The Terrific Adventures of the Terrible Ten

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.

As a very young lad in the Uk way back in the 60's I got to see this somehow. It was my first contact with Australia and unknowingly, I saw were I was going to live and work of sort. The idea of a fort hidden away from all and living a life in my mind such as this was what intrigued me so much. As that was my life back then as a boy in a family that never understood me. I have been hunting this show and DVD of this and now can get the first episode. Now at 57 still travel the roads of the central west NSW and relive in my mind that time...Would love to know the locations that the show was made. I know some of the actors from other shows. The film industry was and is very progressive here but unfortunately the TV shows need a boost....I hope to get the DVD to jog my mind more on a great show

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.

I remember watching reruns of 'The Terrific Adventures of the Terrible Ten' on TV when I was a kid. I grew up in Canada so I don't know if this show played in the U.S. or not, but it was definitely broadcast in Canada.

I have only 3 episodes of this programme on 16mm film in my collection so my comments are based on these episodes...I can't remember much about the ones I saw as a kid.

First: I'm very impressed with the production values of this programme. The musical score is excellent and the photography is well done also.

Second: The stories are juvenile, but appropriately so as this was a kids' programme. I found them cute and suitable for any age kids. All the kids have noticeable Australian accents.

The stories centre around ten kids who have established their own town (Ten Town) and run it themselves. It has its own hospital, town hall, radio station, bank, general store, etc. It looks like a bunch of clubhouses kids would build and is very cute.

Now where these kids' parents are is another story. But who cares when you're a kid watching this stuff!

Another mystery: In all 3 of my episodes there are never 10 kids present. Where are the rest of them?

My episodes are:

'Two Days To Zero' deals with a stolen rocket fuel formula. The formula is made up of, among other things, bicarbonate of soda and hot tea (and they make it on a kitchen table...oh boy!). The kids save the day by making their own rocket fuel and naturally foil the thief too.

'Marooned' in which the kids go to an island to cut Christmas trees and their boat drifts off. A raft is built and the kids calculate currents and such to get to their lost boat.

'Mystery At Wallaby Creek' Wallaby Creek is a town a few miles from Ten Town. A burglar/firebug is plaguing the town and everyone thinks a person who dresses up as a cat is the culprit. The kids from Ten Town help prove otherwise.

Each episode was originally made in two parts. Later (for reruns I imagine) the two parts were combined to make each story complete in itself. The original episodes were approximately 15 minutes. The combined ones run at around 25 minutes...Hey! 5 extra minutes for advertisers you know! IMDb has erred slightly on the title of this series. All three of my films state the title as 'The Terrific Adventures Of The Terrible Ten'.

The programmes were made in Melbourne, Australia by Pacific.

I've never seen this on video ever. Maybe I'll have to transfer some of my films one of these days. Copyrights are probably expired by now.