Children's programmes you watched as a child that absolutely do not hold up

[Mr_Simnock]

Battle of the planets was something I would be glued to but on re watching it via VHS about ten years ago I found it to be an incomprehensible mess. Can't be bothered to watch it as the original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman which I am sure is far better.

[Spiteface]

Transformers, Generation 1.

ANY nostalgia people have for it, comes from the 1980s movie. The main TV series was patchy at best. A handful of episodes, maybe.

Also as a side note, Beast Wars has spent so long being the "underrated" darling of Transformers, it's gone all the way around and become overrated. Plus the 90s CGI is dated as hell.

It actually bugs me that of the 80s properties that got revived years later, Transformers is the one that  seems to have sustained itself.

[Bazooka]

Beastwars and that form of cgi looked terrifying upon release, but that gave it quite an appeal.

[Marner and Me]

The Riddlers

[here4glinner]

I used to dream about Knightmare. Very confusing early-VR, dull as ditchwater to watch, with some amazingly poor acting. "Step forward three paces. Turn to the right. Step forward two paces."

And then some overacting witch asks you a riddle where the answer is 'the letter p'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightmare

[here4glinner]

Arthur has been on the TV for 24 years, and has aired 246 episodes. fuckin stupid aardvark with his polite and respectable life

[Uncle TechTip]

Count Duckula was boring then and it's boring now. Nostalgia has done it a lot of favours, favours I would argue it does not deserve.

Similarly, the new Dangermouse pisses all over the old one. The same irreverence and playing with style, but so much funnier and better animated. Voice cast exceeds original.

[Marner and Me]

Arthur has been on the TV for 24 years, and has aired 246 episodes. fuckin stupid aardvark with his polite and respectable life

Cunt looks nothing like an aardvark.

[pigamus]

Transformers, Generation 1.

ANY nostalgia people have for it, comes from the 1980s movie. The main TV series was patchy at best. A handful of episodes, maybe.

I still love Arrival from Cybertron though. I must have watched that fourteen million times as a kid. It's the spoddy 80s kid's An Unearthly Child.

[petril]

Transformers, Generation 1.

ANY nostalgia people have for it, comes from the 1980s movie. The main TV series was patchy at best. A handful of episodes, maybe.

Also as a side note, Beast Wars has spent so long being the "underrated" darling of Transformers, it's gone all the way around and become overrated. Plus the 90s CGI is dated as hell.

It actually bugs me that of the 80s properties that got revived years later, Transformers is the one that  seems to have sustained itself.

"Where am I?"
"You're in a roooooooom"

every time

[Attila]

You got me to thinking there about parental disapproval of certain shows. Whilst there always seemed to be a kid in my classes at school, invariably a tad weird, who was barred by his parents from watching ITV, individual show bans were less common. I only recently found out that my wife was unable to watch Tiswas as a child because her mother wouldn't allow it to pollute her TV.   

Not a kid's show, but Blake's 7 -- Mr Attila wasn't allowed to watch it first run because his mum thought it was trashy. (He would have been about 12 when it was first on, I think). This meant that when we watched it in sequences as few years ago, I got to enjoy it with possibly the only person in Britain who had no idea how it ended. It was a lot of fun working our way through it, and he became a big Paul Darrow fan.

I'll try to get him into this thread, because according to his descriptions, he must have watched some crazy stuff when he was a kid. There was one he tried to show me called Sky(?) about some weird extra terrestrial kid. He said it put the fear up him; what little of it we watched together put the fear up me, but mostly from trying to watch someone's Youtube upload from a video with massive tracking artefacts pulling the picture out of shape.

[earl_sleek]

I was thinking of rewatching Bucky O'Hare and Thundercats recently, but am a bit worried they'll be shit. I hope Cheetara still makes my willy feel funny.

Haven't watched Thunderbirds or Captan Scarlet since I was kid either. I thought Stingray was boring even then though.

[FredNurke]

I saw some of Thundercats fairly recently, and actually enjoyed it more than I did in the 80s, for what it's worth. Lovely character design and settings, excellent music, solid (if a little worthy) character-based storytelling.

[Ambient Sheep]

There was one he tried to show me called Sky(?) about some weird extra terrestrial kid. He said it put the fear up him; what little of it we watched together put the fear up me, but mostly from trying to watch someone's Youtube upload from a video with massive tracking artefacts pulling the picture out of shape.

It's available on DVD now (£6.49 on Amazon, or just £3.90 directly from Network).

I bought it at the same time as Timeslip, Escape into Night and The Changes in a mini-binge.  Unfortunately it's the only one I haven't got round to watching yet.

My vague childhood memories of it age 10 were: spooky, a bit scary, but also a bit boring as it went along.  I suspect I'll be enjoying it more as an adult, especially given that some of it was shot around Avebury, Glastonbury Tor and Stonehenge.

[Attila]

It's available on DVD now (£6.49 on Amazon, or just £3.90 directly from Network).

I bought it at the same time as Timeslip, Escape into Night and The Changes in a mini-binge.  Unfortunately it's the only one I haven't got round to watching yet.

My vague childhood memories of it age 10 were: spooky, a bit scary, but also a bit boring as it went along.  I suspect I'll be enjoying it more as an adult, especially given that some of it was shit around Avebury, Glastonbury Tor and Stonehenge.

Oh wow -- that might be one of the reasons he tried to show it to me (a poor copy off youtube) -- we live fairly near Avebury and it was one of our favourite places to ramble.

[pigamus]

"Where am I?"
"You're in a roooooooom"

every time

Don't want to take the piss out of you for quoting the wrong thing, but I'm making myself laugh imagining Megatron saying the first bit and Soundwave saying the second bit, like an exasperated assistant in a care home

[kalowski]

I have a similar view.  For me, the reason the later episodes aren't as good is because of the pantomime horse.  Once they introduced the horse every episode seemed to revolve around it and it ruined the dynamic.

And Miss Fucking Poppoff.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Similarly, the new Dangermouse pisses all over the old one. The same irreverence and playing with style, but so much funnier and better animated. Voice cast exceeds original.

Batfink smashed Dangermouse, cheers.

[petril]

Don't want to take the piss out of you for quoting the wrong thing, but I'm making myself laugh imagining Megatron saying the first bit and Soundwave saying the second bit, like an exasperated assistant in a care home

Transformers on Knightmare sounds like the shitest of shite sketch ideas

[Inspector Norse]

I used to dream about Knightmare. Very confusing early-VR, dull as ditchwater to watch, with some amazingly poor acting. "Step forward three paces. Turn to the right. Step forward two paces."

And then some overacting witch asks you a riddle where the answer is 'the letter p'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightmare

I was petrified of Knightmare as my 8-year-old self thought that the kids really died.

[dissolute ocelot]

Battle of the planets was something I would be glued to but on re watching it via VHS about ten years ago I found it to be an incomprehensible mess. Can't be bothered to watch it as the original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman which I am sure is far better.

Battle of the Planets was one of those kids shows where about half of each episode is the same material repeated every week, long intros and transformation sequences and credits and such. He-Man was quite bad for that too from what I remember (and more heretically Dangermouse). All of which is fine if you're a 5 year old with the mentality of a Teletubby, but useless for binge-watching.

[samadriel]

He-Man was quite bad for that too from what I remember (and more heretically Dangermouse). All of which is fine if you're a 5 year old with the mentality of a Teletubby, but useless for binge-watching.

The book I was reading about 80s cartoons said that Filmation animated zillions of little bits and pieces that they could easily stitch new episodes together out of. The image of He-Man somersaulting from left to right across the ground is burnt into my retinas.

[kalowski]

Battle of the Planets was one of those kids shows where about half of each episode is the same material repeated every week, long intros and transformation sequences and credits and such.

I assume that's because they cut out all the blood and gore from the original Japanese cartoons.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Cunt looks nothing like an aardvark.

Aerosmith consider quite severe rewrite.
( I held back for as long as I could, sorry.)

[Petey Pate]

Thinking about stuff that doesn't hold up for me, I still have fondness for a lot of the stuff people my age reel off when this question comes up, so I will proffer a hot take; Animaniacs, or at least the segments with the three main characters, whose personality never goes beyond "wacky". There's a persistent forced wackiness to everything which comes off as very awkward. In its day it developed quite a following on the nascent internet for its pop culture deep cuts, but that sort of humour features in even the blandest of animated films now and we're all sick of it. The grating music score is like Carl Stalling played at the wrong speed. It's not a worthless show, but far from the new classic it seemed at the time.

Agree with this. There are some genuinely good moments to be found in Animaniacs but for the most part the excessive fourth wall breaking and self referential dialogue is more annoying than amusing.

Haven't watched Thunderbirds or Captan Scarlet since I was kid either. I thought Stingray was boring even then though.

Captain Scarlet holds up significantly better than Thunderbirds, which I found staggeringly slow paced and padded out with repeated footage when I revisited it as an adult. I suspect this can partly be attributed to it originally being commissioned as a half hour show, but midway through production of the first series the decision was made to make the episodes twice as long. That and the vehicles and models being more appealing than the puppet characters.

[Marner and Me]

Zappp, fucking hated that as a kid.

[George White]

The Adventures of Jizzle Twizzle 1957-62, Gerry Anderson. Before my time, but looks like it would join the ranks of Noddy and the Black and White Minstrels Show today if anyone had ever heard of it due to some topical racial characters.



Enthralingly titled episodes such as 'Twizzle And Footso Go Fruit Picking' and 'Jiffy Opens a Barber's Shop'.

My mother remembers this.
For years, it was one of those TV shows she couldn't put a name to, that and the Invaders.

[George White]

Arthur has been on the TV for 24 years, and has aired 246 episodes. fuckin stupid aardvark with his polite and respectable life

Long enough for some episodes to be removed.

They featured a character called Vance Legstrong, a  bear hero cyclist who had beaten cancer.
Then, they had Armstrong play himself as a rabbit.
Now, curious if Legstrong was a drug user too, perhaps one of the other athletes Armstrong gave drugs to, to level the playing field.

I always wondered at how they'd have Art Garfunkel play himself as a moose, or Neil Gaiman as a cat. Or Mr. Rogers as an aardvark.

And being baffled that Brain the bear, voiced by a series of WASPy Canadian voice actors was supposed to be African-American. Not that bears are common in Africa. Yet they had Matt Damon as a bear, and he looked the exact same skin-wise. Ditto Mao Zedong the Bear (which sounds like a Viz strip a la Jimmy Savile the Owl) . And he looks lighter in comparison to the rabbit version of jazz musician Taj Mahal.

Then, there's the whole "why are some animals anthropomorphic but others not?" I.e. Binky and Pal are both dogs. And there's implied cannibalism.

Is it actually the island of Dr. Moreau...
So, what is race like in this world?

[Mister Six]

Just wait until they reveal that Arthur has been in brownface this whole time.