TV that freaked you out as a kid

[Astronaut Omens]

Both mine were not really intended to be scary.
The first was a spoof of Agatha Christie on Number 73 when Sandi Toksvik, playing  a character called Lady Olga-Volga, was poisoned and suddenly collapsed face down in her bowl of soup. Totally spooked out.
Second one I need to ask people:was Roland on Grange Hill ever run over by a bus?
Because at the time I was convinced he had, and was really freaked out by the brutal and unsypathetic he had been shown been thrown under a bus, but as I play the traumatic bit over in my mind, the more I'm starting to think that I just had a weak sense of perspective and the programme just showed a bus going past in front of him.

[Phil_A]

Both mine were not really intended to be scary.
The first was a spoof of Agatha Christie on Number 73 when Sandi Toksvik, playing  a character called Lady Olga-Volga, was poisoned and suddenly collapsed face down in her bowl of soup. Totally spooked out.
Second one I need to ask people:was Roland on Grange Hill ever run over by a bus?
Because at the time I was convinced he had, and was really freaked out by the brutal and unsypathetic he had been shown been thrown under a bus, but as I play the traumatic bit over in my mind, the more I'm starting to think that I just had a weak sense of perspective and the programme just showed a bus going past in front of him.

Hah, I had a similar Grange Hill one. For years I thought Danny Kendall had been killed after taking Mr Bronson's car for a joyride and crashing it. Turns out I'd just completely misunderstood what had happened, and he'd just crawled onto the backseat and died. I had this image in my head of him draped over the steering wheel with all blood dripping off his face, never happened!

[Bingo Fury]

I was the same age, and I think I did the same!  It was certainly the only kid's TV show to ever give me nightmares: I used to wake up screaming that the rocks were coming up the garden path to get me.

Good lad!

I have fond memories of Timeslip too and have been considering getting the DVD for a while. As I was only seven at the time, the concepts were all so new and exciting. Don't remember being even slightly frightened by it.

I watched far too much scary stuff when I was too young to handle it, and got quite freaked by some things, like the ending of The Man With The X-Ray Eyes, an episode of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes with a ghostly white horse prowling the grounds of a country house (found it on YouTube this year, but haven't watched it yet - I'd probably find it embarrassingly non-frightening) and the start of The Stone Tape, which I switched off because I couldn't handle the first ghostly apparition. Oh, and there was a TV play about a motorcyclist who was killed in a crash and the remains of his bike were brought back to a garage, where his friends held a kind of wake, during which ghostly things started happening, and it all ended up in a poltergeisty frenzy. I vividly remember how terrifying it was, but it was only a couple of years ago, when I got the Out Of The Unknown box set, that I discovered it had been part of the final season of that series, and not only had it been written by Nigel Kneale but starred Patrick Troughton! How could I not remember that? (In those pre-VHS days, I was envious of my brother for being old enough to have seen Troughton playing the Doctor, which is probably why I watched it.) And it's a bastard missing episode, without even a recon!

Does anyone else remember the third programme on my list, with Barlow and Watt investigating the Jack the Ripper murders 80-odd years on? They stayed in their Softly Softly characters throughout, discussing the evidence and going through witness testimonies. The descriptions of the murders really stayed with me, and, along with the shows mentioned above, contributed to a fear of lying in bed in the dark that lasted several years. Thankfully, that left me around puberty, or soon after, and I don't think I ever got spooked by films, TV shows or books again.

[Astronaut Omens]

Hah, I had a similar Grange Hill one. For years I thought Danny Kendall had been killed after taking Mr Bronson's car for a joyride and crashing it. Turns out I'd just completely misunderstood what had happened, and he'd just crawled onto the backseat and died. I had this image in my head of him draped over the steering wheel with all blood dripping off his face, never happened!

Yeah, but what wasn't they actually showed was just as disturbing as that? in my memory some other kids discovered Bronson's car with Danny's corpse in the back, and there was quite a lobg shot on his dead face before fading to black.

[Chriddof]

Here's a really baffling one. It concerns a Children's BBC show called The Album which is so obscure you'd have no evidence it ever existed if it wasn't for BBC Genome(broadcast between 87-89 apparently). The details of the format are sketchy now, I think it took place in a shop and the titular Album was a giant book that characters could walk in and out of. Anyway, one bit that bothered me as a kid was when in certain episodes (and I'm sure it happened more than once) the camera would go into close-up on a hat on display in the window, and then pan down to reveal it was actually it was actually being worn by a mustachioed circus ringleader kind-of gentleman, and you'd hear the sounds of circus type things going on but it stayed in close-up on his grinning fizzog. And for some reason, I found this whole sequence creepy as all fuck. I grew to dread watching it just in case he appeared again.

I remember The Album. TV Cream used to have a recording of the theme tune, which sounded a bit like The Art Of Noise going insane with Ade Edmonson on vocals. The bits I remember: a spiv type character selling rich people "space", as in gaps of nothing at all rather than "outer space" - at one point he held up an imaginary box of thin air to show a couple who wanted to buy literally nothing. I suspect that was 80s satire in some way.

There was an explanation of how Worcester Sauce was invented, which was presented as a Victorian drama. There was something about a poet prancing about a garden maze that was actually in the middle of a busy city (?), and then there was something about an apparently real-life kid who the production team knew about, who made abstract paintings using his mum's tumble dryer (which was also commemorated in one of the verses of the theme, and said kid showed up in the last episode holding up a weird circular canvas).

Literally the only telly thing that freaked me out as a kid were idents. Horror films / shows on TV were certainly disturbing, but I only ever had full on nightmares about stuff like the bit in this Youtube video at 50 seconds in.

[mrfridge]

I saw Twin Peaks when it first aired on BBC 2. I must have been 11/12 which definitely wasn't old enough to handle much of the plot as it fucked me up for years. Still loved it and watched it through to the end though. At a similar time there was a show called Chimera on ITV about a hybrid monkey / human experiment gone wrong that always stayed with me.

https://youtu.be/IecGSCh7sLA

Zelda in Terrahawks was terrifying in the 80's. Ditto the Triffids. I even felt uneasy hearing the Bergerac theme tune, but then it is quite sleazy.

Worzel Gummidge didn't scare me but it still fills me with that weird sense of foreboding unique to Sunday mornings in the early to mid 80s. You knew there was nothing decent on TV (The Fucking Waltons??), no shops were open and there was fuck all to do. A really weird, bleak feeling looking back on it.

[Gulftastic]

The Album had a fantastic theme tune, IIRC. Cannot find it on YouTube

[Gurke and Hare]

Second one I need to ask people:was Roland on Grange Hill ever run over by a bus?
Because at the time I was convinced he had, and was really freaked out by the brutal and unsypathetic he had been shown been thrown under a bus, but as I play the traumatic bit over in my mind, the more I'm starting to think that I just had a weak sense of perspective and the programme just showed a bus going past in front of him.

He was never hit by a bus but he was hit by a car, in what was a borderline suicide attempt, although may just have been more of a not caring thing - he just wandered out into the road paying no attention to the traffic having spent the morning being variously bullied. Then Zammo and Jonah hit on a moneymaking scam hidden behind a facade of taking a collection to buy him a get well present.

[jobotic]

Howe come Danny Kendall died? I remember that he did but not why.

[Absorb the anus burn]

Brain Aneurysm.

[Phil_A]

Howe come Danny Kendall died? I remember that he did but not why.

He suffered from an "unnamed neurological disorder" according to the Grange Hill wiki I looked on. It was brain problems wot killed him.

[Icehaven]

Danny Kendall's dead face was why I wasn't allowed to watch Grange Hill until I was 16.

[Hand Solo]

The episode that freaked me out the most though was the one about the faces appearing on the floorboards. It was definitely 5:16-5:25 that shook me up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQnxGxhrNI

What freaked me out is the presenter in that plays Michelle the one-off-girlfriend-because-we-couldn't-get-the-actress-who-plays-Toni-back who has a threesome with Jez in Peep Show.

[Hand Solo]

Does anyone else remember the third programme on my list, with Barlow and Watt investigating the Jack the Ripper murders 80-odd years on? They stayed in their Softly Softly characters throughout, discussing the evidence and going through witness testimonies. The descriptions of the murders really stayed with me, and, along with the shows mentioned above, contributed to a fear of lying in bed in the dark that lasted several years. Thankfully, that left me around puberty, or soon after, and I don't think I ever got spooked by films, TV shows or books again.

I think it was the first TV programme to mention Tumblety or the Masonic cover-up theory that was proposed by Stephen Knight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYGmChjihuA

[BlodwynPig]

close thread

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

What in the name of Christ is that second picture aboot? Where's it from?

[BlodwynPig]

What in the name of Christ is that second picture aboot? Where's it from?

ah, the folly of youth. You know nuffin' about nightmares, NUFFIN'

It's from this

[mrfridge]

ah, the folly of youth. You know nuffin' about nightmares, NUFFIN'

It's from this

I mentioned this (and Bergerac) a few posts back. Chimera was terrifying, I watched a bit on YouTube a few years back and it seemed to hold up pretty well. Probably worth a proper rewatch but I'm not sure I can handle it.

[BlodwynPig]

I mentioned this (and Bergerac) a few posts back. Chimera was terrifying, I watched a bit on YouTube a few years back and it seemed to hold up pretty well. Probably worth a proper rewatch but I'm not sure I can handle it.

I'm sorry, I missed that post - but you and I align well. Do you remember Fires in the Fall (Bergerac episode)? I'd happy do a rewatch of that and Chimera together on a shared platform.

There was also Lady in Black, and a Bigfoot movie with a scene that sent me hurtling for my bed (cat sees Bigfoot and freezes with a look of absolute terror on its face - anyone know the movie?).

[BJBMK2]

Can we have adverts? We can? Good.

This fucking cunt. Often mentioned in articles to the tune of "loads of kids pissed there pants in fear and got there mums to ring up and complain". I was one of those kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TUOPeNJCK8

[BlodwynPig]

Can we have adverts? We can? Good.

This fucking cunt. Often mentioned in articles to the tune of "loads of kids pissed there pants in fear and got there mums to ring up and complain". I was one of those kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TUOPeNJCK8

Kenneth Branagh in his first TV role

[Cerys]

[Icehaven]

ah, the folly of youth. You know nuffin' about nightmares, NUFFIN'

It's from this

That's the cheatin' boyfriend from Sliding Doors!

[Icehaven]

It's redundant to mention Ghostwatch here isn't it? Only it's 4am and I'm home alone and pretty convinced Pipes is behind my sofa.

[wooders1978]

The gorg catching Gobo in the fraggle Rock intro used to proper shit me up as a wee bairn

https://youtu.be/TH2xdvkwoNU

[Non Stop Dancer]

It's redundant to mention Ghostwatch here isn't it? Only it's 4am and I'm home alone and pretty convinced Pipes is behind my sofa.

Pretty sure I've never been so terrified before or since. Not sure if I'd have got any sleep at all that night as I was literally pulsating with fear.

[BlodwynPig]

That's the cheatin' boyfriend from Sliding Doors!

Crikey, did he have the same prosthetics in that?

[BlodwynPig]

Surprised they haven't done a reboot of this with some point missing celebrities

[Non Stop Dancer]

Didn't help that this was shown in the winter when it was dark outside by the time this fucker came to get me.
https://youtu.be/gdRsw-kq_AU

[earl_sleek]

Wurzel Gummidge when he fell down the fucking hill.

The Crimestoppers music, an even more ominous crescendo than Mastermind.