Thursday, February 23, 2012

Old TV Graphics are Scary

I've recently learned that since the 1970s, the BBC has utilizes a system to display teletext information of things like news headlines, sports scores, and stock prices during hours when they're not broadcasting. It's a neat-looking service with Atari 2600-level graphics.

The only reason I wanted to bring this up is that in a comment for the Ceefax video above, the top-voted comment is "ceefax scared me as a child". I completely understand.

Longtime readers (or even firstimelongtime) will know that I was absolutely terrified by the intro to the late movie on Channel 7 WABC New York when I was a child.

There must be some magical combination with late hours and sudden tonal and graphic shifts in television programming. But I was sure that every old animated intro for WABC's late night movie was  designed to somehow frighten me.

I can only wonder how the tradition continues.