Knightmare

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....

Who didn't want to be on Knightmare???? Everyone I know who was a kid in the 80's wanted to be on it. Although not many applied as no one ever wanted to wear the helmet. The classic lines of "where am I?" that followed the entry into every room by the contestant's. "Temporal disruption imminent!" That preceded the end of the show. "Enter stranger" which invited the new contestants in. For the time it was really advanced and had everything a kid needed in a TV program it made you think (with it's riddles) it made you shout at the people involved "No not there! there's a spider" and last but not least the feeling of adventure!!! It looks a little tired now with dodgy CGI but it's still my favourite show from when i was a kid.

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!

I absolutely loved Knightmare when I was growing up! And I totally agree with the comments posted about it! For its time the visuals etc. were amazing and, yeah, it was the only kids tv show that had a creepiness about it. Also it was a very challenging game show and encouraged you to think. I feel so sorry for kids growing up nowadays. I don't know what children's television is like in the US but the stuff that's on in the UK is rubbish! There's nothing anywhere near to the brilliance of Knightmare, Funhouse, Dungeons and Dragons, Thundercats, He-Man and She-Ra etc.

Wonder what the guy who played Treyguard is up to now??? And the guy who was Lord Fear? I hated it when they used to look in on what he was up to through the spy glass cos you knew any minute he was going to realise what they were doing!!!! He was really scary! Remember the dragon the contender used to fly on??? My fave bit of the show was when someone lost and therefore died and you'd just see them and their mates walking down a path and waving goodbye!!!!!!

For any die hard fans I remember seeing some repeats of Knightmare on the Sci-Fi channel a few years ago, but I don't think they show them anymore. But I'll keep a look-out anyway. I'd love to be able to watch them all again! 80s and early 90s kids' shows were the best!!!

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/