Bowel-shifting

Every year since 1995, or at least whenever I've remembered or been able to, I try and find/purchase Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, an annual anthology of "spooky" Simpsons comics. This year's was a bitter disappointment (in that it wasn't funny at all), but that's par for the course with The Simpsons these days.

Anyway, in that very first issue eighteen years ago, this page was in it:

That's Matt Groening listing a load of things that spooked him during his developing years. I'm going to have a go at doing that now! Probably the last opportunity I'll have to do something "thematic" for this month, so it's back to the comics after this. But just for now, here's as many things as I can remember that frightened, confused, perturbed or caused mild discomfort to me over the years...

Xmas 2012 - That was good!

Well, here we go - it's nearing midnight on New Year's Eve, and I'm indoors with only the axolotl as company. No complaints there, it's been the same for four years now. Take advantage! I can be noisier than usual, what with the neighbors all being elsewhere or otherwise awake. Ho ho!

And speaking of Ho Ho, the busiest few days in the life of Mr. Claus have just passed by.

Yep, it was a good one. Read on if you're interested. If not, happy new year to the lot of you, see if 2013 can be made any more interesting than 2012.

When Telly Was Good, Part 2

Friday night is telly night! Well, it USED to be anyway. Nostalgic waxing... The Simpsons, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Top of the Pops, 999, Strange But True, Red Dwarf blah blah blah etc. All good shows, most readily available. What you CAN'T get in DVD box-set form are those dedicated evenings that used to be broadcast occasionally. Lots of different things, most specially produced, with a common theme and shown over the entirity of a Friday night.

Last week we had Weird Night, and this week we've got... Monster Night!

Originally shown back in 1998, around the time of the release of that Godzilla film that no-one liked, it's a fun evening. There's a 40-minute documentary about Godzilla and his mates, a Lee & Herring sketch concerning the world's nine scariest monsters (with Carol Vorderman), and the whole thing's separated by three fat men (Bill Bailey, Phil Jupitus and Chris Moyles) and Jonathan Ross's brother placing bets on a few monster fights.

The whole thing's been uploaded to YouTube by various folk, and I've put it into a handy playlist form below. There's a big chunk at the end missing - namely the two films that were shown on the night. So instead I've stuck in the trailers for those films. A poor substitute, I know, but it's an effort. Enjoy!

When Telly Was Good, Part 1

A long, long time ago, before everyone had YouTube or 700 channels, there was only four channels to choose from for entertainment, education, information or whatever. Also, if you just stuck a camera in front of a celebrity and filmed them planning a wedding or something, that didn't count as a TV show. No, back then, EFFORT had to be made for television stuff. There was still guff, obviously, but a few times a year, whole "theme nights" would be given over to a particular theme.

In December of 1994, BBC2 showed this:

Weird Night, a whole evening's worth of brand new, specially-commissioned programming focusing on strangeness, alternately presented by Roger Corman and a giant talking baby's head. Beginning with a round-up of the year's strange news (narrated by Tom Conti), there was also a series of talking-head bits of people recounting odd incidents that had befell them, a documentary on America's last travelling freak show, an episode of The X-Files, a short film concerning urban legends, a panel discussion within the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Museum in Blackpool (featuring Bob Rickard of Fortean Times, amongst other people), and then "weird movies" until dawn.

And here's one of the few good things about modern media - YouTube means that we can watch the GOOD TELLY, again! Some kind-hearted soul out there has uploaded Weird Night in its entirity (minus the X-Files episode and the "weird movies"). And through the magic of playlist-embedding, here's Weird Night, all three hours and ten minutes of it.

So go on, cook yourself a big shepherd's pie, grab an extra large mug of tea and a bag of Liquorice Allsorts and settle down for an evening's viewing of GOOD TELLY: