things on tv you know only you've seen and you'll never see them again

[Puce Moment]

I'll take another pop at this: 29/12/88 - As Long As He Can Count The Cows.

The synopsis reads:
No sign of vikings or blacksmiths but some shots of mountains and a shot of a bicycle and a jeep. And, crucially, it was on at 2.20pm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt46fHrCRmE

Danish-made but screened on PBS apparently (accounts for the James Earl Jones bookends).

Thanks for trying - it definitely isn't this. I suspect that Phil has nailed it, but it is ghostly in terms of any info or clips.

[Frazer]

I think this would've been early 90s: switched to BBC2 and there was a renaissance painting on the screen, it was being reviewed by The Chippendales. At the time I was at art college and thoroughly bored with all the mystique and poncery around art and here were The Chippendales saying how the dude in the painting looked like he had a lot of upper body strength.

What a breath of fresh air, I'd love to see it again.

[Hank Venture]

I have a false memory about Seinfeld, where I've apparently made up the ending to an episode. I was binge-watching the whole series when I got chatting to a mate who had also done the same thing a couple of weeks beforehand, and I confidently told him my favourite episode was "the one where Kramer is obsessed with levels". I can clearly see it before my mind's eye, the episode ends with Jerry entering Kramer's apartment, and the LOVABLE GOOFBALL has built an Aztec-like structure up towards the far corner of the room. No furniture, nothing, just an Aztec pyramid with levels.

Also the worst movie I've ever seen, called Miami Golem. I can't remember much of it, as it was the worst movie I've ever seen, but this plot summary by someone on IMDB should explain: "his budget-starved Italian action/sci-fi hybrid features David Warbeck as a Miami reporter who is chosen by the ghosts of the people of Atlantis (!) to stop an evil businessman (Academy Award nominee John Ireland) from using a telepathic fetus grown using spores from an asteroid to rule the world."

I honestly found it to be subpar.

[kaprisky]

Walcott. 1981.
A gritty three part mini-series about a Black CID officer taking down smack dealers in Hackney. It was on ITV/Thames in early 1981. It was pre the 1981 riots, and an ominous portent of things to come. Never repeated, and pretty much forgotten.

Well it's a good thing then that Wolcott hasn't been forgotten by Network.

[Steven]

I have a false memory about Seinfeld, where I've apparently made up the ending to an episode. I was binge-watching the whole series when I got chatting to a mate who had also done the same thing a couple of weeks beforehand, and I confidently told him my favourite episode was "the one where Kramer is obsessed with levels". I can clearly see it before my mind's eye, the episode ends with Jerry entering Kramer's apartment, and the LOVABLE GOOFBALL has built an Aztec-like structure up towards the far corner of the room. No furniture, nothing, just an Aztec pyramid with levels.

I had the same thing! I remembered the bit with Kramer saying "Levels, Jerry!" and in my mind pictured his apartment with all these terraced bits to it, and upon seeing the episode again thought that scene was coming up and it never happened.

[EFB]

That advert for Fresh n Lo milk where the boy says to the girl, "actually suuuuusan, it's Fresh n Lo."

No one else remembers it, or understands my compulsion to see it again.

[swordfish_bhoona]

There was something I saw late one night on BBC 2...I would've been about 9...and it was around 1997 at a guess...and I think Im probably the only person to ever see it or remember it...the cartoon film 'Bebe's Kids' was on afterwards which was also a very obscure and not-known thing for me until the arrival of Youtube and the internet at large a few years later.

Almost seems pointless to describe as I have no reference whatsoever as to what it might've been...it was a really creepy story about some orphaned teenage girl going to live with an aunt and her two daughters (presumably). The daughters were like twins and for some reason wore theatrical masks a bit like the ones in the Basket Case Green Day video but flesh colours and with long noses...on the very precipice of my memory I can see them clearly and know that there is a more accurate reference than that but don't know what it is; maybe the long noses in a Clockwork Orange...they were skipping and pirouetting around the place and never spoke, those twins...although it wasn't filmed on a stage it had a very theatre performing arts quality to it this short film, with little or perhaps no dialogue...and I have that prominent image of the girl outside a country house with her sinister aunt and the two masked twins pirouetting around behind them with their pigtails and their dresses.

And then I remember its like in the middle of the night and the orphan is stumbling round a kitchen in terror in the darkness, and the demented sinister aunt figure keeps popping out of cupboards and round corners, singing a song...well, theres music and she delivering the song in a speaking voice Shatner style...

'scared of the dark scared of the dark scared of the dark...boo!'
'mummy not here to help you mummy not here to help you mummy not here to help you..........boo'

are the only lines I remember....and like in that pause between the line and the Boo the girl would open a cupboard door and the aunts heard would be grinning within and say....boo!

It was on late so wasn't for kids for sure...perhaps about 20mins long.....

To be honest the memory is of so little substance that Ive had to make some slight embellishments to give it any sort of sense...and I'd understand if no one had a clue what I was talking about. I suppose it's just strange to experience something which sticks with you for so long and you have next to no way of ever finding out what it might have been.

[Mr Banlon]

'Let's Parlez Franglais' Weird and unfunny programme with Rula Shiksa

[jenna appleseed]

'dark' comedy thing about '95-mid '96 (been convinced for decades it was from an end of year highlights show of something like The Saturday Night Armistice, but according to BBC Genome that's a false memory). I was staying up late & attempting to watch tv later than usual without my gran finding out, (remember it being something that had already been shown but hadn't been previously able to watch, & had only read about).

Missed the beginning so in came at the start of a sketch, had a reall 'oh fuck, I'm not sure I like this...' reaction followed by total paranoia that my gran's about to come upstairs on hearing the light click on in the hallway... & tv being switched off rapidly.

Man in the middle of an otherwise otherwise empty studio complaining about people claiming tv violence causes violence in real life, turns on a tv showing The Sweeney, and gets so enraged
he smashes up the telly (pos with a baseball bat).

Also, slightly off topic but tv related thing nobody else seems to have read - some point in the 90's either the launch of the Saturday Night Armistice or something (probably) Iannucci/bayham/etc. related (can't have been anything Morris or the internet would know wtf I'm talking about)
had an spoof column in the Radio Times by the writers, that led to one of the regular columns/blurb in the next issue including a spoof disclaimer along the lines of 'despite what they told you last week, it doesn't actually contain hidden tabs of acid so you can stop licking Polly Toynbee's face".

[Hank Venture]

I had the same thing! I remembered the bit with Kramer saying "Levels, Jerry!" and in my mind pictured his apartment with all these terraced bits to it, and upon seeing the episode again thought that scene was coming up and it never happened.

Haha, that's odd.

[oilywater]

October 1988. One morning during Freshers' Week, everybody woke up saying they'd been sick in the night. You might not think that especially remarkable given the amount of alcohol new students knock back in their first few days at university – and yes, I'm exaggerating when I say absolutely everyone was sick – but it quickly transpired that the vast majority of freshers, myself included, had spent the small hours vomiting copiously at first then retching until their stomachs were in knots. This came as a particular surprise to the ones that hadn't even been drinking the previous evening. I'd had a few, but I put my bout of protracted regurgitation down to the fact that I'd been in fancy dress as The Joker, and had swallowed a large amount of white foundation when I'd tried to wash the makeup off. Most others assumed there had been a relaxation of hygiene standards in the refectory, and that food bacteria was to blame. Whatever the cause, the incident was gradually forgotten as the day progressed and we concerned ourselves with getting our student antics back on track.

A few weeks later I was up late watching Granada television's Anthony H Wilson-hosted arts show The Other Side Of Midnight. It's not a programme everyone will have heard of because it didn't get a showing in every ITV region, and while it lived up to its title by going out just after midnight in the North West, in other regions it was more likely to be found occupying even more desolate timeslots around three or four in the morning. Nevertheless it was required viewing, a precursor to programmes like the BBC's Late Show where the exuberant and loquacious Wilson would introduce viewers to the arts, fashions and – especially given that Acid House and the Madchester scene were at their heights – sounds that were shaking the urban North West. For years the only traces of it on YouTube were the debut TV performances of The Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays, but I'm pleased to say that a couple of full episodes have now been uploaded. Go find them and enjoy. Anyway, it was Tony's habit to introduce each edition with a live piece to camera. Normally it was a flippant anecdote, or perhaps a comment on the week's press, but on this instance he fixed the camera with a disconcertingly anxious stare as he addressed the whole of Granada's Lancashire and Merseyside catchment area. "Do you remember", he said, "that night, a few weeks ago, when you were all sick? You probably put it down to food poisoning or overindulgence, but that wasn't the cause. That night, there had been a leak of radiation from Heysham nuclear power station".

I looked out of my window to where the colossal edifice of Heysham's reactor loomed on the horizon.

Spookily enough I found this on an old VHS tape the other day. Annoyingly the tape ends just after the titles so I don't know if anything else was mentioned about it.

[Norton Canes]

Oilywater, you are a star. That is absolutely uncanny.

OK, over the intervening 27 years I've forgotten that he didn't mention Heysham specifically. And yeah, I guess if you said to enough people "hey, remember when you were all ill?", then enough of them would claim they did. All the same, he pins a date down.

Thanks for finding the clip anyway, and for uploading. What are the chances?

[lgpmachine]

Quite late to the party but I've got a couple of stories for this and I think they'll fit nicely here.

The first memory is from the CBBC era when they still had a full programme of after school shows leading up to Neighbours. Dick and Dom were providing the continuity links for the incident in question.  Newsround ended and the chaps signed off the day's entertainment in the usual upbeat manner.  All fine and good.  An advert for upcoming BBC shows begins and I sit waiting patiently for Neighbours. Suddenly, the picture cuts back to the CBBC studio with Dick and Dom on camera and Dick clearly enraged.  "I'm sick of Dick this, Dick that, Dick everything!" he shouts, before hurling his clipboard to the floor and storming off.  Dom, seemingly unaffected by this outburst calls "Alright, Susan!" to him as he disappears out of shot.  Just as Dom is removing his earpiece he looks straight down the camera with a slightly worried look and says "We're not still on are we?".  Fade to black for a few seconds before another advert kicks in.  I eagerly tuned in to CBBC the next day to see if there was any mention or apology for this incident but of course there was none.

The other memory I have is of an early attempt at an interactive show broadcast on CBBC during a mid-late 90s summer holiday called 'Techniquest'.  The premise was that the presenter directly addressed the viewer in the guise of a man from another world looking for another of his kind who had been sent to Earth on (I think) a reconnaissance mission and had become lost.  The lost alien was called, I kid you not, 'Butt', leading to plenty of unintentional amusement.  During the course of the week long run, the location of Butt was narrowed down thanks to a series of clues and games which all involved viewer interaction. 

The incident I remember was that the presenter took a call from an Andrew Pees in Birmingham who was going to provide a clue/participate in a game.  "Hello Andrew, can you help me find Butt?" the presenter asked, to which came the response "You're a piece of shit who can't act".  It must be noted that he took this like a true professional, with a swift smile and a thanks for the call. Textbook.  I didn't watch the rest of the week's run to discover if indeed Butt was found.

If anyone remembers either of these I'll be stunned and delighted.

It's a bit sad to note that anyone born within the last 15 or so years won't really have memories of strange and fleeting incidents like the ones in this thread, thanks to the advent of the likes of Sky+ where things can be rewound and re-watched as you please.

[Famous Mortimer]

The other memory I have is of an early attempt at an interactive show broadcast on CBBC during a mid-late 90s summer holiday called 'Techniquest'.  The premise was that the presenter directly addressed the viewer in the guise of a man from another world looking for another of his kind who had been sent to Earth on (I think) a reconnaissance mission and had become lost.  The lost alien was called, I kid you not, 'Butt', leading to plenty of unintentional amusement.  During the course of the week long run, the location of Butt was narrowed down thanks to a series of clues and games which all involved viewer interaction. 

The incident I remember was that the presenter took a call from an Andrew Pees in Birmingham who was going to provide a clue/participate in a game.  "Hello Andrew, can you help me find Butt?" the presenter asked, to which came the response "You're a piece of shit who can't act".  It must be noted that he took this like a true professional, with a swift smile and a thanks for the call. Textbook.  I didn't watch the rest of the week's run to discover if indeed Butt was found.

If anyone remembers either of these I'll be stunned and delighted.

This has intrigued me, but the internet is coming up blank, no matter what search terms I put in.

There's this - http://www.curiousbritishtelly.co.uk/2014/02/whats-your-story.html - but it's not really all that much like the thing you described at all. I know this is the first port of call of the person who's given up, but are you sure you got the name right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BBC_children%27s_television_programmes doesn't have anything with that name either.

[Famous Mortimer]

That ffogems story is magnificent. I want more than anything to be able to find out what that was. And he's only posted on three times since 2012, all promoting stuff he'd made :(

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Play in (I think) 1983, in which a blind man is terrorised in his expensive mansion by a thug who he drowns in his swimming pool.

[lgpmachine]

This has intrigued me, but the internet is coming up blank, no matter what search terms I put in.

There's this - http://www.curiousbritishtelly.co.uk/2014/02/whats-your-story.html - but it's not really all that much like the thing you described at all. I know this is the first port of call of the person who's given up, but are you sure you got the name right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BBC_children%27s_television_programmes doesn't have anything with that name either.

It is a strange one.  It's probably so obscure because it was on one-off and during the mornings in the summer holidays so I suspect many would have missed it.  If pushed I'd say it was around 97-98.  I'm certain that the name is right, unless the spelling was a different variation, as it's always stuck with me (as has the name of the infamous 'Andrew Pees').

[Small Man Big Horse]

That ffogems story is magnificent. I want more than anything to be able to find out what that was. And he's only posted on three times since 2012, all promoting stuff he'd made :(

I saw him do stand up about six weeks ago, on a bill with Kevin Eldon and Sara Pascoe (and Diane Morgan should have been there too, but dropped out at the last moment), he was really really funny and I hope big things await him.

[sick as a pike]

Don't think this is really obscure enough to qualify, but following Eurotrash, Antoine De Caunes made a late night variety/sketch show type programme, (possibly called Le Show? Although I'm aware that's also Harry Shearer's radio broadcast) which I have strong memories of my teenage self being surprised by a sketch that parodied Jerry Springer and had repeated, dispassionate use of the word 'Cunt'. I may be misremembering entirely, but this seemed well before the word was regularly allowed to be used on TV - or was certainly more of a rarity - and it seemed remarkable at the time.

Can I just jump in here seven months late and turn this round to me?  Thanks. It was called Le Show and I wrote for it.  I've got no recollection of the Jerry Springer thing however, which isn't all that helpful, is it?
I do remember working in the office day after day, generating ideas which would periodically be sent upstairs to the boss producer, who would then reject them. Well that's how it seemed, though somehow the show got made.
The only idea of mine that was seized with genuine enthusiasm was for Antoine to interview a guest (who would generally be a busty continental type) while both sat on the "saucy see-saw saucisson" a see saw designed like a sausage/penis.
Top work, I'm sure you'll agree.

[PaulTMA]

That advert for Fresh n Lo milk where the boy says to the girl, "actually suuuuusan, it's Fresh n Lo."

No one else remembers it, or understands my compulsion to see it again.

Many months late, but who in their right mind would refer to milk as 'Fresh 'n' Lo' as if was Coke over cola, honestly.  Hopefully it all went Frosties-lore for that child

[chocolate teapot]

Quite late to the party but I've got a couple of stories for this and I think they'll fit nicely here.

The first memory is from the CBBC era when they still had a full programme of after school shows leading up to Neighbours. Dick and Dom were providing the continuity links for the incident in question.  Newsround ended and the chaps signed off the day's entertainment in the usual upbeat manner.  All fine and good.  An advert for upcoming BBC shows begins and I sit waiting patiently for Neighbours. Suddenly, the picture cuts back to the CBBC studio with Dick and Dom on camera and Dick clearly enraged.  "I'm sick of Dick this, Dick that, Dick everything!" he shouts, before hurling his clipboard to the floor and storming off.  Dom, seemingly unaffected by this outburst calls "Alright, Susan!" to him as he disappears out of shot.  Just as Dom is removing his earpiece he looks straight down the camera with a slightly worried look and says "We're not still on are we?".  Fade to black for a few seconds before another advert kicks in.  I eagerly tuned in to CBBC the next day to see if there was any mention or apology for this incident but of course there was none.

I feel I should remember this because it's my era. Sorry I wasn't watching that day :( I have a feeling just by your description that it was all staged though.

[Berthas Fat Leg]

In the 80s, there was some American crime drama on TV, and all I can remember is it turned out this particular person of interest was not a person at all, but a droid. For some reason, they got sussed out, and possibly shot, and they fell face first onto the table during this board meeting, and their face melted into the table.

I had to hide behind the sofa.

28 etc.

[Glebe]

they fell face first onto the table... and their face melted into the table.

I imagine that happened to Ollie Reed numerous times after the cameras stopped rolling on his many chat show appearances.

[Pinckle Wicker]

I remember the Laser show! This kid just decides to build a laser, sends off for the parts, and when it turns on it starts talking to him. Weird. Wasn't it not sio much dubbed, as just had a narration track over the top telling you what people were saying and what was going on? And wasn't there another foreign show shown, done the same way? The Red Hand Gang?

Yeah, i remember that prog. I always thought it was Spanish for some reason. It was naff alright as i recall. No real explanation was given about the talking laser, who was carried about in a wooden box thing.

[tubularnametag]

Just to pitch in, the Techniquest thing was probably a show called Telequest - the same memory is reported on DigitalSpy:

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1298043&postcount=7

He's right though, the guy couldn't act.

[Billy]

Ok, I realise I'm setting myself up for a huge humiliation here - the below is from what I think was a comedy, late nineties/very early noughties, and could well be a famous moment from a famous episode from a famous series and if so I'm going to look like a right prat, but it's a memory from when I was about ten or eleven that's impossible to Google or locate without watching every episode of every comedy series circa 1998 to 2002ish and going aahhhhh that's what it was. I *think* it was on long forgotten but brilliant channel UK Play, or it might have been 'PlayUK' by then.

So yeah, comedy(?), no laugh track. Room full of people doing some kind of acting/teamwork exercise - all frozen on the spot in various 'frightened' positions. Someone walks round, taps them on the back, and as they're tapped they sing some kind of odd mumbled song and fall to the floor. This happens a few times. One of them when tapped sings the song, produces some kind of paper - maybe with something written on it ("HOPE"?), tears it into pieces (or maybe just crumples it up) and then falls on the floor too. Then I think they all start chanting something and walking towards one bloke in the middle who I'm presuming was the main character of this series, as the 'leader' of the workshops starts energetically shouting something at him, at which point I got a bit too creeped out and turned the channel over.

If the above really is obvious I apologise again, but Googling "weird people singing and falling on floor" didn't give me any required results. All I remember is having no idea what the fuck I was watching and whether it was meant to be funny or not, and totally prepared for a "That's Series 1 Episode 2 of The Office, you fool!" reply. Whatever it is you've solved a 16odd-year-old mystery...

[Dr Syntax Head]

This may be best in the movies board but a film I saw years ago. It was Australian if I remember and I have a vague memory of it being called road kill or something similar (yeah i've done my googling). It was about a singer from a punk band who was a bit of a legend and ends up committing suicide on stage.

[Shaky]

Mid to late 90's weird performance art short. BBC2? Basically involved a bald man shagging a bed before bellowing, "I've come mince!". The room then filled up with, er, mince.

Honestly not making that up. I hope.

[Ambient Sheep]

So yeah, comedy(?), no laugh track. Room full of people doing some kind of acting/teamwork exercise - all frozen on the spot in various 'frightened' positions. Someone walks round, taps them on the back, and as they're tapped they sing some kind of odd mumbled song and fall to the floor. This happens a few times. One of them when tapped sings the song, produces some kind of paper - maybe with something written on it ("HOPE"?), tears it into pieces (or maybe just crumples it up) and then falls on the floor too. Then I think they all start chanting something and walking towards one bloke in the middle who I'm presuming was the main character of this series, as the 'leader' of the workshops starts energetically shouting something at him, at which point I got a bit too creeped out and turned the channel over.

Sounds vaguely like a Big Train sketch, but I'm very very far from sure of that.  Just a faint bell ringing at the back of my bonce, as it does sound familiar.  Hopefully someone else will be along soon with a better answer.

[Roy Orbital]

So yeah, comedy(?), no laugh track. Room full of people doing some kind of acting/teamwork exercise - all frozen on the spot in various 'frightened' positions. Someone walks round, taps them on the back, and as they're tapped they sing some kind of odd mumbled song and fall to the floor. This happens a few times. One of them when tapped sings the song, produces some kind of paper - maybe with something written on it ("HOPE"?), tears it into pieces (or maybe just crumples it up) and then falls on the floor too. Then I think they all start chanting something and walking towards one bloke in the middle who I'm presuming was the main character of this series, as the 'leader' of the workshops starts energetically shouting something at him, at which point I got a bit too creeped out and turned the channel over.

Could be a bit from Either/Or? I didn't see much of it at the time, but there are a few episodes on youtube that may jog your memory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pg_dNH4LsY