGirl, Lidsville, Land of the Lost, and Bigfoot and Wild Boy? I was really into Land of the Lost, myself; the live-action Shazam! wasn't too bad, either.

What kind of cartoons did you all get? Any of Filmation's Flash Gordon or Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle kind of stuff?
 
We got HR Pufnstuf . I seem to remember most early 70s kids shows were deeply surreal and sometimes disturbing - especially the serialised 'Paper House' .
 
Thanks torgos: just mentioning Lidsville to me will have me nightmaring of being chased by Giant Talking Hats for weeks. Disturbing show (to me). Sid and Marty Kroft shows like Lidsville, HR Puffenstuff and Sygmund and the Sea Monsters always struck me as made under the influence ... kind of like they were listening to Sgt. Peppers on a continuous loop as they

Loved Land of the Lost and Pufnstuff tho. You know McDonald land (Mayor Mcheese et al.) were all ripped off from him right? I laugh every time I think of that and the court’s finding:

“We do not believe that the ordinary reasonable person, let alone a child, viewing these works will even notice that Pufnstuf is wearing a cummerbund while Mayor McCheese is wearing a diplomat's sash," the appeals court wrote.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990827.html
 
TorgosPizza said:
In the UK, did you guys get all those weird Sid and Marty Kroft shows like H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, ElectroWoman and DynaGirl, Lidsville, Land of the Lost, and Bigfoot and Wild Boy? I was really into Land of the Lost, myself; the live-action Shazam! wasn't too bad, either.

What kind of cartoons did you all get? Any of Filmation's Flash Gordon or Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle kind of stuff?
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Ah, HR Pufnstuff. Utter bliss. Witchypoo was so OTT and yet cool. But so far as I recall that was the only Kroft show we got (in the STV Scottish region anyway).

I don't recall the Filmation Flash Gordon, but Tarzan I do recall. Along with the animated 'Trek. And wasn't there some sort of animated version of The Brady Bunch at some point too?

Anyway, I always recall despising the Filmation shows because of the cheap animation: whole scenes where the 'animation' is a single, static cel being inched over a single backdrop, and then, just in case we missed how crap it was the first time, they'd re-use the same sequences over and over again, even when the backgrounds didn't make any sense given the point the narrative had reached!

Speaking of ancient TV crap: any Aussies here? In the STV region we used to get -late 60s I think- an -I've been told- Australian SF show called, IIRC, Phoenix 5'. My memory may be conflating it with Fireball XL5, but I seem to recall a lot of face-on shots of the cockpit (just like in Fireball XL5, or like the plane cabin in Plan 9 From Outer Space), wobbly sets and what must have been the entire budget blown on some reptilian alien's makeup (although there I might be confusing it with the Draconians in early Pertwee-era Dr. Who). Does anyone recall the show? I've yet to encounter anyone else who ever saw it.
 
Did 'Timeslip' have anything to do with people going mad due to electrical disturbances?

Just asking as there was a kid's series I remember that nobody else seems to which involved two kids who were somehow immune to the madness. Everybody else was smashing up clocks, pylons, cars, etc and taking to the hills to live in caves, and there was possibly a sonic hum involved too. Anyone heard of this one or have I made it up?!
 
Donna Black said:
Did 'Timeslip' have anything to do with people going mad due to electrical disturbances?

Just asking as there was a kid's series I remember that nobody else seems to which involved two kids who were somehow immune to the madness. Everybody else was smashing up clocks, pylons, cars, etc and taking to the hills to live in caves, and there was possibly a sonic hum involved too. Anyone heard of this one or have I made it up?!
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That was "The Changes", covered on another thread (which I've now merged with this one, so go back to page one, Donna!)

Stu
 
Re: Q The Winged serpent

spudboy said:
Anyone ever seen another film by the same director (Larry Cohen I think) called "God Told Me To Do It"?
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Haven't seen it, but I have got the novelisation! And the title is "God Told Me To". It begins with a guy with a sniper rifle up on a roof picking people off at random because, "God told me to". I think there are then a number of other similar killings by other people, leading to a long-haired, androgynous person with a strange connection to the investigating detective...

IMDB entry: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0075930
 
I seem to have vague recollections of a show I thought was called "The Winged Foal" about a horse born with wings. Although i think it waqs quite schmoltzy I remember being terrified of it as a kid.

Can't find anything on the internet about it though.

Also, what was the series filmed at the Uffington White Horse?
 
Jobbo said:
I seem to have vague recollections of a show I thought was called "The Winged Foal" about a horse born with wings. Although i think it waqs quite schmoltzy I remember being terrified of it as a kid.

Can't find anything on the internet about it though.

Also, what was the series filmed at the Uffington White Horse?
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Was that The Moon Stallion, with Sarah Sutton who went on to become Nyssa in Dr Who?

Why do I remember this stuff? I go to Tesco's and forget to buy the very thing I was sent there for, but obscure 70s/80s TV progs? No problem...

Stu
 
Does anybody remember the Canadian series, `The Pied Piper'. It was shown on the BBC back in the sixties? It had a fat guy dressed as the Pied Piper with a flute and a black leather, gladstone style, doctor's bag. He showed crappy, National Film Board of Canada, style cartoons. For some reason the whole thing, especially the guy, was very creepy.


Why do I remember this stuff? I go to Tesco's and forget to buy the very thing I was sent there for, but obscure 70s/80s TV progs? No problem...
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Were you, or your mother, or wife, taken in by all those "What about a bit of British Beef?" adverts of a decade, or so ago?
 
AndroMan said:
Were you, or your mother, or wife, taken in by all those "What about a bit of British Beef?" adverts of a decade, or so ago?
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LOL! That's why my missus (virtually veggie) remembers things I said in 1994 and brings them up in arguments!

Stu
 
Why do I remember this stuff? I go to Tesco's and forget to buy the very thing I was sent there for, but obscure 70s/80s TV progs? No problem...
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Seriously, though, it happens to me too. It's all a matter of priorities. Unfortunately, inside my head, my brain has made stronger connections with and between programmes like, Dr Who, The Avengers and The Tomorrow People, than the rest of my `real' life. Sad eh? Still could have been worse. Could have been football.
 
AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!:eek!!!!:
HR Pufnstuf is/was pure evil. Freaky Central, I still shudder when I think of it, brrr. The Moon Stallion had a horse whisperer who used a toad stone and the programme was very fortean.What I can remember of it.
Can anyone remember an Australian programme involving two children a boy and a girl on holiday on a farm, an aboriginal boy who turned up every now and then, a very strange weather vane on a barn, alleged aliens and in the penultimate episode time stopped,if anyone can what happened in the last episode as they never showed it.:mad:
 
Scary US kids shows

I'm sure I read something recently about "Lidsville" being voted one of the all-time most disturbing kids programmes - I don't think it was ever shown here in the UK (or if it was it was before my time). From what I've seen online it looks much scarier than oompa-loompas/Snorky Banana Split, etc.
I remember being scared by a US kids show with witches in it which was shown during the school holidays. I wish I could remember what it was called - all I remember really is that the Witches were all chasing some sort of "Witch of the Year" award and I there were some unpleasant songs in it. Any clues as to what it was gratefully received
 
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