Scariest Kids' TV Moments: The Ones That Stayed With Us

British children's television spent three decades being genuinely frightening, mostly on purpose, and nobody stopped it.

These are the moments people still bring up forty years later.

The dramas

• Children of the Stones, 1977 - a stone circle, a village of smiling people and a score of wordless voices. Still the most unsettling children's drama ever made in Britain.
• The Demon Headmaster, 1996 - hypnotic eyes behind dark glasses, and a generation who cannot watch someone speak slowly without flinching.
• Century Falls, Moondial and Dark Season - Russell T Davies and Catherine Morshead's run of properly eerie CBBC drama.
• The Owl Service, 1969, and the plates.
• Chocky, The Changes and Escape into Night, all of which should have had a warning.

Doctor Who

• Behind the sofa is not a joke - it was a documented, widespread childhood behaviour.
• The Autons coming out of shop windows in 1970, which ruined mannequins for a decade.
• The Weeping Angels arrived much later, in 2007, and did the same job for a new generation.
• Genesis of the Daleks, the Zygons and the giant maggots in The Green Death.
• Every cliffhanger was designed to make a child dread the following Saturday.

Public information films

• Lonely Water, 1973 - a hooded figure narrated by Donald Pleasence by a flooded quarry. The most frightening thing ever shown to British children.
• The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water was shown between cartoons, which is the part that seems unbelievable now.
• Apaches, 1977 - a farm safety film in which children die one by one. Shown in schools.
• Building Sites Bite, Playing on Railways, and the frozen pond film.
• Charley Says was the friendly one, and even that was about being taken away by a stranger.

The ones that weren't even trying

• The Mr Noseybonk sequences in Jigsaw - a man in a white mask with a long black nose, in a children's education programme.
• The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Pipkins and the general uncanniness of seventies puppetry.
• Round the Twist, which contained several ideas nobody should have shown to a child.
• The Trap Door, which was funny and also lived in a horror film.
• Ceefax page 888 and the closedown music, which frightened people for entirely different reasons.

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How to write it so it lands

• Children of the Stones holds up completely. Watch it.
• Lonely Water was shown between cartoons.
• None of this would be commissioned today.

Where to shop next

• 70s kids' TV shows
• 80s kids' TV shows
• 90s kids' TV shows
• Saturday morning TV
• After-school TV
• Kids' TV presenters we all remember
• Christmas TV of the 70s, 80s and 90s
• Bank holiday films that were always on
• Puppets and animation we grew up with
• ITV or BBC childhood
• TV theme tunes quiz
• Adverts we can all still recite
• Test card, Ceefax and the three-channel years
• Soap moments that stopped the country
• Nostalgic quiz questions
• Growing up in the 80s and 90s
• Playground games we all played
• 80s and 90s party ideas
• Free feel good tools
• Shop cards
• Planning the party? Birthday party ideas
• How to make a balloon arch
• Photo booth prop ideas
• Birthday cards for kids
• Pin badges
• All guides

Frequently asked questions

What was the scariest British kids' TV show?

Children of the Stones from 1977 is the one most often named - a seven-part ITV drama set around a stone circle, with a wordless choral score that has never stopped being unsettling.

What was the Lonely Water public information film?

A 1973 water safety film narrated by Donald Pleasence as a hooded figure by a flooded quarry. It was shown between children's programmes and is widely remembered as the most frightening thing on British television.

Why did children hide behind the sofa during Doctor Who?

Because the cliffhangers were designed to frighten. It became such a widespread real behaviour that the phrase entered ordinary English.

Who was Mr Noseybonk?

A character in the BBC children's programme Jigsaw - a silent figure in a white mask with a long black nose, who appears in a surprising number of people's childhood nightmares.

Do you sell DVDs or TV merchandise?

No - we make greeting cards, art prints and pin badges in the UK. This is written for the pleasure of remembering it, and the only products on this page are our own cards.