{"id":22428,"date":"2019-10-31T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T00:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/?p=22428"},"modified":"2019-10-30T16:54:22","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T16:54:22","slug":"the-halloween-tv-special-that-terrified-a-nation-a-ghostwatch-retrospective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/the-halloween-tv-special-that-terrified-a-nation-a-ghostwatch-retrospective\/","title":{"rendered":"The Halloween TV special that terrified a nation: A Ghostwatch retrospective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Picture, if you will, a world without being able to rewind the show you were watching on television.<\/p>\n

Unthinkable to people of a certain age, fact of life for another demographic.<\/p>\n

The technological advancement so many of us take for granted is the core of what makes today’s topic, BBC’s Ghostwatch from 1992, that much more terrifying.<\/p>\n

Ghostwatch tells the story of the Early family, consisiting of a mother and two children, in a house in Enfield, just outside London.<\/p>\n

They’ve been claiming that a malovelent spirit known as Mr Pipes has been terrorising them for years, but no one believes them.<\/p>\n

The BBC sent a live television crew to the house in Foxhill Drive, with legendary television host Michael Parkinson offering analysis back at the studio, debating with paranormal experts if what they’re seeing at the house is actually taking place.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Mr. Reliable: Michael Parkinson acted as the viewers surrogate, in a genius bit of meta-casting.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It should be stated however, this is under the pretext of a scripted drama – but more on that misunderstanding later.<\/p>\n

The night starts out fairly light-hearted – Craig Charles does his usual shtick, Mike Smith rocks the most 1992 hairdo known to man while manning the phones, the technology is charmingly outdated – but it soon becomes apparent maybe the Early family are right after all.<\/p>\n

\"Image
The late, great Mike Smith.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All the while, viewers catch occasional glimpses of a strange figure in the background of certain shots, or appearing in blink-or-you’ll-miss-it glimpses.<\/p>\n

Bringing it back to the restraints of broadcast television at the time, you couldn’t pause and rewind to make sure what you saw was real, and there was no Twitter back then to ask other people did you just see what you saw.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Someone calls the show later on asking them to rewind this clip. When the clip is shown again, Pipes is nowhere to be found..<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Therein, lies the genius of Ghostwatch.<\/p>\n

Sure, some of it might be outdated now, but put yourself in the shoes of a viewer who watched Ghostwatch on Halloween night 1992.<\/p>\n

Wall Street was playing on ITV, Match Of The Day was on after Ghostwatch, an adaptation of War and Peace was playing on BBC Two, it was your typical Saturday night affair.<\/p>\n

The controversy over Ghostwatch starts when people missed the “Screen One” and disclaimer at the start of the programme – bear in mind this is on the good old BBC, no ad breaks for you, you filthy capitalist – so it’s reasonable to assume the majority of people tuning in were tuning in after the inatial announcement, and were not aware it was a scripted drama.<\/p>\n