"I'm a student at University College London (UCL) and a features writer for London Student, Europes largest Student Newspaper. I also have my own Radio show on the University station, RareFM, myself and almost everyone I have come across either doing the show or writing my features (mainly on 80's nostalgia) have agreed that Knightmare was one of the greatest Childrens TV programme's in the history of the genre and there exsits today not only a wealth of retro-viewers across Britains Universities, but there also exists the technology to bring back Knightmare, complete with the memorable actors and characters, better than ever." -- Yaz Jung
"I remember this programme as one of the best series ever - I've still got many episodes of it on ancient tapes... have to find them some time." -- David Newton (Wong Chung Bang)
"Knightmare was the best show ever. It encouraged teamwork and all that other crap that the government tries to instill in children today. Maybe if they brought back quality progams like this instead of flooding us with american pap, e.g "Sister Sister" there wouldn't be so much vandalism. (very over the top but point made i feel)." -- Nick Mansell-Scott
"Knightmare was charming and imaginative. Given the recent success of Harry Potter and the remewed interest in Lord of the Rings the programme should appeal to a wide audience." -- Jim Riley
"Knightmare was an excellent series which promoted creativity, teamwork, imagination and problem solving skills, in an entertaining fantasy setting. Nothing has ever managed to live up to the involvement with the players, or the detail of the interactive setting. People watching (of all ages) could really feel for the players, and could connect emotionally to the situation: a team of friends helping another friend through a difficult and exciting adventure. Knightmare should never have been cancelled, there was more than enough interest in the prospect and more than enough people who would be willing to take on the roles of character and/or story writers - many roleplayers around the world would jump at the chance to be able to take part in a fantasy game as large and immersive as Knightmare." -- Gareth Pugh
"Knightmare was a great programme - to this day "enter stranger" and "ooh, nasty" are key parts of many 20-25 year olds vocabulary. Bringing it back would allow the incoporation of new technologies to create amazing dungeons, give Friday afternoon a whole new meaning to a new generation of younger viewers and cause mass absenteeism on a Friday afternoon of those who saw it the first time round. Bound to be a hit with students as well." -- Dave Voss
"Knightmare was one of the most original shows on British television and was incredibly addictive and enjoyable. With todays advancements in technology, such as improved computer graphics and interactive television, I believe it could be re-made to capture the imaginations of a new generation of viewers. Such an imaginative and advanced show must not be confined to the annals of television history forever. Please bring back Knightmare and once more bring enjoyment to thousands of avid fans and entertain a new generation of people." -- Gary Wilson
"Knightmare was the best children's programme in the history of the world, and it should be brought back so another generation of children can bask in its indisoutible glory." -- Kate Webber
"If I'd known this site existed sooner, I'd have signed before. It was a terrific show. How many of us were on the edge of our seats every time the Tarantula came on screen or the life force face would start flaking off to the skull? I was destitute when, after six months of complete silence, I was that my application for the dungeoneer team was rejected because of the axing of the show. Kids TV nowadays is full of utter rubbish that has probably made kids want to turn to games even more. "Eddy and the Bear." Hmmmm. "Crossroads" do I have to say more."SIR GADABOUT" OH PUHLEEEEASE Even the name should've been scrapped and the author fed to the giant walls that asked you riddles. You've got better graphic capabilities now. Things like Knightmare set in the future were too farcical to take seriously and we lost interest. Knightmare FELT real. I got the pants scared off me when the Spider turned up. I ducked myself when the corridor of blades turned up and like everyone I shouted my head off at the dungeoneer whenever he just stood still when inherent danger was on its way. The riddles, the choices on the table, Treguard for heaven's sake, how much more of a stereotypical and above all perfect example of the the Medieval image could you look for? Spellcasting B-R-I-N-G I-T B-A-C-K" -- Andy Gill (2)
"Its great to see someone taking time to try and bring back one of my favourite ever shows. Knightmare was the one program I always looked forward to getting home from school to watch. I currently enjoy watching knightmare at weekends on the digital channel Challenge tv but only came across it by chance. I hope this campaign is able to bring Knightmare back to our screens on terrestrial television for the whole 8 series run. Good luck with the campaign and please Bring Back Knightmare." -- Ryan Seabury
"Go on, bring it back. It's gotta be better than more "Sabrina The Teenage Witch" repeats." -- Martin Odoni
"Spring 1985, and Tim Child, a journalist, reporter and occasional development producer for Anglia TV in Norwich, had a silly idea. As a journalist, he’d taken to producing a regular weekly review of the fledgling UK 8-bit home computer games industry. The justification for Anglia was that much of this industry seemed to be originating from within its regional boundaries. Sinclair and Acorn were both in Cambridge; Commodore had its UK HQ in Northamptonshire. Everywhere, people seemed to be coding computer games and spotty boys were becoming adolescent millionaires. At the time, Tim’s elder sister was working as a middle manager for Clive Sinclair on the Spectrum computer range, and this contact gave him his first brush with home computers. First, Ultimate’s Attic Attack, and then Hewson’s 48k interactive movie, Dragontorc, convinced the Anglia producer that if adventure gaming was possible in a machine as limited as a Spectrum, then the graphic power of modern television could capitalise on the idea and revolutionise the genre. The idea for Knightmare was born. Next, a number of key problems had to be solved. How to create a complex artificial world? How to populate it? How to experience it? How to explore it? How to make it work as television? From the outset Tim Child wanted to use computer graphics to create his first dungeon, but the trouble was that in 1985, computer graphic imaging (CGI) was in its infancy. The Quantel paintbox had only just been developed (Anglia was yet to purchase one), and most computerised images were sadly disappointing compared to the real thing. Tim knew what was needed, and it wasn’t the gaudy, crude 4-8 colour illustrations which current computer games were offering. What he actually needed, were the fabulous, atmospheric fantasy illustrations that decorated the outside packaging of said crude computer games. He found some examples, and called the publishers in a bid to identify the artist. The answer was soon forthcoming. Most of the front covers Tim admired were the work of David Rowe. On contact, the artist was intrigued by the journalist and his ideas, and soon both were pouring over plans and sketches for a Rowe-painted dungeon. Tim particularly admired David’s skill with an airbrush, which he used to create the most realistic of dank, stony surfaces. The next problem was how to introduce real people into David’s air-brushed world. Here, the former news journalist borrowed from the TV technology, which allowed weathermen to appear nightly in front of a changing graphic representation of the weather forecast. No problem: for weather map, read dungeon. This practice involved pointing a camera at a saturated blue screen or flat; placing a person between the camera and the flat; de-selecting the colour blue in the television picture spectrum, and replacing it with another image. Bingo! - or more appropriately - background! The technique is called Chromakeying in commercial TV, and Colour Separation Overlay, or CSO by the BBC. Auntie always liked to be different, even then! The next hurdle was a far greater obstacle. Weathermen or women do not have to wander around weather maps, exploring the isobars, but adventurers need to move about. The immediate answer was quite obvious. Build a Chromakey blue dungeon and you can go where you will. The trouble was, although the theory should work well, Tim Child knew that the practice amounted to a very difficult and very painstaking way of acquiring television scenes. The harsh lesson was close at hand. Tim was preparing to construct his first dungeon in Anglia TV’s Studio A, whilst half a mile away in Norwich, a team of programme-makers in the company’s other large production unit, Studio E, were just recovering from nearly a year spent trying to shoot Alice in Wonderland in CSO. Once again the solution was being offered up by the spotty youths that programmed the 8 bit computer games. Because RAM was at a premium, Tim had noticed how Spectrum graphics were designed to take up minimum space in the program. To achieve this many scenes or rooms in early spectrum dungeons, were actually close to identical, even if they were different colours (well, a choice of four), and boasted different contents. Geometrically, they were identical! To exploit this factor, Tim commissioned a template, in the form of a standardised grid pattern, to which all scenes in the dungeon would conform. A copy was sent to David Rowe, and the artist commenced drawing a dungeon, in which each of many diversely differing chambers could be played in the same simple chromakey blue chamber which was now under construction in the Anglia TV studio. For the first experimental dungeon, David produced 5 rooms. They included the first of many Wall Monster Rooms, and a Wellway. Attic Attack had used wellways to transfer the players between levels, and Tim stole the idea for his pilot programme. But with each solution, came a new problem. The fantasy dungeon now existed; a human player could explore it, but that player could not see the CSO creation! Solution: why not blindfold the explorer and get his/her teammates to guide him/her remotely? How many teammates? Well, three seemed a good number. The first of Tim Child’s chromakey experiments took place in the autumn of 1985. A group of Anglia TV scenic technicians were recorded, walking around in one of David Rowe’s dungeon scenes. Unlike their colleagues on the Alice shoot, their feet were placed firmly on the ground. Next came a much bigger step. Child wanted to make a full 15 minute pilot to show to Children’s ITV. The pilot would need to illustrate gameplay and programme presentation. By now it was called Dungeon Doom, and it needed a Dungeon Master. During this period, Tim Child was still acting as line producer on Anglia's regional news magazine programme, About Anglia. About Anglia's presenter was a former singer, Christine Webber, and Christine was married to an actor called Hugo Myatt. Tim had met the bearded Hugo and thought he might make a fair Dungeon Master. Even better, he knew that Hugo (like many actors) was between jobs and would take the trial role for very little money, in the hope that it might lead to something bigger. Dungeon Doom was recorded in early 1986. Hugo Myatt introduced the show and the guinea-pig team consisted of Tim Child’s nephew, the two daughters of an Anglia colleague, and one of their school chums. The finished results were edited together but ‘something’ was missing. Tim decided to change the show's name and improve on the crude opening titles. The name Knightmare seemed to say it all about a scary dungeon game, which used a knight’s helmet as a blindfold. The game had borrowed shamelessly from the computerised adventures marketed for the Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64 and BBC B computers, yet lacked some of the authentic technology they boasted. Attic attack had an on-screen life-force clock which indicated the health status of the player by representing the carcase of a chicken. If you got down to bare bones you died! Tim wanted something like it for Knightmare, but Anglia TV had no graphics computers. But the designer of the rival BBC East News Magazine, a certain Robert Harris had acquired an early 8-bit broadcast-quality Spaceward Computer, and with it he was persuaded to produce the first (and only) computer graphics sequence which the Knightmare pilot was to show. The finished pilot was viewed by the ITV Childrens’ committee a month later. Nothing like it had been seen before, but the committee was searching for something fresh, and decided to risk a short series of 8 half-hour programmes. A year later and much had changed. With a second series promised, Tim Child was preparing to quit Anglia TV and form an independent production company called Broadsword. David Rowe had little time for painting video game covers; he was hard at work creating dungeons. Robert Harris had quit BBC East and was setting up his computers under the banner of The Travelling Matte Company, with the promise of a contract from Broadsword. End of Part One " -- God
"Good luck with the campaign this time, Seeing how many unheard of cartoons and things being released on DVD, it is clear there is a huge space for Knightmare to return in some way!" -- Matt Richings
"Knightmare was awesome! My dad was Cedric!" -- Harry Werber
"This is wicked, and so non-geeky if you know what i mean! i am a 26yr old female, Probation Officer, with a drama degree...and i owe it all to Treguard and pals! Sad to say, im a bit of a 'chav' and moronic though that may be(as I adjust my soverign ring and von dutch cap. LOL)however, what it means is i am not the kind of person who ignorant folk might attribute to spending precious time looking for Knightmare on their search engine! But although I was of course only kidding when I say I owe above to Knightmare, I did love it as did everyone i have spoken with...one of those conversations down the pub where everyone is reminding each other about various 'kids' programmes we used to watch (although my references to Sandy Tosvigs No.73 (or was it 74) on sat mornings followed by Terrorhawks, aludes some of my younger mates!) and everyone starts raving about Kinghtmare. My dad still does a terrible Treguard impression! And I vagualy remember a Amstrad game I had which took 3 hours to sqreechingly load and I could never go further than the first room! Anyway, I salute you for this website/fanzine...cause there are loads of fans out there...if only we could get a DVD! Anyway, I shall spread the word... What used to make me giggle were the contestants, bless them, who when often confronted with a riddle so obvious (dont get me wrong, I think the game on the whole was really hard!) like "red leads the way" on a scroll on a table along with a RUBY stone, some gold or some other object, they were confir for while then pick the gold, only to get know further, or they would be looking through the spyglass and the baddie would make it clear he could 'sense' them and still they clung on! laso, id love to know what the bloke/girl under the helmet REALLYexperinced during filming! BEST REGARDS, JANICE CAREY, WIMBLEDON " -- janice
"Knightmare was the best. Friday nights were a pleasure for me, looking forward to comming home from school, commandeering the TV for a good 25 minutes. bring it back i say, bring it back" -- Ali Everett
"As I've said hundereds of times now, Bring Back Knightmare! New series, repeats, anything!" -- Nicholas
"YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEE! geddit back! Spellcasting...R-E-T-U-R-N...I have 2 whole series on vid now - I wanna tape the rest!" -- Emii
"Knightmare was one of the best TV shows around when I was younger. It was so innovative and ahead of it's time; it was challenging, engaging and so much fun to watch, and I used to really want to be a contestant...in fact I wouldn't mind it now if the show was brought back. The fundamentals of the game are timeless, and today's technology can only make the show more engaging. Even if it was still chromakey based, that technology has also advanced so much it could still be viably used. Plus with Harry Potter doing so well at the moment, surely Knightmare would be something that a new audience would identify with now, being in the realms of fantasy; plus slightly older people like me would enjoy the nostalgia of Knightmare, and be drawn into it's new incarnation. With such a huge fanbase already established, surely a new series would be a guaranteed success?" -- adam court
"The best, most unforgettable show, that grew far too big for CiTV. All's moved on, but there's always a place for K/M, & all we obsessive fans would say it was most welcome back!" -- Keith McDonald