Creepy Children's tv

[aubrey]

I've just watched the whole of The Moondial on Youtube. It is an 80s children's Tv programme, with time shifts, etc - very like Tom's Midnight Garden, but not as good. It has some of those night shots of a big house garden though, which are always good to see; one shot reminded me very much of the mezzotint in the MR James story. So, some nice shots; but it is also inflicted with the children's TV habit of having the main character talk to herself, to let us know what she's doing. Ok, though.

Now I've started The Children of the Stones, which seems earlier - late 70s? (I could check ) One episode in, it looks like a children's version of The Wicker Man, with bits of Penda's Fen and some Nigel Kneale thrown in. It is amazing that they could show what looks, so far, like a cult, operating in a named town (Avebury). Still, I'm enjoying it.

I am watching on a laptop, while lying on a bed a couple of yards away. The sound is very low, so I have to strain to hear what's going on a lot of the time, and the laptop has to be angled just right else half the picture disappears.

Youtube does not appear to have any Edith Nesbit, or at least not the country house gardens coming to life at night things that I remember from 30+ years ago. It also has an annoying habit of completing searches for you, and then not having anything to show for it. What's the point of that?

[aubrey]

Catweazle (Geoffrey Blaydon, I think it's spelled) was in an episode of The Saint on ITV4 this morning, playing a French art dealer.


Another habit of children's TV, besides having the child talk to herself a lot, is get rid of one or both of the parents - this often goes for children's fiction in general.

Children of the Stones and Moondial both have a child with only one parent - not divorced either, they've been killed off and so can't come back. In Stones, it's so that the father can get involved with a museum curator (also a widow); and in Moondial it's so that the girl can go and stay with her godmother while he' mother's in hospital, but still be driven about by the bloke who's hoping to cop off with her mother.

ha! I've just found the 1974 Carrie's War series on Youtube, which was much better than the more recent BBC film version. :applaud: :applaud:

This has both getting rid of both parents and just one parent ideas; one, when Carrie and her brother are evacuated to Wales, and later, when Carrie's husband is killed off before the start of the modern part of the story (there is a sequel where she has married... but no, I won't spoil it.

The book:




The book is better is that you see everything in it from Carrie's point of view; in the TV version you see it for yourself, which does alter your view of some of the characters (one in particular) from the outset. But the series is bloody good as well. I find N Bawden's children's books more adult than her adult books; when she's writing for children, she doesn't feel the need to explain everything.

[aubrey]

Top 7 creepiest Kids' shows. )

Moondial was based around a sundial/moondial with Eros and - can't remember!!! - on it, with a sort of time travel involved.

It doesn't really hold together, but it's atmospheric.

This is a blurry picture from it;




(These last three posts are edited from posts of The Fall Forum, which may account for some weirdnesses of the writing.)

[Weyland]

Apr 23, 2011 9:47:14 GMT aubrey said:

Catweazle (Geoffrey Blaydon, I think it's spelled) was in an episode of The Saint on ITV4 this morning, playing a French art dealer.

Bayldon. I reckon Catweazle was some of the best children's TV ever. Electrickery. The Telling Bone. Nuthin' wurks! Touchwood.

"Buzz quoth the blue fly, hum quoth the bee. Buzz and hum they cry, and so do we!"

Brilliant. Richard Carpenter wrote it and acted in it.

And GB is a dead ringer for one of my oldest mates. He even attempted the facial hair at one time. Didn't wurk.