This month's topic is Kids TV Shows

Once we had chosen the topic of Kids TV, It brought back strong memories of my childhood and of sharing my passions for tv with my brother Shaun. Every TV show and cartoon that I love will have memories of Shaun in with it. He is eight years younger than me and although that is insignificant now, at the time it was a big deal. But one thing it did do was extend our viewing window in regards to times and content a lot further than most. What I mean by that is that Shaun would have been watching the same stuff as me back when he was 4 or 5, right through to me watching the same stuff he was watching when I was in my late teens.

I thought long and hard about what I was going to pick. The simple fact is, I could choose three cartoons without blinking. But at the same time I could have chosen from a multitude of different kids shows that inspired, excited, moved or even scared me. I have finally settled on three different shows and, like last time, three very different types.

My first nomination is a cartoon and, let me tell you, this was a really difficult task for me. There are so many cartoons from my childhood that I am loyal to, it feels like a betrayal not picking every single one of them. Check out one of my most successful Steemit posts ever, certainly when it comes to engagement. My 10 Favourite Cartoons

My second nomination is of a game show that keyed into my passions for Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy stuff. And finally my third nomination is a fantasy adventure mini series that was magical, scary and christmassy all at the same time. I hope you like them.

Nomination Number 1

Battle of The Planets

Image Source

Battle of the Planets; or G-Force as I affectionately remember it, was a sci-fi cartoon from the late 70’s and early 80’s. It centered around a team of 5 teenagers (Mark, Jason, Princess, Keyop and Tiny) that are trained to protect earth from attack. They all had individual skills and specialities that were pretty cool.

The attack of earth usually came in the form of Zoltar, a masked, lipstick touting badness with a classic throw your head back evil laugh. Zoltar is a master of disguise and deception, often dressed as a woman and regularly and humorously ridiculed by his big boss ‘The Luminous One’ for failing to kick G-Forces ass.

The team had a ship called the Phoenix (see intro) and that also housed lots of smaller machines and cool gadgets that the crew used to good effect.

The original series was made in Japan in 1972 and was called Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Battle of the Planets is an English adaptation of the anime series that was produced in 1978 - 1980. Not only did they have to dub over in English but they also had to remove lots of the story because of adult connotation, excessive violence and profanity. I would have been around 7 years old when this came out and the images and the sentiment of the show has always stuck with me. It has also seen a mini revival led by the official website here.

http://www.battleoftheplanets.info/

If you could transport yourself to Henbury Junior School in the mid eighties you would witness a bunch of pre teens kicking the shit out of each other in the name of G-Force/Battle of the Planets. Good times!

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Honorable mentions: Dungeons and Dragons, Mr Rossi, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Dartanian and the Three Muskehounds, Thundercats, Ulysses 31, Space Sentinels, Voltron, He-Man, Transformers, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, Wacky Races, Tom and Jerry, Hong Kong Phooey, Scooby Doo, Danger Mouse, Godzilla and Godzuki.

I could go on and on and on and on and on.............................

Nomination Number 2

Knightmare

So this is my gameshow choice. I'm pretty sure that unless you are from the UK you will not have heard of this but it left its mark on me. It is a Dungeons and Dragons style format using, at the time (1987), cutting edge technology to create a new world. OK, so cutting edge in the mid to late eighties was not very good compared to today's CGI but if you grew up in my era you would have been excited by it.

This is the whole first episode of season 1 theme tune included.

4 contestants had to brave the dungeons of Knightmare and try to survive and escape. 1 of the contestants wore a helmet that impaired their vision and the other three had to stay behind and communicate the instructions to them. It was a lot of puzzles and collecting artifacts and fleeing if a deranged monster appeared.

The Official Website

I played D&D and read the Fighting Fantasy (choose your own adventure) books and this was bringing everything I loved in those things to life. Right there to see. Again, I know it has dated really badly but if you look past that and more at the concept and idea, it's brilliant.

This is a clip of a review in the 100 best children's tv shows poll.

It finishes 16th overall but number 1 for gameshows. It gets my vote every time.

Honorable mentions: Pat Sharp's Funhouse, Crackerjack.

Nomination Number 3

The Box of Delights

This was a magical show created and adapted for TV from a bookof the same name by John Masefield. When I think of my childhood I think of the Box of Delights. It scared the living daylights out of me but it was so much more than one thing. Fantasy, adventure, good and evil, Christmas, snow, magic, flying cars, talking animals and the list goes on.

I can explain it to an extent but Piers Torday, who wrote a theater adaption of the story recently, can explain it far better than I can. but says everything I want to say. Here is the link to his review https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/nov/30/long-before-harry-potter-the-box-of-delights-remade-childrens-fantasy

Here is episode 1. Even if you just listen to the haunting theme tune it will be worth it.

An underrated masterpiece that has set the standard for more famous stories like Harry Potter etc.

Honorable mentions: A.L.F, The Dinosaurs, Saved by the Bell, Grange Hill, Fraggle Rock.

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane and that it has inspired you to enter this brilliant contest with an awesome topic. You can find this month's start post here

There are prizes to be won and with @curie 's continued support those prizes will be well worth going for.

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We have a curation trail for @phctop3, which you can follow here to continue to add to the prize pool and the growth of the competition. Don’t forget to log into steemconnect.

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