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Enter, Stranger…

Oh, Knightmare was so good. And people say nothing useful happened in 1990s (apart from Thatcher’s downfall). If they ever brought this back I would die with giddiness, although if Brian Blessed was not crowbarred into it somehow I’d be emailing someone every hour to complain.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMqWizbXi6Q]

Knightmare was a real innovator, and I wonder how many other British kids it brought into the fantasy genre. Were you Americans fortunate enough to see this show? Wouldn’t Tregard have been the most awesome uncle. Whatever happened to him, anyway?

Now let’s watch the contestants die. Spell-casting: “T-H-I-C-K-S-H-I-T-S”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qveSczrl9HY]

I even owned the Choose Your Own Adventure game-books, which tied-in to the show. I think I still have them somewhere.

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20
Apr 2010
AUTHOR Mark Newton
CATEGORY

genre stuff

COMMENTS 8 Comments
TAGS

  • http://manmela.livejournal.com Adrian Faulkner

    I always thought it was ITVs answer to BBC’s The Adventure Game.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi0RPiAbs_w
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HLX2weZfkA&NR=1

  • http://hampshireflyer.wordpress.com hampshireflyer

    I think the BBC tried to bring it back as something called Raven. Unfortunately, being the noughties, they couldn’t bring themselves to make it *difficult*…

  • http://philsrandommusings.blogspot.com Phillip

    I also have very fond memories of Knightmare. It most certainly introduced me to fantasy.

  • http://www.rachelpictor.co.uk Rachel

    Best show of my childhood! Although the introduction of Pickles made it worse. The Dragon was the best development! I think children are naturally drawn to fantasy – I’m sure my imagination was much crazier then.

  • http://darkfictionreview.net Sharon

    Yes, I remember this. A little past my time but my daughter used to watch it. Easily one of the better elements of 90s telly programming.

  • http://speculativehorizons.blogspot.com/ James

    The earlier series were totally hardcore, I remember one bunch of kids were on the show for weeks. It all ended in tears when one of them told the dude in the helmet to “turn around and go back”, at which point the camera cut to Tregard, who said “There’s no going back!” and then the credits rolled. BOOM.

    I wasn’t so keen on the later series, which became increasingly easier and relied more on computer animation. Still, a cool show.

    Come to think of it, I had a Knightmare computer game for my C64, which I recall being extremely tough.

  • Alex Carnegie

    I used to ABSOLUTELY LOVE Knightmare. Always wanted to be on it. Somehow I don’t think it’d ever be as good if they did it again, even considering the high standard of CGI they could chuck at it.

    Tregard’s one of those actors that you kind of hope are a serious thesp in real life – classically trained, RSC and all that – just for the sense of contrast. In reality he’s doing panto. Never mind.

  • Neil P

    Wow the death skull disintergration was pretty hardcore for a kids show.
    I too had one of the books : Labyrinth of the minotaur I think.
    I can remember it feeling like it took months for those rare individuals to complete the game. I still like to think that if you have a scroll for completing this gameshow on your CV you are guaranteed a job in the UK.