h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm doing some research on Film, and in particular Serials - the cliffhanger Buster Crabbe Ray Corrigan type things, and 'Saturday Morning Pictures' - the kid's matinee performances at which serials were shown until just twenty years ago.

Does anyone here remember what they used to go and see? Where? And when?

If so i'd love to have a chat about it, why not post here, or come over to my page U183016 and do it!

I remember Captain Video!

He was sort of similar to Flash Gordon..

Yeah, made in the early Fifties, kind of marked the end of the cinema serial. Was it any good? When would you have seen it?

It was very good..very exciting, pity I can't remember his side kick. I suppose you could relate it to the Batman and Robin of today.

I saw it in the early to mid 60's, I used to take my younger brothers to see it.

Then we had the films, usually westerns. I never could understand what those young girls on the screen saw in Randolph Scott.. he was OOOooolld!

In the '70's, I remember a serial about some kids abandoned on a little island that was inhabited by stange evil 'monk' type people who went around trying to catch the kids. I have no idea what it was called but there was a great cliffhanger every week.

I used to go to Saturday Morning Pictures at the ABC in South Woodford nigh on 30 years ago!

We used to get all the Childrens Film Foundation films as well as cartoons like Huckleberry Hound and the main feature film (Zorro or Lone Ranger or some real "boy" type film.

Most of all I remember the ritual of going to the sweet shop (Fishers) on the way and buying Bazooka Joe bubble gum, sherbet (by the quarter), fruit salads, flying saucers, gobstoppers etc.

We stopped going when SwapShop started on BBC1 in 1976.

They do Saturday morning pictures for kids now - of course it is all Boo, Snurks and Gobbledegook but I am sure that is what our parents thought when we used to go...
Wilma

I remember seeing Childrens' Film Foundation films on a Saturday morning at a British Forces cinema in Germany when I was a wee sprog.

A particularly memorable one involved a bunch of kids foiling a diamond robbery with radio-controlled aerpolanes. I have no idea how I remember it!

I was an ABC Minor for a couple of years in the mid to late 60s, and I've still got my glow-in-the-dark Minors badge... which still glows in the dark, albeit rather feebly. I mean - you have to shine a 5,000 watt arc lamp on it for about 24 hours for it to glow for a couple of minutes

It cost sixpence to get in and the place was packed every Saturday. I think the doors opened at 9am and the whole thing lasted about two hours. I know that I was always home soon after midday. Must have been the worst shift of the whole week for the staff Reckon you had to draw the short straw to get that one

We used to sing the Minors song at the beginning of each show, with the words on the screen and a little bouncing ball:

We are the boys and girls well known as,
Minors of the ABC.
And every Saturday we line up,
To see the films we like,
And shout aloud with glee.
We love to laugh and have a singsong,
Such a happy crowd are we.
We’re all pals together,
The Minors of the ABC.
(To the tune of 'Blaze Away')

After that there was a sort of a relay game where two teams of four or five kids had to line up alongside each other. The first one in each line was given something like a box or a parcel, and it was passed along the line until it got to the other end. Then that kid had to run around the back (not the front - that was against the rules) of the other kids to the beginning of the line and the parcel was passed along again until it reached the end once more, when *that* kid had to run around the back, etc etc etc so that each member of the team moved along the line one place at a time until the kid who was originally at the beginning got back there again. The quickest team to finish was the winner.

This is why we had badges - you could only take part in the game if you had one, and when both teams were lined up they turned off the house lights and (hopefully) saw ten little glowing dots on the stage. If there were only nine, that team had to find another participant. I never took part in it meself and I can't for the life of me remember what the prizes were.

As far as the films went - to the best of my recollection we had a cartoon, a serial and a feature. There were lots of Childrens Film Foundation films as well as Tarzan movies and films like 'Elephant Boy' (I wonder why jungle films were so popular?), and even Laurel and Hardy. I vividly remember seeing their film 'The Music Box' at Saturday morning flicks There was an interval before the feature, which was when we all went and got our albatross... sorry, choc ice.

There were previews for regular films too - mostly the sort of films that kids would want to see (obviously) like Batman (the Adam West/Burt Ward Batman), the Thunderbirds films, a Man From Uncle film, and... Barbarella. Yes - they showed a preview for Barbarella to a cinema full of kids Had quite an effect on me I can tell you It's still one of my favourite films to this day. Young, impressionable minds can be moulded so easily I remember a preview for this film too http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059065/ which to this day I have still never seen.

Feel free to use any of that for your research. I'll post more if and when I remember it.

Well, I never had the privilege, but my dad was a regular attendee before the last war. This only came to light when he discovered that I had been watching 'Flash Gordon' on the BBC, and he was delighted to finally see the final episode.

Turned out he had watched all 14 episodes in the cinema but missed Chapter Fifteen due to being ill. I can't say it changed his life knowing what finally happened, but it certainly cheered him up that day.

My own personal favourites are the two Flash Gordon serials (now available on dvd), Crash Corrigan and the Undersea Kingdom (absolutely wonderful tosh, right down to the dustybin style robots) and the peerless King of the Rocket Men.

I was a ABC Saturday Morning Minors Monitor, age 12-15. As a monitor we got in free and could go any where in the cinema except the managers office (child slave labour hahahahaha). With the other Monitors we had some say in the films shown but we did not get to see most of them because there was always some thing to do, like finding lost money and lost people, We had to keep every one in control (not easy at 12 years old). Show people to there seats when the lights was down, No kicking Chairs! No Shouting! No talking when the films running! No running! No throwing things! To help the disabled. We could throw people out if they was to disruptive or take them to the manager if very young (so a adult could collect them). If one monitor was in trouble then all the monitors would go to there aide. We had to arrive early to sign in and meeting, After every one had left we had to stay behind to report the days problems how we dealt with them and help find things that was lost.
Before the films started the manager would go on stage and give out birthday treats then the sing-along, there would be 2,3 or 4 short serial films before the interval then the main film.
Hope this brings back old memory's Lol