Kitch Nostalgic TV Show Which Produced The Greatest Sense Of Yawning Disappointment Upon Actual Viewing As Adult Due To Being Rubbish

Battle of the Planets, kind of, in that the animation was soooooo shite and there seemed to be far more 7zark7 and far less fiery phoenix than i remembered, although having learnt a lot more about the original gatchaman, via the wonders of the modern interweb, you can really see how badly it's been hacked to pieces.

On a related note, is it now passe to have conversations about how passe it is to have conversations about kids tv? Or have i just disappeared up my own post-modern backside?

― carsmilesteve, Tuesday, 9 January 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think it is passe but on the other hand it is still an ever-living menace out there in the pubs of old England, particularly in a student town. It's a truism because it's true, y'know. The one good thing about sites like TV Cream (sorry Robin who I know writes for them all) is that it's made it so fucking easy to find everything out about these programmes, so the 'fun' of sitting around trying to remember the name of the Space Sentinels' computer has been forever punctured.

I think the answer to this falls somewhere on Saturday morning. Anything by Hanna Barbera, which includes He-Man (which ended up kinda gay anyway...) and Scooby Doo which, when viewed withour irony and a giggling sense of stoner kitsch, really blows. The Snorks, The Wuzzles and all the other cheap-o Disney quickie cartoons. Go Bots? Yeech. The only one that holds up nowadays is Transformers. At least they had a fat and dying Orson Wells for street cred.

Oh the time I wasted...

captain caveman. by a mile. i actually bought a video of it and was _devastated_. it's amazing how the brain distorts childhood things :P

Time for a non-cartoon prog... "The Tommorrow People"!!!! Amazingly, I used to consider this a "scary" programme back in the old days!!!! Then I saw it again on some cable channel not-so-long ago, and, despite some good ideas, the only aspect I found unnerving about it was the fact that the programme makers obviously thought they could get away with an average budget of about £2.36 per episode!!!!!

Old Fart!!!!!

OK, I'd like to be able to contribute to this, but I need your help first.

There was this show that used to freak me out when I was about 7 (1987)...It was sci-fi action adventure; some of it was animated (or claymated), some of it was Ed Wood style fake flying saucer stuff, and the rest consisted of this positively ugly puppet characters with bizarre voices and facial expressions unsuitable for my easily scared ass.

Anyway, I don't know the name of the damn show or where to find copies of the episodes. Can anyone help? Upon seeing the shows, I'll be able to gauge whether or not they're "rubbish", get it?

Oh, come on. I can't believe no one's mentioned "Doctor Who".

I mean, the current book series kicks so much ass, I bought a bunch of tapes of the old episodes and attempted to relive my childhood... OOOOOOPS.

Larmey: You're not thinking of "Land of the Lost," are you. 'Coz that show rocked like Hell on Halloween...

Thunderbirds. Its so fucking slow. Oh no, something terrible is going to happen, here's the plane flying, here's the plane not flying, here is the plane crashing - here are puppets talking about it, here's the crash again but slo-mo Thunderbird real time.

Almost as bad as the cider.

Thunderbirds! Oh God, how scary are some of those puppets? And how I hated that their mouths didn't move! I just went to a Thunderbirds fan site and the pictures brought back some awfully traumatizing memories. Thanks a lot.

I dug out some of my old Transformers videos a while back, and whilst it was fun they weren't quite as good as they once seemed. However, Trap Door is still a quality bit of TV. Go find!

Scooby Doo, definitely. That show was actually a bit scary back in the days, although even my young mind could perceive it went downhill when his bastard nephew was introduced. I avoid Captain Caveman re- runs (my memories are too fond), Hong-Kong Phooey can still be amusing, if one is in the right frame of mind.

Yes I do, and I wangled a way of getting links to Freaky Trigger from two of them - actually, Tom, one piece I wrote for Off The Telly quotes exactly what you once said in chat, and uses that as the excuse to link to FT. So you should be grateful :).

I do find the idea of a single unified shared past and the cleaning- up of history involved in this process *very* worrying, though. The programmes that disappointed me most (through harsh late-teen eyes) on reviewing were The Flumps and Fingerbobs. Put me off getting any more of the Kult Kids videos (and hence why I haven't seen Bod since the mid-80s, and I don't really want to).

And as for clip shows, suffice it to say I endorse every word uttered by Alistair Fitchett (implicitly) and Mark Morris (explicitly) on Tangents.

Hogan's Heroes. How I adored it as a child...but God, Auschwitz with a laugh track? I remember some punk novelty song "Who Killed Bob Crane?" but who did it escapes me at the moment...

Shazam, anyone?

Really cheesy, late-seventies live-action Saturday morning show, about some teenage doofus who drove around America in a Winnebago with some old doofus named Mentor doing superhero-kinda things. Cheesiest part was when said teenage doofus transmogrified into the superhero "Shazam" -- basically, teenage doofus would stand on the side of the road, shout "Shazam!", a really crappy-looking animated lightning-bolt would appear, and teenage doofus would become Shazam! the superhero and do his superhero thing. Sort of the Seventies version of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers."

It did spawn "Isis," which was good because Isis was hot and if I hadn't been pre-pubescent at the time I would have gotten a woody.

Gotta second "Scooby Doo." Absolute crap in every way.

Also gotta include Laverne and Shirley. Adored it as a little kid, but it became instantly stupid upon reaching puberty. Lenny and Squiggy are amusing, but they alone don't save the show.

Oh man, memories...
I was so obsessed with The Tomorrow People when I was young.
I'm sure I'd be embarrassed by the show now if I were to watch it.

The Magic Roundabout. I remembered it as being perfectly normal. Now I realise that it is WARPED and TWISTED pro-drug propaganda.

Mr Benn. Even a substantial repast in Crouch End accompanied by a non- trivial amount of BOUZE couldn't make it watchable. Yeah, so he does got to unusual parts of the world by donning exotic costumes in the magic shop, and, to be fair, that bit's OK. However, the adventures he has in these exotic places are even less interesting than the things the kids get up to in the 'again-again' parts of Teletubbies. I swear to god that the first of Mr Benn's so-called adventures I was witness to involved nothing more than his going up and down in a hot air balloon. For five whole minutes. Without even the slightest suggestion of anyone being on drugs at all. I was highly disappointed, let me tell you.

Hey, this has nothing to do with music, does it?! There was a funny article in The Onion a while ago about that same thing. Kitsch is boring. Enjoying the irony of not actually enjoying something? Or enjoying something because it's "so bad"? If you can find the article in the Onion.com archives, it's hilarious. The guy's friends are complaining that he'd rather hang out with his wife instead of doing something pointlessly ironic.< p>One thing that could be considered kitschy, but isn't to me, is Rocket Robin Hood. I want them to release the whole series on DVD. It's a silly cartoon that was made by the same people who made the old Spiderman series. Spiderman, by the way, used many of the Rocket Robin Hood backgrounds, such as the scene where Spiderman is swinging over purplish mountains (in the middle of Manhattan?). It produces kind of a mystical feeling in me for some reason.

power rangers still rocks for me (but, hell i was 18 when i got into it). battle of the planets sucks ass most definitely

Ultraman kicks the ass of the power rangers.
So does Doctor Who. (The Pertwee, Thom Baker doctors only.)

syeh pertwee & baker ain't bad - i have a soft spot fot troughton also. Ultraman have never been on any tv channel i've ever watched in the uk tho. i know he's so supposedly "kool" but the rangers kick ass and i will not stand to see them "dissed" oh yes we are talking pathological levels of taking things far too seriously when it comes to the rangers those namby pamby wannabe gangstas on the Nas / Jay-z thread won't have nothing on this. "go-go gadget arms" or whatever it is they say i can't bloody remember. "lost galaxy" is the best rangers theme tune though - by a long stretch. lightspeed rescue sucks.