Bad Influence!
| Bad Influence! | |
|---|---|
| Presented by |
Violet Berlin Andy Crane Sonya Saul (1995-6) |
| Starring |
Andy Wear (Nam Rood: 1992-4) Z Wright (1992-4) |
| Theme music composer | Ernie Wood |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 57 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 20 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Yorkshire Television |
| Distributor | ITV Studios |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV Network (CITV) |
| Original release | 29 October 1992 – 2 January 1996 |
Bad Influence! is an early to mid-1990s British factual television programme broadcast on CITV between 1992 and 1996, and was produced in Leeds by Yorkshire Television (now known as ITV Studios). It looked at video games and computer technology, and was described as a "kid’s Tomorrow's World". It was shown on Thursday afternoons and had a run of four series of between 13 and 15 shows, each of 20 minutes duration. For three of the four series, it had the highest ratings of any CITV programme at the time. Its working title was Deep Techies, a colloquial term derived from 'techies' basically meaning technology-obsessed individuals.
Bad Influence! began during the 16 bit-era of computer and video gaming, and featured in-depth news, previews and reviews about the very latest in gaming and computer technology. The series ran long enough to feature the launch of the Nintendo 64 console (then acknowledged by its working title, the Ultra 64) in its fourth and final series. The show was originally presented by then children's TV presenters Violet Berlin and Andy Crane (of 1980s CBBC Broom Cupboard fame [The Broom Cupboard being the nickname for the CBBC's continuity announcer's booth]), who were studio based, and US teen actor Z Wright, who filed location reports from the US until Series 4. There was also a cheats segment character called Nam Rood (played by Andy Wear), an anarchic "furtler" who lived in a shed in the first two series, and then in the basement for Series 3. He would give viewers gaming cheats (written on cards he would stick to his forehead) in between mock experiment comedy sketches three times per episode. He would always greet viewers with his trademark catchphrases "slimy furtlers" and "scrotty furtlers", the term "furtler" equating to the term "techie".
Other features included three game reviews per episode - one in depth and two in brief - by teenagers local to the area where Bad Influence! was produced, namely the city of Leeds in West Yorkshire. Although these teenagers stints on the show varied, a small number appeared in all four series of the programme. Although the majority of mid-programme reports were filed from the US by Z Wright, they were sometimes filed by Violet Berlin and on rare occasions by Andy Crane, in place of Z Wright. The programme usually focused on PC and Amiga segments early on in an episode, with more console-based segments later on. There was also a weekly competition towards the end of the programme, directly before one of the show's most distinctive features - the 'Datablast' sequence. The Datablast - which viewers were encouraged to record on their video recorders - consisted of a number of pages of gaming articles and information that were flashed rapidly onto the screen during the credits. Viewers could then read the pages by replaying it in slow motion on their video player. The information consisted of a watered down version of most of that episodes features, as well as some exclusive content, such as Top Ten video games charts.
...
Wikipedia