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Obscure forgotten moments from telly history that maybe only you remember

Shardovan

One of these just popped into my head randomly after many years. 

It was a Saturday night, in 198[?] - early 1980s I think. possibly around 1983/4 as I think we hadn't moved house.  

Paul Daniels Magic Show.

Paul (for it was he) says something like  'OK, this next trick requires putting a thought into the mind of all the kids at home. But I need you to come closer to the screen.' I go a bit closer. My sister does too. 'No, closer than that.' We go closer. 'No, I mean - right up to to the screen, close as you can' 

We go right up to it, almost touching. So close you can see the pixels/lines. 

He goes 'Right, that's better. Now, listen quietly, look right at me, and really concentrate'

About two seconds later... massive loud blast of pure static. Result: we ran like hell from the screen. Some other kids must have wet themselves I'm sure. Maybe others had nightmares.

Must have got special permission to do that as it was effectively a simultaneous deliberate cut in transmission with a massive boost in volume.

He did come back on a few seconds later at normal volume to undercut the scare with some bants. Anyway, I have a feeling I might be one of a very few people who remembers that. 

Anyone got something similar? 

Parents

  • A childhood time I did love was a Saturday morning, Tiswas, it was just bonkers. Late on a Saturday night I would stay up late, my father would be at work and my mother was normally under the influence of mogadon. It was just me and a colour tv, 10.30pm was O.T.T,   ("Over the Top") The phantom flan flinger and the balloon dancers. 
    The BBC on a Saturday morning had the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, a forerunner to eBay, hosted by Noel Edmunds. A young girl one morning was from a program called, ‘ Why don’t you?’ ( I still can still sing the theme tune)  She read a news story about that days Grand Prix, she didn’t read the word prix out in the  French way! Obviously red faces at the Beeb. Another great program was, ‘The Double Deckers’ followed by The Monkees tv show. Just remembered, Rentaghost, I can give trivia on this!  Sorry tv in the 70’s and 80’s was a lovely special interest and still is.

Reply

  • A childhood time I did love was a Saturday morning, Tiswas, it was just bonkers. Late on a Saturday night I would stay up late, my father would be at work and my mother was normally under the influence of mogadon. It was just me and a colour tv, 10.30pm was O.T.T,   ("Over the Top") The phantom flan flinger and the balloon dancers. 
    The BBC on a Saturday morning had the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, a forerunner to eBay, hosted by Noel Edmunds. A young girl one morning was from a program called, ‘ Why don’t you?’ ( I still can still sing the theme tune)  She read a news story about that days Grand Prix, she didn’t read the word prix out in the  French way! Obviously red faces at the Beeb. Another great program was, ‘The Double Deckers’ followed by The Monkees tv show. Just remembered, Rentaghost, I can give trivia on this!  Sorry tv in the 70’s and 80’s was a lovely special interest and still is.

Children
  • in reply to Roy

    There was this too: what memories, what a theme tune https://youtu.be/2AJm5bozpgA

  • in reply to Roy

    ‘Don’t go into the cellar!’ Rentaghost’s heyday  was so early in my childhood that it was part funny and part nightmarish too me. Dobbin creeped me out a little and the cellar business was rather scary even though played for laughs. The robot thing was unsettling too. 

    One cool thing about Why Don’t You? - in its final season, it was the Cardiff Gang. A very young Russell T Davies was basically given his first writing gig on that last year, and since nobody was keeping an eye on it while they wound it up, he just decided to steadily transform it from a ‘make and do’ show into something with a high stakes sci fi plot, a mad inventor, and an end of the world finale. Clearly trying to sneak a bit methodone into a world that had had Doctor Who ripped from it not long before and where scifi had become a dirty word in the telly landscape. Thankfully those days are gone. But RTD kept the flag flying as best he could, by stealth. Dark Season was another good effort to do something Who-like too. It’s back this year by the way, on audio. New stories with the grown up characters. Kate Winslet has returned to it and everything!