Knightmare facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Knightmare
Created by	Tim Child
Starring	See below
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	8
No. of episodes	112
Production
Running time	25 minutes
Production company(s)	Anglia Television
Distributor	ITV Studios
Release
Original network	CITV block of ITV
Picture format	4:3
Original release	7 September 1987 (1987-09-07) – 11 November 1994 (1994-11-11)

Knightmare is a British children's adventure game show, created by Tim Child, and broadcast over eight series on CITV from 7 September 1987 to 11 November 1994. The general format of the show is of a team of four children – one who takes on the game, and three acting as their guide and advisers – attempting to complete a quest within a fantasy medieval environment, traversing a large dungeon and using their wits to overcome puzzles, obstacles and the unusual characters they meet along the journey.

The show is most notable for its use of blue screen chroma key, an idea Child utilised upon seeing it being put to use in weather forecasts at the time the programme began, as well as its use of 'virtual reality' interactive gameplay on television and the high level of difficulty faced by every team. Broadcast to high viewing figures throughout its original run, it garnered a cult status amongst fans since its final television episode in 1994. It was revived for a one off special by YouTube in August 2013.

Format

One of the dungeon's many rooms

Each run of the game involves a team of four children, aged around 11–16, and focuses on the same format. One member takes on the game in person, referred to as the "Dungeoneer", but are made blind to their surroundings by the "Helmet of Justice" – a headpiece that blocks their field of vision to just around their feet. The other three act as their advisers, guiding them around, giving them advice to solving puzzles, and making notes on information received. Once the Dungeoneer is ready, they are sent off on their quest, which in most series requires the team to choose which one they will undertake, whereupon the action takes place within a blue screen chroma key studio that is used to display a partly computer-generated, partly hand-drawn fantasy dungeon – only the viewers and the Dungeoneer's advisers can see this. In some cases, filming of a run takes place in real locations, in which the viewpoint of these scenes is done to appear to be from that of the Dungeoneer's. The rest of the team remains in the main studio fashioned as an antechamber of "Knightmare Castle", and provide instructions and descriptions of a location to the Dungeoneer, much in the same fashion of text-based computer games which rely on description and commands rather than any visuals. An example of this could be that a room has a key for a locked door within, so the advisers would describe the room to the Dungeoneer and then instruct them to move towards the key, pick it up, and use it on the door to exit the room.

The objective of the game is for the team to complete three levels of a specially made dungeon designed for them; each team faces a new dungeon of a different design, but with similar features recurring during a series. Each level consists of a number of rooms – some with puzzles, obstacles and challenges that have to be overcome – and a selection of inhabitants – some will help out, while others will either hinder the player unless they give them something they require, or attempt to stop them and end their game. In some cases, the team faces more than one exit, and usually must make a choice about which way to go. Every dungeon has a selection of objects, some of which will help to solve puzzles or get past certain inhabitants, while others are decoys, as well as magic spells – a single word that can be used to solve puzzles, get around hazards and dangerous inhabitants, which require an adviser to spell out the word correctly (i.e. if the spell is Light, then the adviser needs to say L-I-G-H-T).

Each team is required to complete their game within a time-limit, which is represented by an on-screen animated life force meter for the Dungeoneer that depletes over time; the meter is only ever seen by the viewers, but the advisers receive clear hints about its status when they need to take care. Because the amount of time given is not enough, the team must get the Dungeoneer to checkpoints within the dungeon and have them pick up a food item and place it within a knapsack given to them before they begin their run, which restores the Dungeoneer's life-force to full upon doing so. If the team make mistakes that allow the Dungeoneer to take "damage" from minor monsters or hazards, they incur a time penalty, that reduces the amount of time they have to complete the game. If the Dungeoneer runs out of life-force, the game is over; the game is also over if the team makes a bad decision and take a wrong route into a dead end, or the Dungeoneer is "killed" by an enemy character, monster or trap or "falls" into a pit. The appearance of the life-force meter varied during the course of the show's history:

• Up until the end of the fifth series, the meter was a computer animated image of an adventurer wearing a helmet. As life-force depletes, pieces of the helmet disappears from the meter, then the skin of the adventurer, and then the skull, until finally the eyes roll past the camera. The background of the image also changes – green when healthy, amber when it moderate, and red when life-force is low. This meter was used again in the one-off YouTube remake.
• In the sixth and seventh series, the meter was represented by an animated picture of a walking knight, which loses pieces of its armour over time to reveal a skeleton, which eventually crumbles to bits.
• In the final series, the meter was represented by an animated picture of a pie, in which each slice of it slowly dissolves over time.

If the team manages to complete all three levels, they are awarded with their prize, which changed over the years of the show's history. Unlike most other children's shows, Knightmare had no qualms over having a very high difficulty level, and as a result, only eight teams managed to win the game over its eight series. Regardless of whether a team wins or fails, they leave the show once their game is over, and a new team takes their place. This continues until the final episode of the series, whereupon the last team playing in that episode will often always be given an impossible situation that they will fail, in order to allow the series to end. Because each episode is designed to be twenty-five minutes long, should a team's run exceed beyond an episode, editing is done to freeze the action towards the end, and then unfreeze at the beginning of the next episode (referred to in the series context as "temporal disruption").

Characters

A Saxon Knight named Treguard, or Treguard of Dunshelm, was the dungeon master and was played by Hugo Myatt for the show's eight series. Information about his supposed background can be found in the related literature (see merchandise section). During the show, it was Treguard's job to assist the dungeoneer and his team of helpers wherever possible, also explaining a team's cause of death whenever they died.

At first, Treguard directed the contestants on his own. However, from Series 4, Treguard had an assistant: Pickle the elf, played by David Learner, and (from Series 7) after Pickle had "gone back to the forest", Majida, a princess and genie of Arabian descent played by Jackie Sawiris. (Majida originally claimed her name was "Daughter of the Setting Moon Whose Eyes are Like Daggers in the Hearts of Men Who Ride the Great Caravan of the Sultan".)

During the early series Treguard was portrayed as a neutral character, most notably between Series 1 and 3. During the start of Episode 14 of Series 3 (when no team had yet completed that series' dungeon) he went as far as to say "we're celebrating an unbeaten record", apparently siding against the dungeoneers. However, from Series 5 onwards there was a clear distinction made between 'The Powers that Be' and 'The Opposition', against which Treguard became less neutral, and more inclined to aid the dungeoneers to complete their quest.

Over the course of the series Treguard became known for his catchphrase "Ooh, nasty!", regularly used just after a team had died. Intended only as a passing remark, this was originally an ad lib by Myatt.

In its early series, Knightmare lacked a single major antagonist or 'baddie'. Indeed, originally Treguard was specifically a neutral character, neither on the side of good nor evil. The closest there was to a main villain was Mogdred (portrayed by John Woodnutt), but his main duty was (according to wizard Merlin in the penultimate episode of Series 2) to "scare you into making a mistake", though he did kill two dungeoneers, one in Series 2 and another early in Series 4. In Series 5 (1991), however, changes were made. The majority of the characters were split into two sides: the righteous "Powers that Be", and the villainous "Opposition", the leader of which was Lord Fear played by Mark Knight. By this time, Treguard's stance had now fully evolved into that of a strictly good character.

In 2014 Hugo Myatt lent his "Treguard" voice to the heavy metal band Evil Scarecrow's album Galactic Hunt for the track Enter the Knightmare, whose lyrics are based on the 1980s TV show.

Transmissions

Repeats

After Knightmare ended on ITV, it was quickly picked up by The Sci-Fi Channel, which broadcast all eight series starting from the channel's launch in November 1995. However, ratings were low, perhaps exacerbated by the satellite sharing that meant UK fans were unable to receive the Sci Fi Channel at the times when the show was being broadcast. (Cable television was also relatively uncommon in the UK at this time, and completely unavailable in some areas, further limiting the show's existing fanbase.) Sci-Fi's contract ran out on 31 October 1998. Knightmare's only appearances on television after that were as clips in "40 Years of Anglia" in 1999, and Channel 4's 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows in 2001, where it came 16th, the highest position on the list for a game show.

In the United States, Series 5 and 6 were shown for a short time on local Long Island, New York independent station WLNY.

In December 2002, the UK satellite channel Challenge held a group of programmes called the "Christmas Cult Selection", featuring a group of classic game shows from the 1960s (The Golden Shot) right through to the 1980s. Knightmare was included in this, and the repeats started on 23 December 2002, with Series 3, Episode 1 preceded by a short 2.5-minute documentary featuring Tim Child and Hugo Myatt. Just over a week later, Knightmare went on to reach first place in an Internet poll held by Challenge, asking viewers to decide the best show out of the Cult Selection.

Reasonable ratings, combined with the high fanbase, ensured that the other seven series went on to be bought and shown over the next two years. It took until 8 July 2004 for all the episodes to be shown, when Episode 16 of Series 2 was broadcast 563 days after the repeats started. Knightmare continued to run on Challenge until 31 March 2007, when the rights to the series expired. By this time only five of the eight series were still being repeated, as the rights to Series 3 expired at the end of 2004, Series 4 on 31 May 2006, and Series 5 on 30 September 2006, the latter two following a final showing of those series.

On 5 and 6 January 2013, the final two episodes from Series 7 were shown on the CITV channel as part of its 'Old Skool Weekend', which celebrated 30 years of ITV's programming block for children. According to Radio Times, Knightmare was the second most watched programme during the 'Old Skool Weekend', only being beaten by Fun House.

On 22 April 2013, Challenge announced that they have re-acquired the first two series of Knightmare. The re-run began its transmission on 10 May 2013 at 10:30pm, shown as part of their 'Late Zone' strand. These repeats now have the ITV Studios logo at the end rather than the Anglia logo.

On 29 June 2015, Challenge announced that they have also re-acquired the third and fourth series. The re-run started airing on 25 October 2015 at 10:00am.

Cast