Trap Door

TRAP DOOR
Made by: Queensway Productions
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: 1986

Theme tune:“Don’t you open that trap door/You’re a fool if you dare/Stay away from that trapdoor/Cos there’s something down there…!”

“Somewhere in the dark and nasty regions where nobody goes stands an ancient castle. Deep within this dank and uninviting place lives Berk, overworked servant to The Thing upstairs- But that’s nothing compared to the horrors that lurk beneath The Trapdoor, for there is something down there in the dark, waiting to come out…”

So began each episode of Trap Door, one of the featured cartoons on Number 73, which has been repeated sporadically for over ten years. Narrated by Willie Rushton, this was a clay animation about Berk, a blue blob of a character, who lived with his hyper-active pet Drutt (of undetermined species), and his pal, Boni, a skull who was always full of doom and gloom. Berk was the put-upon manservant of the unseen Thing Upstairs, which always needed feeding, and was particularly partial to a certain vegetable called Thort. There were a few other weirdo characters around too, including Bubo, an irritating yellow thing with a hole in its head, and the friendly monster, Rog.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 3/10

(Thanks to www.durham21.co.uk for the borrowed pic)

Transformers

TRANSFORMERS
Made by: Filmation
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: 1984

Most people will remember the toys better than they will the cartoon series: they were heavily advertised, expensive, and if you twisted part of them the wrong way - which was easily done - an arm or leg fell off, never to be repaired again. There was a feature-length film made of these ‘Robots in Disguise’, with such credible artists as Orson Welles and Eric Idle on vocal duties, but the TV series was made with slightly less care and cash. Basically, the Transformers were robots, waging a war between good and evil, who could masquerade as ordinary, every day vehicles. The chief goodie was the grandly-named Optimus Prime, who lived in a dormant volcano, and his principal adversary was Megatron, leader of the Decepticons (name was a bit of a give-away, really), who lived in an elaborate desert complex, and was assisted by Ravage and Soundwave. Soundwave had to be the most useless of Transformers, as his alternative guise was as a tape-recorder, which obviously made him completely immobile, and reliant on someone wanting to play the latest Michael Jackson single. There was also Ironhide, some kind of people-carrier, and various other helicopters, juggernauts and milk-floats; but this was very definitely a boys’ cartoon, unless you were a girl into cars, guns, robots and sparse plot-lines. Boys didn’t care - they were too busy smashing their Transformers into each other and breaking various vital components. Strangely, Hollywood director Michael Bay thinks that the Transformers are due a revival (surely he's in a small minority?), and they're due to make their live action film debut in 2007.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 2/10

(Thanks to www.classickidstv.co.uk for the borrowed pic)

Tottie or The Story of a Doll's House

TOTTIE OR THE STORY OF A DOLL'S HOUSE
Made by: Smallfilms
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1984-6

Based on books by Rumer Godden, this weighty and sometimes sombre stop-motion animation focused on the toy dolls belonging to sisters Emily and Charlotte Dane. The girls had an ornate doll’s house, whose inhabitants were happy and carefree: there was Mr Plantaganet, his cheerful and dreamy wife, Birdie, and their sweet little son, Apple. Also living with them was Tottie, a wooden, painted doll, who was thoughtful and sensible and, despite being the daughter-figure, really kept the house together. In spite of the contented existence that the dolls had, there was always a feeling of foreboding, because the dolls were never in control of their own destiny - they had to wish very hard and hope that good things would happen. Sadly, they didn’t. The Dane girls were given an antique porcelain doll called Marchpane, who they place in the house with the Plantaganets, and she was an evil cuckoo in the nest from day one. She openly schemed to become foremost in Emily and Charlotte’s affections, loathed Birdie’s open and trusting nature, detested Mr Plantaganet’s feebleness, and did her very best to lead Apple astray and turn him against his mother. Having gained the measure of her house-mates, Marchpane used the dolls’ house lights, which contain real paraffin, to start a fire, and trap Apple. She guessed that Birdie would try to save her little boy, and knew that Birdie was made of cellulose and would burn very quickly and easily - and that was exactly what happens. Birdie saved Apple, but became a martyr in doing so, meaning that Tottie becomes perhaps the first programme aimed at small children to contain a murder. Tottie was a beautifully filmed, thoughtfully made series, but it was terribly, terribly upsetting, and made you realise just how helpless dolls would be if they were really alive, and how reliant on a ‘higher power’, in this case the fickleness of two little girls. There is something very Ibsen-esque about Tottie (Henrik Ibsen wrote a play called The Dolls’ House, of course), and its vision of fate and predestination; and Marchpane is like Hedda Gabler - vain, controlling and destructive. Heavy stuff. You should never have watched this without a) your mother present or b) valium handy.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 6/10

(Thanks to www.smallfilms.co.uk for the borrowed pic)