Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Sept 8, 2021 7:38:26 GMT
Further to conversation elsewhere - I thought I'd start thread for Tales of the Unexpected
It began on ITV in March 1979, did 9 series and around 120 episodes, ending in 1988. Most of the first few series used adaptations of short stories written (and presented) by Roald Dahl. The stories had been published in three books Tales of the Unexpected, Someone Like you and Kiss Kiss.
In 1980, all three books were published in one volume. Only a few of the stories were specially commissioned for the series.
The series was made by Anglia Television, and most of the first few series shot on videotape - using one of Anglia's OB units. Later the series switched to film - making the stories look more cinematic.
Episodes also featured lots of Norfolk / Norwich / Suffolk too.
My fave episodes (so far).... (got the whole 9 series to get through!)
1) Lamb to the Slaughter - with Susan George and Brian Blessed.
2) The Landlady - with the Siobhan McKenna 3) Galloping Foxley - with John Mills 4) Royal Jelly - with Timothy West 5) Taste - with Ron Moody
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Sept 8, 2021 8:56:38 GMT
Great idea ! For some reason, I always thought the series had started a good few years earlier than 1979. The memory plays tricks. I was always intrigued by the title sequence. It turns out that the dancer wasn't a professional but the girlfriend of the bloke who was commissioned to come up with the show intro. There's a short interview with her in this clip from Anglia at 40. In fact Anglia at 40 looks like an interesting watch in itself.
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Sept 8, 2021 10:30:09 GMT
Great idea ! For some reason, I always thought the series had started a good few years earlier than 1979. The memory plays tricks. I was always intrigued by the title sequence. It turns out that the dancer wasn't a professional but the girlfriend of the bloke who was commissioned to come up with the show intro. There's a short interview with her in this clip from Anglia at 40. In fact Anglia at 40 looks like an interesting watch in itself. The titles always intrigued me - lost count of how many times people at school used to muck about dancing behind blinds and all that.
The titles would have been made on 35mm film, and shot as seperate sequences. The dancer was covered in white body paint (possibly wearing a body stocking too), and filmed dancing in front of a bluescreen - as green screen wasn't really used back then. Besides - blue is better for film. Green came along with CCD cameras.
Other sequences - such as the flames (shot against a black background for contrast) and other bits would be shot as another sequence. Then the graphics shot as another sequence and then the episode captions/credits shot as another sequence.
Giving you 4 layers of film to be married to one composite. Chances are - for cheapness, Anglia more than likely had all sequences transferred to video and the final effects and composition done in Post-Production. This would be common with a series where Actors and Crew differ each week, but use the same title sequence. All that would need to be shot for each episode are the credit/captions - usually white text on black or clear background.
Was it Ron Grainer who did the music?
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Palmer
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Post by Palmer on Sept 8, 2021 10:43:04 GMT
I've watched a few of these as they were being shown on a digital television channel (I cannot remember the name of said!!) in the wee small hours a few months ago...
They seemed like jolly good fun and I'd certainly like to see some more to watch some that have this scary vibe that people go on about!
The ones I watched weren't scary and/or twisted but then I assume the stories were never the same thus the feel of each show was always different??!!
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Sept 8, 2021 11:28:19 GMT
I've watched a few of these as they were being shown on a digital television channel (I cannot remember the name of said!!) in the wee small hours a few months ago... They seemed like jolly good fun and I'd certainly like to see some more to watch some that have this scary vibe that people go on about! The ones I watched weren't scary and/or twisted but then I assume the stories were never the same thus the feel of each show was always different??!! I think they were originally repeated on something like Granada+, Drama etc.
The stories would differ from week to week - one week it'd be a tale about a Vicar, next week it'd be something very obscure. Though every story I saw always had dark undertones - and made me feel quite uneasy throughout the episode as sometimes you couldn't work out where the story was heading - and in a way with it being British actors, locations away from London, you could identify with some of the characters too. That britishness made it all more believable - even though the tales at times were quite bizarre.
I suppose a dark undertone is a thing with Roald Dahls writing - even with his childrens stories, there is a dark/sinister side too.
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Sept 8, 2021 12:00:27 GMT
Was it Ron Grainer who did the music? Yes - and thinking about it now, it was strange that he came up with a jolly fairground type musical theme for what could at times be quite a dark series. But at the time I didn't notice. I suppose that's the skill of TV/Film composers - coming up with something that isn't cliche but still works. I just decided to seek out The Man From The South episode and was surprised to find it was the very first episode screened back in 1979. Pamela Stephenson has a supporting role and the director was Michael Tuchner of Villain fame and The Likely Lads film spin off. I sat with my arms folded throughout and if you know the episode you'll guess why.
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Sept 8, 2021 12:22:11 GMT
Was it Ron Grainer who did the music? Yes - and thinking about it now, it was strange that he came up with a jolly fairground type musical theme for what could at times be quite a dark series. But at the time I didn't notice. I suppose that's the skill of TV/Film composers - coming up with something that isn't cliche but still works. I just decided to seek out The Man From The South episode and was surprised to find it was the very first episode screened back in 1979. Pamela Stephenson has a supporting role and the director was Michael Tuchner of Villain fame and The Likely Lads film spin off. I sat with my arms folded throughout and if you know the episode you'll guess why. The choice of theme music always made me wonder. But it did work very well.
As you say, that's the skill of Film/TV composers.
I'm not sure if Dahl actually wrote the screenplays for the episodes - I think he just provided a short story and someone else adapted it and padded it out for the 30odd minutes required.
I haven't seen any of the early 1979 episodes; a majority of the ones I have seen are from the 1980 series - S2 - though now have the box set with all 9 series in.
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Vienna
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Post by Vienna on Sept 8, 2021 14:40:09 GMT
I haven't seen any of the early 1979 episodes; a majority of the ones I have seen are from the 1980 series - S2 - though now have the box set with all 9 series in.
Sparks, the early episodes are probably better, particularly the ones set in the UK. Later on they seemed to have more US based stories which I thought were generally poorer when I viewed them a few years back. Vi
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Sept 8, 2021 15:11:55 GMT
I haven't seen any of the early 1979 episodes; a majority of the ones I have seen are from the 1980 series - S2 - though now have the box set with all 9 series in.
Sparks, the early episodes are probably better, particularly the ones set in the UK. Later on they seemed to have more US based stories which I thought were generally poorer when I viewed them a few years back. Vi Thanks for the heads up Vi. I'm sure I heard the same thing - the later series wore a bit thin.
The early episodes I have seen so far - are great. I do have the book released in 1980, with all three original books combined into that one volume - this contains all of the short stories - but annoyingly, some were never adapted and included in the TV series - even though they were good stories; and perhaps would have made better episodes than the US based ones, later down the line. Perhaps US TV producers had a hand in (funding) making the later episodes - to spread costs.
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Vienna
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Post by Vienna on Sept 8, 2021 15:40:33 GMT
No worries Sparky!
One of my favourite episodes is actually a later one from 1988: 'A Time to Die', starring David Suchet and Jemma Redgrave.
Vi
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