While the kids were watching BBC’s Swashbucklers, a very low-stakes and gentle kid’s game show where not-very-menacing pirates gently prod children into completing an obstacle course, Dr Glass said “in MY day (the 1980s) the children would simply be tormented in a dungeon by a menacing, filthy actor who did NOT appear to be joking”
I invited him to continue to explain whatever nightmarish facet of British culture had just occurred to him, and he was like “it was actually called Knightmare. They would put a prototype virtual reality helmet on a child, so they were blind, and a panel of their friends would have to steer them around, and all the adult actors were chewing the scenery – it was mildly stressful! and the adults did NOT want the kids to win.”
I was like, “are you sure this isn’t some mis-remembered dungeons and dragons thing?” Neither of us have played it, and in his wild youth Dr Glass was far more likely to be lying about his age in a pub, but the more elaborate he became (“you had to put food in your knapsack – the dragon puppets were frankly terrifying – the more I think about it, the more alarmingly advanced the CGI must have been”), the more I was convinced, except surely this is the sort of thing everyone would have heard of, right?
No, apparently, he wasn’t making it up.
Knightmare was a OTT, strange, weirdly elaborately costumed 1980s-1990s British medieval fantasy game show, aimed at lightly tormenting a panel of schoolchildren, like this absolute mashed-up fever dream that feels like it would have been forbidden in America for encouraging cult behaviour in children. And the 1980s British schoolchildren who play it are strangely chill about it.
i love this image because not only is it accurate but also every time i see it i subconsciously scan the image to make sure its not somewhere i know. because everywhere in england looks like this. could be literally anywhere.
laptop overheating?? pour water on it to cool it down!
i trusted you
Do not trust people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. And when I leave you will finally understand, why storms are named after people
