The Terrific Adventures of the Terrible Ten

Like the other commentators, I was a young lad when I saw this series, almost FIFTY years ago, on our 19" black-and-white Sobell (whatever happened to THEM?) telly. And although I haven't seen it since, it remains. In England, it WAS just called "The Adventures Of The Terrible Ten".

Twenty-five-minute trips to a pretty, sunny land - with little kids riding on horses, to perky musical accompaniment.

But oh, how the definition of the word "terrible" has changed. Those "little terrors" were angels, compared to today. Tragically nowadays, little kids really CAN be terrible - stealing cars, setting fire to houses, etc.

Maybe it's time this series was given an airing again (if it still exists) to remind people just how far DOWN we've all come...

I was a youngster growing up in country Victoria when this show was filmed, and later became Ten Town. I was actually in a few episodes as an extra only. The show was filmed in Country Victoria not far from Macedon just off the Calder Highway. We (extras) didn't get much time with the main actors only told what to do when particular scenes were shot. In one of the episodes I wore an old football jumper and when show later on TV were able to pick myself out from the rest quite easily. The town (if I remember) was rather small and made from timber and painted but what a fun place to muck around in and enjoy with other mates. I am led to believe that it was later burnt down.

I have very vague memories of this when I was around 8 or 9 in the early 60s.

I'm sure we used to play a game in the playground based on this series which we called Ten Town Tommy.

My only recollections of the programme are a lot of trees and the fact that the boys used walkie talkies in the bush - which I was incredibly jealous of and I remember fantasising about getting hold of a pair to use with my mates.

I'd love to see an episode or two to see if anything comes back to mind...

I, too, remember this as I was born and raised in Canada. I don't offhand recall the episodes mentioned in the earlier review, but I do remember a sort of rival kids gang to the Ten, led by one Spider McGlurk. Spider's group was always outsmarted, though in later episodes, the two groups actually worked together to solve a mystery.

I remember one episode in which the Ten (and possible McGlurk's gang) took over a submarine (!), successfully submerged it, and then surfaced to a tumultuous welcome in Sydney Harbour.

I think we tended to see a maximum of 7 of the Ten at any one time. And no girls, if memory serves.

It was fascinating for me to see how kids in far off Canada and England related to what I assumed was purely Australian Baby Boomer nostalgia. I used to watch "Ten Town" as I knew it when I was growing up in Sydney. I was eight years old in 1960. To be honest, I can't remember much of the details of individual episodes. What I can remember is the first episode when one of the kids' dads, a laconic, no-nonsense Aussie farmer, drops off a huge load of building materials (mostly timber off-cuts and old crates from memory) for the kids to start building Ten Town. He then says, "Get on with it" or words to that effect. He leaves and the kids are left to let rip with hammers and nails and saws to construct their own town, which ended up like looking like a country town from Australia's 19th Century past. (Not just America had "old west" towns!) No wonder I thought it was a great series. What kid of my generation wasn't excited about building their own cubby house? But a town? That was just SO cool! (I suppose if they made it today, the parents would have bought them a town, then tried to wrestle the kids away from their Play Stations and iPads. It would probably end up like a pre-teen Big Brother, complete with a Super Nanny to taxi in to sort out their emotional problems. "Katlin won't let me be mayor!I want her and Harrison evicted!" The other incident in another episode I remember well was when the resident bad-guy kid (McGurk?) and his gang tried to raid Ten Town. The Ten Town kids repelled them with secret weapons such as catapults spewing forth flour bombs and other such "deaddly" puerile ordinance. Of course, it all ends with McGurk and his crew, utterly defeated and crestfallen, covered in flour and water. Wa wa wa wa waaaaa! Of course, this was all pure kids' stuff but that's exactly what the target audience was - kids. I'm not sure how I would react to it today - cringe or rejoice in the innocence of a childhood long past. Maybe a bit of both. If were available on DVD, I'd buy it just for nostalgia value. I'm sure my granddaughter would like it. It couldn't be any worse than a lot of the sudsy Barbie-based fairy story DVDs she watches.