Ronnie Barker had a sketch about symbols for tv programmes: including a white house to show that Mary Whitehouse had phoned in; with a smoking chimney to show she was fuming; and on its side to show she had keeled over
I would have been about 7 or 8 when all this was going on. I was mad into drawing pictures (badly) at the time, so I thought it would be funny to draw a red triangle and cut it out and then stick it to the top left hand corner of the living room TV screen when Surprise Surprise was on with Cilla Black. The rest of the family told me to f--k off as I giggled like a loon at my unfunny stunt.
Funnier than her (or her writers') witless double - entendres; and I daresay many Merseysiders found her 'Lorra Lorra' professional Scouser b~ks easily as offensive as anything Channel 4 had to offer! Woman should have stuck to singing. *EDIT: Sorry, I'm getting my shows mixed up. The one I was thinking of was, of course, 'Blind Date'. The fact remained, though, she was hard to take in _anything_ she was in!
I remember this helped us kids get around the 'Video Nasty' sharing when you didn't have a VHS. By the 90s they'd phased out the Red Triangle but the late night movies were still as bizarre and exciting as ever. Without Channel 4, I would have never discovered Akira or Evil Dead as a young teen - You felt like you were in a secret club.
Wasn't the first time a "Mature Audience", symbol was used. I remember ITV, used a small square in the bottom right of the screen to signifie adult content in the mid to late 70s
I came here specifically to say that. I think it was around 1978. It was to warn that the programme showed distressing scenes. I remember it being used for Marathon Man and a documentary about mental patients.
I think that is a pretty good idea TBH. I was 10 when the red triangle launched, I was fascinated as to what it was all about so my dad let me stay up and watch one; a load of crap whatever it was. 10 minutes and I took myself off to bed. 😂 I've never been one to scare myself silly by watching horror films, so having something permanently in the corner would be useful; no random channel hopping onto something nasty, I'd just keep flicking on through if i saw a universal symbol. I always remember seeing a bit of this horrific documentary at the end of tape before it ran out. I was going through a load of tapes in the 1990's and an old recording revealed this footage of dead bodies lying in a middle eastern war torn country. This reporter was standing beside them (some children) in various states of disarray following death, talking about what was happening. It was an English documentary but we aren't used to such graphic post death footage as some European countries show on their screens. Still haunts me that snippet does.
French TV channels used a similar symbol to ITV's rectangle from 1961 to the 90's, using a small white rectangle (or a white square in its early years) to warn about on-screen nudity.
My friend said when he was a kid in the 80s one night his family came home late from visiting friends and whilst their parents were busy they turned on the tv, it was one of those where the sound would come on first but the picture took a few seconds to warm up, so they turned it on and a man’s voice shouted, “whose f*cking p*ssy is this?!?” Their parents charged into the room and turned the tv off but the picture just flashed alive before being turned off and the only thing he could make out was the C4 warning triangle 😂
Red triangle program? DISGUSTING!!!! Err... I'll just watch for another 15 minutes just to see how disgusting it actually is... ...blimey, has it finished already? That went quick!
The Channel 4 of today is a very different broadcaster from the one of the eighties. Ask anyone who sees the censorship and cuts that are made to The Simpsons (with whole episodes no longer being aired).
That's because when Channel 4 began it had ta remit to be a minority channel which catered for interests and audiences which the other networks had neglected.
Here in Brazil (the country where the movie "Pixote" was made) in the 90s there were almost no restrictions, and almost everything was allowed. Once, a "semi-local" channel tried to show the erotic-drama "Caligula" in 1992 in two parts, but it was unable to show the entire film due to legal issues, and the story had repercussions throughout the country. After being involved in several controversies, the channel was shut down in 1993, and in its place there is a channel that, today, only shows neo-Pentecostal cults in order to avoid going bankrupt.
"If the advertisers aren't coming, you have a pretty big problem." Immediately after this sentence was said, I got hit in the face with a RUclips ad! 😅
"Themroc" is an amazing film, I remember the red triangle films being shown on C4, I remember watching all of the "nasties" back in those days, great memories.
ITV tried a similar thing for a while in the early seventies, I think it was a white square. It was used to indicate frightening films shown late at night, things like Hammer horror films that could now be put on children's TV in the morning without anyone getting worried.
The films were also shown on S4C (which showed C4 programs at the time), there’s a closedown from the 80’s on RUclips that features the Red Triangle in the corner before the continuity announcer appears.
Fantastic, was always intrigued by this season by channel 4, from seeing it in a documentary that used to be on RUclips, “The TV They Tried to Ban” Fascinating stuff
Thanks for this video. I have been trying to remember the name of the film Themroc for ages. I'd even go to the extent of my colleague and I spending ages at my last job to try and google the damn thing. Also Mary Whitehouse keeling over would have cheered me up no end in the eighties.
Channel 4 may not be the first British broadcaster to experiment with on screen 'naughty' warnings. Back in 1968 BBC2 broadcast Cold Comfort Farm, over three episodes I think, Probably to appease Mary Whitehouse and Lord Long for It, they put an onscreen symbol in a corner to warn of an upcoming 'naughty' bits. Regrettably I suspect that the BBC will have taped over the recording back in the '70s.
I remember my parents talking about Themroc, although I had no idea at the time what it was called. Years later I eventually managed to figure out what the film was and thoroughly enjoyed it. Unlike my parents...🤣
Out Of The Blue is a masterpiece directed by Dennis Hopper, with an interesting history of its own. Started as a PG-rated TV movie-esque family drama about a psychiatrist trying to get through to a girl from a rough upbringing. The original director was fired shortly when filming began and Dennis (who was cast as the father of the girl) stepped in and radically changed the film to be an R-rated bleak nihilistic character study about PTSD and goes into some really uncomfortable territory with a violent ending, also the psychiatrist originally intended to be the lead, was almost written out of the film only having two scenes. The producers were shocked by the final cut and pulled any involvement for the film, and Dennis asked his friend Jack Nicholson to endorse his support for the film on advertising. It's had a long history of cheap public domain VHS and DVDs because the producers didn't want anything to do with it, but now recently got a 4K restoration presented by Natasha Lyonne (a fan of the film) which the BFI released on blu-ray in the UK.
There was a similar system in Hungary in the late 80's, early 90's. There was a blue triangle in the corner, indicating that the film was not suitable for children under 14. It was used on 90% of the movies otherwise R-rated in the states. There was also a red circle, which was the 18 symbol, only used for softcore adult films and Beavis and Butt-Head for some reason. It was an unsaid rule that the films with the triangle should only be shown after 8 pm. Interestingly, the public TV channels M1 or M2 never used it, only commercial channels (public TV also showed some nasty movies back then).
@jordaneasbybass what? I was born in 1973. I remember it well as me and all my friends would try to stay up during the half term holidays to watch them, that's if we could. Of course, we wanted to see these "forbidden" films as teenagers.
Pixote is good, it's a good movie about Brazil for non Brazilians to understand why Brazil is the way it is. But yeah it's very brutal, I am surprised it was shown on TV.
François Truffaut films were eagerly awaited by us fourteen year olds at our school. The red triangle was a great early warning system doing the paper round first thing.
As a teen, a red triangle meant i was almost certainly going to get a sock dirty.. No point watching ch4 late at night unless there was a triangle. That one with the boiled egg was an eye opener.
Later in life i realised that CD printed with "parental warning" ,tapes with "18" and particularly TV shows that gave warnings before a show, were genuinely, for me at the time seals of approval. Clever advertisers must have known this.
Ooh I remember this era, when Channel 4 was generally slandered as being the channel that's "just Blue Movies and Equinox". So when we had the choice of pointing our antenna either at the TVS transmitter and get BBC 2 (Attenborough, the best teaching aid) or the HTV transmitter and Channel 4 (porn), it was a no brainer, and I spent many years missing Equinox and only seeing Horizon. In a classic example of bad teacher planning, my school "required" parents to allow kids to watch a set of programmes on Equinox to discuss in science. They didn't understand that lots of us couldn't get Channel 4, and they "suggested" that parents borrow a video of each episode from a friend with a VCR: Really? You expect us to spend £250 on a VCR just to watch someone else's recordings off the one channel we don't need to receive? When we have no other use for the device (only 3 channels) and we are paying 17.5% interest on our mortgage? You can bugger right off and learn how to teach the syllabus yourselves, not leave it up to the parents.
Great that you've covered this. It's something I'd about, never in much detail. Mary Whitehouse really was a miserable old sod. Does anyone know the Doctor Who story with that green blob thing in it?
Looking back on the Mary Whitehouse stuff from today, you could tell her threats were empty, if anything, the only channels that would be affected would be ITV and Channel 4 as the BBC is tax funded
3:00 "...Special discretion should be used when decidiing whether or not to watch it. It's a bleak portrait of a harsh and violent society." So, Hollyoaks then?
[7:50] 1986 - Viewers found the Red Triangle mark being on the screen constantly during the program as “distracting”. 2024 - Every channel on the box has an identifying mark of some kind perpetually if not permanently on the screen, in varying levels of visibility, some of which can even interject promotional slides for other programming at semi-regular intervals. The more things change, eh? 😄
It looks like Mary Whitehouse only entered the public spotlight around 1964. However, by then, Moseley's career was pretty much over. He moved to Ireland in 1951, and then opted to move to France in 1959. Sure, he did briefly pop back to the UK in 1959 and 1966 to stand in the general elections (and lost), but it looks like the two never had an opportunity to cross paths (which is a good thing, because they were both unbearable)
When i look at the wikipedia page, which lists the films, there is one missing, which I particularly remember. it was called 'Dagmar'. I seem to remember it being one of the first, and most explicit, so it could have been aired on 26/09 and has been removed for some reason.
There will always be a battle between the censorship do gooders and what the public feels such be their own choice. It was a bold and interesting idea. Awesome stuff Adam ❤❤.
Initial thoughts before I enjoy being enlightened and entertained again by your latest efforts are: That the sudden appearance of Achtung! Up next some naughtiness so don't watch kids! warnings were a way of heading off rumoured broadcast licence restrictions which resulted in the 9 o'clock watershed introduction. But we all know about the law of unintended consequences; all of us that is apart from the politicians making the regs. The terribly onerous task of adding these aids to polite society were nothing if not a double edged sword. Put the little ones to bed, on one side, Heads up viewers, one of them video nasties after the break, on the other. 3:54 "If there is one coming...' With an extra unintended bonus of keeping the audience glued and therefore having to watch the ads too. Win, win all round!
Thank you Adam for another well researched memory jogger. Not only that, but you've prompted this shocker: 4:44 I'm minded to somehow teeter on the Mary Whitehouse side of the fence!Reason being that she was a figure of fun to schoolboy me, whilst admiring her consistency at least. It's your highlighting of her and Dr. Who which raised the obvious question; What would she think about it today‽ More than that though, is this; I've been unceremoniously pushed away from a lifelong favourite show and I'm glad I'm not a child growing up watching it now. Not only is there the barest minimum of artistry covering the drama-draining message, but it's so apparently life consuming for the tunnel visioned otherwise visionary creative team. I was disheartened to see the eponymous writer grinningly boasting of this blatant ramming down our throats of the currently omnipresent stuff about sexual identity and gender fluidity and so on. Putting the ideas themselves to one side, where is the Mary Whitehouse figure today? Not only is there no such totem around which sympathisers can rally and at which opponents can cast their brikbatz, we aren't even allowed one. It's practically off with his head if you dare to question the Group Think diktats clunkily foisted on us by the Gliterrati from on high! All I'm asking for is a return to the democracy of an opposing argument and the undeniable fairness of the balance this would present us all. Isn't balance what we're always going on at the BBC for as a national pastime‽ No evidence here and little in the Media bubble as a whole.
Don't forget to check out Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine's "After the Watershed (Early Learning the Hard Way)" Hearing it start with a sample of "Too shocking even for Channel 4" is magic!
Even back then people were demanding that they never see anything they found offensive. Being offended is part of existence. There's nothing you can do about it. Why were any broadcasters trying to avoid offending people who are so easily offended?
I hope that the choice of a Kellogg's advert for the 'loss of advertisers' segment was intentional because Kellogg was famously against people 'bashing the bishop'!
I've a vague memory of another comedy sketch. I can't recall which show it was from. A couple are pashing out and just about to go further when the woman says something like, "Wait! I think you've forgotten something." The man says, "Oh, of course.", pulls out a triangle from somewhere and sticks it in the corner of the screen...
@@davidlocke5016 its not a show you could show much on here.Though the joke i remember was a clip of someone who tied forks to a cats paws and learned it to eat with then on a plate.They made the joke it was not minemeat it was human brain that it was eating was the shock part lol.
Also, its hard to believe that back then TV used to end at midnight with a rousing rendition of God save the queen, or if there was a weekend movie you might get an extension to about 12.30 with the weather
As a teenage boy with his own portable black and white TV, I tuned in for smut but ended up watching some challenging, arty cinema. I was baffled and amused by Themroc - bizarre, that was. I don’t think there were any real ‘video nasties’ shown - Themroc would probably get a 15 certificate today. I remember a New Zealand comedy about a Sex Clinic which showed an infected penis covered by an Elastoplast, that one scene is all I can recall! I remember Out of The Blue, too - a very shocking and disturbing Dennis Hopper film, even today it goes further than you might expect. We also had Moviedrome on BBC2, which also showed some challenging adult-oriented films but which were a little more familiar, less arty and which ran much longer. I’m sure soon after, Channel 4 showed ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and ‘The Holy Mountain’, both of which are true classics now but pushed the envelope for TV broadcasts. Side Note: Themroc features a captivating central performance by Michel Piccoli, darling of the French New Wave and highly visible in films by Bunuel, Godard and Demy amongst others. For context: Alien was shown on ITV around 1981, and I also remember controversy about the broadcast of The Deer Hunter and Goodfellas. The Godfather had long been shown late on the BBC, and I’m pretty sure it was uncut. Many films weren’t shown until video censorship relaxed in the UK in the 2000s, I think Texas Chainsaw Massacre was shown uncut on Channel 4, A Clockwork Orange also. Now with streaming you can watch Possession (not actually offensive) of Cannibal Holocaust (very offensive) on your streaming platform!
I remember one of these had a scene where a man and woman were running through a forest being chased by a giant sewing machine...yes, you read that right
I'm not old enough to remember the red triangle, but I was just thinking the other day about how I used to watch late night documentaries about swingers on channel 4 as a teenager, including shots of people actually having sex (though you couldn't see anything) - I fell like people would lose their shit if that was broadcast somewhere teens could watch today! (I'm 40 so this would have been around the 2000s)
If I could I would go back in time and make sure Mary Whitehouse was never born. She was a annoying old busy body who had no right to demand TV be to her standards. Especially when she had the option to change the channel and not watch something.
For a 15 year old male with all the hormones and er' needs' the red triangle was a godsend. I would of never got to watch french Art house such as Jean Luc godard et al. Great education.
Ahh yes, the TRIGGER WARNING before TRIGGER WARNINGS existed under said name. Oh noes, this is WOKE! SHUT IT DOWN! 😜😜😜😜😜😜 Moronic goofballing aside, the triangle was a good idea to inform viewers regarding the content
ah yes, the stupid logo in the corner of the tv during the days of digital television before the stupid logo in the corner of the tv during the days of digital television
Hmm, more acceptable today? I may have remembered if I'd watched them, but definitely didn't watch them, a couple of films that would be at least category 3 offences today.
Did the Red Triangle season and The Red Light Zone cause the 'birth' of Film4 and shows like EuroTrash? Do you know if the night of shows featuring a adult cartoon by Bob Godfrey about a man and his inflatable woman was actually called 4Love or am I misremembering that?
@@robertwilloughby8050 With a title like that, I probably wouldn't have remembered it, the little I can recall is, it had some catchy music and next to no dialogue with a few sound effects and I could be wrong, but wasn't it around November of 1993?
Because we have the watershed. Basically, if it's shown before 9pm (or 8pm on subscription channels) then it's suitable for all ages. If it's shown after that time, it may contain content that's inappropriate for children - it will always be accompanied by a verbal warning from the continuity announcer, and often an onscreen caption too.
Ronnie Barker had a sketch about symbols for tv programmes: including a white house to show that Mary Whitehouse had phoned in; with a smoking chimney to show she was fuming; and on its side to show she had keeled over
Like those 'parental advisory' stickers on CDs, I'm sure that the red triangle was an excellent way of getting the attention of teenage boys.
I would have been about 7 or 8 when all this was going on. I was mad into drawing pictures (badly) at the time, so I thought it would be funny to draw a red triangle and cut it out and then stick it to the top left hand corner of the living room TV screen when Surprise Surprise was on with Cilla Black.
The rest of the family told me to f--k off as I giggled like a loon at my unfunny stunt.
Classic
Funnier than her (or her writers') witless double - entendres; and I daresay many Merseysiders found her 'Lorra Lorra' professional Scouser b~ks easily as offensive as anything Channel 4 had to offer!
Woman should have stuck to singing.
*EDIT: Sorry, I'm getting my shows mixed up. The one I was thinking of was, of course, 'Blind Date'. The fact remained, though, she was hard to take in _anything_ she was in!
iconic
Stunning and brave
And considering how many predators Black was friends with, you were right
I remember this helped us kids get around the 'Video Nasty' sharing when you didn't have a VHS. By the 90s they'd phased out the Red Triangle but the late night movies were still as bizarre and exciting as ever. Without Channel 4, I would have never discovered Akira or Evil Dead as a young teen - You felt like you were in a secret club.
Wasn't the first time a "Mature Audience", symbol was used. I remember ITV, used a small square in the bottom right of the screen to signifie adult content in the mid to late 70s
I came here specifically to say that. I think it was around 1978. It was to warn that the programme showed distressing scenes. I remember it being used for Marathon Man and a documentary about mental patients.
I think that is a pretty good idea TBH. I was 10 when the red triangle launched, I was fascinated as to what it was all about so my dad let me stay up and watch one; a load of crap whatever it was. 10 minutes and I took myself off to bed. 😂
I've never been one to scare myself silly by watching horror films, so having something permanently in the corner would be useful; no random channel hopping onto something nasty, I'd just keep flicking on through if i saw a universal symbol.
I always remember seeing a bit of this horrific documentary at the end of tape before it ran out. I was going through a load of tapes in the 1990's and an old recording revealed this footage of dead bodies lying in a middle eastern war torn country. This reporter was standing beside them (some children) in various states of disarray following death, talking about what was happening. It was an English documentary but we aren't used to such graphic post death footage as some European countries show on their screens. Still haunts me that snippet does.
...For Adults Only ....era
French TV channels used a similar symbol to ITV's rectangle from 1961 to the 90's, using a small white rectangle (or a white square in its early years) to warn about on-screen nudity.
I remember this, too. This would have been ITV in the Midlands region circa 1978 - I don't know if other regions also used it.
My friend said when he was a kid in the 80s one night his family came home late from visiting friends and whilst their parents were busy they turned on the tv, it was one of those where the sound would come on first but the picture took a few seconds to warm up, so they turned it on and a man’s voice shouted, “whose f*cking p*ssy is this?!?” Their parents charged into the room and turned the tv off but the picture just flashed alive before being turned off and the only thing he could make out was the C4 warning triangle 😂
Hopefully, the protagonists found out who the cat belonged to ...
Red triangle program? DISGUSTING!!!! Err... I'll just watch for another 15 minutes just to see how disgusting it actually is...
...blimey, has it finished already? That went quick!
The Channel 4 of today is a very different broadcaster from the one of the eighties. Ask anyone who sees the censorship and cuts that are made to The Simpsons (with whole episodes no longer being aired).
That's because when Channel 4 began it had ta remit to be a minority channel which catered for interests and audiences which the other networks had neglected.
Adam Martyn, these docs that you make are amazing! Hope you have your own production company one day!
Considering ITV's history of rebranding and refreshing its channels, it's certainly possible that ITV and ITV4 will see updates sooner than ITV3.
Anyone remember watching the toy tank scene from 'Montenegro'? This stills stands as one of the defining moments of my late childhood.
It's the only thing I remember. For some reason I remembered the film being called 'Dagmar'.
Here in Brazil (the country where the movie "Pixote" was made) in the 90s there were almost no restrictions, and almost everything was allowed. Once, a "semi-local" channel tried to show the erotic-drama "Caligula" in 1992 in two parts, but it was unable to show the entire film due to legal issues, and the story had repercussions throughout the country. After being involved in several controversies, the channel was shut down in 1993, and in its place there is a channel that, today, only shows neo-Pentecostal cults in order to avoid going bankrupt.
nice pfp
Mate. That was a super episode. I love watching your content in general but this one felt really really well put together. Thank you.
"If the advertisers aren't coming, you have a pretty big problem." Immediately after this sentence was said, I got hit in the face with a RUclips ad! 😅
Same! For chocolate though, not cereal!
I didn't, I pay for You Tube.
WHAT THE HELL ME TOO🤣
Everyone who has ads on saw it, RUclipsrs can literally place where the mid rolls are
"Themroc" is an amazing film, I remember the red triangle films being shown on C4, I remember watching all of the "nasties" back in those days, great memories.
ITV tried a similar thing for a while in the early seventies, I think it was a white square. It was used to indicate frightening films shown late at night, things like Hammer horror films that could now be put on children's TV in the morning without anyone getting worried.
I remember seeing it when they aired The Passion of St Tibulus.
Careful now.
Down with this sort of thing
Did St. Tibulus get his lad out?
They even tuned in from Gdańsk to watch!
And when Saint Tibulus tried to take
that banana off the other lad?
Nice episode.
I’m missing the old intro and outro though. Made it feel much more like a real TV programme. Hope you’ll consider adding them back.
The films were also shown on S4C (which showed C4 programs at the time), there’s a closedown from the 80’s on RUclips that features the Red Triangle in the corner before the continuity announcer appears.
I was very thankful to have had a portable TV in my bedroom back then.
Fantastic, was always intrigued by this season by channel 4, from seeing it in a documentary that used to be on RUclips, “The TV They Tried to Ban”
Fascinating stuff
Always made me laugh that the *ahem*...Gentleman's publication "Whitehouse" was allegedly named after Mary. I bet she loved that.
@@ArzHole she probably subscribed, the mucky madam🤣🤣🤣
makes me wonder if the band Whitehouse was also named after her?
she'd heard a second of that and it would have killed her right there and then
Thanks for this video. I have been trying to remember the name of the film Themroc for ages. I'd even go to the extent of my colleague and I spending ages at my last job to try and google the damn thing.
Also Mary Whitehouse keeling over would have cheered me up no end in the eighties.
Channel 4 may not be the first British broadcaster to experiment with on screen 'naughty' warnings. Back in 1968 BBC2 broadcast Cold Comfort Farm, over three episodes I think,
Probably to appease Mary Whitehouse and Lord Long for It, they put an onscreen symbol in a corner to warn of an upcoming 'naughty' bits.
Regrettably I suspect that the BBC will have taped over the recording back in the '70s.
I recall it very well. C4 inadvertently, helpfully flagged up potentially "spicy" material for teenage lads.
It was a godsend. There's only so much damp porn in plastics bags found at the back of bingo to go around.
I remember my parents talking about Themroc, although I had no idea at the time what it was called. Years later I eventually managed to figure out what the film was and thoroughly enjoyed it. Unlike my parents...🤣
9:48 Well, I wasn’t expecting Andy and BID TV to pop up in this video 😂😂😂
It's a great example of viewers being treated with respect,and like adults.
This was absolutely fascinating Brilliant video
Thank you!
Out Of The Blue is a masterpiece directed by Dennis Hopper, with an interesting history of its own. Started as a PG-rated TV movie-esque family drama about a psychiatrist trying to get through to a girl from a rough upbringing. The original director was fired shortly when filming began and Dennis (who was cast as the father of the girl) stepped in and radically changed the film to be an R-rated bleak nihilistic character study about PTSD and goes into some really uncomfortable territory with a violent ending, also the psychiatrist originally intended to be the lead, was almost written out of the film only having two scenes. The producers were shocked by the final cut and pulled any involvement for the film, and Dennis asked his friend Jack Nicholson to endorse his support for the film on advertising. It's had a long history of cheap public domain VHS and DVDs because the producers didn't want anything to do with it, but now recently got a 4K restoration presented by Natasha Lyonne (a fan of the film) which the BFI released on blu-ray in the UK.
There was a similar system in Hungary in the late 80's, early 90's. There was a blue triangle in the corner, indicating that the film was not suitable for children under 14. It was used on 90% of the movies otherwise R-rated in the states. There was also a red circle, which was the 18 symbol, only used for softcore adult films and Beavis and Butt-Head for some reason. It was an unsaid rule that the films with the triangle should only be shown after 8 pm. Interestingly, the public TV channels M1 or M2 never used it, only commercial channels (public TV also showed some nasty movies back then).
7:57 - 8:08 That sounds a bit like RUclips nowadays, yet way more strict.
As a 13 year old at the time, I remember it well.
How? You were born in 2011
@jordaneasbybass what? I was born in 1973.
I remember it well as me and all my friends would try to stay up during the half term holidays to watch them, that's if we could. Of course, we wanted to see these "forbidden" films as teenagers.
Mrs Whitehouse would keel over it she saw Naked Attraction (if she hadn't already)
Haha you said exactly that later in the video, haha great minds 🤣
Pixote is good, it's a good movie about Brazil for non Brazilians to understand why Brazil is the way it is. But yeah it's very brutal, I am surprised it was shown on TV.
I can’t believe they didn’t knock the opacity of the corner graphic down to 90%
Great stuff Adam. Also please you do a video on the history and collapse of ITV Digital?
François Truffaut films were eagerly awaited by us fourteen year olds at our school. The red triangle was a great early warning system doing the paper round first thing.
As a teen, a red triangle meant i was almost certainly going to get a sock dirty.. No point watching ch4 late at night unless there was a triangle. That one with the boiled egg was an eye opener.
Loving the idea of a teenager turning on In the Realm of the Senses for fun.
@@ChicaneryBear : It was pre-internet, we used what we could find.
I'm amazed it was only a year and 10 films. Its cultural impact was far bigger.
Alf Garnett once mentioned to Arthur about this Red Triangle on Channel 4 when having a leisurely pint in one episode of 'In Sickness And In Health'.
Wow I vaguely remember this
Hope it jogged a memory!
I vaguely remember the red triangle 🔺️
Today's broadcasting would give Mary Whitehouse apoplexy!
Threads would have almost certainly gotten Red Triangle.
Splendid fayre as always.
Definitely not. I remember watching it on BBC 1 when I was about 16. It was recommended viewing for everyone.
Was on BBC 4 a couple of weeks and now on iplayer.
Still horrific. Especially when it jumps to 16 years after the nuclear war.
I think it would more likely be suited to ITV's white square from the previous decade.
You have to wonder why Mary Whitehouse chose to even watch television.
Later in life i realised that CD printed with "parental warning" ,tapes with "18" and particularly TV shows that gave warnings before a show, were genuinely, for me at the time seals of approval. Clever advertisers must have known this.
Great dive.
My 13 year old daughter was shocked” I hope that’s for an entirely different program 😂😂😂
Ooh I remember this era, when Channel 4 was generally slandered as being the channel that's "just Blue Movies and Equinox".
So when we had the choice of pointing our antenna either at the TVS transmitter and get BBC 2 (Attenborough, the best teaching aid) or the HTV transmitter and Channel 4 (porn), it was a no brainer, and I spent many years missing Equinox and only seeing Horizon.
In a classic example of bad teacher planning, my school "required" parents to allow kids to watch a set of programmes on Equinox to discuss in science. They didn't understand that lots of us couldn't get Channel 4, and they "suggested" that parents borrow a video of each episode from a friend with a VCR: Really? You expect us to spend £250 on a VCR just to watch someone else's recordings off the one channel we don't need to receive? When we have no other use for the device (only 3 channels) and we are paying 17.5% interest on our mortgage? You can bugger right off and learn how to teach the syllabus yourselves, not leave it up to the parents.
I find the narration and images used with the Red Triangle and Special Discretion Required to be eerie and creepy
Great that you've covered this. It's something I'd about, never in much detail.
Mary Whitehouse really was a miserable old sod.
Does anyone know the Doctor Who story with that green blob thing in it?
The story is called The Creature from the Pit!
@@AdamMartyn Thanks. I like how it looks like it's made out of plastic wrap, or something like that.
Looking back on the Mary Whitehouse stuff from today, you could tell her threats were empty, if anything, the only channels that would be affected would be ITV and Channel 4 as the BBC is tax funded
3:00 "...Special discretion should be used when decidiing whether or not to watch it. It's a bleak portrait of a harsh and violent society."
So, Hollyoaks then?
Yowch 😂😂😂
[7:50] 1986 - Viewers found the Red Triangle mark being on the screen constantly during the program as “distracting”.
2024 - Every channel on the box has an identifying mark of some kind perpetually if not permanently on the screen, in varying levels of visibility, some of which can even interject promotional slides for other programming at semi-regular intervals.
The more things change, eh? 😄
Can you do a video on channel 4's banned series?
8:53... so why was your 13 year old daughter up well after midnight? Sounds like a parenting issue rather than a Channel 4 issue.
I'm honestly surprised Mary Whitehouse never crossed paths with Oswald Mosley.
It looks like Mary Whitehouse only entered the public spotlight around 1964.
However, by then, Moseley's career was pretty much over. He moved to Ireland in 1951, and then opted to move to France in 1959. Sure, he did briefly pop back to the UK in 1959 and 1966 to stand in the general elections (and lost), but it looks like the two never had an opportunity to cross paths (which is a good thing, because they were both unbearable)
When i look at the wikipedia page, which lists the films, there is one missing, which I particularly remember. it was called 'Dagmar'. I seem to remember it being one of the first, and most explicit, so it could have been aired on 26/09 and has been removed for some reason.
Kind of funny how far we’ve gone with censorship cause now I can accidentally turn on channel 4 & see a vagina on naked attraction at like 10 at night
There will always be a battle between the censorship do gooders and what the public feels such be their own choice. It was a bold and interesting idea. Awesome stuff Adam ❤❤.
Channel 4 did a police themed season which followed up the Red Light Zone - entitled the Blue Light Zone.
Initial thoughts before I enjoy being enlightened and entertained again by your latest efforts are:
That the sudden appearance of Achtung! Up next some naughtiness so don't watch kids! warnings were a way of heading off rumoured broadcast licence restrictions which resulted in the 9 o'clock watershed introduction.
But we all know about the law of unintended consequences; all of us that is apart from the politicians making the regs.
The terribly onerous task of adding these aids to polite society were nothing if not a double edged sword.
Put the little ones to bed, on one side,
Heads up viewers, one of them video nasties after the break, on the other.
3:54 "If there is one coming...'
With an extra unintended bonus of keeping the audience glued and therefore having to watch the ads too.
Win, win all round!
Thank you Adam for another well researched memory jogger.
Not only that, but you've prompted this shocker:
4:44 I'm minded to somehow teeter on the Mary Whitehouse side of the fence!Reason being that she was a figure of fun to schoolboy me, whilst admiring her consistency at least.
It's your highlighting of her and Dr. Who which raised the obvious question; What would she think about it today‽
More than that though, is this;
I've been unceremoniously pushed away from a lifelong favourite show and I'm glad I'm not a child growing up watching it now.
Not only is there the barest minimum of artistry covering the drama-draining message, but it's so apparently life consuming for the tunnel visioned otherwise visionary creative team. I was disheartened to see the eponymous writer grinningly boasting of this blatant ramming down our throats of the currently omnipresent stuff about sexual identity and gender fluidity and so on.
Putting the ideas themselves to one side, where is the Mary Whitehouse figure today?
Not only is there no such totem around which sympathisers can rally and at which opponents can cast their brikbatz, we aren't even allowed one. It's practically off with his head if you dare to question the Group Think diktats clunkily foisted on us by the Gliterrati from on high!
All I'm asking for is a return to the democracy of an opposing argument and the undeniable fairness of the balance this would present us all.
Isn't balance what we're always going on at the BBC for as a national pastime‽
No evidence here and little in the Media bubble as a whole.
C4 was the first terrestrial channel to show Monty Python’s Life of Brian during it’s banned film series
This was ahead of its time. Think about what is available now to watch .
Don't forget to check out Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine's "After the Watershed (Early Learning the Hard Way)" Hearing it start with a sample of "Too shocking even for Channel 4" is magic!
Even back then people were demanding that they never see anything they found offensive. Being offended is part of existence. There's nothing you can do about it. Why were any broadcasters trying to avoid offending people who are so easily offended?
I figure Channel 4 didn't want to stifle creativity, but also challenge that easily offended audience.
I hope that the choice of a Kellogg's advert for the 'loss of advertisers' segment was intentional because Kellogg was famously against people 'bashing the bishop'!
Fond memories! 😉
Can you do a what if video about a sixth main terrestrial station please???
Good afternoon it a pleasure to be able say to you welcome to Channel 6.
@@scottpeacock5492you just copied Channel 4 welcome message how about something original???
ah yes, a story about people off their nuts about a triangle, perfect to have on in the background while i play Katamari
I've a vague memory of another comedy sketch. I can't recall which show it was from. A couple are pashing out and just about to go further when the woman says something like, "Wait! I think you've forgotten something." The man says, "Oh, of course.", pulls out a triangle from somewhere and sticks it in the corner of the screen...
I caught one of the 10 films on a tape I got from ebay. If I'd known the Red Triangle was used so few times I would have posted the intro and warning.
Remember seeing that flash up before watching Skins. good times
Down with this sort of thing!
the adam and show show did a special back in the day, cant find it anywhere thou.
was it called shock video?
@@Acidonia150reborn you legend, that helps a tun thank you
@@davidlocke5016 its not a show you could show much on here.Though the joke i remember was a clip of someone who tied forks to a cats paws and learned it to eat with then on a plate.They made the joke it was not minemeat it was human brain that it was eating was the shock part lol.
@@Acidonia150reborn lol there insane for sure
Anyone remember that strange late night phone in program they used to do years ago?
Hi
With such a vividly recalled description painting a picture as you have done so expertly, how can we all not remember ?
After dark! Loved it ❤
That end part me me laugh out loud bloody brilliant. giving me the UK middle finger.
Also, its hard to believe that back then TV used to end at midnight with a rousing rendition of God save the queen, or if there was a weekend movie you might get an extension to about 12.30 with the weather
As a teenage boy with his own portable black and white TV, I tuned in for smut but ended up watching some challenging, arty cinema. I was baffled and amused by Themroc - bizarre, that was. I don’t think there were any real ‘video nasties’ shown - Themroc would probably get a 15 certificate today. I remember a New Zealand comedy about a Sex Clinic which showed an infected penis covered by an Elastoplast, that one scene is all I can recall! I remember Out of The Blue, too - a very shocking and disturbing Dennis Hopper film, even today it goes further than you might expect. We also had Moviedrome on BBC2, which also showed some challenging adult-oriented films but which were a little more familiar, less arty and which ran much longer. I’m sure soon after, Channel 4 showed ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and ‘The Holy Mountain’, both of which are true classics now but pushed the envelope for TV broadcasts.
Side Note: Themroc features a captivating central performance by Michel Piccoli, darling of the French New Wave and highly visible in films by Bunuel, Godard and Demy amongst others.
For context: Alien was shown on ITV around 1981, and I also remember controversy about the broadcast of The Deer Hunter and Goodfellas. The Godfather had long been shown late on the BBC, and I’m pretty sure it was uncut. Many films weren’t shown until video censorship relaxed in the UK in the 2000s, I think Texas Chainsaw Massacre was shown uncut on Channel 4, A Clockwork Orange also. Now with streaming you can watch Possession (not actually offensive) of Cannibal Holocaust (very offensive) on your streaming platform!
10:58 - you say that as if it would have been a bad thing xd
I remember one of these had a scene where a man and woman were running through a forest being chased by a giant sewing machine...yes, you read that right
By the way, of the Channel 4 Red Triangle Films "Montenegro" is on RUclips for free with no warning labels or anything.
I feel like all the new channels tried this kind of thing? I saw a comment about ITV. I remember channel 5 had smut on around the time it started too?
I'm not old enough to remember the red triangle, but I was just thinking the other day about how I used to watch late night documentaries about swingers on channel 4 as a teenager, including shots of people actually having sex (though you couldn't see anything) - I fell like people would lose their shit if that was broadcast somewhere teens could watch today!
(I'm 40 so this would have been around the 2000s)
If I could I would go back in time and make sure Mary Whitehouse was never born.
She was a annoying old busy body who had no right to demand TV be to her standards.
Especially when she had the option to change the channel and not watch something.
Ah the famous teenage "Might be worth a watch" symbol. A sign of quality that said "Come and watch the show, fellas, you won't go home empty handed."
For a 15 year old male with all the hormones and er' needs' the red triangle was a godsend. I would of never got to watch french Art house such as Jean Luc godard et al. Great education.
This country needs an TV ratings system so badly.
There already is one it called BARAB.
The original NSFW symbol
Nsfw symbol? I having seen any of them before. What do they look like?
I'm an American who has no context of any of this so when I saw the thumbnail I was confused as to why a random triangle would be controversial
Ahh yes, the TRIGGER WARNING before TRIGGER WARNINGS existed under said name. Oh noes, this is WOKE! SHUT IT DOWN! 😜😜😜😜😜😜
Moronic goofballing aside, the triangle was a good idea to inform viewers regarding the content
I knew them as video nasties
Teenager at the time - got me watching some interesting movies on TV.
Channel 4
ah yes, the stupid logo in the corner of the tv during the days of digital television before the stupid logo in the corner of the tv during the days of digital television
The Red Triangle means that it contains Adult Content. Channel 4 was no stranger to R-18 rated films.
Got some illicit thrills from those films at the time.
Hmm, more acceptable today? I may have remembered if I'd watched them, but definitely didn't watch them, a couple of films that would be at least category 3 offences today.
Channel 4 had a theme but not a theme song.
1:18 Jeremy Vine what a twat.
Did the Red Triangle season and The Red Light Zone cause the 'birth' of Film4 and shows like EuroTrash? Do you know if the night of shows featuring a adult cartoon by Bob Godfrey about a man and his inflatable woman was actually called 4Love or am I misremembering that?
I know that the Bob Godfrey cartoon was "Polygamous Polonious".
@@robertwilloughby8050 With a title like that, I probably wouldn't have remembered it, the little I can recall is, it had some catchy music and next to no dialogue with a few sound effects and I could be wrong, but wasn't it around November of 1993?
Any reason why UK channels don't have age ratings displayed when almost all of mainland Europe, Asia and the Americas do?
Because we have the watershed. Basically, if it's shown before 9pm (or 8pm on subscription channels) then it's suitable for all ages. If it's shown after that time, it may contain content that's inappropriate for children - it will always be accompanied by a verbal warning from the continuity announcer, and often an onscreen caption too.