Tim Worthington
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outonbluesix.bsky.social
Tim Worthington
@outonbluesix.bsky.social
4.2K followers 1.3K following 11K posts
Writer. Occasional Broadcaster. TV's 'Clangers Expert'.

timworthington.org
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outonbluesix.bsky.social
Most people probably associate Pinocchio with the loveable singing and dancing Disney version. They wouldn't if they'd seen the BBC's nightmarish screechy splintery effort...

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 17, 2025 at 1:06 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
The spooky supernatural tendencies of seventies children's television can sometimes be a little overplayed, but 1978's The Moon Stallion was pretty much as spooky as it gets, complete with a storyline that even *adults* struggle to fully understand...

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 17, 2025 at 9:04 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
TV THAT TIME FORGOT: Star Turn/Star Turn Challenge (BBC1, 1976-81)

Children's BBC celeb-driven Are You Being Served? Vs. The News parlour game improv smackdown fronted by Bernard Cribbins in the guise of notion-having deerstalker-adjusting detective Ivor Notion.
November 17, 2025 at 7:36 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
King Cinder - modishly Eddie Kidd slash Rockers Revival-surfing speedway-fixated oily revving around the Children's BBC schedules with a pre-Blue Peter Peter Duncan as the corruption-eschewing star of the circuit.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 17, 2025 at 7:01 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Say what you like about The Defenders, but it's got one of the best fight scenes I've seen in anything ever.

Actually, *don't* say what you like. I liked it and that's all there is to it.

timworthington.org/2020/08/25/i...
November 16, 2025 at 10:57 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
The Phoenix And The Carpet - 1976 Children's BBC E. Nesbit adaptation featuring a creaky clattery Professor Yaffle-esque puppet, screechy string quartet music and an absolute lorryload of Colour Separation Overlay. And a certain well-known Doctor Who fan.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 10:23 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Come Back Lucy - Children's ITV teatime horror spookiness about a relative-visiting girl who befriends a relative-visiting ghoul intent on dragging her back into the past to 'play'...

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 10:01 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Star Fleet - redubbed Japanese puppet/suitmation hybrid following the wildly caricatured crew of X-Bomber and massive punchtastic red robot Dai-X in their fight against Commander Makara's insecty forces, plus off-the-scale squiggly hair metal theme song.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 9:32 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Stop-Go! - mind-frazzling Children's BBC high-speed quick-cut mini-documentaries about vehicles and machinery at work, shot on hallucinogenically processed film stock and equipped with echo-saturated semi-urban sax-wailing yelly-vocal soft-rock theme song.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 9:29 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Nobody's House - spooktacular Children's ITV victorian phantom living with suburban family sitcom that had the misfortune to arrive at the same time as The Ghosts Of Motley Hall and Rentaghost, and nobody had a third mansion house needing haunting.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 4:17 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Ask The Family - Robert Robinson-helmed polite and highbrow BBC1 early evening family quiz show with logic bomb questions and close-up photo clues for 'eldest son only' and some of the weirdest music and graphics seen outside of a prog-rock triple album.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 3:59 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
How Dare You! - reheated Tiswas in game show form as John Gorman, 'Wizard Webb' and Floella Benjamin led kids through messy games and doled out prizes from the 'Goody Bin'. Later toned down with anarchic theme song replaced by tepid Five Star number.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 2:17 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Ulysses 31 - Greek Myth-riffing Franco-Japanese anime charting the titular Bee Gee-alike's search through space for the legendary Planet Earth, assisted by diminutive comedy robot No-No who only introduced himself the thirty four times in the theme song.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 1:03 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Mr. Rossi Looks For Happiness - soul-searching social-satirical mid-seventies adult audience Italian animation re-routed by early eighties Children's ITV about a man and dog on an emotional vision quest with melancholy yodelling samba theme song.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 11:41 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Aubrey - Children's ITV orange cartoon blob man prone to haplesness-fuelled exasperation - such as his car falling apart bit by bit in the opening titles - with a theme tune apparently played on tin cans equally apparently played by Mike Oldfield.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 16, 2025 at 10:08 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
TV THAT TIME FORGOT: The Max Headroom Show (Channel 4, 1985-87)

Putative World's First Computer Generated Chat Show Host - Matt Frewer in a sort of rubber wig - links the Sledgehammer video and interviews with Cutting Crew with glitchingly stuttered Reagan-baiting zingers.
November 16, 2025 at 8:43 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
November 16, 2025 at 8:39 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Buzzfax - 'Ceefax' takes over Saturday Morning television in a never repeated one-week-only experiment, setting interactive Radio Times-referencing puzzles and linking shows with blocky renditions of Davy Jones and Keyop.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 15, 2025 at 8:06 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
The Flashing Blade - swashbuckling redubbed French costume drama charting the sword-swingjng escapades of Francois, Chevalier de Recci, with an added galloping UK Psych theme song. Later given an extremely silly makeover by Russell T. Davies.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 15, 2025 at 4:08 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Bailey's Comets - sub-Hanna Barbera teenagers with no dog race across the world on rollerskates hoping to beat a load of not at all Wacky Races-inspired competitors to win... well they never did actually find out what.

timworthington.org/2025/10/23/t...
November 15, 2025 at 3:01 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Right... there must be *someone* out there who actually had their birthday read out by the hopping puppet menace on Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays. If you did, then let's hear all about it and exactly how much of a short-term local celebrity it made you...

timworthington.org/2024/05/28/l...
November 15, 2025 at 2:24 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Crown Court - thrice-weekly densely wood-panelled mid-afternoon cross-examination of 'off school'-spooking civic cases with actorly legislators and defendants and interactive jury made up of random members of the public and TWO terrifying theme tunes.

timworthington.org/2024/05/28/l...
November 15, 2025 at 1:09 PM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Is it possible to convincingly pass yourself off as fully conversant with the pop charts after listening to a single Now That's What I Call Music album a couple of times? Well, you can find out if and how well this experiment actually worked here...

timworthington.org/2024/05/28/l...
November 15, 2025 at 11:03 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
TV THAT TIME FORGOT: Bod (BBC1, 1975)

Derek Griffiths-yodelled Taoist tales of change returning success with Buddhist boy and his vocationally existentially fulfilled associates, interspersed with thoughts of milkshake-centred universal harmonist Alberto Frog and games of snap.
November 15, 2025 at 9:13 AM
outonbluesix.bsky.social
Oh good god almighty. Show us on the doll where Quote Unquote touched you.
November 15, 2025 at 1:06 AM