Who remembers Knightmare?

"OH I'M SORRY, YOUR TIME IS UP!"

I saw somebody win it ONCE. EVER.

Wooosh....

RUN!!!!

Noooooooooo!!!

I saw someone win it once as well.

Blimey the spider.

I had a Knightmare BOOK!! Blimey I wish I still had it.

I had this. It was like a pish-easy version of Fighting Fantasy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIfcYwI6Ps

They probably never lived this one down. You are watching the destruction of 4 lives.

oh man, haha

one of the most awesomely mad things ever this. kids voice at 0m38s is hilarious, i was watching it thinking oh right so its a joke video that someone's dubbed a daft voice on but no! actual welsh kid's goblin voice. and the shot of them in a row at the end with their pants pulled up dead high, this is 80s gold and no mistake

Anyone remember the seaside edition of knightmare?

The set-up and payoff in that clip is magnificent. Not a fan of that skull thing that monitored health though, too properly scary.

I'm sure a bunch of us from school applied to be on it back in about 1990. We can't've succeeded obviously, or that story would be better than it is.

We got as far as an interview and brief mock gameplay attempt type thing in a random office in london, but no further. i guess our trousers weren't pulled high up enough.

Even by 1980s high-trouser standards, those are some exceptionally high trousers.

Anyone remember the seaside edition of knightmare?

― Bus to Yoker (dog latin), Tuesday, June 14, 2011 12:03 PM (1 hour ago)

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74r-EbIqt9s

careful, team.

"Oh, nasty..."

The dungeoneers all seem to young to remember Knightmare.

Lord Fear kinda phoning it in here.

goodness I had a much better tolerance for really boring things when I was 8.

Yeah I never seriously watched it at the time and now I remember why.

Kill Jester.

I still love this show so much! I don't think it works at all with adults as the contestants though, the original worked because the kids were just about young enough to take it sort of seriously whilst also realising that it was dumb, I think. Having the adults be the contestants removes the best bit of the show IE monotone kids with regional accents interacting with hammy thesps.

Are there any shows on nowadays that have such a sense of people talking in two completely different registers in the same way that Knightmare did? I can't think of any. Challenge TV shows old episodes of Blockbusters from the early 90s that have something of this different registers feeling as well, but there it's more to do with how Bob interacts with the kids and it's like a teacher at school who jokes around with the class but slightly misjudges the tone and the kids are kind of laughing at him as much as their laughing with him, not in a nasty way though, they still quite like him, but different registers.

Or the teacher will be joking around with the class and inadvertently say something that is a double entendre or sounds vaguely rude and the way that people are laughing changes, but he doesn't realise. I a strong sense of this feeling from early 90s episodes of Blockbusters, there is also definite affection for Bob though.

Kids TV shows are all so smirky and ironic these days, I think that element of people talking in different registers has completely disappeared? Not just kids shows, I guess, all kinds of different shows?

the kids haven't changed so much, just the presenting/production style i think. kids are kind of controlled much more on kids TV now, used as the straight man for zany Dick & Dom types or just not given much chance to say anything

I had a theory that as the number of 'comedy of awkwardness' shows like The Office and Peep Show have increased the amount of actual awkwardness allowed on TV has decreased, I'm not sure if I really believe this though.
I was thinking about this Taylor Parkes article about 'In Bed With Chris Needham' but it seems to have disappeared behind a paywall: http://thequietus.com/articles/00074-all-you-old-bastards-should-learn-something-from-this-the-cult-of-chris-needham
Anyway, from memory, I think there's a bit where he talks about the early 90s as being the last point where kids would reflexively cover their faces in embarrassment if you pointed a camera at them, that kids these days are all media savvy and used to performing; I don't really spend much time with kids though, maybe they are still the same as they ever were?

Taylor Parkes should have got a pulitzer or something for that article, it's fantastic.
Pat Sharpe's Funhouse is also being repeated on challenge TV and I find watching that almost unbearable. I didn't realise that it was American import as a kid, but it seems so obvious now, they get the kids to jump up and down and scream every 5 seconds and they all looked deeply uncomfortable doing it, like they were jumping up and down and cheering but with this look of terror in their eyes, on the clips of the US version of the show I've seen on youtube the american kids seem much more comfortable with all this.
Today's funhouse also featured one of the female 12 yr old contestants breathing heavily, exhausted after completing a game, and Pat saying 'You're out of breath!' and then, sotto voice, 'orjustpleasedtoseeme' which seemed odd.

I'm sure I didn't imagine that.

haha, want to see a clip of that pat sharp crepey thing

Funhouse is worth a squint for Pat Sharpe's extraordinary dress sense.

Today's funhouse also featured one of the female 12 yr old contestants breathing heavily, exhausted after completing a game, and Pat saying 'You're out of breath!' and then, sotto voice, 'orjustpleasedtoseeme' which seemed odd.

Blimey.

Watching Knightmare recently the thing that struck me was how arbitrary success is in it. Take the wrong randomly selected object and you're fucked. I do enjoy watching Tregard though, what a magnificent ham.

I watched the last 5 minutes of one yesterday, and the team were just chucked out without doing anything wrong - "right, that's it, it's the end of the series, dungeon's shut now fuck off."

that 2013 knightmare team in the avideo above is grim, smirking super-ironic twats. like bends said, part of the joy of the original was the kids taking it so seriously - not all this "i had a dream i was a dragon.. but it ate me!" student wank

Yes, smart-arse 20 something vloggers are not at all suitable for this show, the contestants need to be 12 year old lads from Darlington wearing clothes their respective mothers purchased for them.

I think my favourite bit on Knightmare is when Tregard gets the dungeoneer to summon their team by shouting out their names, I was hoping someone might have made a youtube supercut of this, but apparently not.