First of all, I would like to credit the website www.knightmare.com. The team over there have complied an incredible amount of information and resources about Knightmare and their website was invaluable to me in creating this video. Check them out when you get a chance! The longest video on the channel yet. Really enjoyed making this one and rewatching the entire series from start to end during the process. Please subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Enjoy everyone! 😃
It's a little after my time as I would have been 25 when the show started, but I remember seeing it on the telly. Was interested in the reference to the paintbox. Around that time, there was a series that invited 6 (iirc) artists to use the paint box to make art. I definitely remember David Hockney and Howard Hodgkin using the device, possibly Maggie Hambling. IIRC the graphics for many shows of the time were created on the artbox.
@@TheMightsparrow It was a quality era to have experienced as a child, cos even though we all knew it was mediocre-graphics for the time still, we still got excited by those "near-misses" with giant Tarantulas etc....
I would literally LEG IT HOME from primary school back in the 90's to bagsy the TV before my siblings even had a sniff of doing so themselves just to watch this show.
Same here. Rushed home from School for Knightmare. My Mum would make me toast with paste on each slice (those little jars of Beef or Salmon paste), and I’d eat it whilst watching Knightmare. Loved this show!
Lol - at 23:32 - that's my team as we guided him off the edge (not me, someone else). We managed to span 2 episodes, but died just at the start of our second appearance (which is shown here). I still have the scroll and a signed photo with Dungeon Master Treguard. An amazing time for me, such great memories of being on the show and staying in Norwich. We were all "celebrities" in our school for a couple of weeks, it was fun while it lasted. Thanks for the memories!
Awesome! There have been a couple of people commenting on this video saying they were on the show. I'm thinking in the future to have a bunch of you on for a group chat, kinda like a podcast I guess, and you can all share your memories from the show!
@@officialbackintheday Sounds like a plan! I can remember most of the behind the scenes stuff. My friend James (at the time) was the one in the helmet, so he'll know more of the dungeon side of things, but I definitely remember our quest and the mistakes we made along the way. Let me know how and when, and I'll be there!
How long setup was there between rooms? Did it get a bit tedious? Did all the cast switch out of character once a room had finished shooting or did they try to keep the illusion alive? I've got so many questions 😅
@@_BoojieBen Switch between rooms was around 15 to 20 minutes, I presume to setup any practical scenery and for actors to get prepped. They had a Commodore 64 in a break room, so we were playing on that between rooms. There was no interaction with any actors while they set up rooms, the ones in the dungeons just went to another room and Treguard left when we were ushered to the break room. We never saw anyone out of costume or out of character, so it kept the illusion going.
I was part of the team that beat the dungeon in series 5 (31:50). It was an amazing experience. It took a lot longer than it seemed on the TV. We would film each room and then go back to the.green room for 20 mins whilst the next room was set up. The whole thing took 4 days.
Fascinating, thank you for that insight. I always wondered how contiguous these environments were, if it was one giant warehouse or something. 😀 -But it's TV and nothing's real on TV.
I was absolutely confident nothing would put the fear into me when watching this (including the tarantula) and then I heard the words "goblin horn" for the first time in literally thirty years.
And they use it to this day at the end of Who Wants to be a Millionaire 😂. I always laugh and say "The goblins are coming!" to bemused looks from my family.
I was 8 years old when I first started watching Knightmare. I’m 43 now and if I ever open a door to somewhere new, or somewhere different I always say “Enter, Stranger” to my children before they walk in. I’ve been doing this for 13 years now, and my youngest one says it to me now. Great memories and thanks for the re-visit.
That's awesome. Whenever it's hot in summer, I always shout 'Will you start the fans, please!?' in the voice of Richard O'Brien before turning on my fan haha
Brilliant stuff. My kids go, "ooooh, naaaasty," If someone dies when they're playing videogames 😂 and if I lose my place when reading a book, I go, "where am I?" And they go, "You're in a room!"
I saw Knightmare Live at the Leicester comedy festival. Lord Fear was delightfully camp, and with every new location when the dungeoneer asked "where am I?" The whole theater answered "you're in a room."
We had a TV at home in our Living Room. It was a rental, had no remote control, and had to be tuned manually. At the time, Knightmare and Grange Hill slightly overlapped, and my older sister would always walk into the room and demand I change channel. An argument would ensue (we had no VCR either), and that usually meant I missed the end of Knightmare, and she missed the beginning of Grange Hill. Until that was, the day I secretly tuned all eight channels to ITV. When my sister strode into the Living Room, ready for the usual clash, I stayed on the sofa, perfectly happy. It took no time at all for her to realise what I'd done, and soon went running to tell our Mom on me. 100% worth it though, what a great show it was for a kid my age at that time to watch!
We got that one mini game in the Crystal Maze reboot. In the future zone there was a little game where you played it much like Knightmare. It's a small thing I know.
@@Mkbshg8Funhouse was awesome. And that Neil Bucannon one… not Art Attack… the one where kids wrecked rooms in a fake house looking for items, can’t remember the name.
I was the researcher on the last series of Gamesmaster in 1997. Great days. Knightmare was my all time favourite show as a kid. Anyone built a time travelling de Lorean yet.
47 might be the optimum age for this show. Fond memories of sitting and eating my tea, watching this with my Dad while he made sarky comments about the people on it. If they remade it now it'd only be us lot watching it, most kids don't watch regular TV anymore, it's RU-vid, Netflix or any other streaming service. I doubt if my kids have watched a regular TV programme in months!
Use to love watching this show after school. This show, T-Bag, trapdoor, Grange Hill, he-man, bananamam, Emu & grottbags, dungeon and dragons, thunder cats, Fun house, Dogtanion & friends, crystal maze, list goes on and on, man I miss the 80’s and early 90’s shows. Great memories.
We had a blind lady at the end of the street and her back garden was all square slabs & If she was in her garden we'd often see her from the field where we played and we would all go up to the back fence & give her directions around the slabs to help her pick up the dog mess from her guide dog, we treat it like a game of Knightmare & she enjoyed the conversation.
That's awesome. I can imagine the real world perils she could have stepped in if your adventure team's instructions were not clear and on point. "Spellcasting: P O O P E R S C O O P E R"
I spelt nightmare, knightmare until I was 18 because of this show. Watching this program as a child, it truly felt magical and thrilling. A very happy childhood memory.
This and Crystal Maze were top tier children’s TV. I know I sound old but, they just don’t make tv shows like the used to. It’s all the same reality tv nonsense these days. I’m grateful I grew up with magical programs like Knightmare
Same! Literally every time I write it, I start with a "k" then immediately correct myself, but always reminded of the show and the Amiga/ST game that came out a little later.
Lord of the rings Cartoon. Star wars. Knightmare. Heroquest. Space crusade. Warhammer 40k. These are some of the things that makes me the person i am today. And I'm grateful for this Adventure in life.
Lord of the Rings - book and radio play (the film then was an unfinished cartoon), Fighting Fantasy books, Lone Wolf, Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Dungeons & Dragons, and Middle-Earth Role-Playing
Someone’s uploaded every episode to RU-vid, and I’m rewatching them on my lunch break. Genuinely brilliant stuff, perfect for kids. And the adults they became
As a 43 year old male, I could talk all day abut how much this show means to me. Its a tired expression to say "they don't make them like this anymore". But there really has never been anything even close to the magic Knightmare created every week. Some shows have tried with different formats (anyone remember Cyberzone with Craig Charles?) 🙂, but none have come even remotely close to Knightmare. As someone who also grew up playing 'Hero Quest', this show felt like it was made just for us and what a moment in time it was. Thankyou, subbed. Oh also just to add, One of my favourite regular moments was when the team were spying on lord fear and lord fear would finish his monologue then 'sense' someone was watching him and would look directly in camera and his eyes would start to turn red and treguard would shout to put down the spyglass like it was life or death, genuinely scared me sh**less! classic
@@davidd9976 or the actual song from the TV show countdown, but only if you lived a boring life that goes hand in hand with tune, sort of a dull end to a dull life.
I remember witnessing the first team to beat the dungeon. My jaw dropped; it seemed like no one was ever going to do it. I remember asking friends at school the next day if they'd seen it, and the ones who hadn't were GUTTED!
My favorite show as a kid. Brings back great memories of walking around the house with a pan on my head taking direction from my mum. Nostalgia gets you in the feels at times.
I found Knightmare terrifying as a kid. I remember loving the intro but getting so stressed and scared, especially when seeing the person's health being chipped away to reveal a skull. Brilliant series, even if it repeatedly scared me into changing the channel!
Great video! I had the pleasure of meeting Hugo in 1987/88 in WH Smith in Croydon (of all places) where he was sat in his Treguard gear looking understandably bored as everybody walked by, ignoring him. My sister and I were aged 8 and 10 respectively and were both big fans of the show (which was fairly new at that time) and were extremely shy as we approached him. He immediately perked up and signed the original Knightmare book for us. After he signed it, he breathed on his signature (presumably to dry the ink) and said “A bit of dragon’s breath for you!!!” which was rather random but made us both laugh! I’m pleased to say that I still have the book today. Hugo, if you’re reading this, thanks for the fond memories and I hope you’re keeping well.
I have never in my life looked forward to a show, as much as I looked forward to Knightmare. It's still one of the best things I've ever watched. Thank you for this video.
I'm a 90's child so this was a bit earlier than my time, BUT it was rerun throughout that decade and into the 2000s from what I remember and I loved it! This is one of those shows that is etched permanently into my memory with foundness and awe at the time. This would do well I think if they relaunched it.
I know children of all generations say their childhood was the best but what I can say categorically is that my childhood watching this was so special as our expectations weren’t high like todays kids, we waited for games to load we waited for knightmare every week, we waited for the monthly Sega Power, we waited for all these things because it gave us eminence anticipation and appreciation. I love today’s technology but kids expect too much these days and everything is all about ‘now’ and they can have it now. This takes away a lot of the fun for me. We are are the only generation that has seen life without smart phones, social media and the World Wide Web, this in my opinion makes us very special as we are the last generation that lived through the past into the digital future. By the way it’s 2024 and I’m 45 years young!
Impossible to state the love I have for this show and its importance in my desire for perpetual youth. Great documentary and magnificent programme. Thank you
Serious anxiety when watching Knightmare. The relief when a team escaped a close call was intense. No other TV show has ever given me that reaction on such a consistent basis. And what a brilliant documentary. Thanks for making it!
Though I'd never really connected Knightmare to my eventually playing Dungeons and Dragons, a hobby I've now been involved in for over 25 years, watching this, while planning my next Dungeons and Dragons adventure, has now made me wonder if perhaps it was this wonderful show that first got me on the path toward one of my longest-lived hobbies.
Four of my friends from Bath were on this show (one of the last series), they hyped up the whole school to watch it. But then they literally died right at the start and were immediately replaced by the next team…
Wow,i adored this programme as a kid. Cult classic is spot on. Absolutely everyone i knew at that time literally got home as quickly as possible to watch it. 80's tv was amazing.
Knightmare, The Adventure Game, The Crystal Maze, and Star Strider. Back when kids actually had imagination, and not stare dumbly at a tablet or phone on social media or watch banal, inane and often disgusting, ridiculous "reality tv". I bloody loved these shows, still have a special place in my heart for them. Kids now would be like "it's old! It's boring! Nothing's happening! It's stupid", back then, to our generation, this was the top tier...and we all absolutely loved it, rightfully so. Knightmare brought classic games like HeroQuest, Atmosfear and D&D to life and to the masses. The team who created it were genius, and whoever cast Hugo Myatt as Tregard 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 there are big name actors who suited this type of show who could have been an easy choice: Brian Blessed, Robert Powell, Geoffrey Bayldon, Michael Gough, Richard E Grant, Robbie Coltrane to name a few, but they cast a brilliant yet relatively unknown actor with Hugo.....the guy is MADE for this role! Every actor they cast was perfect. It was truly excellent. And who can forget that traumatizing "skull" countdown.... Hugo playing Tregard is akin to Arnie playing Terminator, Sigourney as Ripley, Peter Weller as Robocop...... it's just so right
@@lornarettig3215 do you remember The Adventure Game? That was awesome! Every word in it was an anagram of DRAGON. The currency in it was these plastic tokens called Drogna, the contestants were greeted with Drango Drango! The main host was called Argond. If I remember correctly, the host was an aspidistra plant that shook its leaves and became Moira Stewart, the newsreader!!!!! Experimental TV at it's finest! And who could forget the endgame .... The dreaded VORTEX Warga warga to you too matey
Kids now are obsessed by instant gratification, rapidity and quick fixes. They don't want steps leading to an eventual process and even moreso as back then computer use was in its infancy. 😐 I took part in a very special unaired version and was "Imagine trying to do this in my work! I'd have parents blowing up in my bloody face over why their son Anwar or daughter Taylor didn't win all the time."
@@natalyafisher2571 you're absolutely right. They want the result with no effort, despite the fact, that the effort along the way (in Knightmare for example) you met new characters, found new areas, found new items, saw more of the world and lore, and so on. Kids just want WIN NOW or throw a tantrum, or spend money unnecessarily in game to get an item NOW rather than work for it. I'm a gamer myself, but I NEVER speedrun or rush through a game, I play in sections, save, and come back later. I do it to explore, look for secrets, new areas etc. I've just got into VR, and it's the same again.
Old fart here, just turned 49. Knightmare was massive when originally shown during my 1980's childhood. Secondary school was buzzing with Knightmare talk every week it was on. Personally I absolutely loved Series 1 to 3 but didn't like the direction Series 4 took. Amazing whilst it lasted and thankfully we have access to episodes on RU-vid. Long live Treguard, and the Dungeon.
At 7 years old The only chance i got to watch it was on the tv in the community centre cafe whilst my friends sister and mine did ballet. We took that time to stop inflating orange cartoons and jumping in them in the corridors or searching for coins in the cushions to buy a wham bar from the vending machine. I remember just once a group of grown adult people turned it over to the foot ball. I completely forgot any fear and went over to the bar and basically said me and my friend NEED knightmare out back on. When we were refused let me just say that two wham bars later we unleashed an unbreakable reign of sabotage and terror in popping empty cartons outside yoga classes and messing around in the lifts out of pure rage
I actually passed my GCSE English by writing a creative story based on Knightmare lol, Sylvester Hands was my favourite character, I feel sorry for kids now they grow up way too quickly imo.
I still think one of the best moments on Knightmare, that's often overlooked is the flubbed up dispelling of "SHROUD" where the team momentarily forgot the letter O existed, causing Tregard to intervene by groaning "Letter O!" I met a lot of the cast, Tim Child and David Rowe at the first (and only) Knightmare Convention in Norwich. Excellent retrospective, you've got yourself a sub from me!
I knew the kid sitting on the left in the infamous Simon Sidestep episode. Used to go to a Dungeons and Dragons group in Bridgend. While everyone was playing RPG’s ,Jason was one if not the first person that was into Warhammer. When I settled down to watch this episode and he came on,I immediately ran to my mates house (who was also in the group) Luckily he was only the other end of the street so I flew. Remembering banging the door and shouting “Paul,Paul..Jason Squeeky is on Knightmare,let us in” Good times!
I absolutely loved this show when I was a kid, especially when the evenings were drawn in and it was darker outside as that made it feel like a campfire setting. It was impossible to not be immersed in this show and get caught up in the whole vibe. I'd often finish watching it and still be in that headspace for hours after. Excellent stuff.
The only show I ever applied to go on! (didn't get on...sad times).....Propelled me into a life of table-top role playing games, LARP and later online gaming, and I'm 46 now! :)
One of the greatest TV shows, not just kids TV shows, of all time! I was so lucky to have been young enough to see it in my time. Spellcasting... T H A N K Y O U
Hugo Myatt's voice is the sound of my youth . . . This show was groundbreaking for its time and I loved every minute of it and it seemed to get even better when the night's got darker
Wow what a brilliant Documentary. I used to run home from school to watch this, back in 87 age 13 , one of may favs of my childhood. Well done, imagine if they did a VR version of Knightmare for 2024, Warning Team! nostalgia overload imminent! lol
Thanks for covering this, this show was pretty much the last children's tv show I watched from my late teens, i used to set the vhs to record every episode whilst I was working. I'm now in my fifties and it still looks looks good today in 2024.
A few years ago there was a comedic version done by fans on tour called 'Knightmare Live' I was fortunate enough to see it and honestly if they ever come back to doing it, I'm going to get as many people as i can together to go see it. While it didn't have the original cast, it had the heart of it and was worth seeing.
I was a young teenager when Knightmare started, I watched it through the first few series. But then out grew it (as girls were more interesting...), but I still had a bit of a soft spot for it and watched it every now and then. Strange to think that series six started on the exact day my dad died and the series carried on until the year I became a dad for the first time in 1994. I tried to get my kids to watch the various repeats, but they weren't interested as it was old hat by then. Especially when they had the Playstation, etc. that looked a lot better.
CITV left terrestrial television on the 1st September 2023 after 40 years of televising our screen as the first children’s television debut on the 1st January 1983 until 2 years before I was born on the 5th July 1985. I remembered catching up with CITV when I was a boy during my school holidays in the late 1980’s 1990’s and the early 2000’s. Now CITV is televised on ITV2 and there really is the streaming service called ITVX Kids since the 4th September 2023 in the present.
Thank you so much for this wonderful retrospective! I'm of the age where Knightmare was must-see TV and still enjoy watching the show today. It was an incredible programme!
"You're in a room," 😂 but on a serious note, this was awesome. And probably a big reason I love RPG games so much they nailed it with Knightmare and great memories crowding around the TV in the early 90's
I was 17 when this first aired, a little older than its target demographic, but I still enjoyed it immensely. I also enjoyed watching this video, well done!
This is my childhood right here. I remember a few years ago when the TV channel Challenge showed a huge run of Knightmare and it was glorious to revisit as an adult. I remember they showed Fun House and Finders Keepers as well. God I miss those days where Challenge didn't just air The Chase 99% of the day.
Ah Finders Keepers, I was trying to remember what that show was called. Finders Keepers, Fun House, Knightmare, Crystal Maze and the Krypton Factor those were my favourite game shows as a kid.
35 now and still watch the old episodes on RU-vid! It definitely played a part in my lifelong obsession with adventure games and all things medieval ❤ thanks for this video, that nostalgia hit hard!
My school was one of the few to win, with my friend Mary on the team. the lad who wore the helmet lots of kids shouted at him “where am I?” For quite a while after
I purchased the David Rowe book after watching this, and it is amazing. I was so happy. It truly is an incredible book to own for anyone who is a fan of Knightmare and for those who study or work in the creative industry such as myself.
This and Game Master were two of my favourites as a kid, loved the shows. I bet they could easily do a VR version now given how far it's come, shame the nanny state and all the helicopter parents most likely wouldn't allow it.
This was orders of magnitude of gold. I showed it to my daughter a few years back, she was unimpressed. But what do they have for kids telly these days, youtube and tiktok? Knighmare was all sorts of creative and challenging. So so good, so original. Otherwise known as, things were better back in my day!
Ahh...the days of getting home from Infant & Junior school and "Knightmare" was on...then we'd switch over to watch "Newsround" & "Grange Hill", whilst waiting for my tea....
Looking at fan made content from America about Knightmare it became clear to me that it was the one show that American kids wished they had access to growing up which really points to how groundbreaking it was. Like many comments on here I have great memories of legging it off the school bus, up a very steep hill (I walked it a few weeks back as a 40+ year old and have no idea how I once sprinted it without stopping with a heavy school bag on my back) to my house, quickly sorting out what was for tea with my mum and just plonking myself on the carpet in front of the TV waiting for that amazing 80's theme song to start while my mum chastised me for sitting too close to the telly, "you'll get square eyes" was her usual threat 😂. An incredible show that really nourished a child's imagination as to what was possible in those heady days of the late 80's and early 90's when technology was moving so quickly it seemed like we were only a few years away from getting hoverboards for Christmas. A magical time to be young
Thanks so much for the comment! Also, I'm not American haha! I am originally from Scotland but I've spent a lot of time overseas so my accent is a bit all over the place lol
@@officialbackintheday oh no, I know you're Scottish, I meant I've seen a lot of Americans reviewing it on here and it's always unanimous praise from them which is rare for a British kids show
Brilliant look back at one of my most fondest TV shows. You did an excellent job here mate and you deserve far more subs and views for the quality you put in. Liked and subbed, look forward to the adventure that awaits!
I have a memory from one of the earlier seasons that has stuck with me for life… they reach a room with one of the wells to the next level and Treguard appears to be there next to the well telling them to climb in. They turn to look at Treguard behind them and he’s frozen on his chair. Somehow they get the fake Treguard to reveal himself to be a witch in disguise and the well was her cauldron. I had a legit nightmare about that at some point and it still haunts me to this day, even after probably 35 years since I saw it.
You did forget a few extra things. Like the show having a few extra overseas variants. Including the French “Le chalivier du Labyrinth” and Spanish “El Rescate de Talisman” and the unaired American Pilot “Lords of the Game” which was shown during the Knightmare Convention. But other than that, nice retrospective. Also I actually own a copy of Art of Knightmare, but it was a special indiegogo campaign version which I paid for. Got some lovely swag too, including a print of one of the bomb rooms!
@@officialbackintheday I couldn't quite place your accent in any particular country, kind of a hybrid, and now it starts to make sense! Shame, the scottish accent is brill.
@@officialbackintheday aaaah I can hear it now! There is Scottish in there fo shizzle. Props to you regardless of where you grew up. Great video. Brought back a lot of fun memories!
