#180 Tues (12/20/22) - nostalgia for Christmas (70's TV edition)

For Christmas:

Whistle and I'll Come to You featuring the impeccable Michael Holdern, along with all of the other BBC 70's Ghost Story for Christmas featuring MR James and other ghost stories.  Lately remade by Mark Gatiss. And this insurpassable fan made version of Haunted Doll's House by MR James.

Box of Delights the adventures of Kay Harker based on the 1935 book by John Masefield. (but really only the first episode, although there are brilliant bits scattered throughout this (animated encounter with Herne the Hunter, visit to a Roman Britain camp, the rats in the walls, the talking bronze head, the Greek philosopher - Arnold of Todi, the Waterfall Imp) the last few episodes are over the top and kind of a chore.  (Full list at Internet Archive)

The BBC Narnia series was a direct result of the success of Box of Delights on PBS in the USA.

I watched a lot of Star Blazers (which was the US release of Space Battleship Yamato in 1977) in the fall of 1979 and spring/summer of 1980. I also remember watching The Cities of Gold and Belle and Sebastian about this time.  It was probably part of an afternoon kid's lineup on TBS, I think.

Later, the PBS British Invasion, which features a lot of BBC staples from the late 70's. Shows like Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, The Young Ones, BlackAdder, The Tripods and some others that I can't quite recall. Box of Delights was a Christmas time standby, along with the BBC Narnia series. Weekly All Creatures Great and Small and a bunch of soppy sit-coms like To The Manor Born, Are You Being Served, The Good Neighbors, etc. To Serve Them All My Days.

On US TV, Land of the Lost, especially the first 2 seasons.

The Tomorrow People was on Nickelodeon, in the early 80's along with a couple of stand-alones like The Witches and the Ginnygog, Children of the Stones, Moondial, Into the Labyrinth, and possibly some episodes of Shadows (After School). Found these on YouTube much later. This is also where I first encountered Sapphire & Steele.

In the late seventies, there was the original Star Trek series, the excrable Battlestar Galactica, the original Irwin Allen Lost in Space and Land of the Giants, the first Star Wars movie and Space 1999. I did not find the prequel, Gerry Anderson's UFO until much later, but I did see a lot of Thunderbirds.

Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind was on HBO in 1984. I watched it many times, but I was in late high school by then.

Later I added some more like Tom's Midnight Garden, The Enchanted Castle, The Children of Green Knowe, Escape into Night (based on the story Marianne Dreams and remade into Paper House in 1988), Doombolt Chase, The Jensen Code, Thunderbirds are Go. Blake's Seven. Neverwhere.

Sapphire and Steele was something I found very late. Also, Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner series.

Nigel Kneale's Red Robin and Beasts (especially the episode entitled "Baby"), The Stone Tape, Terry Nation's Survivors (later remade), The Changes. Penda's Fen and Red Shift. Earthfasts.

Aside: Luna on ITV1, 1983-84 was a British dytopian children's tv show, echoing a family sitcom set in Orwell's 1984, mixed with the teenspeak out of Burgess' Clockwork Orange.  Here is a fan made wiki on the show, which I found on YouTube years ago and watched several episodes before it was lost. It was also reminiscent of the type of humor found in Red Dwarf, clever, wordy, British.

I really wish I had found UFO and The Prisoner much earlier!  Along with Doctor Who that would have made an impressive trio.

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