Kids telly in the 80s was a strange and eerie place. It was often quite calm, and basic, but it had a way of playing with your mind that has stayed with us to this day
There was a time in the 80s when British children’s television theme tunes was the stuff of nightmares.
To me at least. Brit kid’s TV always seemed to sit a little differently from its foreign counterparts during that decade. It was calmer, it was cheaper, it was basic. But, whether it was driven by not having the same budgets, our efforts could often be more cerebral. They would let your mind do a lot of the leg work in the dramas, while building tension and creepiness with its music.
And I’m not being Brit biased, but we seemed to do it so well when I was a kid that some of the soundtracks still haunt me to this day.
With that in mind, Daily Star towers have gathered a selection of spine-tingling soundtracks to spooky up your day.
Chocky – 1984
Picture the scene, the clocks have gone back so it’s dark outside, then this starts playing on the telly. Not sure if it was just me, but the scream followed by the atmospheric disembodied head, which turned turned metallic just put me on edge before the programme even started. This theme music would work on any horror movie, but instead it aired just after 4pm on kid’s telly. Composed by John Hyde, the theme music is called Coral, and is from the 1982 album Red Kite by Astral Sounds.
Dark Towers – 1981
“Come with me, yes come with me, to Dark Towerrrrs.” No thank you. It’s dark, it’s old and it’s a tower, and therefore scary as hell. Who in their right minds would go inside? They make it quite clear from the off it’s not a place any youngster would want to spend any time in. “Dust and cobwebs everywhere, Footsteps on the winding stair, Mystery is in the air, In Dark Towers.” Nope. The programme was an educational production by the BBC in the Look and Read series, so, as a kid, I had no interest in the contents of the show. But the theme tune did the creepy biz, and has been stuck in my head for more than 40 years.
Picture Box – 1966 – 1993
This could be a case of my head being the major contributing factor to what made this creepy. The simple intro visual of an ornate box rotating with the programme’s title popping up on the screen, was typical of the basic levels of entertainment we were faced with in those days. To me it sounded like a haunted fairground from years gone by, or a slightly upbeat funeral procession. Either way mental visions of a body rising up from a coffin, or a ghostly merry-go-round were conjured. What was I about to witness? Well, once the terrifying music was over, we were greeted by a bloke or woman sat in a chair introducing the show. Horror over in a heartbeat.
Box of Delights – 1984
The soundtrack for this opening sequence is based on the Christmas carol, Noel. But it had a magical twist to it. Yet somehow, amongst the seasonal magic, when you’ve got a series of sinister looking heads popping up on the screen, you’re edgy before it gets going. The series was a fantasy adventure about a schoolboy who is entrusted with a magical box which allows him to time travel and shapeshift to protect the box from an evil magician. At £1million, it was the most expensive children’s series the BBC had made to its release date. I’ve often thought a lot of the creepiness in these programmes was over-egged by an overly spooky intro. Case in point, this.
The Book Tower – 1979 – 1989
I have to admit this is probably a bit of a curveball to add to the list. This didn’t have the calm, cool and collected creepiness of the other themes, this had a demented madness to it. It was as if you could just see a wild-eyed Tom Baker bashing out the tune on an organ in one of the towers of the property shown in the opening credits. It’s Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire, in case you were wondering. Each episode explored one or more books, using dramatic presentations, with the aim of getting children interested in reading. I wasn’t one of those kids, but I did enjoy the manic start, before switching over to watch Bananaman.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
