does anyone remember tales of the unexpected?

[nikkershaw]

i watched a really odd one today, about a boy who saved a turtle then went off on it forever, was really odd.

portofino - thats the one i always remember too. i used to lie in bed picturing being in the coffin. wasn't there one about a woman locking her husband in a sauna and turning it up full power?

There was one called "The House that Bled To Death". That scared the living fuck out of me as a child, to the point of almost ending up with a phobia about banging pipes. God knows why I kept watching them.

There is nothing that scarey on now,is there?
I remember the Hammer bunnies episode vaguely-I just remember dead rabbits and being really scared.

somebody once plagiarised the leg of lamb story in a short story competition in a women's magazine - & won (of course!!!)

The Unexpected story I always loved was the sneaky antique dealer who came across a huge Chippendale (?) dresser in an old farmhouse & offered them a few pounds to take it off their hands for firewood - he went off to fetch his car from way down a long country lane, they talked amongst themselves & decided he'd never fit it into his car & wouldn't give them the money, so they chopped it up for him before he came back

I always thought that nudey flame girl at the beginning looked like Lady Di......

Der-der-der Dah Dah Dah! der-der-der Dah Dah Dah!

(that was the theme tune, just in case you didn't realise)

I have a couple of the Roald Dahl books that the stories were based on, re-read them recently. Just brilliant. Particularly love the leg of lamb, the woman who managed to covertly kill her horrible husband in the stuck lift, and the man who threw hiself overboard from an ocaean liner to win a bet.

We actually had to read the stories for English GCSE - how cool is that? I remember the lamb one, and the dresser one (I thought he just cut the legs off, 'cos they kept going on about how it wouldn't fit in their car? ).

I don't remember the bee one at all.

buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(that's the bee one)

A dvd would be a great idea for a Christmas present, for that friend/relative of a certain age, thanks for bringing it up! I'm off to Amazon right now!

The theme tune is so distinctive. I was so young and absolutely scared witless everytime I watched it (sneakily)

Ahhh memories are made of this....

Snorbs. I just read through the thread to see if anyone mentioned the 'bleeding' pipes!! I couldn't rememeber if it TofTU or HH?

And Agentzigzag asked me on another thread yesterday why I didn't like Horror Movies. Here is the answer!!!!

Yes. Banging pipes. Birthday party. Blood. Nightmares for months.

You could be right that it was a Hammer Horror one rather than a ToTU. Whatever it was, though, it was Not Good.

Geraldine - I remember that thing about the abandoned school.I think Miranda Richardson played the wife.Don't think it was a Tales of the Unexpected though - it was about an hour long.It absolutely scared me shitless - didn't spooky little girl keep singing Lord of the Dance or something?

Just googled - series was called Unnatural Causes & was shown in 1986.

loved hammer house of horrors
always watched them if i stayed at my grandparents scared me stupid especially when it was bedtime as she lived in a huge 3 story house and i used to sleep on the 3rd floor by myself and the house was supposedly haunted

As soon as I saw the thread title, I remembered the Turtle one. A friend of my mum's played a body in one once, she worked at Anglia TV and just got asked to lie under a sheet for a bit one day. I think she still gets the occasional (very small) royalty cheque.

Sapphire and Steel scared me but not as much as Maelstrom. That terrified me so much I avoided all 'scary telly' for years including missing Twin Peaks!

the turtle one is deffo a roald dahl story#

tales of unexpected music fabbbo. the only one I remember is where a woman (actress?) was going out with a v rich man but he was going to dump her and she wasn't having it. So she decided to do a suicide bid, but her best friend was to take a letter to the man saying what she planned, man would save her and she would have ensnared him. So she takes pills, and next scene is friend coming out of the place, putting the envelope in teh letterbox, and going off down the road with the man

I can remember that like is was yesterday.

That thing with the girl with no mouth (twilight zone?) still bothers me TBH.

I think it's because her eyes were all bloodshot and she was just by herself in front of the telly. With no mouth...

I think it affected me so much as I imagined if my little bro had super-powers he might have given that idea some consideration

Yes that's it, Unnatural Causes, SalopianGirl!! youre a genius, yy Lord of the Dance. So terrifying.

Malestrom, soooo scarey too. My sister used to hiss "saphire and steeeeeeel" at me when she was feeling particularly evil, it used to scare the crap out of me.

Oooh you should all go and get the Roald Dahl short stories that they were originally based on, brilliant. I remember watching them a year or two ago and they are so dated but so good!
And whoever devised the credits was a genius. Wonder if it was the same person who designed the box cover to the game Mastermind?!

I can remember Quiet as a Nun about ghostly nuns with no faces, having googled it its from Armchair Thrillers not Tales of the Unexpected. Seems to have been about 1978 when I was ten, cant believe I watched it, was quite scary nightmare stuff. Salems lot was on around then too, shouldnt have watched that either!!!

Me too ISN'T. And he put her in the cartoon too. And the parents were so scared of him. A really good, dark take on something children imagine.. I wish etc

The only 2 Tales of the Unexpected I remember are:

Hitchhiker with a razor sharp finger nail

Woman who murders husband with frozen leg of lamb which she cooks and serves to the police investigating the case.

Sapphire and Steel anyone?

I remember the one about the wee girl and the old woman who helped her only to find that the woman was helping the dirty old man cos he came in to the kitchen once the tea was poured (the wee girl had got off the bus early to avoid him). Obviosly I didn;t pic up on it at the time, though it wasn't pleasant viewing. So much creepier now