The 77/78 TV series: Little mistakes and special moments

[Lucky Star]

Music to march right into Warsaw by?

What an odd way to describe a Famous Five theme!

[natalieb]

just a joke about it being the theme for the German dub.

[Morgan Jones]

Debbie,

Completely agree with you regarding titles and also that something is odd about the Caravan title ... a mark or tear on the spine or something that is not sufficiently clear to be seen properly.

I suppose we'll never know exactly what ...

* EDIT and thanks for your thoughts about the plural apostrophe ... unless the place was named in honour of Mr Barling himself. Did the book say he once lived at Smuggler's Top? I can't recall, but there was some connection he had to the place beyond Block and the signals!

I know I’m late to the party but I think the book that looks a bit like Caravan may actually be Five Fall into Adventure. The imperfections in the spine seem to be hiding some letters. Not sure though.

[Morgan Jones]

The other day I had a look at the original airdates of the First and Second series episodes on the imdb.com.

It's interesting that approximately 1/3 of the Second series eps went to air in the latter part of 1978 directly after the First series had finished airing. The remainder of the Second series screened in the new year 1979.

One thing I thought was odd was "Five are together again" screened first in late 1978 before "Five go to Demons Rocks" aired in 1979. In a chronological sense of the books this is the complete wrong way around Also in terms of filming it's fairly obvious the 2 part Demons Rocks eps were filmed prior to Five are together again due to Marcus Harris' breaking voice.

Of course the info on the imdb.com might be incorrect? But after doing a bit of Googling a couple of other website displayed the same airdates.

Just to confirm, I have checked the TV Times listings for 1978/79 and the dates and episode chronology on the IMDB are correct (but they may have since been updated since you wrote the above post). There was, however, a six week break between S1 and the first part of S2.

S1 was shown Mondays from 3rd July 1978 and 2nd October 1978 (with no episode on August Bank Holiday).

The first six episodes of S2 were shown Sundays from
19th November 1978 to 31st December 1978 (with no episode on Christmas Eve, which fell on a Sunday that year).

The remaining seven episodes of S2 (billed as a “new series” in the TV Times, which in a way it was) screened Wednesdays from 27th June 1979 to 8th August 1979*

It’s possible that the final episode (Sea Pt 2) wasn’t shown in some - or indeed any - areas of the country due to the infamous nationwide strike which blacked out every ITV station except Channel Television for nearly 11 weeks. Schedules had been interrupted for several days as the technicians at various locations took industrial action, prior to the nationwide walkout on 10th August. The entire series was repeated the following year I believe.

[FiveFanDownunder]

I know I’m late to the party but I think the book that looks a bit like Caravan may actually be Five Fall into Adventure. The imperfections in the spine seem to be hiding some letters. Not sure though.

Never could work it out so any theory is worth a look. I might try to check this out thanks!

[timv]

I have some of the callsheets from the filming of series 2 thanks to Gary, so can confirm that some of the filming of Demons Rocks and of Together Again were done on the same days - especially the filming at Gatewood House, ie Prof Hayling's residence . Presumably this was done as it was easier to have the Professor and other actors who just appeared in these scenes on call for one or two days for their roles, at one location to which they could be ferried by car from Southampton Station. On 24 July 1978 some of the Gatewood scenes at 'Prof Hayling's house', labelled as 'set 3C', were shot for both episodes, which are both named at the top of the callsheet - and are listed as '6 pt (ie part of scene 6), 30, 32, 34, 15N (ie 'night??), 21, and 24. Also that day 'Kirrin kitchen' shots were done for DR, TA, and Run Away Together - or possibly for 1 or 2 of these episodes, as it doesn't say which number refers to which episode.

. Another surviving callsheet for the 24 July 1978 repeats this info. On 25 July 1978 Together Again and DR were both filmed, again - this time, the scenes at 'boys tents' for TA, 'circus camp/ cages, interior and exterior' for TA, 'cycle shed' (probably for TA), and 'boys and girls tents' for TA (and possibly for Run Away Together as it was listed as filmed this day too). The boys tents site was location 1A, the circus camp /cages was 1B, the cycle shed, was 1C, and the boys and girls tents was 1D - the ref to girls tents in 1D seems to imply a different scene from when just the boys tents were filmed, but was this for the same book?? The location is presumably Exbury gardens. Th circus camp and cages location is presumably Gatewood, possibly the shots done in the 'car park' . The filming on 25 July also included 'Interior, lighthouse, living room' , from DR, as location '4G', with scenes 18, 56, 60, 62 and 67 - ie all for Demons Rocks. But as the living room is quite big, is this filmed at the 'Old Light' big upstairs room at Hurst Castle, in the Victorian west wing of the castle rather than up in the main lighthouse which is too small for these shots, or is it a mock-up at Gatewood or Exbury?

The 'Uncle Quentin's study' scenes of Fall into Adventure, and other bits of DR and TA, were filmed all together on 7 July 1978. So at least some of DR and TA was filmed at the same time - but other bits may have been shot weeks apart though, it all seems to have been done fairly close together. I have the filming of most of Down to the Sea listed as in bits from 20 to 30 June 1978, a bit earlier.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Interesting stuff. Until it was mentioned on these forums, it had never occurred to me that scenes from different episodes might have been filmed on the same day.

[jon81]

Looking at previous comments and having just re-watched FHAWT Episode, I always thought that Terry Kane was the professors first/last name until rewatching again I noticed the credits say Terry-Kane and with UQ calling him 'Mark' always assumed that this was a sound/script error. Also 'The Gilbury
Bridge' at EG as seen in 'Trouble' I think was also used in 'Secret Trail' where the Five are watching the villains in the green car return back to go down the mine shaft.