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Terror TV pull-out poster from MFC No. 60 |
Terror TV was 'the channel of chills’ run by the gloomy skeleton Magnus Murkysome
(named after TV presenter Magnus Magnusson, who presented the BBC's Mastermind
– thanks to Raven for this piece of info!) and his team of telly fiends. The
channel broadcast from an eerie castle which sat on hilltop in the middle of a
normal suburban neighbourhood.
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Advertisement in MFC No. 49 the week before the premiere |
The arrival of Terror TV was celebrated by
putting the strip on the cover for two consecutive weeks and moving Gums inside
for a while. Here is the first episode as it appeared in MONSTER FUN COMIC
issue No. 50:
It is common
knowledge that the rise of television was one of the factors which affected
comics industry and the last frame of the first episode got me thinking perhaps
scaring readers away from their TVs so that they had more time to read comics
was one of the script-writer’s ideas...
The strip
about the TV channel with a mission to terrify its viewers offered weekly
monstrous parodies of popular TV shows. Initially it ‘monstrified’ generic
shows without naming them specifically, e.g. a quiz show, a programme for
gardeners, a spooky cooky programme, etc. Terror TV was the darkest strip in
MFC and I suspect some of those early episodes might have looked really
chilling to the young reader:
Terror TV also lampooned real TV shows. I managed to identify a few but not all of
them because I didn’t watch British TV in the seventies. Below is the complete
list of Terror TV shows from the MFC run of the strip, some with their
real-life equivalents noted in red. UPDATE:
Raven and Uncle Jesse have identified quite a few more for me, they are marked
in blue:
* Quiz Show
* Programme
for Gardeners (probably the
BBC's Gardeners World)
* That was
Your Life (This Is Your
Life)
* Grave News
at Ten (ITV's nightly
News at Ten)
*
Chill-a-Minute Competition “Shock of the Week”
* Celebrity
Scares (Celebrity
Squares)
* Horrorday
’76 (programme about holidays) (The BBC's Holiday '76)
* General
Horrorspital (General Hospital)
* Spooky
Cooky Programme with the Galloping Ghoulmet (The Galloping Gourmet - ITV weekday afternoon cookery
programme)
*
Advertisement + Tasting Competition
* Sports
Fright with Ghoulman (Sportsnight
With Coleman - BBC series with David Coleman)
*
Supercronic Pop Show (Supersonic -
ITV children's pop show with Mike Mansfield)
* Terror TV
Football Competition “Ghoul of the Month” (Goal of the Month - a feature in BBC1's football series
Match of the Day)
* Doctor
Whooooo (Doctor Who).
Here is the complete episode:
* Blow Peter
Up (Blue Peter -
long-running BBC children's magazine series; started in the late 1950s and
still going)
* A Day at
the Races
* The
Ghoulies (The Goodies). Here is
the episode in full:
* Whooooo Do You Booo! – programme of impersonations starring Brute Force (Bruce Forsyth, perhaps?), K.O.Jack, Jerry Wigan (Who Do You Do - ITV's comedy impressionist
series)
* Horror-Tunity Shocks! (Opportunity
Knocks)
* TV Cops with Throbak the Zombie Cop (Kojak), Scareski and Lurch (Starsky and Hutch), the Headless Marshall MacGhoul (Marshall McCloud from
McCloud) and Frank Furter – the fattest freak in TV Detectivedom (Frank
Cannon from Cannon)
* Hag-Pie with Susan Shrieks (Magpie
with host Susan Stranks)
Can you identify the few remaining shows?
The two-pager ran in MFC issues 50 – 73 and didn’t miss a single week.
Initially the illustrator was Ian Knox who signed or initialled the majority of
his sets. Barrie Appleby took over starting from issue 67 and continued to the
end of the series in MFC. His version of Terror TV was more cartoony and
certainly not as depressing and frightening as Ian Knox’s. The strip received a
pull-out poster in MFC No. 60 (31st July, 1976). After MONSTER FUN COMIC
folded, Terror TV was transferred to the combined BUSTER AND MONSTER
FUN where it shrunk to a single page and was drawn by Barrie Appleby. The
BUSTER run of Terror TV expired on 18th February 1978.
Terror TV completes the series of reviews of the strips ‘proper’ which appeared in
MONSTER FUN COMIC. I am not done with the weeklies yet: there are quite a few
interesting things remaining, including the famous Badtime Bedtime Books,
before I move on to MONSTER FUN Holiday Specials and Annuals.
I was especially looking forward to you covering Terror TV! I remember the great impact that compelling first strip had, and I expect this was an instant hit with many readers. I especially loved the delirious Ian Knox incarnation.
ReplyDeleteSome of those programmes:
Programme for Gardeners (probably the BBC's Gardeners World)
That was Your Life (This Is Your Life)
Grave News at Ten (ITV's nightly News at Ten)
Celebrity Scares (Celebrity Squares)
Horrorday ’76 (The BBC's Holiday '76)
Spooky Cooky Programme with the Galloping Ghoulmet (The Galloping Gourmet - ITV weekday afternoon cookery programme)Sports Fright with Ghoulman (Sportsnight With Coleman - BBC series with David Coleman)
Supercronic Pop Show (Supersonic - ITV children's pop show with Mike Mansfield)
Terror TV Football Competition “Ghoul of the Month” (Goal of the Month - a feature in BBC1's football series Match of the Day)
Blow Peter Up (Blue Peter - long-running BBC children's magazine series; started in the late 1950s and still going)
Whooooo Do You Booo! – programme of impersonations starring Brute Force (Bruce Forsyth, perhaps?), K.O.Jack, Jerry Wigan (Who Do You Do - ITV's comedy impressionist series)
TV Cops with Throbak the Zombie Cop (Kojak) the Headless Marshall MacGhoul (Marshall McCloud from McCloud) and Frank Furter (Frank Cannon from Cannon)
Thanks for your input, Raven!
DeleteYou're welcome! Incidentally, The name Magnus Murkysome was based on the TV presenter Magnus Magnusson, who presented the BBC's Mastermind.
DeleteThis is also something that I didn't know.
DeleteA few more of the 70s programme equivalents:
ReplyDeleteThat was Your Life - This is Your Life
Celebrity Scares - Celebrity Squares
Blow Peter Up - Blue Peter
Those Ian Knox ones are fantastic - especially the "This Was Your Life" one, one of the funniest things I've read in a long time! I don't remember this from any of the annuals or comics I have, ought to spend a day rooting through them all sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteGo for the early ones in issues 50 to 66, they are hilarious!
Delete