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Mystery TV Programmes Of The Seventies

I remeber kinvig..it was one of those progs that was tailed for months and all the "stars" were intervewd on all the right programs and it turned out to be basicly awful....... Kinvig was a guy who insisted that Trasistors were a passing fad and tho he worked as a radio fixer wouldnt work on anything transistorised.. to the extent he was broke and his wife left him.... then one day he was kidnapped by a UFO that needed his skills as it turns out valves etc realy were the way to go... any way it wasnt very funny.
 
From http://www.tv.cream.org
A REPAIRMAN (TONY HAYGARTH) dreams/sees UFOs, aliens and the like. Odd, semi-comedy, overshadowed by HITCH-HIKER'S etc. at the time. Kinvig owns a crappy electrical repair shop, helped/hindered by his mate Colin "Barnaby The Bear" Jeavons. Also has a cosy wife, Patsy Rowlands. One day, "foxy" chick Miss Griffin (Prunella Gee) moves into flat above shop. Kinvig and mate lust after her but she is unfailingly rude to them. Then, Kinvig "discovers" that Miss Griffin is actually an alien from the planet Mercury (anorak fact: they live underground, to survive the heat), and can "kidnap" him at will and take him to her spaceship. Cue much bad seventies "futurist" decor and Prunella in various sub-Barbarella skimpy outfits. At first she wants his help to save her planet from hostile forces, but then falls in love with him and wants him to marry her and be king of Mercury. She even gives him a special talisman to rub when he wants to contact her - unfortunately it is disguised as a two-pence piece, so frequently got lost/accidentally spent with hilarious consequences. And of course, back in real life, Kinvig's attempts to leave wifey and domestic drudgery for galactic excitement are constantly thwarted: only Colin believes his story, and makes nudge-nudge references to "The Entity upstairs", and the real Miss G is still horrendously rude, due probably to their "amusing" attempts to break into her flat and expose her as an alien. Written by NIGEL "QUATERMASS" KNEALE.
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Also a picture on there http://www.tv.cream.org/arkk.htm
(It's about two thirds of the way down and you can also download the theme tune...)
 
Originally posted by sidecar_jon
I remeber that!.. it was all technology that caused a sort of dred sudenly for some reason, so that people would go a long way to get past electricity pylons etc. Every bit of technology was unusable. That and "the Children Of The Stones" (filmed in Avebury..... and that one with the light house and the rocks with eyes

the programme with the light house and rocks with eyes was a book called 'Marianne dreams' can't remember whether the programme was called the same though.
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sidecar_jon said:
the programme with the light house and rocks with eyes was a book called 'Marianne dreams' can't remember whether the programme was called the same though.
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i used to love that story, i think there was a trilogy of books with the same characters in them. i never saw the tv series that one though. the story in the first book ended where the boy who is in the dream/scrap book world with her escapes from the scary place, but in real life he actually dies. kind of philip k dick when you think about it.
 
there are lots that I had forgotten, but I'm so pleased that someone else saw "Sky" (or is it "Skye?" about the lad with blue eyes being hunted by some plantlike things and he has to get to a gate at a particular time to get home.
another one I liked was where Merlin was awakening and didn't like all the machines, so he was making people break them up and fear them. I think it is called "the Weathermonger"

The one I can't remember the name to was all about some kids on holiday in a place where animals are turning up mutilated with strange bitelike marks. There is a strange looking machine in a barn that quivers and moves every so often that just arrived one day and the town is living in fear.

It eventually turns out that the thing doing the mutilating is the pilot of the machine, and it is an experiment in cybernetic linked machinery that has become damaged, the pilot has suffered head damage and the funny marks on the animals are caused by the fact has had the front of his face, to the jawline, and skull replaced by a metal casing, so he has no teeth at the top.
Eventually the army are called in to collect him and they live happily ever after....:D
 
I used to like the one about some boy who was special in some way and being chased by a bunch of baddies (the main baddie was a bleach blond black clad maga baddie), and the boy refused to give him his name.

Can't actually remember a thing about it - but I did enjoy it at the time.

I only ever post about TV programmes here. Either my life is currently very dull, or I watch FAR too much telly

Anyone suggesting both, may not be talking crazy talk

:D


Raven
 
Does anyone remember this?

Very early seventies,think it was ITV, had a plant human hybrid boy with funny eyes,who was being chased by some evil dude, like the master from Dr. who ( i think) had episode cliffhanger when the boy is up on a wall caught in plants- thats all I remember, very disturbing for the very young.
But not as disturbing as a public information movie on during the holidays in the morning called "12 little Indians" or something. It was about 12 kids all playing out and one by one they all die in hideous and painful ways i.e one is playing in a farm, falls off a haystack onto a some very sharp and spikey farm equipment, another boy climbs a electric pylon and you guessed it, and so on
It was basically a don't play on dangerous places or you'll die an excruiatingly painful death moral story. Does anyone remember it Incredibly harrowing. And would but a real downer on your holiday state of mind.
However by the afternoon, one would no doubt be down on the traintrack playing and hunting for slowworms (but more likely to find those frayed pages of discarded Topshelf magaziness which always seem to be abundant in those wooded wasteland areas) :eek!!!!:
 
The "kids being killed around the farm" film was called Apache, and was like some kind of public information film version of Friday the 13th. Very disturbing.
 
Apache-really scary 70's kids public lnformation Film

GNC, like your description of this !!
This public info film was seriously sick!
Other deaths on the "Farm of Death": boy drinking farm pesticide/chemicals, boy's head squashed between farm warehouse doors and the big one: boy drowning in a slurrypit (death by liquid cow shite basically!) I would love to remember the others, it was a feature length public info film not a short 5 min thing (like the one where the little boy in the red wellies gets decapatiated on the department store escaltor-remember that one!)
"Apache" is a goverment sponsered legalised kiddie nastie!!! It freaked me more than any horror film did as a kid.:(
 
Re: Does anyone remember this?

Justin Lucas said:
Very early seventies,think it was ITV, had a plant human hybrid boy with funny eyes,who was being chased by some evil dude, like the master from Dr. who ( i think) had episode cliffhanger when the boy is up on a wall caught in plants- thats all I remember, very disturbing for the very young.
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Would that be "Sky"? His eyes were (or went) completely blue. Not that I've actually seen the thing, only read about it. There's probably something about it on tv.cream.org, which definitely has information on the "Apache" public information film and similar government attempts to terrify youngsters into submission.
 
Thanks....

It is most definately Sky-thanks for tracking down this memory. I was beginning to think I had imagined it. Found a description of the scene i remembered on a 70's website....;)
 
Born in 79' I remember as a youngster, 84-86, seeing alot of weird TV programmes that were very dark and in some cases disturbing (i.e. Watership Down).

What was it in the late 70's, that whole era always strikes me as being very dark and morbid.
 
If it wasn't for this thread, I woul never have known the programme I watched all those years ago was "The Changes." I remember the girl getting seperated from her parents, and that her mum was pregnant as well. The final scene was, if I recall, the girl telling her friend "I wonder if I've got a brother or sister."
So, thanks for that, but I've got a query I wonder of any of you can help me with.
There was a programme in the early '70's about two boys on the run. The only thing I can remember about it is a man locked them in a small room, and they escaped through a small window. I think the show was British, and may have been on a Sunday, as I spent Sundays at my grandparents. The other impression I get is that it could've been on ITV. I think it was shown around the time of Planet Of The Apes TV series (circa 1974) as I remember that quite clearly. I guess that its not a lot to go on, but any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Just remembered a show- Can anyone help?

All this talk of the dark 70's made me suddenly have a flashback.....Does anyone remember this mystery TV programme.
This was almost definalty on in the 70's, on ITV, was a weekly series,British made,maybe on a sunday early evening. It was about a boy who was into horror, I remember he had a bunk bed with loads of horror toys and posters surrounding it-which i thought was way cool . He goes down a airvent in an office block ( I think) and comes out in a very surrel and dark world with strange filling cabinet offices from hell amongst other things and scary characters/monsters. It's basically about redemption as the boys eventually escapes out the airvent,gets back to his room and tears down his horror posters......
 
Justin,
Yes I think I remember the show, vaguely.
Was there a creepy wlesh character who was a janitor of sorts?
It was played by a good actor who was on TV a lot at that time.
Dont remember airvents, but I do remember a lift.
Maybe different show.

Thank god some one else remembers the series based on the Marianne Dreams books. Very scary at the time.
I remember she was laid up in bed due to some illness and when she fell asleep she dreamed of the house with a boy traped in.
She had to draw the house on a pad, in the real world with doors and stairs, so in her dreams she could rescue him from the rocks with the glowing eyes.
I believe a film was made of it called Paperhouse. Remember thinking, not bad, but not as creepy as the series. Or is that just childhood memories?
 
Changes, Clifton House and Children of the Stones, have all been released onto the internet recently. If you know how to use binary news groups/Usenet in alt.binaries.multimedia and alt.binaries.multimedia.scifi ( and have a news server with a good retention. ie easynews or Giganews ) you might still be able to catch some of them. However I believe two of these were also shown on Sky Tv in the Uk not too long ago, on the UK Gold channel. So maybe there will be a repeat if you keep your eyes open.( and knowing Sky TV like I do, I ASSURE you they WILL be repeated):D

ps: there probably on dvd too

pps: quicksilver. Thanks for reminding me of Barnaby the bear. I started singing it in the car and had my friend in stitches remembering the song out of the blue.
(wait till I catch him with my 'Noggin the Nog', next week);)
 
Re: Just remembered a show- Can anyone help?

Justin Lucas said:
This was almost definalty on in the 70's, on ITV, was a weekly series,British made,maybe on a sunday early evening. It was about a boy who was into horror, I remember he had a bunk bed with loads of horror toys and posters surrounding it-which i thought was way cool . He goes down a airvent in an office block ( I think) and comes out in a very surrel and dark world with strange filling cabinet offices from hell amongst other things and scary characters/monsters.
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This sounds like it could beKing Of The Castle (HTV, 6 episodes, 8/5/77 to 19/6/77). From the Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction:

Shy, sensitive Roland Wright's mind snaps under the strain of living at the top of a council tower block... and retreats into a fantasy world in which all the people he knows are transformed into nightmarish doubles... Roland enters this fantasy world when he plunges down a lift shaft.
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I can vaguely remember it too, as being quite dark and scary in places. The creepy Welsh actor was Talfryn Thomas, who turns up in a lot of 70s stuff, from
Doomwatch to Doctor Who, and who played Mr Cheeseman the photographer in Dad's Army.

We're unlikely to see KOTC released on video or DVD any day soon though. Only 5 of the 6 episodes exist in transmission quality. Episode 3 was accidentally destroyed recently in an accident whilst transferring the master tapes to a newer format. (Apparently, most of The Georgian House , another spooky HTV series, went the same way :( ) However, a ropey VHS copy of episode 3 was uncovered somewhere, so it's not a completely "lost" show!
 
I don't even know if this IS a TV show or movie.

Basically, I awoke this morning after a dream which may -most likely- have been simply that, but which felt more like a memory of something I once saw on a screen, from the context a kid's drama of some sort. But I can't for the life of me think where I might have seen it.

What was going on was that some wicked old man had these kids and had fixed them (in various ways) to these big panes of what looked like glass, but which might have been ice, all fixed together like window frames joined at one long edge. The frames were suspended all around the outside of this large house, from the roofline, that seemed to be overlooking a dark, dismal and late-evening seaside promenade. As the suspended frames rotated, it got colder and colder. Eventually the sea began to freeze -although the freeze seemed to originate in the distance and then approach the house- and then the air itself began to crystalize into solid ice. This was all witnessed by a young girl (Victorian/Edwardian dress?) running around loose inside the house, as she tried to turn on the heating controls (hidden behind wall panels) that seemingly would thaw out the kids outside and reverse the freeze, then running back to a window to see if her efforts were working at all, but trying not to let the old man (some relative?) know what she was doing as she did so.

Any of that ring any bells with anyone? If it was a memory of something, it'd have to be relatively recent I think, because the air-turning-to-solid-ice FX were rather well done.
 
Re: More mystery tv programs

raven said:
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. (snip) The first was about a girl who had somehow gotten hold of a remote control that allowed her to control time. (snip)
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!).
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I remember those too! They showed them at my school, just like yours. I remember thinking that remote control thing at the end was so incredibly frustrating... It bothered me for ages that we could see her hand on the button, even presumably after her death. So, either she's in the afterlife (in which case the afterlife is a screenful of static), or she could still just press the rewind button and come back to life.

Regarding the plant one, we actually had to do some sort of test on that. I remember one of the questions was, "At what point does the story become a nightmare?" I picked the bit where the plant starts to grow inside the guy's TV, as that was the part which first started to scare me.

But what was the show called?

Oh, one other one (may have been the same strand) which scared me so much I couldn't look at the screen, was a sort of spin on the Little Red Riding Hood story, and it had a section where the wolf is speaking to her on the phone and tries to climb down the phone line to kill her; does anyone remember that?
 
I remember some weird cartoon from the 80s that used to be on C4, about some little blue guy with a big nose who lived in the skirting boards of some terraced-house's kitchen. He had a girlfriend, but she looked normal, even though she was his height.

It was all pretty odd.:confused:

edit: Found it! Murun...
 
I remember seeing that one about the remote control, no idea what the programme was tho' ... :confused:
 
I also remember a story - which may have been from the same series - of a house, that when any electrical appliances were used from the mains a strange screaming or crying sound was heard.

I think there may of also been some other kinds of super natural activity as well.

In the end they traced it back to the diesel generator that ran the supply for the house.

I seem to remember the explanation being given that it had been made from metal recycled from a fatal car crash, but that may have been something we came up with as school.
 
Zygon said:
Any of that ring any bells with anyone? If it was a memory of something, it'd have to be relatively recent I think, because the air-turning-to-solid-ice FX were rather well done.
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As a kid, I watched Land of the Lost on Saturdays. Having recently seen a clip I was a little shocked. Although I knew at the time the special effects weren't that great, I had no memory of how really BAD they were. Maybe you remember the effects as being better because your imagination filled in the blanks.
 
Tulip Tree said:
As a kid, I watched Land of the Lost on Saturdays. Having recently seen a clip I was a little shocked. Although I knew at the time the special effects weren't that great, I had no memory of how really BAD they were. Maybe you remember the effects as being better because your imagination filled in the blanks.
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ooh...ooh...I loved that show as a kid. I still do but in a different way.;) My favorite episode was when Grumpy and Big Alice fight it out. I loved the theme song. It was like space bluegrass - banjo and synthesizers.:D
 
Bannik said:
ooh...ooh...I loved that show as a kid. I still do but in a different way.;) My favorite episode was when Grumpy and Big Alice fight it out. I loved the theme song. It was like space bluegrass - banjo and synthesizers.:D
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Is it true that they got some really good sci-fi writers to pen some of the episodes? I remember Holly using a device to see into the future and being counseled by her future teenage self to hold on. Then there was the idea that the Sleestacks had degenerated and lost their knowledge of their own advanced technology. I loved the whole idea of strange civilizations either below us, or just a dimension away. If I had known about the Shaver mysteries as a kid, I would have been in seventh heaven.
 
The presenter of Picture Box when I was at Primary school (20 years ago)was a man
called Alan-Something Or Other. He popped up years later as an unexpected middle
class junkie in Brookside, giving me and my chums endless scope for pretending
to "shoot up" to the tune of Picture Box. So very childish, I'm sure you'll agree. That's
what happens when children's presenters go on to do serious drama - think of Dan
Hopwood, the liberal teacher from Grange Hill going on to play Richard Hillman and
Geoffrey Hayes from Rainbow going on to play Iago at the National Theatre.

I can't help the original poster as they are probably a little younger than me, but i do
recall a programme called Middle English in Primary school. There were all kinds of
weird and wonderful dramas, sometimes I wonder if they were a little too scary for 10
year olds. One was a supernatural thriller called The Shadow Cage, about a dug up
bottle possessing powers, another was about a girl who didn't want to live in a world
of rules. She got her wish and woke up one morning to gasp at a world (unseen by the
viewer) where rules didn't apply. The moral of the story was that of course she wanted
no rules for herself, just other people. Bit like T Blair.
 
I remember the remote control thing, I think...

I also remember 2 programmes, one was about some kids and there was this small silver ball that was following them. It was about the size of a ping-pong ball. I remember it burrowing through a cereal box. I can't remember if they made the ball or if they were afraid of it.

The other one had a scary ghost in the garden and these kids were being chased by it. It was a green garden and a black cloaked figure I think...good description!

I also remember one they showed us in school that was stop-motion footage I guess of these kids jumping, each frame was of them jumping but only the bit with them in the air, they were flapping their arms and moving forward each frame thus giving the impression they were flying. Cool effect but no ida what the point was.
 
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