The Olden Days podcast

[john21wall]

This time it's the low-budget Canadian romp The Adventures of Sinbad.

[TheOldenDays]

Anyone who's ever been to secondary school should find something to relate to in the subject of our ninth podcast - Grange Hill: http://www.yourlisten.com/TheOldenDays/ ... range-hill

[TheOldenDays]

We are still releasing these every other week. The latest episode features CITV classics Fun House, Finders Keepers and Terror Towers, and there is more than a bit of cross-referencing with Knightmare!

http://yourlisten.com/TheOldenDays/the- ... -gameshows

[Canadanne]

I had no idea there was an American Fun House!

I never watched most of the programmes featured in recent podcasts, with the exception of Bucky O'Hare. I always liked Jenny (a pretty, kickass female character with magical powers was right up my street), and the episode set on her home planet is the only one I can remember. Not sure how much I really followed the rest of it, but it did have one of the most memorably awesome theme songs of any cartoon!

Love Watership Down, so I should enjoy the next episode.

[TheOldenDays]

As promised, here is a podcast about Watership Down, including a shout-out to Annie: http://yourlisten.com/TheOldenDays/the- ... rship-down

[Canadanne]

As promised, here is a podcast about Watership Down, including a shout-out to Annie: http://yourlisten.com/TheOldenDays/the- ... rship-down

Goodness, I wasn't expecting a shout-out. Thanks for thinking of me! And I did enjoy the podcast very much.

My feelings and experiences of Watership Down seem to have been largely the same as Rosey's, although I believe I started watching the film at a much younger age - we had it recorded off the TV and it was one of the videos I watched repeatedly throughout my childhood. It's surprising that I wasn't turned off by all the gore and death and bleakness - just the sort of thing that normally traumatised me as a kid! - but for some reason I still found it really captivating, even though some bits disturbed me and I didn't understand half of what was going on. (My appreciation has grown steadily as I got older and was able to follow more and more of the story, and grasp the significance of things like Fiver's surreal visions.) It's hard to put into words why I love it so much, but it's something to do with how perfectly it captures both the sadness and the beauty of nature and the cycle of life. I find it incredibly moving these days and cry every time I watch it. Even hearing you quote all those wonderful lines in the podcast gave me goosebumps!

Like Rosey, I failed in my first attempt to read the book as a youngster (I got bored with all the scenery descriptions), but liked it very much as an adult. I read it in 2007 and haven't yet revisited it, so I don't remember every detail, but I hugely enjoyed learning more about the Lapine language and the characters' thoughts and motivations, plus all the extended scenes in Cowslip's warren, etc. It also made me realise what a fantastic job they did with the film adaptation, making the necessary alterations while still retaining the right *feel* of everything. Both versions of the story are brilliant in their own way. The end of the book had me crying floods as well.

I guessed that the film-makers had introduced (and then killed off) Violet because it seems a bit short-sighted to leave the warren without any females, but that's just my own assumption! The scene with the hawk is a good addition I think, illustrating how peril is never far away when you're a rabbit ("Prince with a thousand enemies...")

Love the whole cast of the film, they all did such a great job - Denholm Elliott's distinctive voice is an inspired choice for Cowslip. Michael Graham-Cox (Bigwig) was also the voice of Boromir in Lord Of The Rings, another childhood favourite of mine. And I can't imagine a better Hazel than John Hurt (who can apparently do no wrong), or a better Fiver than Richard Briers. It probably goes without saying that Zero Mostel's Kehaar is an amusing highlight!

I vaguely remember trying the CITV series and not liking it - I think I gave up on it after a couple of episodes, though it's possible I saw more and I've just forgotten / blocked it out! Will be "interesting" to see what the new one is like. I can't really see the point of it, since the original can hardly be improved upon (and I'm not keen on them removing all the violence to make it more kiddy-friendly), but I'll probably watch out of curiosity...

I was a big fan of The Animals Of Farthing Wood, so I'll be looking forward to your next episode too!

[TheOldenDays]

As promised, here this the second in our duo of fluffy animal snuff cartoon podcasts, The Animals of Farthing Wood: http://yourlisten.com/TheOldenDays/the- ... thing-wood

The Olden Days podcasts will continue to be released every other week for the foreseeable future, and I will check this post regularly to see if anyone wants to discuss anything or post any questions for us to answer.

[Canadanne]

I haven't seen it since the original broadcasts (with the possible exception of catching some Series 1 repeats in the late '90s or so?), but as previously mentioned, I loved The Animals Of Farthing Wood. I particularly adored Farthing Wood Friends (it was always so exciting when my Dad would bring home the latest edition from the newsagent!), and I also had the audio tapes and even the plaster casting kit, which I used a great deal. I do have the books but didn't really enjoy them much, and haven't read them since the TV show was on.

From what I can remember, the first series was by far the best (even if it did rip off Watership Down - I never noticed all those similarities!), and there was *some* good stuff in the second series; I seem to recall the Bold storyline being quite well done. I have very little memory of the third series but I think it had become a bit crap by then. Various new characters and scenes were revealed in the Farthing Wood Friends sticker book before we ever got to see them on telly, and none of it looked very promising (lots of cartoony farm animals and stuff), and indeed I wasn't impressed when the programme finally caught up!

It was a bit weird how they made Kestrel transgender...

Thanks for another fun podcast.

[Mashibinbin]

If you want the Animals of Farting Wood on dvd look no further...

https://www.amazon.de/Tiere-Wald-verlie ... e+den+wald

Can also be purchased from homegrown Amazon too

[Mashibinbin]

Now coming to UK dvd...

http://networkonair.com/shop/2553-anima ... 62147.html

[TheOldenDays]

Thanks for that - I'm sure we'll buy that upcoming DVD release before very long!

Some comparisons with Knightmare are included in this podcast on Incredible Games: http://yourlisten.com/TheOldenDays/the- ... ible-games

[Canadanne]

Incredible Games is one of those programmes I watched every week even though I never really felt it was living up to its potential. It seemed like it should have been awesome (the title certainly implied as much!), but it just... wasn't. Still, it was quite memorable, with the lift character (whom I remember as having weird yellow hair *and* an American accent, evidently confusing two different hosts), the alphabet soup game, the Dark Knight, the Victorian classroom game, and the penthouse endgame. Indeed I can't ever hear the word "penthouse" without thinking of this show.

By contrast, I don't remember the drawing programme at all...!

(I also have no recollection of Incredible Games being moved from Sundays to Tuesdays, even though I definitely watched both series. How curious.)

[Canadanne]

Oh wow, our tastes really differ on this latest one. The Iron Man is one of my all-time favourite books - my reading group at first school read it together and we all loved it. I watched The Iron Giant in 2004 and absolutely hated everything about it! Maybe it would have annoyed me less if the book didn't already hold such a special place in my heart, but I really disliked the way they changed the story completely, the Americanisation of it (complete with mocking Hogarth's name ), and how sappy it was - that whole "Superman" thing made me gag. Can't believe they didn't include *any* of the best scenes from the book! All the charm and beauty of it was lost. I was baffled when I later learned of the film's popularity.

Looking forward to the Narnia podcast; it'll be interesting to see if we have the same opinions about the various books and adaptations!

[Canadanne]

Looking forward to the Narnia podcast; it'll be interesting to see if we have the same opinions about the various books and adaptations!

Hmm, it turns out we don't agree on very much here either...!

I watched the BBC series at the time and had mixed feelings about it, I think - I didn't remember much apart from how grim it was, but I did get the full set of books for Christmas afterwards so I must have liked it to some extent. I certainly have fond memories of watching those Sunday dramas with my family whilst tucking into various teatime treats.

I wasn't sure if it was worth checking out the film version of TLTWATW as I'd never been all that keen on the book, but I saw it at the cinema and found it absolutely enchanting - I even stayed right to the end of the credits because I was enjoying the music so much, and later got the soundtrack CD. I thought the whole thing was flawless (apart from Dawn French being far too recognisable as the voice of Mrs Beaver), and I'm still impressed by it every time it's shown on TV. Tilda Swinton is just magnificent in that one. Such a shame the sequels were rubbish by comparison! Prince Caspian was so boring I could barely concentrate (and I couldn't understand half the dialogue), and they made so many unnecessary changes to TVOTDT instead of using all the great material from the book. :/ Will be interesting to see if the next film is any better when it eventually comes out... I agree it's a pity they didn't make The Silver Chair while Will Poulter was still young enough.

I re-read the books in 2010; TLTWATW is a good story but I still found the killing scenes too unpleasant. Prince Caspian was pretty uneventful. TVOTDT was one of my favourites this time around (I'm not sure if I finished it when I was little), so I was really looking forward to the film a few months later, but that was a huge disappointment as mentioned above. I couldn't get into The Horse And His Boy as a kid but appreciated it much more as an adult. The Silver Chair started out brilliantly and Puddleglum was hilarious, but most of the plot was way too predictable. The Magician's Nephew had always been my favourite book in the series by far, and it was every bit as good as I remembered - I so want to see a screen version of this! The Last Battle had a few decent moments but was largely dull and riddled with problems, especially the ending.

After that I rewatched the BBC adaptations, and found them very dated in appearance, with a lot of bad acting. I liked Aslan though. There were some serious goofs in The Silver Chair, and I didn't think Tom Baker did a very good job of capturing Puddleglum's dry humour, but I mentioned the giants as a highlight in my review.

Rosey's comment about TVOTDT starting well and then dropping off at the end sums up pretty much all of C.S. Lewis' books for me! They always tend to be fun until they trail off into some weird religious allegory. I think George Orwell complained about the same thing...

[Canadanne]

Regarding Look & Read - Dark Towers was the first one we did at school! (Never did The Boy From Space, though I've watched it as an adult because of John Woodnutt being in it.) The others we watched were Geordie Racer, Fair Ground and Badger Girl, but the only one I can remember anything about is Geordie Racer, probably because we appear to have done that one twice for some reason! (I still have my activity books for them all.) The details of the story escape me but I know it involved the Great North Run and a pigeon race, there was a character called Spuggy (as there was in Byker Grove, IIRC!), and bizarrely enough I do remember the pigeons being called Blue Flash and Perfect Lady. There was also something about a flooded causeway stranding the protagonists at a lighthouse, which was the first time I'd ever come across the word "causeway" so it always reminds me of this programme. And I remember the final exercise being to write our thoughts on all the characters, and I was the only person in my class who chose the criminal Victor as their favourite character rather than one of the good guys - I wrote that I felt sorry for the baddies because they always get caught in the end! Quite funny as I still tend to prefer villains to this day. The "magic e" song rings a bell, too. I've heard of Through The Dragon's Eye but I don't believe we ever watched it. (There's nothing about pomegranates in it, is there? I've long been driven crazy trying to remember where I first heard that word - I'm sure it was in some dragon-related story that was shown or read to us at school.)