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Live action series you thought were for kids, but weren't...

Started by George White, June 25, 2017, 10:00:05 PM

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George White

I thought Churchill's People was an educational series that had gotten all the big actors to do it because they wanted to be part of something for the kids, like Whizzkid's Guide, which also featured Rita Webb and Arthur Mullard.
But no, they really meant it.

George White

I'm sure some kids thought This Morning with Richard not Judy was for them...

KennyMonster

You could prbably fill a whole internet with a discussion on whether or not Dr Who is a kid's show or not.


Bazooka

Quote from: George White on June 26, 2017, 09:38:07 AM
I'm sure some kids thought This Morning with Richard not Judy was for them...

It must have had one of the oddest time slot allocations I can remember, 12PM on a Sunday?!

TheWoodenSpoon

Quote from: KennyMonster on June 30, 2017, 09:20:19 AM
You could prbably fill a whole internet with a discussion on whether or not Dr Who is a kid's show or not.
It really can't make up its mind, can it?

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Bazooka on June 30, 2017, 10:11:57 AM
It must have had one of the oddest time slot allocations I can remember, 12PM on a Sunday?!

At the time, it wasn't that unusual for programmes targeting younger people to be scheduled at that kind of slot – think it was a couple of years before, but that's when The Sunday Show (two Kayes for the price of one) was broadcast.

Not sure when this started but Network 7 had that kind of slot in the late 1980s.

neveragain


George White

Yeah, that was a weird one, it was a live action Simpsons and BBC treated it as teen filler.



Cerys


Glebe


George White

I think I did presume that the BBC Pride and Prejudice from 1980 was a Sunday classic, but that was their Sense and Sensibility.

Any more?
7th Heaven too, I suppose.


checkoutgirl

Horrible Histories. Might actually be a kids show but it's so good anyone with a decent comedy radar should like it.

George White

RTE showed Codename Icarus, a BBC kids' show in an adult slot.
The kid was quite mature, it has to be said.

Gwen Taylor on ITV

Quote from: KennyMonster on June 30, 2017, 09:20:19 AM
You could prbably fill a whole internet with a discussion on whether or not Dr Who is a kid's show or not.

It is a children's show but like My Little Pony there's a substantial adult audience that ruin it for the casual viewer.

Camp Tramp

Quote from: Gwen Taylor on ITV on February 11, 2018, 03:03:24 PM
It is a children's show but like My Little Pony there's a substantial adult audience that ruin it for the casual viewer.

It is a family show that sometimes veers towards being aimed at children, or othertimes more towards adult.

Compare early Colin Baker, which tried to be adult but failed horribly or the pantominesque excesses of the first McCoy series, which was embarrassing.

mothman

I doubt that The Next Step is "for" anyone but kids, but I can't help but suspect it might have found an adult audience all the same. Or a very dubious dubset of one, anyway.

George White

Quote from: mothman on February 11, 2018, 05:05:26 PM
I doubt that The Next Step is "for" anyone but kids, but I can't help but suspect it might have found an adult audience all the same. Or a very dubious dubset of one, anyway.
Ironic, as it's produced by quite a Christian-orientated channel.

Icehaven

I'm pretty sure pre/early-teen me was only allowed to watch Quantum Leap and Twin Peaks because my Mum thought they were both children's programs due to the supernatural/sci-fi/surreal elements meaning they obviously couldn't be for adults. Quantum Leap was fairly harmless anyway but Twin Peaks... Hilariously around the same time I wasn't allowed to watch Grange Hill as my Mum saw the bit where Danny Kendall's body was found in the car and thought it was too disturbing.

Replies From View


Gwen Taylor on ITV

Quote from: Camp Tramp on February 11, 2018, 03:53:12 PM
It is a family show that sometimes veers towards being aimed at children, or othertimes more towards adult.

Compare early Colin Baker, which tried to be adult but failed horribly or the pantominesque excesses of the first McCoy series, which was embarrassing.

Family show is a synonym for a children's show (ie. children between the ages of 5 and 12, teenagers may find it a naff).  The only reason the show veers towards 'adult' is because of the legion of grown men online who take it far to seriously and influence the writers, who read all this online criticism.

Replies From View

I always thought that "family show/film" meant that it was designed to create at least minimal enjoyment for the adults who have to take the children along.  But then that would imply "kids show/film" means actively obnoxious for those parents or carers.

Still sounds right though.

Dr Syntax Head

I was going to say Malcolm in the middle and that my thinking it was for kids put me off watching. It remains one of my favourite shows ever.

George White

The Zoo Gang - sounds like something like the Munch Bunch or Animaland.
Actually, an ITC actioner.

George White

Look-In seemed to promote all kinds of odd shows to kids. Some more kid-friendly, others less so.


Armchair Thriller (one of several spinoffs from seminal  anhology drama series Armchair Theatre, this formed the bulk of early PBS! Mystery, and featured a then-rare non-classical theatre telly role from Ian McKellen), the Spoils of War, A Family at War, reruns of Tales from Dickens, the World at War, period drama Edward VII, the Pig and Whistle (Canada's answer to the Good Old Days/Lawrence Welk, hosted by Captain Birdseye himself, John Hewer), Police Surgeon (not the Avengers precursor, but the 70s Canadian procedural), the likes of the Baron and the Adventurer, Jesus of Nazareth (ITV's most expensive production), Crown Court, Aussie shows like Chopper Squad, Young Ramsey, SoloOne, Riptide with Ty Hardin, the in-name-only British series General Hospital, Bognor, End of Part One, dreary pre-High Road Scots soap Garnock Way, Granada auction house saga House of Caradus, the ITV Play, Enemy at the Door, ITV Play of the Week, sitcoms like Life Begins at Forty, Don't Just Sit There, and Leslie Crowther's series, Father Dear Father, the Many Wives of Patrick, Pathfinders (a WW2 series that once featured in his first English language role, one Rutger Hauer0, Harry Worth, the British sitcom version of Billy Liar, Wendy Craig's various shows, the 50s-UK-Canadian series Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans with Lon Chaney Jr, the Shillingbury Tales, Benny Hill and Dave Allen's shows, Cedar Tree, Tommy Steele, Six Dates with Barker, cop shows No Hiding Place, Spooner's Patch, the Edgar Wallace Mysteries, Bless Me Father, Mind Your Language, Man about the House, Rising Damp, Man about the House, the Cuckoo Waltz, the Squirrels, Beryl's Lot, Dr in Charge,New Scotland Yard,On the Buses,  Sorry, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, Thundercloud, A Fine Romance with Judi Dench, Ballyskillen Opera House, Shelley, Norman Wisdom, the Fosters, Please, Sir, Never Mind the Quality... Feel the Width, A Sharp Intake of Breath, the Secret Life of Edgar Briggs, Devenish, the Incredible Mr. Tanner,  John Mills' sitcom vehicle Young at Heart,  Only when I Laugh, Thicker than Water with Joss Ackland as a Yorkshireman,   How's Your Father, Can We Go Now Please, various non-starter WW2 coms like Thundercloud, Yanks Go Home, Backs to the Land, the revived Rag Trade, In Loving Memory, the Glamour Girls, the surrealistic Fancy Wanders, plus Arnie with Herschel Bernardi, the various Mary Tyler Moore Televisual Universe series, Soap, Shaft - the Series, Longstreet with James Franciscus as a blind detective, Trapper John MD, Columbo, Streets of San Francisco, CTV import Search and Rescue, Private Benjamin the sitcom, Wayne and Shuster on C4 (I have no idea why C4 bought this and not SCTV APART from it being cheap and easy to show at five in the afternoon), Pat McGoohan post-Prisoner paycheque vehicle Rafferty, Barney Miller, Nanny and the Professor, Gilligan's Island, the Magician, It Takes  A Thief (ITC-ish thing with Robert Wagner), McCloud, Hogan's Heroes, the Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Cade's County, the FBI, Flipper, O'Hara with David Janssen, My 3 Sons, Bridget loves Bernie, Me and the Chimp, Anna and the King (the sitcom based on the King and I with Yul Brynner and Samantha Eggar, and the more suitably cast Keye Luke replacing  Martin "Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz" Benson as Kralahome)


Beeb/Fast Forward tried to sell kids Python, On the Up, May to December, Birds of a Feather, the Barchester Chronicles, Bleak House because it had Charlie Drake in it, and Mystery - Campion.

Absorb the anus burn

The Feathered Serpent: a perfect Sunday teatime romp for the kids nope: sacrifice, ritual, torture, curses plus Diane Keen in seriously skimpy costumes - all played in the style of the Caligula sections of I Clavdivs.

George White

Kids' TV was different then.
See also Warrior Queen and Arthur of the Britons.