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Mystery TV Programmes Of The Seventies

The Witches and the GrinnyGog

Jaybee - can't remember that US programme, but do remember the Witches and The Grinnygog (or Grinnygrog), shown in the UK in the early eighties. Had the magnificent Patricia Hayes in it I think.

I've been looking over the web for info on this programme, as my memory is hazy about this programme and I would love to buy the book it is based on (assuming it is based on a book). 'Twas a good old yarn.

Anybody got any info or know where it can be found?
 
eerievon said:
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.
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Read someplace that he improvised all his dialogue in Q.
 
AndroMan said:
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.
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I recall the show quite well. I also recall it being one of my faves, for the specific and quite laudable reason that it used to drive my gran up the wall because of all the 'Americans' on it. I'm amazed I'm as well-adjusted as I am. :)

Edit 5 minutes later: Half a mo'. Wasn't that the first place I ever saw the Trevor McBoingBoing cartoon? That isn't crappy, that's a masterpiece!!
 
Caroline said:
AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!:eek!!!!:
HR Pufnstuf is/was pure evil. Freaky Central, I still shudder when I think of it, brrr.
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Come to think on it, that was my sister's reaction to HR Pufnstuff too.
 
:eek!!!!: GRUD ON A GREENIE!!! YOU CAN GET DVD'S OF THE EVIL MISCREANT.!!!:eek!!!!:
 
AndroMan said:
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.
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That wouldn't be just worse, that'd be tragic. But I know what you and Stu mean. Once saw got a 'joke' questionaire about the alleged superiority of women from a lass in an email RPG I was playing, and one of the questions was something along the lines of "Howcome guys can never remember your birthday or any of your anniversaries, but he can still recall the theme music from F Troop?"

Oh how I snorted until I realized that I can never remember birthdays and anniversaries but I do remember the theme music from F Troop, and it was only ever on STV about 3 times sometime in the early 70s...

As for Dr. Who, my first memory of the show was William Hartnell collapsing on the floor of the TARDIS and his face going all out of focus and 'swimmy' as he prepared to change into Pat Troughton. I was what, maybe 3 at the time.
 
Filthy le dog

Filth, you'll never believe this but pleeeeease do.
The minute I saw the caption of your thread, I immediately thought of the same programme. I was about 5 at the time, I remember the programme about pylons too. It was on just before or just after John Cravens Newsround and it used to scare me! It was one kids programme that really sticks in my mind. I'm sure the girl was called Nicola like me and forgive me if I sound kinky, wasn't she trussed up in front of some kind of weird committee? Whatever, she was running from someone.

I remember a programme about a gypsy girl called Kizzy too, but no one else can recall it. I think the vicar from Some Mothers Do 'ave 'em was on it.
 
I remember Kizzy, she used to get bullied at school because she was a gypsy girl.

Anyone remember Lizzie Dripping with Tina Heath and the witch?
 
Kizzy and Lizzy Dripping. It's all coming back now!
How about

"Big John and Little John?" I watched it late 70s when I was about 7. It was American and it had Phil Silvers on it. He changed from adult to boy and back again. Typically for an American show, the house was a huge Georgian job with an enormous kitchen and louvre doors!

"Armchair Thriller". One called Rachel in Danger scared the hell out of me. And the nun one gave me nightmares. Even the credits of this programme freaked me out because of the shadow moving into the armchair.

Does anyone remember this one? It starred Tony Selby and it took place in the 70's. The opening credits featured him changing his features by cutting his hair etc. I think the plot revolved around him and a woman plus a youth taking over a large country house. I don't know the name.
 
Originally posted by Caroline
...
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:
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OMG - I thought I was the only person who remembered this.
It was all something to do with Sirius as far as I remember, and I *think* it was called "Children of the Dog Star" but that may be wrong. IIRC it must have been around about 1990 when it was on.
Wasn't the alien called "Kollob" or something??
 
Another one...

Can't remember if I posted this one or not before, but don't remember a reply if so...

It was a mid-80's, live action kid's series, I think it was foreign and dubbed, about a boy who swapped his laugh to an evil mastermind in exchange for the ability to win any bet he made. I remember one of the early episodes he bet his friend an elephant would walk through the park at any moment, and it did.

Anyone know what the hell it was?!
 
Sounds like The Legend Of Tim Tyler, one of those bizarre Eastern European fairy tale series that the Beeb would buy in, and then cheaply get the likes of Gabriel Woolf to narrate over the top of the dialogue.

They were always a bit bizarre and sinister to my mind, especially The Singing Ringing Tree, with the scariest evil dwarf ever seen on TV... puts the wind up me just thinking about it !:eek:
 
De Klingende Ringende Baum

Johnnyboy said:
Sounds like The Legend Of Tim Tyler, one of those bizarre Eastern European fairy tale series that the Beeb would buy in, and then cheaply get the likes of Gabriel Woolf to narrate over the top of the dialogue.

They were always a bit bizarre and sinister to my mind, especially The Singing Ringing Tree, with the scariest evil dwarf ever seen on TV... puts the wind up me just thinking about it !:eek:
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That was a classic from the DEFA studio in East Germany. All the pent up fears and frustrations of life in the Eastern Bloc, seemed to have been put into those adaptations.

The Evil wizard who was a dwarf and the silver paper mache fish. :eek!!!!:

Remember The Magic Tinderbox? It had giant dog's with huge eyes, who were guardians of the secret treasure!
 
Re: De Klingende Ringende Baum

AndroMan said:
That was a classic from the DEFA studio in East Germany. All the pent up fears and frustrations of life in the Eastern Bloc, seemed to have been put into those adaptations.

The Evil wizard who was a dwarf and the silver paper mache fish. :eek!!!!:
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Not sure he was supposed to be a wizard exactly: I've been trying to track down a source for The Singing Ringing Tree's story, but without any success. Meantime, I came across a book of Germanic legends and folktales, most of them culled from the Heldenbuch, and it felt like all the really good ones featured an evil dwarf. Now OK, the Heldenbuch stories' dwarf is usually called Alberich and dresses in yellow because he's really The Devil (medieval European church colour schemes forstain-glass windows and book illumination -yellow always signifies evil apparently), but the dwarf in The Singing Ringing Tree seems an obvious variation on the same devilish theme. That's my theory anyway, so there.

BTW, the guy who played the evil dwarf was bloody BRILLIANT!
 
Was the Singing Ringing Tree the one with the two young girls, one of them fair, the other dark-haired with a pointy nose?

Or did I dream that?
 
re:caroline
i completely remember "children of the dog star" it was great (and repeated about '88-'89)
Synopsis: city girl has to stay with her relatives in the sticks of new zealand and is dead bored. she has a knack for fixing things and finds herself drawn to the weather vane on the barn. It speaks to her in her dreams and seems to want her to search the nearby swamp. According to her maori mate the swamp is taboo and bad. She goes against her maori friend and finds something weird in the swamp- it fits into the weather vane (which looks like a geometric version of a flower and opens and spins in a creepy way) When she finds all the bits of "kaileb" and puts him together he tells her that he was sent from sirius with some brother satellite/robot types from sirius to educate the locals i.e. the maoris. Unfortunately after being in a swamp for a millenia his power is low and he uses all the leccy from the power grid. Then he somehow manages to steal all the energy from the local people so they are frozen in time. Then the kids decide to smash kaileb up as hes bad. Also i vividly remember after they first patch up kaileb that one of the boys who helps asks to see a Moa- and kaileb shows him a picture. It was really well done and quite realistic to my kiddy mind.
thats as much as i remember
 
Re: Q The Winged serpent

God Told Me To was a terrific film. Must try and track down the video. Completley mad, of course.
 
Filthy le Dog said:
Was the Singing Ringing Tree the one with the two young girls, one of them fair, the other dark-haired with a pointy nose?

Or did I dream that?
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Not quite. One girl -the snotty princess- is turned 'ugly' (except for the pointy nose I thought she looked better than she did as the bland Aryan poster-maiden she started out as) by the evil dwarf until she treats each of the animals in turn with selfless kindness, undoing the dwarf's spell.
 
Caroline said:
Singing ringing tree based on Beauty and the Beast
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You sure? There are similarities certainly, but that's like saying Sleeping Beauty was based on Snow White (both have a wicked witch, both have a young princess, both have the princess awakened by a kiss from her prince). There are numerous tales that follow the same basic pattern (even just in Grimm: for a real comparison with Beauty and The Beast, take a look at The Rabbit's Bride for example), but I doubt a connection for the simple reason that the Beauty and The Beast story is usually about the girl of uncommon character discerning and reawakening the worth of The Beast, whereas The Singing Ringing Tree is about a girl of weak character who is made worthy by adversity and the love of the Bear/Prince. Well that's my view of it anyway. Obviously I'm a sad man who's thought far too deeply about it... :(
 
re:- changes?
the only episod i can rember is where the heronine? is with a large family of asians going to pass under the leccy lines (which r still humming hmmm! strange that ehh?) and she needs a lot perswasion to do so

obout "raven"?
now that wads fortean in content!!

also "clifton house mystery"
that was scary especiacally in the the last episode when the helmet(light inferntreeman cavery(1861-91?(the bristol riots just after the charterist movement foreruner of the "labour party"(newport, gwent ))) moved off the window still

"children of the stones"
omgods that was f'ing SCARY (with gareth "blakes 7 " edwards)

and dose enyone rember the these progs:-
1 was set in bristol(somerset (70s)) about a gruop of kids who wnt baqck in time to the georgian period (1750ish??)and who tried to get baqck to their own time

and the series (i think was called "shadows?")
that was also scarey twas a anthology of storys each week?
(commisioned by then atv(centeral now?) shown by htv (wales/west & the old cornwall/chanell islands station(the one with "gus-hunnybun" birthday slot) with alison................? (the one who topped herself in the 80s?)
 
Does anyone remember a kids tv serial from the 70's, ish,about a couple of kids " investigating " stuff on holiday in Malta or Greece i think.... All i can remember is them getting chased around some old battlement or fort, by people wearing black or black and red klu-klux-klan type robes complete with the pointed hoods etc.
Scared the life outta me when i was ickle! Probably why i used to freak out so much when i saw a piccy of Reverend Whassisname's phantom by the altar......Burrrrrrr still makes me shiver to think of it now even tho it apparently has been dissmissed as fake.
:eek!!!!:
 
More mystery tv programs

Hi all

After seeing another couple of posts asking about half-remembered TV programs, I thought I'd add my tuppence worth. When I was in primary school - probably about 15 years ago (showing my age now) my school used to show all the usual educational programs. But they went through a stage of showing us programs that had no clear educational message, just a bit of entertainment. I have a feeling the series was supposed to be quirky and for the most part was, but it also was incredibly dark. The 2 that freaked me out may have been in the 'Picturebox' range. The first was about a girl who had somehow gotten hold of a remote control that allowed her to control time. She was going to a concert that weekend and pressed fast forward to hurry the week up, but pressed it too hard and went years and years too far. The last scene was her as an old wizened woman groping for the rewind button, but accidently pressing FF again - to the screen going blank.

The second one was about a man who was very lonely, and found a little plant that he took home to be his friend :)rolleyes: yes I know how it sounds!). Anyway he loved this plant and it started growing and responding to him, but eventually took over his life and his house and tried to destroy him and everyone around him. The last scene was his house and/or his plant being destroyed, and the man feeling that he was going to be lonely again, but seeing a dog sitting near where the plant was and adopting it instead to be his friend.

The first program was british, while the second seemed to be american or australian - but I have a feeling they were in the same series. Very odd programs, but still freaky even all these years later. Does anyone else remember this or have a gone mad????!?!?! :confused:

Thanks
Raven
 
Yup, I posted a link but as it didn't work I went back, deleted the post while I found a working link and got engrossed in the daft cult TV stuff!

I laughed my head off at TV Cream when I first found it, it's priceless.

It called Thunderbirds a 'stringathon'...............
 
Thanks

I'll check it out!

Those two ?"@~#£% programs have been annoying me for years. Obviously children were made of stronger stuff in those days - still gave me the willys though!

I must just be a wimp! :)
 
Singing Ringing Tree Documentary.

Just to let you know there's a half hour radio documentary about The Singende Klingende Baumschem to listen to on the BBC Radio4

Singing Ringing Tree Page ! :)
 
wow thanks!... every xmas i try to build my own "singingringing tree" to decortate.... a very odd fairytale indeed.

oh feek it dont work,,,,,,,
 
KINVIG

Does anyone remember Kinvig at all? I have only vague recollections of this programme because I was about 6 at the time, but I seem to remember a UFO that seemed to have engine problems, the main character(Kinvig?) being 'abducted' by a glamorous space woman and horrible ant creatures that I found really scary, this programme was probably really naff but I was so young at the time I just can't remember it.
 
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