10 Most Disturbing Children's TV Shows. Ever.

Written by Louise MacGregor

Creepy children’s tv shows are everywhere.

Everyone has a TV show that they remember with unbridled terror from their childhood, in amongst all the sweet, gentle shows about talking trains and mischievous puppets living in a houseboat, cutting through the syrupy nostalgia like Michael Myers’ blade through an unsuspecting, nubile teenager.

And British TV is a particularly ripe ground from which many terrifying kid’s TV shows appeared.

Shall we regress a few decades and take a look at the most disturbing retro kid’s TV shows?

Old Boy Network

Genre: Comedy
Channel: ITV
Transmission: 1992

Espionage is a glamourous old game, ain't it? Just look at James Bond with his Aston Martin, sharp suits, gadgets and classy cocktails.

And don't forget the Bond babes. Never ever forget those beautiful, but sometimes lethal gals.

Of course, it's not all glamour for spies, sometimes they have to do a bit of work. Naturally, being a spy, this work usually involves being a sneaky, duplicitous individual in order to get what they want.

Basically they're backstabbing conmen. But give them a posh accent and it's all just part of being a cad.

And who doesn't love a cad?

Therefore it's time for us to don our best disguise, bug a few phones and investigate the cads and babes in Old Boy Network.

Feet First

Genre: Comedy
Channel: ITV
Transmission: 1979

Someone once said that "Football's a funny old game" and they weren't half wrong. You only have to take a look at the player's private lives and, even more hilariously, their idea of acceptable decor.

Clubs try to stem this damaging publicity by taking a leaf out of politics and investing in a bit of spin to make matters more palatable.

As with politics, though, this can often blow up in football clubs' faces as demonstrated in Feet First

Pets

When we think about pets, we tend to concentrate on their classical attributes. Cute, furry and ridiculously loyal, we’re more than happy to cut them a bit of slack when we discover them chewing the sofa or vomiting in our designer loafers. After all, they don’t mean any harm, a fact you can glean from the unwavering innocence in their eyes. However, much like their human owners, certain pets are more prone to emotional issues than others. And, if you want to see what happens when four such pets live in a pressure cooker environment, you don’t have to look much further than Pets.

The Barfly Sessions

Genre: Music
Channel: Channel 4
Transmission: 23/08/2000 - 25/10/2000

Where the hell was British music heading in the year 2000?!

For anyone who had ever picked up a copy of NME it was a curious landscape.

Britpop had become a tired, cliched affair and finally snuffed it around 1998, but since then there had been little identity in British indie rock 'n' roll.

Instead, a myriad of up and coming bands were all scrambling round toilet venues trying to make sense of it all.

Following them were Channel 4 and The Barfly Sessions.

Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes

Genre: Children's
Channel: BBC1
Transmission: 03/03/1990 - 14/04/1990

Has anyone amazing ever taken on the role of Sherlock Holmes?

Let's just think about this for a second. Well, there's...

Benedict Cumberbatch, Peter Cushing, Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey Jnr, Basil Rathbone and Tom Baker to name but a handful.

However, there's one name amongst these actors which truly stands out as a superstar.

That's right, Roland Rat even tried his hand at the role in Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes.

What's in Sherlock's Casebook?

Dr Watson (Kevin the Gerbil) keeps a nice diary of all his cases with Sherlock Holmes (Roland Rat), but it's not just packed with stories about hounds and studies in pink.

No, sir!

In fact, there's a whole range of cases which only get the briefest of mentions.

However, these adventures see our favourite Baker Street duo taking on such startling cases as chasing a dastardly canary trainers, investigating a mysterious, empty box and even trailing the fiendish Blue Carbuncle!

Popping up along the way to thwart Holmes and Watson are a selection of British TV treasures including Mollie Sugden, Barbara Windsor, Rodney Bewes and Christopher Ryan.

On the Trail of the Super Sleuth

Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes was a seven episode BBC1 production which first aired as part of the Saturday Starts Here! early morning schedule in March 1990.

The series was written by long term Roland Rat collaborators Dominic MacDonald and Colin Bostock-Smith who had previously written for Roland and the Rat Race and Roland Rat: The Series.

Steve Haggard was the producer and said, at the time, that "Roland Rat is the latest in a long line of distinguished actors to pull on the cloak and deerstalker of the master detective, but he's probably the first to wear sunglasses".

The series was repeated once, later on in 1990, as part of the CBBC schedule, but has not been seen since. A brief clip of the series was shown in an episode of The Pig Attraction in 1993 as Roland's life story was laid bare.

Investigating the Great Detective

We could always remember Roland Rat playing a Sherlock Holmes role, but we were convinced it was just a sketch from one of his shows.

However, evidence began to point towards it being a fully fledged show of it's own, so we had to don our deerstalker and a do a little investigating.

Holding our magnifying glass terrifying close to our eye we soon discovered that, yes, it was a series in its own right. In fact, it was the second spoof series that Roland had embarked on after 1987s Ratman take on Batman.

It didn't take long to track down an episode on YouTube, so we got comfy and hit the play button.

First off, dear God, what an amazing set for Sherlock's Baker Street pad. It looks like a classic BBC costume drama set where plenty of effort and money has been involved.

Errol the Hamster's theatre office is also full of shabby character, but the rest of the sets are mostly made up of backstage areas, so it's difficult to give them any real identity.

The costumes, too, are rich affairs which give the show a really strong Victorian vibe and add to the authenticity.

All the usual gang feature in various roles e.g Errol the Hamster and Little Reggie, but it's a shame we didn't see any mention of D'Arcy De Farcey as we always liked his spangly suits.

We've only seen the one episode and Roland appears to be in good form with his usual barbs - our favourite in this is where he claims Keith Harris died years ago. Barbara Windsor turns up and does her Barbara Windsor thing amazingly well and you can't help but smile at her.

However, the actual story, about a canary trainer causing havoc at the local theatre just didn't engage us. It's got a nice Scooby Doo-esque twist, but there were no strong laughs or exciting action.

Perhaps a better idea would have been to spoof existing Sherlock Holmes adventures more closely. Working with such great source material means you've already got a gripping yarn on your hands. The humour can then come from mocking asides and sharp gags as the action moves the story on.

As it is, though, there's a horrible one-pace feel to proceedings and we were left waiting for it to end.

It turns out that Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes was the final series of Roland's mainstream existance. The BBC had been trying to find him further vehicles since Roland Rat: The Series, but nothing had really landed in the public's consciousness.

He would later pop up on Channel 5 in 1997 in LA Rat, but since then it's been nothing but guest appearances.

Still, he had a great run at the top and he's still capable of spellbinding TV as he showed when he destroyed Adrian Chiles in 2010.

We'd watch more to see if this episode was just a bum note, but we have the feeling that perhaps it was the right time to close the book on Roland's glittering career.

Why Quatermass and the Pit Still Matters

Written by Louise MacGregor

There isn’t a British sci-fi series alive that doesn’t owe some debt to Nigel Kneale.

And I’m not just saying that because I needed a good first sentence - go ask Mark Gatiss, any writer for the original Doctor Who series or noted critics like Kim Newman if you don’t believe me.

In an almost unanimous move, British television has taken Kneale’s Quatermass series as the gold standard for what can be achieved in sci-fi tv shows.

But the question is, why?

What has kept an obscure, high-concept sci-fi show from the fifties afloat well over half a century after it was broadcast?

Quatermass – An Unlikely Hero

The first and possibly most important factor in the three-part Quatermass serial (The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass II, and Quatermass and the Pit) broadcast between 1958 and 1959 Is Quatermass himself.

That instantly memorable name lodged itself permanently in the memories of thousands of science fiction fans, directors, and writers alike, because Quatermass was something a bit different.

He wasn’t a buffed-up action hero who you’d be more likely to find wielding a big gun than you would a firm grounding in rocket science, nor was he a disarmingly charming take on the scientific Casanova.

Quatermass is the hinge point of the Quatermass universe; everyone around him is losing their heads while he keeps his. He’s a moment of silence around which the wall-to-wall ideas of the series could rotate.

He’s the first recognisably science-fiction hero, a leading man who didn’t have anything to prove to anyone and did what he did because it was good or because it was interesting.

Portrayed by no less than seven actors since his inception in the fifties, Andre Morell’s iconic performance in Quatermass and the Pit remains the ultimate interpretation of his character (and I’ll take to the mat anyone who says otherwise).

The Multi-Genre Universe of Quatermass

But once you take a step back from the character himself, there’s a lot more going in this series than just science fiction.

For some reason that’s beyond me (as someone who thinks Doctor Who might well run through my veins), science fiction is often seen as a niche subject, something than directors and writers have to fight to make interesting or populist.

Almost seamlessly, Quatermass worked in elements of detective shows, horror, speculative fiction, biblical terror and body horror into what amounted to a strikingly interesting science fiction framing device.

Here was proof, undeniable proof, that aliens and beings from another world weren’t just little green men being tussled with by shrieking women and sturdy men.

They could absorb and examine other genres with ease, permanently opening up the science fiction genre in ways that Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica et al should be eternally grateful for.

To suggest that the Quatermass serial was niche because of its sci-fi credentials is to assume that the people you’re showing it to hate all television ever made.

Quatermass and his exploits represent a TV-license justifying pinnacle of the BBC’s sci-fi output. Genre-bending, ground-breaking, and impeccably produced, just don’t argue this with me after I’ve had a few drinks. Because I can’t be held responsible for my actions.

Read more about the thoughts inside Louise's head over at The Three Penny Guignol

Rockliffe's Babies

Genre: Drama
Channel: BBC1
Transmission: 1987 - 1988

Who hasn't found starting a new job a tough ordeal?

Having to learn new procedures, enraging people with your lack of experience and working out who the best person is to lend you 20p for the coffee machine - it's one hell of a slog!

Just imagine the chaos that would ensue if you had a workplace rammed full of new recruits. All careless and wet behind the ears.

We feel nothing, but deep, deep sympathy for any one put in a position to mould such a ramshackle bunch into a well oiled machine.

You only have to take a quick look at Rockliffe's Babies.

Bobbies on the Beat

Sgt. Alan Rockliffe (Ian Hogg) is not a happy man. There's nothing he likes more than banging up the bad guys, but he's currently got a thorn in his side.

The literal form of this thorn is a set of new PC's straight out of Hendon Police College.

And, well, to put it politely, they're letting the bad guys slip through their careless hands.

Rockliffe's Babies sees Rockliffe trying to take control of his fledgling officers as they run amok through the streets of North West London.

Nothing will stand in the way of their buffoonery and a predisposition for love, hunger and cockiness are all causing Rockliffe's blood pressure to shoot through the roof.

Police Procedures

Two eight-episode series of Rockliffe's Babies aired between 1987 - 1988 on BBC1. The series went out in the 9.30pm slot on BBC1 and episodes were 50 minutes long.

The series was devised and written by Richard Keefe who had previously tackled the law genre with Crown Court a few years before.

Leonard Lewis was on producer duties and had previously worked on shows such as When the Boat Comes In, Second Verdict and The Good Companions.

The gritty and deprived council estates which featured heavily were mostly located in the Kensal Rise area of North West London.

Rockliffe's Babies received a couple of repeats up until 1990, but that was the last time it was seen on terrestrial TV. The series later received repeats on UK Gold.

A spin off series, Rockliffe's Folly, aired in late 1988 and saw Rockliffe relocating to the more pastoral surroundings of Wessex, but lasted only 7 episodes and was never repeated.

Anything You Do Say Will Be Given in Evidence

We read about Rockliffe's Babies somewhere online and the basic premise was enough to get us interested.

As luck would have it, the Archival TV gods were looking down on us and delivered two episodes via the power of YouTube.

The series starts off with a lone Police car racing across London's iconic Westway and immediately you're plunged into the heart of a frenetic, uncertain city where pockets of crime are just waiting to bubble up and engulf society.

Just as you're recovering from this delicious scene setter you're knocked for six by the amazing theme tune written by Joe Campbell and Paul Hart.

Featuring a guttural child's choir, the tune is an ode - almost nursery rhyme like - to life on London's deprived council estates. And then they go and stick some wonderfully 80s saxophone over it. It's an enthralling mix of sounds that we can only describe as gutterurchin funk punk lounge poetry.

Devastatingly fantastic intro aside, what's the actual show like?

Well, it's the 1980s, it's London and at the very nub of the show are the police.

What's that? Oh yes, it's The Bill calling!

Rockliffe's Babies is very much in thrall to The Bill and we can't argue that the atmosphere of the show differs greatly.

Unfortunately, Rockliffe's Babies doesn't contain the high calibre of characters that The Bill did.

There's no Burnside, no Tosh, no Roy. Not even a Reg!

However, it wouldn't be fair to label the characters in Rockliffe's Babies as terrible. Well, you know, they're a mixed bag.

Rockliffe comes closest to legendary status and it's no surprise that his cantankerous rages and old school methods spawned a spin off series. In fact, he's like a proto Gene Hunt, quite happy to give a slap and turn a blind eye. Frustratingly, and quite inexplicably, Rockliffe features for just 30 seconds in the opening episode, but even then he takes the show by the scruff of its neck in an instant.

Gerry O'Dowd (Joe McGann) is the ladies man of the station with a dazzling charm he can flick on in an instant. However, he also displays an innocence and naivety that frequently pulls the rug from under his feet. He's the quintessential Joe McGann character, so what more can we say? Well, he's not quite Charlie Burrows in The Upper Hand, but immensely likeable all the same.

Steve Hood (Brett Fancy) is the local kid who knows the gritty streets like the back of his hand. We were really interested in his mysterious background which is shrouded in thinly veiled racism and a dubious association with the National Front. He's not one to play by the rules and has an undercurrent of menace bubbling beneath his wide boy exterior.

The rest of the cast, though, are a frustrating bunch. They feel like unfinished sketches of characters and the cast struggle to really make these characters sing. It's difficult, too, when all the characters contain one fatal flaw - they're useless and completely inept!

We're always willing to suspend our disbelief, but seriously, come on! How long would a police team like this last? They're ABSOLUTELY USELESS!

It's all well and good in a comedy like Operation Good Guys, but in a drama? Nah! We're not having it! 

Their inability to stay level headed and not bugger things up actually frustrated us so much that we ended up cheering the bad guys on!

That's not to say that the show doesn't have a certain charm and the actual plots are quite entertaining, but everything always feels inferior to what was going on in Sun Hill over on ITV.

Perhaps the show should have marked itself out by concentrating on Rockliffe, O'Dowd and Hood. There's excellent dynamics to pit against one another and, by concentrating on a smaller, more intense group, would have reduced comparisons to what was going on at Sun Hill over on ITV.

We'd certainly like to see more episodes as anything London based in the 80s with a hint of grime always ticks our boxes, but for now, our go-to police option will be The Bill.

We will, however, be setting Rockliffe's Babies theme tune as our ringtone!

PRESS ARTICLES

Out with the Bath Water by Chris Hughes

A bitter row has erupted at the BBC in wake of the decision by drama chiefs to axe the popular cop series Rockliffe's Babies and put the hero Sergeant Rockliffe out to grass in leafy Dorset.

Corporation bosses decided to let the current series, which recently pipped 10 million viewers, run its course. But the jobs of all the main actors with the exception of lead performer Ian Hogg, look certain to go afterwards.

A Rockliffe source told The Stage and Television Today; "It's ridiculous that they should change the format to a rural Dixon of Dock Green and lose the fire and bite of London life. I don't know why it is, especially since the ratings were doing so well. Are they afraid of the forthcoming violence guidelines?".

Ex producer of the show Leonard Lewis refused to confirm that the revamp is under way but a BBC spokesman said that the new series will involve certain changes. He said; "It's early days, but we believe it will be a spin off police series. There will be quite a few changes.".

Source: The Stage and Television Today, No. 5575, 18/02/1988, pg 21

Ancestral Voices

Genre: Education / Music
Channel: BBC2
Transmission: 17/05/1976 - 14/06/1976

Believe it or not, but there was actually a time when Curious British Telly's life wasn't consumed entirely by archive television.

It was merely a passion which would briefly manifest itself when we watched old episodes of Dr Who and tried to remember that children's tv show about the artistic dog.

You see, our obsession before this glorious folly was... MUSIC!

We'd attend gigs regularly, bought NME every single week for 9 years and even started a few fan sites on Geocities.

The passion for us, fuelled by our teenage desire to be hip and cool, gradually faded, but for the people involved in Ancestral Voices music was a way of life.

Melodies from the Past

With an amazing title that sounds like the greatest Led Zeppelin album never recorded, Ancestral Voices was the BBC's attempt to educate the masses about the history of music.

Sure, everyone loved music, but did they know anything about its origins prior to Dylan going electric?

The answer was "probably not".

Therefore, it was time for David Munrow - master of the bassoon and even more curious sounding instruments - to step forward and explore the history of sounds, rhythms and singalongs.

The series saw Munrow detailing the evolution of instruments such as horns, flutes and hunting bows (the godfathers of stringed instruments) as well as the ancient myths and practices surrounding them.

Munrow was flanked by a myriad of musicians who were on hand to demonstrate the mysterious sounds of these ancient instruments. A willing audience were also present to chant/sing in the most peculiar tongues.

The Story behind the Music

Ancestral Voices was borne from director Paul Kriwaczek's love of ancient civilisations and desire to create educational programmes.

Kriwaczek was backed by well loved producer Victor Poole who amassed a varied career working with the likes of Fanny Cradock, Anthony Burgess and Jane Glover.

Five episodes were transmitted in Spring 1976 on BBC2 on Monday evenings. The series was later repeated on BBC1 in Autumn 1976. Further repeats of the series came in 1978 (BBC2) and 1980 (BBC1).

Opening Our Ears to Ancient Sounds

We were browsing through the BBC's fantastic Genome project when we stumbled across Ancestral Voices.

Now, we love all things retro, but here was a completely different league of retro, they were going waaaaaay back.

This we had to investigate!

Online searches revealed not even a clip, but our dear old friends at the BFI were only too happy to furnish us with an episode.

The main aspect of the show which grabs you is David Munrow's passion. He's absolutely obsessed with the history of music and, at times, he works himself into an enthused rapture as he preaches passionately about the evolution of music.

And, yes, we loved seeing and hearing these ancient instruments. In fact, it gave us a great perspective on just how Royal Blood have come to be smashing their instruments wildly on stage and creating such a beautiful racket.

However...

The show is just too specialised for the average Joe!

We love a bit of educational telly, but this went in to far too much depth!

It surprised us, actually, that this went out in an early evening slot as the whole show feels much more like an Open University programme.

The show appears - although we only watched one episode - to be entirely studio bound and this contributes to a repetitive format where the camera just shifts from one corner of the studio to another. Some location filming could have easily broken this up.

For the first time in our history of visiting the BFI, we actually had to fast forward through the tape as it was boring us.

The show's dated terribly too. The fashions and haircuts are just so 70s that it hurts. Just how huge can a shirt collar be for Christ's sake?!

And then there's the musicians.

Imagine some German campers with the cheesiest grins you can imagine and you're not even close to the shivers we experienced down our spine as we watched them bob their heads sinisterly to the ancient rhythms.

And when the audience linked arms and began to sing a drinking song against the lilting sounds of a lyre and flute, our heads were in our hands.

We don't think we could stomach another episode of this.

The intentions are first class, but it's such a niche area that only a tiny audience would get enjoyment from Ancestral Voices.

The Tragedy of David Munrow

We may have found it a cringey, borefest at times, but David Munrow' passion was evident throughout and was impossible not to admire.

Sadly, before the programme even aired he had committed suicide. This tragic event has been contributed to depression and followed a suicide attempt in the previous year.

Despite working with his passion on a daily business it was no match for the debilitating effects of mental illness.

It's a stern reminder of the fragility of our mental health and how, at our lowest points, even our greatest loves can't save us.