What is the strangest television show you remember from your childhood?
As a kid of the 70’s, there are so many to choose from. I think this one wins for me though.
[media=https://youtu.be/btpd8zg5VWA]
[media=https://youtu.be/btpd8zg5VWA]
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
ArishMell · 70-79, M
We did not have a television until I was around 18 or 20 but perhaps the oddest - and worst - I recall from when I was very young, in the 1950s, and it was made for very young children. I sometimes saw it on a friend's TV.
It was a string-puppet show called Bill & Ben, The Flowerpot Men - who were accompanied by an apparently-female plant called "Little Weed" - and aimed at under-fives.
I don't recall liking it very much, but our Mam hated it for its studied illiteracy. Unlike the simple, ordinary speech of the characters in its contemporary Larry The Lamb, and Andy Pandy, puppet shows, the two hominids-of-flowerpots did not speak real words. Their wierd, gutteral scat syllables were not talking down to children, but patronisingly not talking to them at all.
(This is very different from The Clangers made many decades later, even though they did not use English. One would not expect the woolly rodent-like residents of a far-away planet to speak English, but their Swanee-whistle "speech" was intelligible in that you could match real words relevant to the action, to their whistling.)
As an adult viewer I do not recall really strange programmes apart from the edgy humour of Monty Python's Flying Circus, but I did choose my viewing. I was never one of those vacant types who switch randomly from channel to channel before gazing at something, anything, from half-way through. Over time I watched it less. Once I moved into my own home I have never owned a TV. (Nor do I watch TV programmes via my PC, lest any TV Licencing Agency employee read this!)
It was a string-puppet show called Bill & Ben, The Flowerpot Men - who were accompanied by an apparently-female plant called "Little Weed" - and aimed at under-fives.
I don't recall liking it very much, but our Mam hated it for its studied illiteracy. Unlike the simple, ordinary speech of the characters in its contemporary Larry The Lamb, and Andy Pandy, puppet shows, the two hominids-of-flowerpots did not speak real words. Their wierd, gutteral scat syllables were not talking down to children, but patronisingly not talking to them at all.
(This is very different from The Clangers made many decades later, even though they did not use English. One would not expect the woolly rodent-like residents of a far-away planet to speak English, but their Swanee-whistle "speech" was intelligible in that you could match real words relevant to the action, to their whistling.)
As an adult viewer I do not recall really strange programmes apart from the edgy humour of Monty Python's Flying Circus, but I did choose my viewing. I was never one of those vacant types who switch randomly from channel to channel before gazing at something, anything, from half-way through. Over time I watched it less. Once I moved into my own home I have never owned a TV. (Nor do I watch TV programmes via my PC, lest any TV Licencing Agency employee read this!)
FreddieUK · 70-79, M
@ArishMell I loved Bill and Ben, although I was only able to watch it when we went to relatives homes. However, I managed to get a degree in English Literature in due time. I'm with you on not watching programmes halfway through and in past days, I just wouldn't have bothered if I'd missed the beginning. Fortunately these days we have the ability to restart a program or watch it at any time we want to.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@FreddieUK Well, I survived Bill & Ben - and when aged about ten the equally dreadful Hanna-Barbra cartoons - on friends' TVs, albeit without later gaining a Degree!
Unfortunately my sister and her hubby tend to have the goggle-box on for much of the day, and perhaps because it is something of a novelty for me I sometimes find it very distracting in our conversations.
I don't have that repeat facility you have - in my case for the radio not TV - but I do find it very irritating that many interesting, serious programmes are spoilt by their creators thinking it clever to "start" several minutes in by delayed introductions. (Then by needless background (ish) music and sound-effects.)
Unfortunately my sister and her hubby tend to have the goggle-box on for much of the day, and perhaps because it is something of a novelty for me I sometimes find it very distracting in our conversations.
I don't have that repeat facility you have - in my case for the radio not TV - but I do find it very irritating that many interesting, serious programmes are spoilt by their creators thinking it clever to "start" several minutes in by delayed introductions. (Then by needless background (ish) music and sound-effects.)