Cosgrove Hall

Recently my brother over at Allthatcomeswithit has been reviewing his top 10 TV shows of a time, and one of the ones that came up was the Muppet Show, the Jim Henson classic.

I don't know a great deal about Henson as I was pretty young when he was in his heyday, but I used to love the Muppets. I also loved Fraggle Rock, Dinosaurs and The Storyteller. I recently obtained a Storyteller disk and it really reminds me of the times I had in front of the open fire at our old house on a sunday evening. This got me thinking about all of the other shows I used to watch with my dad.

I have very fond, but very hazy memories of being around 8 year old and my dad taking me to a magical mystical place called Cosgrove Hall. This was a brilliant trip for me as this was the place that they made some all time classic viewing; Dangermouse, The Wind in the Willows (of which we got to see the set), and Count Duckula.

Dangermouse

Dangermouse and his loyal sidekick Penfold lived in a post box somewhere in London. They trevelled around in their flying car fighting crime in the form of Baron Greenback. According to Wikipedia it was some kind of parody of Bond films. Of course all of this was lost on me.

Classic viewing.

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows I am talking about here is the stop motion puppet version. Apparently they made a film and a subsequent 52 episodes. This was must see childhood viewing for me. I absolutely loved this show.

Wikipedia has told me something else I didn't know here. Stone roses guitarist John Squire apparently worked on this series!

Count Duckula

This one has to be my absolute favourite of the three and probably the latest one, so its the one of which I have the best memories. Count Duckula is awesomely funny, even now I can still laugh at Nanny and Igor.

Count Duckula was a spin off from Dangermouse. It was a parody of Count Drackula (as you might guess), and due to an accident in the Count's re-incarnation - in which tomato ketchup wa s substituted for blood - duckula was a vegetarian (much to the distress of Igor).

Anyway, enough talk. Here it is.