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Post by everso on May 13, 2009 22:25:53 GMT
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Post by Patrick on May 13, 2009 22:31:20 GMT
Pfffft! Wildlife on One gave me nightmares! I had a dream about one of his bloody frogs in 1978 or whenever it was on - that it tried to eat me - and when I woke up I was afraid to get out of bed 'cos I thought the bedroom floor was going to be covered in frogs!
Eeeuuurrrrggghh!
Isn't it funny how Doctor Who always comes up as an example in these surveys - yet half the parents who grew up with it would be the first to admit it never did them any harm!
You do wonder whether the parents remember what it was like for them as they grew up! I bet most children now don't go to bed half as early as some of us sensible message boarding types did!
The whole point of many children's programmes at one point was that bad behaviour never pays in the end. There seems to be quite a few other programmes today that nurture the "I want I want " gene if there is such a gene.
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Post by everso on May 13, 2009 22:49:43 GMT
Pfffft! Wildlife on One gave me nightmares! I had a dream about one of his bloody frogs in 1978 or whenever it was on - that it tried to eat me - and when I woke up I was afraid to get out of bed 'cos I thought the bedroom floor was going to be covered in frogs! Eeeuuurrrrggghh! Isn't it funny how Doctor Who always comes up as an example in these surveys - yet half the parents who grew up with it would be the first to admit it never did them any harm! You do wonder whether the parents remember what it was like for them as they grew up! I bet most children now don't go to bed half as early as some of us sensible message boarding types did!
The whole point of many children's programmes at one point was that bad behaviour never pays in the end. There seems to be quite a few other programmes today that nurture the "I want I want " gene if there is such a gene. So long as the ending of a programme shows the baddie getting his just desserts then I think it's o.k. As you say, the programmes that nurture the I want I want gene in children (or anyone come to think of it) are the ones to watch out for. Doctor Who is good for kids and exciting too. I remember my brother getting in place on the sofa at Saturday tea-time, complete with cushion at the ready in case it all got a bit too frightening. Come to think of it, I believe he still does it.  |
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Post by Patrick on May 13, 2009 23:00:34 GMT
Of course! This is what's proper stuff for Children!  JIM
Who ran away from his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion.
There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo—
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which I now relate.
You know—or at least you ought to know,
For I have often told you so—
That Children never are allowed
To leave their Nurses in a Crowd;
Now this was Jim's especial Foible,
He ran away when he was able,
And on this inauspicious day
He slipped his hand and ran away!
He hadn't gone a yard when—Bang!
With open Jaws, a lion sprang,
And hungrily began to eat
The Boy: beginning at his feet.
Now, just imagine how it feels
When first your toes and then your heels,
And then by gradual degrees,
Your shins and ankles, calves and knees,
Are slowly eaten, bit by bit.
No wonder Jim detested it!
No wonder that he shouted "Hi!"
The Honest Keeper heard his cry,
Though very fat he almost ran
To help the little gentleman.
"Ponto!" he ordered as he came
(For Ponto was the Lion's name),
"Ponto!" he cried, with angry Frown,
"Let go, Sir! Down, Sir! Put it down!"
The Lion made a sudden stop,
He let the Dainty Morsel drop,
And slunk reluctant to his Cage,
Snarling with Disappointed Rage.
But when he bent him over Jim,
The Honest Keeper's Eyes were dim.
The Lion having reached his Head,
The Miserable Boy was dead!
When Nurse informed his Parents, they
Were more Concerned than I can say:—
His Mother, as She dried her eyes,
Said, "Well—it gives me no surprise,
He would not do as he was told!"
His Father, who was self-controlled,
Bade all the children round attend
To James's miserable end,
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse. S'funny, I was only re-reading this book the other day. |
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Post by Flatypus on May 13, 2009 23:24:05 GMT
Looks like the original of the Albert and the Lion monologue. I don't believe that TV or anything else usually gives children nightmares, it is far more likely that the nightmares they were going to have seize on something that has recently shocked them.
I had three vividly terrifying nightmares as a child: one featured a Dalmatian dog (though I don't recall where I could have met one - maybe it was prophetic because my secondary school headmaster had one), one an automatic pump that scared the wits out of me starting up, and one a horror of springs wrapping round me that I couldn't get off. That was probably connected to the horror I still feel far more about the clinging touch of cobwebs than about spiders.
I was also terrified of dinosaurs, especially as portrayed in some books (I can still see the pages) but those were hypnopompic images (or is it hypnogoguic?) when dream imagination runs riot before sleep, never sleeping dreams.
No doubt had anything more than a pump or a spring stuck in my mind, I would have dreamt of that. I found a clue to the dinosaurs many years later in the terror our cats had to the vacuum cleaner - the noisy body is just too far from the active head for comfort and probably Brontosaurus (deprecated!) evoked some similar archaic horror shared with them. Besides, if you are a child with cows giving birth a few yards behind and a grandmother moaning god-knows-what cocaine withdrawal symptoms in the other direction (they used it as a local anaesthetic for nasal surgery then), you probably have nightmares too!
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Post by trubble on May 14, 2009 0:21:44 GMT
I completely disagree with that theory. I remember the nightmares I had from TV. Dr Who included!
My most vivid one from film/tv was after seeing Star Wars in the cinema. All these robot type baddies kidnapped me and hid me in the understairs cupboard but I hid from them by getting inside and empty cushion cover. Green velour.
And I can still recall, as vividly as if it happened last night, that I was inside the cover, doing the zip up to keep them out and they were just inching their fingers into the gap - scary x 100.
I also dreamt that nuns tried to suffocate me to death by trapping me in a room and closing all the windows and air holes. They were stuffing any gaps with curtains and cushions and I could not breathe at all.
Sound of Music, I bet you.
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Post by trubble on May 14, 2009 0:23:40 GMT
ahem. The cinema?  I'm willing to bet that's a Tom and Jerry gag. |
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Post by housesparrow on May 14, 2009 6:16:03 GMT
The film the Wizard of Oz gave me nightmares, but I loved it. As someone said, fear is probably OK provided everything comes right in the end.
I was roundly condemned by my mother and brother for enjoying Grimms Fairy Tales - mother said I must be horrid to like anything so violent, but so far as I remember the bad got their just deserts and the hero/heroine lived happily ever after.
Mum read us those nice, gentle Hans Christian Anderson stories. The tin soldier who ended up being melted down or something horrid is the one that stands out. Much nastier than Grimm.
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Post by motorist on May 14, 2009 12:25:41 GMT
Nightmares, shmitemares tough. There will always be someone that gets bad dreams out of something we would consider harmless. I used to have nightmares about one Star Trek episode when I was a kid, big deal. I was still able to watch Hammer horror films with no ill effect
I can understand Power Rangers, though, those scripts are utterly diabolical writing and no mistake. Or is that not what the nightmares were about ;D
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Post by everso on May 14, 2009 12:29:07 GMT
The film the Wizard of Oz gave me nightmares, but I loved it. As someone said, fear is probably OK provided everything comes right in the end. I was roundly condemned by my mother and brother for enjoying Grimms Fairy Tales - mother said I must be horrid to like anything so violent, but so far as I remember the bad got their just deserts and the hero/heroine lived happily ever after. Mum read us those nice, gentle Hans Christian Anderson stories. The tin soldier who ended up being melted down or something horrid is the one that stands out. Much nastier than Grimm. I agree. The pathos of the Tin Soldier and the one-legged ballerina is more difficult for a child to comprehend than the outright scarey queen in Snow White, who gets her just desserts in the end. I distinctly remember as a child (probably about 8 or 9) watching the old black and white film "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, on t.v. The utter pathos of the film had me in tears and for weeks afterwards I had trouble sleeping, not because of the violence of the film (not to be compared, of course, with the likes of stuff they show nowadays) but because I couldn't stop feeling sorry for somebody that ugly  |
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Post by Patrick on May 14, 2009 12:52:45 GMT
Anyone remember the story of "The Nargun" on Jackanory? A giant stone with supernatural powers. (Or something).
I had a nightmare about that! I Still remember it, I was looking up at the hills behind our house and this line of flame came shooting along the top - it looked like a tinsel caterpillar as it moved along the top eating up the trees in it's wake, and then it stopped and came whooshing down the hill and straight through the middle of our house!
It was the Nargun wot dunnit!
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Post by Flatypus on May 14, 2009 14:34:17 GMT
Grimm's Folktales should never have been released on children at all. That is something almost forgotten, the Victorian love of the grotesque and its incorporation into stories for children. They had a strangely ambiguous attitude to children altogether, half dangerous animals needing to be tamed and half angelic innocents. Those stories would have been for mostly the middle classes and it's hard to work out just what they were thinking of. It's not just that some things that must have been routine then look gruesome from a modern perspective. There always seems to be something nasty hinted under the surface, even in stories actually written for children (which Grimm was not). Even the Tenniel illustrations to the Alice books have a touch of the gargoyle about them!
The best that can be said about Grimm is that they served some purpose as much as the peasants who passed them down believed in dangers in the forest, some of which were genuine.
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Post by Patrick on May 14, 2009 17:23:32 GMT
My most vivid one from film/tv was after seeing Star Wars in the cinema. All these robot type baddies kidnapped me and hid me in the understairs cupboard but I hid from them by getting inside and empty cushion cover. Green velour. And I can still recall, as vividly as if it happened last night, that I was inside the cover, doing the zip up to keep them out and they were just inching their fingers into the gap - scary x 100. I also dreamt that nuns tried to suffocate me to death by trapping me in a room and closing all the windows and air holes. They were stuffing any gaps with curtains and cushions and I could not breathe at all. Sound of Music, I bet you. Am I right in guessing that Trubble Towers/Mittens Mansions is a cushion free zone with roller blinds on all the windows? |
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