I’ve been listening again to Bill Nelson’s Duplex collection, which features some of his soundtrack work, including his theme tune from the TV show Brond.
For some reason, despite only watching it once, back when it was broadcast (1987, Wikipedia tells me), I have never forgotten Brond’s opening scene: Stratford Johns is walking across a bridge when he sees a boy leaning over its edge. Without a word, and for no reason at all, he pushes the child off the bridge, presumably to their death. I can’t recall anything else about the show, but that single scene has stayed with me, hidden away amongst memories of much more well-known shows.
Is it just me with a weirdly specific TV memory, or do you have some random scene stuck in your head even if the rest of the show around it has faded away?
The random scene I recall is Alan Hull jumping from the Tyne Bridge in a play.
I’d tried to find it before to no avail, however checking on IMDB I find it was called Squire and part of a series of short plays called Second City Firsts. Finding it on YouTube I now find it wasn’t the Tyne Bridge but the High Level Bridge ( I’d not been to Newcastle then).
Whatever did we do before the internet? Obviously 99% of it is a cesspit of rage and weirdos,* but it’s very good at filling in gaps in your memory.
* Not scientifically proven, but I reckon it’s probably close enough…
99.875% actually.
/Wikipedant mode
Typical I finally find out what the TV play was called and then I read my new copy of Mojo which has an article about Alan Hull. It of course mentions the play and its title.
Yep. Out . Staring Tom Bell.
Bell, fresh out of the Scrubs turns up at his mates driving an Escort. Mate is peeved as he can’t afford the insurance on an Escort let alone an actual car.
Was that the one where Bell got a job in some sort of end-of-the-pier shop or attraction? He always seemed to play the same sort of part, but he did it very well.
Sorry Captain. I can genuinely only remember that one bit.
Don’t think that was Out. He spent that series in a nice suit on the streets of London.
Out is up on YT, as indeed are a surprisingly large number of other 60s and 70s TV series
Thank you @jaygee
If you like pre-Guy Ritchie British gangster stuff, FS, Big Breadwinner Hog is up there, too,
The sitcom Hope It Rains
I can sing the theme tune to Sugarfoot. Apart from being a cowboy show in the vein of Roy Rogers & Trigger, I remember nothing, absolutely nothing, about the show . I refuse to go searching on YouTube. Some non-memories are sacred .
I am weak, Oh Lord forgive me….
Random scene with no memory of anything else (not even the title).
Vague memory from ITV comedy, summer 1981 (watched it in a caravan in Wareham).
Old northern bloke, bit of a Mummy’s boy, gets taken into a betting shop. Wants to bet 10p on a horse, but the bookie demands a pound. The joke is he only has £1.10 (in pocket money presumably). Don’t even recall if he won.
Title was the blokes name, but having been through just about every logical name I can think, I belive I may have actually dreamt this 2 minutes of inconsequential television.
Mr Pastry stranded on his roof in a flood. The only episode I ever saw. But I saw it twice.
Serendipitously, Brond came into my mind just yesterday. I was listening to Nicky Campbell on the wireless and taking something out of my wardrobe at the time. I don’t know what triggered the thought. There are always loads of seemingly random thoughts and images tumbling through my mind. Most of them seem to be hoovered up inconsequentially like the stuff going into a black hole in space. However, the odd one, like Brond, seems to stand out momentarily. Once again, the only scene which I remember is the one on the bridge with Stratford Johns. I remember at the time thinking ‘This Charlie Barlow from Z-Cars and Softly Softly!’. I also remember being slightly fascinated by the word ‘Brond’. How bizarre…
If this doesn’t get Moose back nothing will.
Remember watching a Wednesday Play back in the mid-60s called Who’s a Good Boy Then?
The story concerned a naive lodger (the always splendid Ronald Lacey) who rented a room in the house of an initially nice and attentive couple (Ron Moody and Thora Hird Iirc). RL eventually realizes he is being groomed as surrogate for the couple’s dead son.
Ultra-creepy tale wihich ends with an unsettling bird’s eye view shot of TL screaming out the words of the title from the attic in which the couple has imprisoned him.
Lot of other oeople seem to feel the same way…
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0061185/reviews
I also remember watching this play with my parents when I was 7 years old. As you say very creepy. I’d like to think the BBC have still got it in their archives. I would love to see it again.
The guy who wrote WAGBT was called Richard Harris and when I saw a play of his was being performed at Roscommon Drama Fest a few years back emailed to him to find out if he had a tape/disc he might loan or copy for me. While he apparently didn’t have a copy, I’ve since discovered the BFI apparently still has a copy.
One early afternoon in the mid-80s we were scrolling through the channels on our tiny black and white telly in a student house. We chanced across a breaking US news story that had interrupted normal programming about a developing terrorist nuclear terrorism in Charleston. For a good thirty minutes we were completely fooled by what I can assume is this film:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Bulletin
Impossible to find on streaming or DVD, I can see it is youtube while there’s a version up.
I thought of this immediately as it is to do with both TV and long life. It may be completely off-topic but is one of the best things on youtube.
It’s a segment from a TV show from 1956 called “I’ve Got a Secret” where a panel try to guess the secret of a guest.
In this instance the guest’s secret is he witnessed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It’s incredible that someone present that night lived long enough to appear on television.
It’s impressive how quickly they guess, “Hmmm, born in 1860? Something to do with the Civil War?”
Incidentally Lucille Ball was one of the panelists but she doesn’t speak and is glimpsed only briefly.
The fork-tongued mutant baby in V springs to mind.
The OP will be familiar with the now-iconic final scene of Blackadder Goes Forth. Won’t you, Darling?
Yes indeed. Surely one of the best endings of any TV series.
I remember reading a history of the show that covered the filming of this scene. Apparently they did a first take, but for some technical reason it wasn’t quite right. The producer and/or director wanted to get another take, but Rowan Atkinson, speaking on behalf of the rest of the cast, told them that that was definitely not going to happen: the emotions involved in performing such a moving scene were just too much to go through it more than once. So the first take was the one that was used. For some inexplicable reason, I’ve always respected Rowan A. for that.
Can anybody tell me what the name was of a children’s TV series from around 1970 set in East Anglia – more specifically somewhere around The Wash. It was a bit sinister, had that chap (name escapes) me with the ratty faced look who popped up a lot in children’s telly, usually as a baddie. Can’t remember the plot or anything, but the atmosphere of the piece stayed with me. Closing credits showed the evening skyline of the marshes. Good theme music. Curlew calls, big skys.
And no, I don’t mean The Long Chase. Rubs thighs.
Was it The Intruder, starring Milton Johns as an eye patched baddie?
Sounds like one of the Alan Garner adaptations. Well spooky stuff.
YES!!!!!!!!!! That’s the fella, and that’s the series. I love you @Kjwilly – that’s been driving me nuts for decades. Thanks very much indeed.
What’s more, it’s out on BR/DVD on the 27th of this month! Ordered. Happy days!!
Turns out it wasn’t the Wash, it was the Cumbrian coast. Same vibe, only northern.
Happy to help. It stuck in my mind from my childhood as well.
Sale of the Century?
“And now from Norwich…”
I have tons of memories of obscure bits of TV from the distant past that pop into my head for no apparent reason. One recent one probably dates from around 1980 and was from some surreal US show based around a big house or hotel maybe. It flowed from sketch to sketch with no apparent logic probably attempting a Monty Python vibe and in my mind was visually like that show SOAP.
Anyway the bit that stayed with me was a spoof of an exposè show in which they showed a familiar shaped silhouetted figure being asked to share his shocking revelation. Cue Elmer Fudd’s voice hesitantly uttering “cartoons – they’re not weeealll!” At the time it was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen.
*presses post comment button and hits the Internet to try to identify this show.
I remember a US sketch show called BIZARRE which sounds a bit like that.
Bizarre was actually Canadian. It ran from 1980 to ’86 and often featured naked ladies which was a big draw for teenage boys back then. Or so I heard.
Thanks for the responses lads. I don’t think it’s Bizarre. It occurred to me that it might have been Canadian. RTE the Irish state TV channel had lots of Canadian content in the 70s, presumably because it was cheaper than US material. For example I can remember Canada’s answer to Morecambe and Wise – Wayne and Schuster although I’ve yet to meet a Canadian who knows what I’m talking about – or aboot! They had a catchy theme tune.
Here it is…
Canada and Balls
Or
Little Talent and Large Toupe
I expected you to nominate this
Oh yes.
Salems Lot. The scene where Mr Barlow visits the jail. Saw it while quite young Has stayed with me even though I’ve forgotten the rest of the story. Maybe scenes that traumatized you as a child should be a separate thread.
For sheer eerieness, it has to be the vampire boy tapping on the window, trying to get his brother to let him in. I remember the smoke and flying FX being a bit ropy, but the tap-tap-tap scared the bejesus out of me. Never forgotten it.
Alan Bradley getting hit by a tram (thank goodness, quite frankly.)
Good job Mick Lynch wasn’t in charge of the rail union back then or he’d still be at large
You’re not wrong, Gary!
My parents were big Corrie fans in the 80s, and there are a couple of scenes that really stuck with me. The dramatic impact of soaps has diminished over the years, but they managed – in their formative and middle years – to provide moments of genuine power.
Ken Barlow having a cardigan-clad midlife crisis was a rare picture of male depression: the beige malaise felt very real. Another key moment was when Alan Bradley tracked Rita down in Blackpool. Barbara Knox’s performance was of a woman utterly gripped by fear, and it remains one of the greatest pieces of acting I have ever seen.
The other gut-wrenching moment in Corrie was Hilda with
Stan’s glasses on the day of his funeral.
Given what Corrie has descended into nowadays, unlikely there’ll
ever be a moment like that again