Knightmare

I would venture to suggest that there has never been a kids game show made that tops this. From the inventive - and highly advanced for its year - concept, to its generous contribution to the morale of out-of-work actors who didn't mind dressing up in ridiculous outfits, the format was a winner on all levels. It became something I looked forward to without fail to kickstart my weekend. The puzzles actually took some thought, and the idea that three players guided the one who couldn't see past the end of his nose meant it must have been fun to play whether you were experiencing or controlling. The bloke who presented it was always a bit sinister as well, must've been the beard...

A kind of live-action "Dungeons & Dragons" then, only infinitely more entertaining than sitting in front of a computer. It's one of my fondest favourites from childhood, and will hopefully be remembered long after Virtual Reality has become a commonplace element in all our lives. This program was very 'funky' indeed.

I never heard of this show in my childhood until recently, when I stumbled upon Watchmojo's top 10 Kid Game Shows list when I heard of it. I was captivated by what I saw, four kids (one of them the dungeoneer) traversing 3 levels of rooms full of traps, eccentric characters, evil monsters, and imagination. I am into Dungeons and Dragons type board games, so this show won me over big time courtesy of Youtube. I have nearly seen all the episodes that were aired and watching just one episode was enough to make me watch another and then another until I found a winning team (only 8 teams succeeded in the history of the show). The characters will stick with you forever such as Folly the Jester, Mordred the Wizard, Oakley the Tree Troll, Gundrada the warrior woman, Brother Mace, Smirkenorff the Dragon, Sylvester Hands, Ah Wok, and Lord Fear himself. The monsters the dungeoneer encountered were kind of scary a few of them bordering on frightening, such as the Catacombite and the Brollochan, despite dated special effects. Of the 8 seasons of this show, my favorites are seasons 2 and 7 since they have the most amount of winning teams. Now if only BBC America could air this wonderful show....

Well what is there to say about Knightmare? It was a kids TV programme/game show broadcast here in the UK. A team of teenagers would attempt to conquer the dungeons of doom by sending in the bravest among them into the dungeon... however there was a minor twist, the adventurer entering the dungeon had to wear a helmet which completely stops him from seeing anything except the exact spot where he was (so he could pick up and look at items he found etc) - the rest of the team had the arduous task of guiding him to safety by telling him which way to go.

Memorable aspects:

1) The "energy" of the adventurer is displayed as a helmed head, and as time progresses or danger threatens pieces of the helmet begin to strip off... then pieces of flesh and the finally pieces of the skull... the last thing to go is a pair of (by then) floating eyes and thats game over... you can replenish your energy by placing food in your knapsack.

2) spellcasting... sometimes you could answer challenges set by "nice" characters met in the dungeon and they would give you a spell... to spell you literally had to spell... "Spellcasting... S.. L.. E.. E.. P.." kinda thing...

3) big clanking gears and cogs and things and if the hapless adventurer missed his footing... well bye bye...

4) At the end of each episode a gong would sound and the team of teenagers would freeze in time until the next episode...

5) Tregard the dungeon master... a bearded rogue-ish looking fellow who would add strange cryptic comments after the team had frozen at the end of an episode.

6) Some random jester type blokey who I don't remember anything about except he was annoying...

7) Random evil-blokey (Lord Fear) who would just strut around and look menacing... usually only seen in a crystal ball..

8) Crystal balls where the foe would announce his master plan and give some sort of a hint before leering menacingly towards the adventurers at which point they would all panick and shout "drop it... drop it..."

9) The comments by the characters after you have answered one of their questions... "Truth accepted!" if it was correct... "Falsehood!" if it was wrong...

It was a very bizarre but yet strangely amusing programme (and completely non-violent... If I recall correctly the hero would die instantly if he attempted to brandish a weapon)... it was made into a computer game for several platforms at the time, and remade as a RPG for the Amiga a few years on, but none of these managed to capture the atmosphere of the programme...

Knightmare (1987-1994) A team of three contestants have to guide a fourth contestant (who's vision is impaired by a helmet) through a dungeon on a quest. Usually their goal was to recover a special object such as a crown or sword but they were rarely successful. During their adventure the group would have to solve riddles, avoid traps, and would encounter a wide range of characters and monsters (including goblins, wizards, dragons, witches, jesters, ogres, maidens and potion sellers). Some of these would be very pantomime-esquire such as the charismatic Hordris, the immortal Lord Fear, and of course the captivating Tregar.

The dungeon is generated using painted backgrounds and the same blue screen technique used by weathermen (Chroma Key). Despite its innovative format and huge following it never quite got the attention or praise it deserved (probably because it was on ITV rather than BBC).

It was recently repeated on Challenge TV during the mornings. There are apparently no plans to start a new series.

For more information see: http://www.knightmare.com/

I have weird memories of this show. Like many childhood shows that go unseen for many years afterwards, time fogs the memory and the fondness that we look back on simpler times tend to infect other things we remember from the same period. For Knightmare my memory is also touched by the fact that for years my mother strongly disapproved of her children watching this show. A Northern Ireland Protestant woman, anything that suggest the occult, witchcraft, spells and so on was to be frowned upon so the idea of children being sent into a world of dragons, skulls, spells and so on was clearly not going to be anything suitable for kids.

However we did watch it anyway with her occasional tut-tutting in the background and generally it was pretty enjoyable stuff. Nowadays the special effects will look ridiculous and even at the time they weren't brilliant but they were still pretty good for the time. The idea of the show was basically Dungeons and Dragons. Of a team of children, one would don a helmet that covered their eyes totally and wandered off into a green-screen room, while the rest of the team stay with the Dungeon Master and watch on a TV that is where the effects are added. Considering it was in the mid 1980's, it was actually pretty smart and innovative to set a gameshow in a virtual world. Sure it was clunky and the performances of the actors playing the various goblins etc were mostly hammy as hell but it worked for a kids audience mainly by virtue of being different and imaginative in concept and delivery.

It would probably be terrible rubbish if I tried to watch it now, but then why would I watch it now? Of its time so it was and the fact that I remember it clearly as something that I enjoyed showed how well orientated to its target audience it was and how effective it was even if eight seasons of it was probably pushing its luck!