Glen P Yeah, I'm 42 now and this was scary shit... as was the theme tune to World in Action, accompanied by footage of people being blown up, shot or imprisoned.
im 37 now and i remember my nan watchin this show..the intro use to freak me out too really dunno why thinkin back...was just creepy for kids... this intro and the new twilight zone the 80's intro use to freak me out too.... good days.
...And yet you still keep coming back to it! I'm struggling to think of a more hypnotic tune and visual sequence than this! One tune that freaked me out in the '70's was the Dr Who theme. That had me diving behind anything when I was a 4 year old! Then, in 1988, the KLF released a single based on the Dr Who theme and that was the first record that I ever bought!
michael marshall Ron grainer the same guy who composed the music here in this clip composed the Dr who theme. Delia Derbyshire , who was at the time of the first series if Dr who a member if the BBC radiophonic workshop , performed it.
For those asking, the dancing lady's name is Karen Standley. Her boyfriend at the time was contracted to make the titles, so she took the day off from working as a secretary, and just made the dance up as she went along. She did an excellent job.
This theme tune automatically makes me think of the past and reminds me of something but don't know what. It's so creepy and used to scare me and my sister. Even back when we was kids I felt like it reminded me of something from the past?
+GusTube interesting fact when this show aired in America the nude women dancing was considered to mature so the intro was altered it still had the same music but had a carasel as the visual
Karen Standley, the dancer to the theme tune in the graphics, was one of the most famous people on TV then. But no-one knows very much about her or what she really looked like. It would be interesting if we could get clear picture of her dancing. Her silhouette was the best thing about "Tales of the Unexpected."
I'm 41. Love this theme tune. Think we knew it was to a series of macabre tales, so knew the theme wasn't so innocent. World in action, yes, and crime watch, and police five, used to freak me out! Great memories.
Thank you Ron Grainer for writing this charming tune! As everybody else I also do remember this serie, from the turning knight with the Anglia banner to the cards, dancing women and mysterious masks.
The landlady! Great episode! We watched it in gcse English back in 1996 and had to write what we thought happened to Billy at the end as a story. Most of my class wrote him dying in some way . I wrote he ecaped (jumping out of a window and slicing his wrist), the story is him then running as fast as he can to the nearest police station to explain everything that had happened. When the police man goes to the house to investigate, instead of finding a murderous woman who'd chased Billy all over he finds a kind, almost grandmotherly old lady (she'd hidden the 'taxidermy' by then). She explains to the officer how she'd given Billy lodgings some months ago and he'e come back to try and break in, hence the smashed window and he must have cut himself trying to escape. Of course she was lying and Billy wasn't! The officer believes her and says he needs to take a statement, she agrees, offering him a "cup of tea dear?" The same one she'd offered Billy hours earlier! Thats where i ended my story. The teacher said she was gripped from the start. Only A i ever got!
...this and The Professionals 10pm if memory serves. Although I remember when it was school holidays and I could stay up a bit later - I was more keen on watching The Professionals than this.
Back when tv theme tunes were works of art in themselves. The images chosen inspire trepidation in themselves, chance - thing over which we have no control. The rotating gun, the roulette wheel the tarot pack - chance and fate.
@@adrianpalmer2952 thanks I'll have to look it up. Was there one with a girl hitch hiking and a weird bloke following her too? I get mixed up between these and Hammer Horror
I don't know why they got rid of the Anglia Television logo's at the start and the end of Tales Of The Unexpected nowadays when they repeat them on Sky television. It looks so much better than the crap modern Granada logo they have on it now.
Love it. Thank you. This is one of those pieces of music that stays with you. Wish the dancing silhouette had been longer. Perfect accompaniment with the music.
why dont they make TV like this any more? The intro to this show was amazing, they changed it for the US version, god knows why, the UK one used to scare me something rotten.
my granny bless her use to watch this show when i was a kid....the music use to freak me out....and the mask with the eyes lighting up use to scare the piss outa me!!!!
As many others have commented. This theme used to scare me as a child because it always invoked a feeling of malevolence. That something bad was going to happen to someone which did on this show. The red backdrop, the flames, the image of the lady combined with the carnival/carousel theme and you knew it spelt major misfortune ahead.....
I am sorry but that is not what happened to you. That music created wonder in children as it did in several other shows fro the era. It is only your modern world brain that is nihilistic associates those types of experiences with horror. We live in a postmodern world of nihilistism and this has also shaped our view of the past. The same has happened with shows like Box of Delights. I studied music growing up so I was always keenly aware of most children's interactions with music. Most of my school friends loved and were transfixed by the music of those shows only now they have grown up they will claim it creeps them out and always has but not when they were a child.
@@bighands69 - No when i heard this theme as child (since 35 plus years ago) it scared the daylights out of me. Mind you, I was only 6 or 7 years old at the time........
I got the whole series at home. It was an amazing programme. These days I appreciate the quality of the stories and the ingenious twists at the end. However I was young when it was originally screened (during it's original 9 year run I was aged between 3 and 12) and I didn't think much of it, because I couldn't understand the stories and it just didn't appeal to me - though I did ended up watching a few episodes. However the one thing I did enjoy watching though was the intro and outro. The music was spellbinding, there was something hypnotic about it. But that is not all, there is also the images - the silhouetted dancing woman, the revolver, the pack of cards, the spinning roulette wheel etc. which just adds to the mystique. Every time it was on I used to watch it for that theme music and intro and switch it off. Sometimes I maybe put it back on just to see the outro! Amazing TV series and a brilliant piece of music by the legend that is Ron Grainer (the same man that wrote the Doctor Who theme tune)...
+Lenny Madhavan we must be the same generation, but I think a lot of quality British TV back when I was a kid in the late 70's onwards was just so well written and acted...just watching repeats of Minder, early fools and Horses, Sweeney, etc etc, you can list plenty of stuff, this country did have great high calibre TV once..
+Kailash Patel I not sure how old you are, but I was born in 1975 and mainly grew up in the 1980's but I do have a fondness of 1970's and 1980's TV. I do remember watching programmes like Dempsey and Makepeace, Dramarama, Rentaghost, The Goodies, Metal Mickey, Robin of Sherwood, Catweazle, Into the Labyrinth, Worzel Gummidge, Only when I laugh, The Gaffer etc as a kid and then discovering old 1970’s programmes that I have not seen before such as Thriller, Armchair Thriller, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, The Fosters, MInd Your Language, Love Thy Neighbour, Arthur of Britons, Shadows etc. Just check out this website to purchase the old stuff: networkonair.com/ And no they don’t make ‘em like they used to. However now and again they do churn up a few good things like ‘Life On Mars/Ashes to Ashes’ mainly because it was set in that period! Thanks for sharing your memories! xx
Ron Grainer has a lot to answer for! This theme tune didn't really freak me out but it was certainly hypnotic and spellbinding! The Dr Who music did freak me out though! I was only 4 years old and that music had me diving behind the sofa! Oddly though, the first vinyl record I ever bought was the 1988 KLF single called 'Doctorin' The Tardis'! I still love that record to this day and play it regularly!
Found this with regard to the dancer : Star-studded and lavish Tales of the Unexpected may have been, but it also gave some “unknowns” a taste of fame. Best remembered of them was the dancer who performed for the opening title sequence dubbed by one newspaper as “the sexiest dance on television”. Karen Standley was a 27-year-old secretary and housewife from Berkshire, and took a day off to record the sequence. “The moves were my very own,” recalled Karen, who never danced professionally but got the job because her boyfriend at the time worked for Top of the Pops and was contracted to make the titles for Tales of the Unexpected. She was seen only in silhouette on screen and for the recording had to wear a white body stocking and white tights, with white greasepaint on her arms and legs to achieve the necessary effect. “The greasepaint kept melting under the hot studio lights,” she said. “It was horrible and uncomfortable and it took three baths to wash it all off. But it gave me some money - nothing staggering, but I got a new outfit out of it.” “I was just told to look as sexy as I could and I made it up as I went along. I got a fair amount of fan-mail - mostly adolescents who wanted a picture of me. I suppose I was their fantasy woman.” Karen is now a mother of two and works as a receptionist in a hospital accident and emergency department.
Want 'spooky' 1970's theme tunes ? Try - 'Picture Box', 'World in Action', 'Tomorrow People' & 'Children of the Stones'. . . Think its the Hammond Organ that makes them eerie. Like the theme tune to 'Get Carter'
Keith Solley Ron was great put just picked out the simple DW melody on the piano. The brilliant Delia Derbyshire realized the theme all us over 40s all know
Una de las mejores series cortas de la historia de la televisión. Imaginación a raudales, excelentes actores y siempre un final inesperado. Tanto la presentación como su música son inolvidables, una auténtica joya !!!
that comment of which you`ve put on youtube, i can relate to more than any ive ever heard....... that music and the music out of the south bank show mean nothing more than bad memories of`get to bed!!!` once i heard that music,, i knew a full week of school was ahead....looking back how my life is now..how i wish those days were back!
For some reason, whenever I catch a random episode of this show it's always "The Landlady" - and when I google the opening credits, the first link I click on is for the same episode. Talk about creepy! 👻
Was the 1st series of Tales of the Unexpected made by Yorkshire Television, because I was looking at an old RTE Guide from 1979. It was shown on RTE 2 on a Thursday night and on the RTE Guide, most programmes from Britain had the television company who made the programme, but when I saw Tales of the Unexpected listed, it said at the end of the programme details 'A Yorkshire Television Production'. The second series was show on RTE 2 in early 1981 and that says Anglia Television
No... not according to Wikipedia. Anglia TV wasn't connected to Yorkshire TV unlike Tyne Tees which had the same owners as Yorkshire TV. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Unexpected_(TV_series)
@@oohermissus I was wondering. Maybe the people who published the RTE Guide typed it up wrong. They had a habit of doing that. Back in 1976, they were showing Upstairs Downstairs, and when they wrote the production company at the bottom of the information about the programme, they put down that Thames Television produced the programme, even though it was London Weekend Television that made Upstairs Downstairs. Around the same time the first series of Tales Of The Unexpected was shown on RTE 2, they were showing the drama series Raffles, and that was made by Yorkshire Television, but the RTE Guide puts down Anglia Television. They did fix the mistake a week or two later.
@@europa2000man That's plausible. At any rate, there's no way Anglia TV would've let a competitor get their hands on one of its most successful shows. Definitely a tyypo 😀... I [also] suspect.
Thank you for posting. For some (unknown) reason this theme tune popped into my head today and I was compelled to search for it and listen to it! I remember the show well, on a Sunday night before school!! Some fantastic story lines I seem to remember!
If i remembered rightly . They were a couple with a baby , the husband was a bee keeper and im sure the husband fed the baby royal jelly in the milk . And towards the end both the baby and father begin turning into bees . Making that buzzing sound . I always found the storylines creepy and the theme tune !!!!
Oh my goodness, this still sounds as eerie as it did on Sunday nights as a child...used to give me the chills, especially the lit up eyes and the dancing ladies...
The Landlady is the only episode where the Anglia idents are left intact - all others are plastered over the end with the 1988 version and the beginning ident removed completely. I wish they wouldn't do that as it spoils the timeframe of the piece - a late 80s ident does not go well with a 70s show!
Beverley Winning One episode of Tales of the Unexpected is, I think, called "Fly Paper". It is SERIOUSLY disturbing considering some of the terrible news events we've heard in the last 10 years or so.
I can't find it elsewhere in the comments, the piece is called Love is a Carousel, and as the description rightly says, it's by Ron Grainer. Still the best tv theme by far, ever, period.
This terrified me as a kid, it was that horrid music and those images. Once my parents went out to the pub and left me alone to watch t.v. I think I was 13 or 14 years old, anyway my older brother came back to the house with a mate and they asked me to make them a brew. When I got back into the living room he had turned EVERY channel on the t.v. (back then they had 5 knobs on the front of the telly for tuning in), into you guessed it tales of the unexpected, bastard.
Ahhh no way!! I been looking for this, I remember as a kid my nan and grandad watched this. I always remember this strange music and the dancing women, it was always so surreal and strange to me bk then, all part of growing up these things lol. So glad I found it now thanx so much!!! :))
I remember watching reruns of this Series in the 1980's; late at night around midnight. I used to get very aroused at the famous opening sequence with the dancing Lady in silhouette. Great was my disappointment when many years later I saw an interview of that same Lady in a Documentary about this Series where she revealed that she was not naked, but was wearing some kind of one-piece swimsuit.
Am fairly certain that this is the episode that has stayed with me since I saw it as a kid. Wasn't this the episode with the landlady that was killing/subduing her tenants, turning them into something akin to living dolls ?
Yes, she indulged in taxidermy, after giving them poisoned cocoa. Very loving, almost aunty like figure - creepy as hell and treated the guests misleadingly with compassion and most disturbing over all. I remember being freaked out silly by the ending. Well acted by both leads. Proper nightmare stuff.
Ok so I know I’m a teenager and well I didn’t watch it when it came out but damn this reminds me of Vegas, has a jolly tune but cruel and evil all around it. Like every time I go to vegas I always think of this song and the stuff playing in the background helps check that vibe.
When you look at the back of the head it looks just like the egg on the movie poster for Alien 1979 except that the egg is not open with glowing green goo
Really strange song for me this brings back memorys that i cant really remember but i know there is some relavance to them when hearing this tune 38 years old now what year was this tune or series roughly ??
So, trawling through UA-cam, searching for TV themes loved as a child and here's this one. The only theme EVER to have my other half say "URGH, no. Turn it off! This music gives me nightmares." Brilliant stuff. Ron Grainer was a genius!
Such a creepy and sinister intro. Like so many others it scared me as a kid. Remember seeing an episode where this very 1970s couple buy a tree/house plant kind of thing for the living room and it comes alive! Between that and the Pink Floyd video with the walking hammers I was absolutely terrified of inanimate objects spring to life!
I've been watching it all over again on Sky Arts) after 30 years! Georgy Porgy and old Galloping Foxley) Royal Jelly. It brings back some great memories.
@keith4291 Yes, TV in the UK was more or less totally colour by 1977, but the purpose of putting 'Colour Production' even in the 80's was because a lot of people still didn't have a Colour set, in the early 80's Colour TV's were expensive to buy, renting was also still popular and Colour Sets were fairly expensive to rent as well, and so it was to basically tell people that it was a Colour programme, if you had a Black and White set and had nothing else, then theres a chance you didn't know.
![ОРБАН приехал к ПУТИНУ и "отчитался" о поездке в Киев 😁 [Пародия]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_0ukDovOWq8/mqdefault.jpg)
Sunday night in bed hearing that downstairs. .used to scare the shite outta me. .. 42 now and its still gets me. Why ????
Glen P
Yeah, I'm 42 now and this was scary shit... as was the theme tune to World in Action, accompanied by footage of people being blown up, shot or imprisoned.
im 37 now and i remember my nan watchin this show..the intro use to freak me out too really dunno why thinkin back...was just creepy for kids...
this intro and the new twilight zone the 80's intro use to freak me out too....
good days.
Glen P same :)
Your comment had me in stitches laughing! I'm 35 and remember watching the intro. Freaks me out still too.
Scared the hell out of me too. Drama programmes are very rarely terrifying these days.
Even now after 30 odd years this music still freaks me out
+OriginalNoseBleed I know me tooo!
...And yet you still keep coming back to it! I'm struggling to think of a more hypnotic tune and visual sequence than this! One tune that freaked me out in the '70's was the Dr Who theme. That had me diving behind anything when I was a 4 year old! Then, in 1988, the KLF released a single based on the Dr Who theme and that was the first record that I ever bought!
Literally just found out that the guy behind this music, Ron Grainer, was the same guy behind the Dr Who music! He has a lot to answer for!
Toad Rage Dr Who original was Eileen Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop back in the day. 1963 to 89
michael marshall Ron grainer the same guy who composed the music here in this clip composed the Dr who theme. Delia Derbyshire , who was at the time of the first series if Dr who a member if the BBC radiophonic workshop , performed it.
Ahh yes, the dancing lady at the start. The highlight for every teenage boy back then.
And no mistake, lol.
Me too.😈
I was a toddler at the time & absolutely petrified of her 😂
Lynsey Bell men see it differently
That and the Littlewoods catalogue 😏
36 now and the theme still creeps me out. I'm not sure whether it was the skulls or the fact I had school in the morning that scared me more.
Probably both.
For those asking, the dancing lady's name is Karen Standley. Her boyfriend at the time was contracted to make the titles, so she took the day off from working as a secretary, and just made the dance up as she went along. She did an excellent job.
Thanks ,
She's wonderful👌
She's very graceful. And it's somehow obvious she's a beautiful lady.
@@davidp4043 You're welcome!
@@BJBee Agreed, she'a a wonderful dancer.
This theme tune automatically makes me think of the past and reminds me of something but don't know what. It's so creepy and used to scare me and my sister. Even back when we was kids I felt like it reminded me of something from the past?
A past life? It's certainly triggering something in you. How interesting.
This theme scared the hell out of me as a kid..sinister but excellent.
me too
+GusTube interesting fact when this show aired in America the nude women dancing was considered to mature so the intro was altered it still had the same music but had a carasel as the visual
weird, I didn't look at other replies, but ALL said much the same as me ,
Ron Grainer wrote it, fantastic musician
Ditto
Karen Standley, the dancer to the theme tune in the graphics, was one of the most famous people on TV then. But no-one knows very much about her or what she really looked like.
It would be interesting if we could get clear picture of her dancing. Her silhouette was the best thing about "Tales of the Unexpected."
I'm 41. Love this theme tune. Think we knew it was to a series of macabre tales, so knew the theme wasn't so innocent. World in action, yes, and crime watch, and police five, used to freak me out! Great memories.
i always loved the old Anglia knight ident.
Thank you Ron Grainer for writing this charming tune! As everybody else I also do remember this serie, from the turning knight with the Anglia banner to the cards, dancing women and mysterious masks.
Remember this from years ago as a child, really freaky!!, tune sends shivers down my spine even now .
Me too. I remember the weirdness of this theme tune freaking me out as a kid.
After all these years I hadn't forgotten the dancing lady inside the burning fire. Love this tune so much... Thanks
The landlady! Great episode!
We watched it in gcse English back in 1996 and had to write what we thought happened to Billy at the end as a story.
Most of my class wrote him dying in some way . I wrote he ecaped (jumping out of a window and slicing his wrist), the story is him then running as fast as he can to the nearest police station to explain everything that had happened.
When the police man goes to the house to investigate, instead of finding a murderous woman who'd chased Billy all over he finds a kind, almost grandmotherly old lady (she'd hidden the 'taxidermy' by then).
She explains to the officer how she'd given Billy lodgings some months ago and he'e come back to try and break in, hence the smashed window and he must have cut himself trying to escape.
Of course she was lying and Billy wasn't! The officer believes her and says he needs to take a statement, she agrees, offering him a "cup of tea dear?" The same one she'd offered Billy hours earlier!
Thats where i ended my story. The teacher said she was gripped from the start. Only A i ever got!
Amazing. You're a born writer.
loved this show, love the haunting quality of the theme to.
very mysterious , but i loved it too.
Ahhhhhhh this always meant bedtime for us!!
...this and The Professionals 10pm if memory serves. Although I remember when it was school holidays and I could stay up a bit later - I was more keen on watching The Professionals than this.
Back when tv theme tunes were works of art in themselves.
The images chosen inspire trepidation in themselves, chance - thing over which we have no control. The rotating gun, the roulette wheel the tarot pack - chance and fate.
Even as a wee lad in the 1980s this show was a bit disturbing. But the silhouette was enlightening even then! Very sexy!
Leode Siefast Slightly James Bond with the dancing lady intro.
you said it all
@@arguspanoptes9510 Roahld Dahl the creator of the show, was screenplay writer for James Bond.
@@inisipisTV yes I believe so now you mention it. Forgot about it. Thanks
I was terrified of the opening credits when i was little
this is the only episode on the DVDs to have the anglia knight. also this episode is terrifying!
I hate plastering old logos with newer ones - it kills the timeframe of the piece!
Did it have a landlady that turned her guests into mannequins? I have a vague childhood memory
@@mooseyman74 yes it certainly did, and only second best to the flypaper.
@@adrianpalmer2952 thanks I'll have to look it up. Was there one with a girl hitch hiking and a weird bloke following her too? I get mixed up between these and Hammer Horror
@@mooseyman74 yes that's the one, he played the creepy bloke perfectly and still holds up as scary today. Right to the end of the episode.
I don't know why they got rid of the Anglia Television logo's at the start and the end of Tales Of The Unexpected nowadays when they repeat them on Sky television. It looks so much better than the crap modern Granada logo they have on it now.
One of the scariest tunes EVER!
+David Mander definitely. Sticks in my mind ages when I hear it.
Really grizzly tales for gruesome kids is worse If you hear that you'll have nightmares I know I did at the age of 6😨😱😵💀😈
@@laurenjeffery340 Grizzly tales if far more horrible than tales of the unexpected this shows a gem
Love it. Thank you. This is one of those pieces of music that stays with you. Wish the dancing silhouette had been longer. Perfect accompaniment with the music.
My dear old mum let me stay up and watch this sometimes. It was one creepy show.
why dont they make TV like this any more? The intro to this show was amazing, they changed it for the US version, god knows why, the UK one used to scare me something rotten.
The Outer Limits. Tales From The Crypt.
my granny bless her use to watch this show when i was a kid....the music use to freak me out....and the mask with the eyes lighting up use to scare the piss outa me!!!!
Why does this give me chills?
Loved that Anglia TV opening.
Pure evil, with a jolly tune. Don't make them like this anymore
+gezzly72 Such irony
Health and Safety would have kittens if they did, damaging all those young minds with something so scary 😂 lol
As many others have commented. This theme used to scare me as a child because it always invoked a feeling of malevolence. That something bad was going to happen to someone which did on this show.
The red backdrop, the flames, the image of the lady combined with the carnival/carousel theme and you knew it spelt major misfortune ahead.....
I am sorry but that is not what happened to you. That music created wonder in children as it did in several other shows fro the era. It is only your modern world brain that is nihilistic associates those types of experiences with horror.
We live in a postmodern world of nihilistism and this has also shaped our view of the past.
The same has happened with shows like Box of Delights. I studied music growing up so I was always keenly aware of most children's interactions with music. Most of my school friends loved and were transfixed by the music of those shows only now they have grown up they will claim it creeps them out and always has but not when they were a child.
@@bighands69 - No when i heard this theme as child (since 35 plus years ago) it scared the daylights out of me. Mind you, I was only 6 or 7 years old at the time........
I got the whole series at home. It was an amazing programme. These days I appreciate the quality of the stories and the ingenious twists at the end. However I was young when it was originally screened (during it's original 9 year run I was aged between 3 and 12) and I didn't think much of it, because I couldn't understand the stories and it just didn't appeal to me - though I did ended up watching a few episodes. However the one thing I did enjoy watching though was the intro and outro. The music was spellbinding, there was something hypnotic about it. But that is not all, there is also the images - the silhouetted dancing woman, the revolver, the pack of cards, the spinning roulette wheel etc. which just adds to the mystique. Every time it was on I used to watch it for that theme music and intro and switch it off. Sometimes I maybe put it back on just to see the outro! Amazing TV series and a brilliant piece of music by the legend that is Ron Grainer (the same man that wrote the Doctor Who theme tune)...
+Lenny Madhavan we must be the same generation, but I think a lot of quality British TV back when I was a kid in the late 70's onwards was just so well written and acted...just watching repeats of Minder, early fools and Horses, Sweeney, etc etc, you can list plenty of stuff, this country did have great high calibre TV once..
+Kailash Patel I not sure how old you are, but I was born in 1975 and mainly grew up in the 1980's but I do have a fondness of 1970's and 1980's TV. I do remember watching programmes like Dempsey and Makepeace, Dramarama, Rentaghost, The Goodies, Metal Mickey, Robin of Sherwood, Catweazle, Into the Labyrinth, Worzel Gummidge, Only when I laugh, The Gaffer etc as a kid and then discovering old 1970’s programmes that I have not seen before such as Thriller, Armchair Thriller, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, The Fosters, MInd Your Language, Love Thy Neighbour, Arthur of Britons, Shadows etc. Just check out this website to purchase the old stuff: networkonair.com/
And no they don’t make ‘em like they used to. However now and again they do churn up a few good things like ‘Life On Mars/Ashes to Ashes’ mainly because it was set in that period! Thanks for sharing your memories! xx
Thanks, born in 73!, agree with a lot of what you say...best
Ron Grainer has a lot to answer for! This theme tune didn't really freak me out but it was certainly hypnotic and spellbinding! The Dr Who music did freak me out though! I was only 4 years old and that music had me diving behind the sofa! Oddly though, the first vinyl record I ever bought was the 1988 KLF single called 'Doctorin' The Tardis'! I still love that record to this day and play it regularly!
When I was 7 or 8 years old this tune freaked me out back in the 80s
Thank the lord I have name to put to the tune. It's been driving me mad since it popped into my head recently.
Found this with regard to the dancer :
Star-studded and lavish Tales of the Unexpected may have been, but it also gave some “unknowns” a taste of fame. Best remembered of them was the dancer who performed for the opening title sequence dubbed by one newspaper as “the sexiest dance on television”.
Karen Standley was a 27-year-old secretary and housewife from Berkshire, and took a day off to record the sequence.
“The moves were my very own,” recalled Karen, who never danced professionally but got the job because her boyfriend at the time worked for Top of the Pops and was contracted to make the titles for Tales of the Unexpected.
She was seen only in silhouette on screen and for the recording had to wear a white body stocking and white tights, with white greasepaint on her arms and legs to achieve the necessary effect.
“The greasepaint kept melting under the hot studio lights,” she said. “It was horrible and uncomfortable and it took three baths to wash it all off. But it gave me some money - nothing staggering, but I got a new outfit out of it.”
“I was just told to look as sexy as I could and I made it up as I went along. I got a fair amount of fan-mail - mostly adolescents who wanted a picture of me. I suppose I was their fantasy woman.”
Karen is now a mother of two and works as a receptionist in a hospital accident and emergency department.
So, Indeed a tale of the unexpected........
Want 'spooky' 1970's theme tunes ? Try - 'Picture Box', 'World in Action', 'Tomorrow People' & 'Children of the Stones'. . . Think its the Hammond Organ that makes them eerie. Like the theme tune to 'Get Carter'
Picture Box is next level weirdness.
I was 14 years old in 1979 when Tales Of The Unexpected started. It was a great series with great theme music.
Karen Stanley was the ‘naked’ lady dancing. This theme still gives me the hebejebees! This meant bedtime on school nights.
@@TZZVZ Karen Standley by the way.
the brilliant Ron Grainer wrote this- he also wrote the themes to Steptoe and Son and of course Doctor Who!
Keith Solley Ron was great put just picked out the simple DW melody on the piano. The brilliant Delia Derbyshire realized the theme all us over 40s all know
Una de las mejores series cortas de la historia de la televisión. Imaginación a raudales, excelentes actores y siempre un final inesperado. Tanto la presentación como su música son inolvidables, una auténtica joya !!!
Loved this show,was about 6 and i remember watching with my now departed dad.
that comment of which you`ve put on youtube, i can relate to more than any ive ever heard....... that music and the music out of the south bank show mean nothing more than bad memories of`get to bed!!!` once i heard that music,, i knew a full week of school was ahead....looking back how my life is now..how i wish those days were back!
My dad introduced this show and The Avengers to me when I was maybe seven... I'll never forget them :)
Used to watch this show when I was little. The Landlady was my favorite episode, and also the creepiest one in my opinon. Thanks for sharing.
If we had grown up with this music completely decoupled from the associated visuals, would it still sound sinister?
was expecting "and now its the quiz of the week"
For some reason, whenever I catch a random episode of this show it's always "The Landlady" - and when I google the opening credits, the first link I click on is for the same episode. Talk about creepy! 👻
Will remember this forever....
Was the 1st series of Tales of the Unexpected made by Yorkshire Television, because I was looking at an old RTE Guide from 1979. It was shown on RTE 2 on a Thursday night and on the RTE Guide, most programmes from Britain had the television company who made the programme, but when I saw Tales of the Unexpected listed, it said at the end of the programme details 'A Yorkshire Television Production'. The second series was show on RTE 2 in early 1981 and that says Anglia Television
No... not according to Wikipedia. Anglia TV wasn't connected to Yorkshire TV unlike Tyne Tees which had the same owners as Yorkshire TV.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Unexpected_(TV_series)
@@oohermissus I was wondering. Maybe the people who published the RTE Guide typed it up wrong. They had a habit of doing that. Back in 1976, they were showing Upstairs Downstairs, and when they wrote the production company at the bottom of the information about the programme, they put down that Thames Television produced the programme, even though it was London Weekend Television that made Upstairs Downstairs. Around the same time the first series of Tales Of The Unexpected was shown on RTE 2, they were showing the drama series Raffles, and that was made by Yorkshire Television, but the RTE Guide puts down Anglia Television. They did fix the mistake a week or two later.
@@europa2000man That's plausible. At any rate, there's no way Anglia TV would've let a competitor get their hands on one of its most successful shows. Definitely a tyypo 😀... I [also] suspect.
Thank you for posting. For some (unknown) reason this theme tune popped into my head today and I was compelled to search for it and listen to it! I remember the show well, on a Sunday night before school!! Some fantastic story lines I seem to remember!
wasl always on a downer this time o the week, just had a bath and weekend over n back to shitty school
Lol, same!
@@kazp926 Exactly!
Good Lord, that silhouetted woman doing that dance in TOTU. I SOOOO wanted to have her.
Who could ever forget this? Creepy as hell. It was the first time I saw Tarot cards.
hear this and i knew it was back to school in the morning.
We all thought the same it seems!
Sunday evenings in the 80's
I use to be terrified of this theme song when I was little. Then i was only 7 and it felt so sinister and dark then.
If i remembered rightly . They were a couple with a baby , the husband was a bee keeper and im sure the husband fed the baby royal jelly in the milk . And towards the end both the baby and father begin turning into bees . Making that buzzing sound . I always found the storylines creepy and the theme tune !!!!
I really miss watching the tales of the unexpected I loved watching it very much
This show use to come on Friday nights 11:30 Pm in the early 80s , i miss this show
Oh my goodness, this still sounds as eerie as it did on Sunday nights as a child...used to give me the chills, especially the lit up eyes and the dancing ladies...
as a kid i use to dance in frot of fire place when this came on. Use to creep me out tho the music
This and the World in Action theme are my nostalgia favourites
This best version shows the old ANGLIA TV STATION KNIGHT ON A HORSE FOR THE OLD NOSTALGA
The Landlady is the only episode where the Anglia idents are left intact - all others are plastered over the end with the 1988 version and the beginning ident removed completely. I wish they wouldn't do that as it spoils the timeframe of the piece - a late 80s ident does not go well with a 70s show!
@@MysteryManfrom79 thank you !!!!
@@MysteryManfrom79 Skeleton in the Cupboard is the other episode with the original Anglia Knight ident left intact as well.
Still scares me to death
wuss
Just been going through some other scary theme tunes. Try:
World in Action
Horizon &
BBC Rugby Special.
All very eery tunes !!
Hahaha me too! Used to seriously disturb me as a child
My husband has recently started watching this! It brings back memories of how disturbing I found this series as a child!
Beverley Winning
One episode of Tales of the Unexpected is, I think, called "Fly Paper". It is SERIOUSLY disturbing considering some of the terrible news events we've heard in the last 10 years or so.
Karen standley is the dancer on the credits and at the start of the programme.
thanks
in FRANCE the title of this TV SERIE was " BIZARRE BIZARRE "
Thanks for the post
I can't find it elsewhere in the comments, the piece is called Love is a Carousel, and as the description rightly says, it's by Ron Grainer. Still the best tv theme by far, ever, period.
Ah, the sound of terror.
This terrified me as a kid, it was that horrid music and those images. Once my parents went out to the pub and left me alone to watch t.v. I think I was 13 or 14 years old, anyway my older brother came back to the house with a mate and they asked me to make them a brew. When I got back into the living room he had turned EVERY channel on the t.v. (back then they had 5 knobs on the front of the telly for tuning in), into you guessed it tales of the unexpected, bastard.
The music was never creepy. That is your adult brain being confused.
This brings back memories. Does anyone know the significance of the gun, cards and roulette wheel in the closing sequence?
they represent (dire) games of chance and fate etc (re the revolver gun - russian roulette) - they give outcomes that are `unexpected' - get it?
The good old days ........this programme scared me to death .....bloody creepy!
Ahhh no way!! I been looking for this, I remember as a kid my nan and grandad watched this. I always remember this strange music and the dancing women, it was always so surreal and strange to me bk then, all part of growing up these things lol. So glad I found it now thanx so much!!! :))
Brilliant 👏
I remember watching reruns of this Series in the 1980's; late at night around midnight. I used to get very aroused at the famous opening sequence with the dancing Lady in silhouette. Great was my disappointment when many years later I saw an interview of that same Lady in a Documentary about this Series where she revealed that she was not naked, but was wearing some kind of one-piece swimsuit.
Am fairly certain that this is the episode that has stayed with me since I saw it as a kid.
Wasn't this the episode with the landlady that was killing/subduing her tenants, turning them into something akin to living dolls ?
Yes, she indulged in taxidermy, after giving them poisoned cocoa. Very loving, almost aunty like figure - creepy as hell and treated the guests misleadingly with compassion and most disturbing over all. I remember being freaked out silly by the ending. Well acted by both leads. Proper nightmare stuff.
Don't know why, but the start titles scared the shit out of me, at times when I heard theme music, that was when I went to hide under my duvet!
The music never scared you. You are just making that up.
Ok so I know I’m a teenager and well I didn’t watch it when it came out but damn this reminds me of Vegas, has a jolly tune but cruel and evil all around it. Like every time I go to vegas I always think of this song and the stuff playing in the background helps check that vibe.
Anglia - Colour Production...
This was back when colour was a big deal! Amazing...but makes me feel old!
I wonder if that roulette wheel was also seen in the Gambit opening titles as both shows were made by Anglia Television.
Desde los 70 traigo ese tema musical en la cabeza...que me llena de suspenso!!
I just loved this tvshow...so so so much!
So creepy. Anyone remember 'chocky' the kids show? Had like a triangle on the opening? Well freaky.
Yes I remember
enjoy or not ua-cam.com/video/e3ztIDFU2P8/v-deo.html
@@jrmetmoi ua-cam.com/video/e3ztIDFU2P8/v-deo.html
When you look at the back of the head it looks just like the egg on the movie poster for Alien 1979 except that the egg is not open with glowing green goo
Really strange song for me this brings back memorys that i cant really remember but i know there is some relavance to them when hearing this tune
38 years old now what year was this tune or series roughly ??
was on the tv from 1979-1988
So, trawling through UA-cam, searching for TV themes loved as a child and here's this one. The only theme EVER to have my other half say "URGH, no. Turn it off! This music gives me nightmares." Brilliant stuff. Ron Grainer was a genius!
I didn't really get scared watching this, but this particular episode creeps me out till this day.
Is it just me who does not find the music scary? The visuals yes at least a little bit.
ITV should bring this back, drop the reality game show crap bring back Tales Of the Unexpected
Totally agree, I think itv have a copyright problem with the show as they don't even show it on itv 3,or itv 4.
This is a very catchy tone
Such a creepy and sinister intro. Like so many others it scared me as a kid. Remember seeing an episode where this very 1970s couple buy a tree/house plant kind of thing for the living room and it comes alive! Between that and the Pink Floyd video with the walking hammers I was absolutely terrified of inanimate objects spring to life!
This tune used to make me depressed because I dreaded school for some reason, I think its quite a nice melody now!
I've been watching it all over again on Sky Arts) after 30 years!
Georgy Porgy and old Galloping Foxley) Royal Jelly. It brings back some great memories.
+Freakster1970 I'm half way through the box set DVDs. The Landlady is my choice for creepiest.
I still got spooked now... *shivers*
I was told by a school friend that the lady doing the dancing was a teacher at our school
wow....The MEMORIES this music brings!
This music and intro will always haunt me. Memories from my childhood. But I love it.
I really miss that the tales of the unexecpect it was my favourite I miss the old days
Duncan Lamont(RIP) did the sax on this. Don’t know who the other musicians were would love to know
@keith4291 Yes, TV in the UK was more or less totally colour by 1977, but the purpose of putting 'Colour Production' even in the 80's was because a lot of people still didn't have a Colour set, in the early 80's Colour TV's were expensive to buy, renting was also still popular and Colour Sets were fairly expensive to rent as well, and so it was to basically tell people that it was a Colour programme, if you had a Black and White set and had nothing else, then theres a chance you didn't know.
I was referring to the Theme music/intro and not the content of the episodes. It's a jolly/upbeat piece of music, but is also quite sinister.
This music used to scare the crap out of my brother when we were younger, by the way he’s 4 years older than me!
Ron Grainer, Brilliant musician.!
Dr who theme perfection
Delia Derbyshire BBC Radiophonic workshop did the Dr Who original