Classic TV

Classic shows that have almost been forgotten, as well as shows that should probably have been forgotten

Classic TV

Weird old titles: Picture Box

16 June 2009 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Normally – by which I mean "in the three previous and indeed only entries in this series of weird old title sequences" – there’s been something weird and off-putting about the titles themselves. This week, we’re going to be a little different and have a weird and off-putting theme tune instead. 

Picture Box was a schools’ programme that went out mid-morning during the week and showed a ragbag of international, often entirely silent and quite mesmerising short films introduced by Alan Rothwell IIRC (TV Ark says Dorothy Smith presented in the 60s when it was in black and white). Although you’d be hard-pressed to remember a single one of those films, the really quite eery music played on what sounds like a fairground steam organ will have stuck with everyone who ever watched the show.

Press play and you’ll see what I mean if you went to school in the 70s and 80s. Whether you did or you didn’t, by the end of it, you should be expecting the grey ghost of an old carnie to beckon at you whenever you look in a mirror.

No Alan with this clip, although you can see him very briefly in this unembeddable version over here.

Weird old titles: Rupert the Bear

9 June 2009 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Time for another weird old title sequence. Rupert Bear has been one of British culture’s most enduring characters. Originally a cartoon in the Daily Express, the little bear and his weird array of friends have gone on to have many LSD-soaked adventures in other media, especially TV.

For pure scariness, you can’t beat the 70s version of The Adventures of Rupert Bear, which terrified many a child, and now can terrify you, too. What a scary little bear.

Classic TV

Weird old titles: C.A.T.S. Eyes

2 June 2009 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Leslie Ash in C.A.T.S. Eyes

Maybe there’s a reason other than the obvious ones for why I don’t like Ashes to Ashes: it reminds me too much of Gentle Touch spin-off C.A.T.S. Eyes. Yes, much like Fox Force 5, it featured an all-woman group of government spies (Covert Action – Thames Section) working undercover as private detectives at an agency called Eyes.

Oh dear God.

The Gentle Touch was something of a ground-breaker. A long-running series about a female police detective, Maggie Forbes (played by Jill Gascoine) and the pressures of the very male environment in which she worked, it was something of a pre-cursor to Prime Suspect.

So sending the character and the actress who played her to do grunt work in C.A.T.S. Eyes was akin to sending Helen Mirren and DCI Tennison off at the end of Prime Suspect to mop up the garbage on Captain Planet.

The rest of the team (for series one at least) consisted of posh bird Rosalyn Landor, playing the head of Eyes, Pru Standfast; and Leslie Ash, playing Fred Smith, casual racist and computer expert.

Yes, Leslie Ash. She was quite hot then – at least 13-year-old MediumRob used to think so at the time.

Running the whole operation from Whitehall was Don Warrington of Rising Damp fame. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Pru left at the end of series one (allegedly because none of the actresses got on, but who knows). Maggie Forbes took over, and more obvious totty Tracy Louise Ward joined as Brunette A CipherTessa Robinson.

The titles for the first series changed each time, with the agent who was the focus of the story getting the main titles time. In a second, the titles from the first series’ ‘good episode’, Frightmare, in which Fred takes her date to the office and gets doused in hallucinogens so he can steal all the office secrets, IIRC. Apparently, girls don’t like to see centipedes on their keyboards or something.

Here they are, beamed to us directly from 1985 by a benevolent engineer who used to work for old ITV franchise TVS. Prepare to laugh and wonder if in fact Keeley Hawes is playing a snottier version of Pru Standfast in Ashes to Ashes.

For those who want to see how desperate things got, live from a VHS recording from The Family Channel, comes this six minute chunk from an episode of the second series, complete with funky new titles and new theme.

Classic TV

Lost Gems: The Aphrodite Inheritance (1979)

7 May 2009 Rob Buckley 23 Comments

After Christianity became the dominant religion in the West, the Greek gods could have taken it easy and had a rest. Some suggest they did; others, however, tell a different story.

Modern US television suggests that right now, they’re off running their own companies in Valentine, trying to matchmake mortals in Cupid, or both. Back in the 90s in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, they were either trying to make television shows while trying to rescue innocent mortals or sabotaging their relative’s TV show so they could sit back and watch Millennium and Cop Rock in peace:

But if we go back to the late 70s, back when they were still in Greece (or Cyprus at least), they were busily helping to solve crimes – in their own inimitable way.

When David Collier arrives on Cyprus following the death of his brother, Barry, in what Collier believes was an accident, he meets the beautiful Helene and her mysterious companions, Basileos and Charalambous, who appear to know a great deal more about his brother’s death than anyone is admitting. Slowly Collier is drawn deep into a complex conspiracy until neither he, nor the viewer, know who he can trust, particularly when it becomes apparent that someone is trying to kill him. The police, in the form of Inspector Dimas, don’t believe a word Collier says, since every time he finds something, or someone, that could substantiate his story they inexplicably vanish.

When all is revealed and Barry’s murder is solved, there’s one last mystery: Collier discovers that rumours of the deaths of the gods Aphrodite (Alexandra Bastedo from The Champions), Pan (Stefan Gryff) and Dionysus (Brian Blessed in full Brian Blessed mode) have been greatly exaggerated.

It’s not been repeated since UK Gold showed it a decade ago, it’s never been released on DVD, although you can find it on YouTube (playlists later): it’s The Aphrodite Inheritance and it’s a Lost Gem. Here’s the title sequence and for those who want to cut to the chase, the final ten minutes of the final episode in which the gods’ game with the poor mortals is finally uncovered.

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Classic TV

Lost Gems: The One Game (1988)

24 April 2009 Rob Buckley 20 Comments

Patrick Malahide and Stephen Dillane in The One Game

The story of Merlin and King Arthur has been around for centuries, so it’s not surprising that every so often, someone wants to retell it*. Most recently, we’ve had the BBC series Merlin, but there have been numerous other retellings including the Sam Neill mini-series Merlin, the movie Excalibur, the Clive Owen historical, King Arthur, and mild American 70s sitcom Mr Merlin.

Back in the 80s though, there was a more subtle adaptation of the myth set in modern times. Starring Patrick Malahide (Minder et al) as the Merlin-esque ‘Magnus’ and Stephen Dillane (Hamlet, Spy Game, Welcome to Sarajevo) as Nick, the King Arthur of the piece, The One Game posited the question: “What would have happened if Arthur had been made King with Merlin’s help – and then Arthur had kicked him out?”

This being the 80s, however, for the retelling Nick was the MD of a games company and Magnus was the creator of his best-selling game, thrown out and sent to a mental asylum after he couldn’t handle Nick’s rejection of his newest invention. Magnus escapes from the asylum and using his near-magical skills, steals all Nick’s company’s assets and plans his further revenge.

What made The One Game so interesting and worthy of being described as a Lost Gem was its then-unique concept: during the course of the four episodes, set over a Bank Holiday weekend, everyone Nick meets – including friends and loved-ones – and everything he does and comes across may be part of ‘The One Game’, a live-action and possibly deadly game invented by Magnus to teach Nick a lesson.

It was only ever shown once on ITV1, was released on DVD but is no longer available. It’s The One Game and it’s a Lost Gem. Here’s the the opening titles to the second episode, Saturday, complete with theme tune sung in Patagonian Welsh and annoying 80s narrator recapping just enough of the plot for you to know what’s going on.

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