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Scariest Programme When You Were A Kid (Or Indeed A Nipper)?

What about the creepy guy who used to do 'Fingerbobs'


And Gus Honeybun was downright sinister.
 
I just checked on Readalong, and you were right, the slipper's name was Pretty.
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Well, I would have been willing to bet money on that; Pretty (the pink woman's shoe with jaunty red bow and lipsticked mouth) and Boot (an anthropomorphic, Gabby Hayes inspired, old...well, boot with his lace-stiched face) I remember very distinctly -- one of the inherent dangers of having television babysit you every afternoon as a child. :)

As for the Duneedon 'Limbo' scenario, I think we're talking about the same episode -- the misty-ness of your Limbo being my Poison Gas Trap. I think you're the one who's right on this one though -- though I do remember some type of countdown sequence and the kids (the boy and the blond-haired girl (Lynn?)) having to answer some fiendishly tough questions before time expired. Maybe that's why I was thinking it was poison gas...you know, that whole sense of dread combined with a race against the clock. I could have sworn, though, that the kids were choking on the mist, though, and about to succumb.

*Shrug*

Anyhow, as for the Native Mask thing, it wasn't associated with Read-a-Long in anyway...except that the puppets (you could tell) were made by the same company. Sort of like what you were saying about Today's Special and Read-a-Long using the same puppet-makers. And while it was part of a series (I distinctly remember a yellow bus having some significance to the program and some other puppet characters), this Native Mask thing was some type of cautionary tale that was told within the main body of the program -- a sort of solitary and separate story within the show itself -- that was told by one character to another as some type of moral lesson. I'm telling you though, once was enough (to top it off, the eerie native drum beating, as she removed her mask...).

*Shiver*

Even to this day I don't want to see that ever again. :(

(By the way, just to give you a visual, if I'm remembering it properly, Granny (of Read-a-Long fame) was the puppet they used for the old woman prior to her transformation into the Native American Woman.)

Polterdog.

P. S. Don't remember The Little People but I'll do a search on it later -- I've probably seen it, just don't recognize the name of it as such. We'll see. :)

Nice to share (and relive) scary, Canadian, childhood television programming with others who otherwise just don't get just how creepy Canadian kids' programming can be. No wonder a lot of Canadians are tweaked so oddly...we've been raised on horrors that no child could ever escape from totally unscathed -- or, at least, just a little bit psychologically damaged by. :)
 
Fitz,

The Indian Mask thing (again, if I'm remembering properly) was on the CBC and not TVO -- just to make that clear. I think it was why I was initially confused by the program to begin with (seeing Granny from Read-a-Long on the show but definitely not acting like the Granny character that I knew from the Read-a-Long programme -- probably not understanding, at that time, that the puppet-makers had probably been contracted by the CBC to make their puppets for this new show and had just decided to use one of their old ones to fit the bill as required (the Read-a-Long show having long since ended and the puppet-makers probably figuring that they could say themselves some work.)

Anyhow, maybe I'll look on the CBC site to see if they have anything.

Polterdog.
 
That would be cool. Actually, somehow I sort of guessed that the Indian mask story was on CBC, it seems like a Ceebs kind of story . . . it wasn't on Under the Umbrella Tree, was it? I know they used the puppets on that show too. A female squirrel and a bluejay . . . doesn't sound like an Umbrella Tree story though.

I did a little digging yesterday after talking about this and found out that the puppets are made by a woman named Noreen Young who lives here in Ontario. And -get this- you can commision her to make a puppet of you or anyone you want . . . how's THAT for a little piece of creepy?

Maybe we could get our own Granny puppets made?

Here's the link:

http://noreenyoungproductions.com/index.html

-Fitz
 
I did a little digging yesterday after talking about this and found out that the puppets are made by a woman named Noreen Young who lives here in Ontario. And -get this- you can commision her to make a puppet of you or anyone you want . . . how's THAT for a little piece of creepy?
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Fitz,

One step ahead of you and found her site and sent her off an e-mail asking her about the Indian Mask programme in question -- again, assuming I'm right with what I'm remembering about it. :)

I also see that Boot, Pretty, and Granny, were donated to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. You can check them out at:

http://www.civilization.ca/arts/ssf/ssf1_78e.html.

Wondered if Boot and Pretty ever got married? According to Boot's puppeteer Bob Dermer...

http://www.accucow.com/bootupdate.htm

Okay, well this is quickly getting off track. Anyhow, will check in with Ms. Young and let you know what she says (or doesn't).

Polterdog.

P. S. It wasn't Under the Umbrella Tree. I actually remember that fairly recent show. For some reason, and this might seem strange, I remember it as a "one off" (maybe an after school movie, a pilot that never got picked up, or perhaps just a programme that I never watched again given my strong gut reaction to the material in question).

P. P. S. And I saw the thing about Noreen Young making a puppet for you for $1000, as well. You're right: her puppets are just so damn creepy (it's the eyes, I swear to God, those damnable eyes!)...who would ever pay to have that in your home? :)
 
UK public information films

I found these really scary as a kid and I,d like to correspond with other 'fans' to reminisce. Please pm me if your interested.
 
Re: UK public information films

cornetto said:
I found these really scary as a kid and I,d like to correspond with other 'fans' to reminisce. Please pm me if your interested.
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There was a really good thread about public information films. Come back, board!

:sob:
 
I've got the Charley Says dvd somewhere. Sadly, a lot of my old favourites weren't on there. Anyone remember the road safety one with the alien in the silver suit that 'shot at' people on blind bends etc., etc..? That was a bit creepy.

On a similarly space-related note, noone I know seems to remember this, but does anyone remember an early Quavers advert from the early 1970s where a load of kids where in space/dune buggies?
 
"I am the spirit of dark and deadly water"

Voiced by Donald Pleasence, very disturbing.
 
Re: UK public information films

GiantRobot said:
cornetto said:
I found these really scary as a kid and I,d like to correspond with other 'fans' to reminisce. Please pm me if your interested.
Click to expand...

There was a really good thread about public information films. Come back, board!

:sob:
Click to expand...
Yep, it's lengthy, intact and in Fortean Culture, under the title "Scariest Programme when you were a kid (or indeed nipper)".

When the board's running again I'll splice this into it.
 
I've got a DVD of wartime information films. If you think Charley Says is scary, you should see these . . . :madeyes:

Carole
 
Sorry to be pedantic DrJBrennan but it was "dark and lonely water...". That used to scare the bejesus out of me when i was younger.

Remember the rhyming ones?? "On British roads how oft is heard the honking of the weaver bird......" or "Sir Isaac Newton told us why an apple falls down from the sky......". There were some very good ones about which would probably be easily ressurected and still appropriate for use today. 8)


http://625.uk.com/pifs/memories.htm
 
The worst must be Protect and Survive - A government-sponsored attempt at instilling the public with futile hope but instead frightening the bejayzuz out of everyone by highlighting the futility of survival attempts!

[edited for terrible spelling error!]
 
And all we get these days is adverts with people advertising people to nick their car or burgle their house. Very disappointing...
 
One PIF in particular comes to mind, concerning the problem of leaving litter on beaches. A young lad is running along the sand having a great time when suddenly the camera freezes just as the boy is about to put his foot straight down on a broken bottle. Ouch!! Anyone remember that one?
 
Nope worst one was Apache where a group of kids play on a farm and all die horrible deaths (the one that sticks in the mind to this day was the kid drowning in slurry).
 
I used to like the one from the 70s about calling the coastguard with the middle aged holidaymakers watching some poor sod in extreme difficulty on the sea - 'Ooh look, there's't young chap from table number 6 in 'is sailing dinghy - that's what they call 'em, you know, sailing dinghies - oh, look, he's waving - Cooeee . . ."

And I can remember one when I was a kid about dropping litter; it was terribly artsy and beat-generationy and totally incomprehensible to me . . .

Carole
 
You guys were lucky. A lot of the fillums they made us watch when I were a foal seemed to feature canoes prominently.
 
My personal favourite was about electricity sub-stations. A kid goes in to one to retrieve a frisbee, touches something he shouldn't and promptly explodes. We were shown this in primary school to frighten us. The majority of the class (myself included) thought it was wicked and asked to see it again.

Then there was the one about building sites with a pair of kids, one of which would just keep dying in different nasty ways. The one I remember most vividly was the one where he was buried under a pile of bricks. I wonder which of the two was the plum role? In that situation would you want to be the kid that died repeatedly, or his mate that had to look shocked in a variety of different ways? Even though it'd be the more uncomfortable of the two to film, I'd say that dying would have to be the best - you get the noteriety.
 
Public Information films from the Seventies were the pinnacle of beneficial social engineering without a liberal, PC, weakness.

If you were to show primary school kids these now (such as that 'classic' kid running onto broken bottle) you'd be prosecuted by the education authority for mentally abusing the little wimps! Just before parents phoned the 'no claim, no gain' vultures... er ... solicitors.
*sigh*
They just don't know they're born nowadays...
 
You can't deny that these adverts worked, though, could you? We were all made aware of these incredible ways to die, or lose limbs, and we actually paid attention.

A lot of the current generation of kids just don't have a clue of the actual extent of thedanger - they only see the comedy death side of it.

Shame.

Not that it bothers me too much. Natural selection can be a wonderful thing... :lol:
 
Anyone who enjoys these little slices of nostalgia and peeks into the mindsets of the past could do a lot worse than checking out the Public Information material in the moving image archives at www.archive.org. It's mainly American material though.

I have gigs and gigs and gigs of stuff from there. Some of it is so bizarre it's actually funny. Some, on the other hand, are just plain sad. Some of the material that deals with mental health issues is frightening.

It's sites like this that live up to the internet's promise of being an information paradise. Fantastic place.
 
And lets's not forget the absolutely terrifying film about parallel parking, featuring the hapless Reginald Molehusband and his eventual vehicular redemption.

"People used to come from miles around to watch him park".
 
carole said:
I used to like the one from the 70s about calling the coastguard with the middle aged holidaymakers watching some poor sod in extreme difficulty on the sea - 'Ooh look, there's't young chap from table number 6 in 'is sailing dinghy - that's what they call 'em, you know, sailing dinghies - oh, look, he's waving - Cooeee . . ."
Carole
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Hello,

Wasn't the fat bird in this film named Petunia?

Cheers
 
mr mysterious said:
Hello,

Wasn't the fat bird in this film named Petunia?

Cheers
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Certainly was. I formed the impression that the characters were based somewhat on seventies comedy faves Eric Sykes & Hattie Jacques.

"Nice view, Petunia" he used to say, as Petunia's alarmingly prehensile tongue scooped up another gobbet of ice cream, and a complete stranger drowned off shore.
 
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