If you like The Prisoner, check out this video by one of my favorite bands, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling:


And here's of my favorite shows growing up:

@Evan (or anyone) - do you know if there are any Korean films from the 1970s/80s, comparable in style to the Jackie Chan etc Kung Fu movie classics, but featuring Tai Kwon Do? I know that Hwang Jan Lee (of Korean background) appears in several (e.g. 'Drunken Master') where he displays his TKD kicking prowess - but was there a separate TKD genre? 

I don't know of any Korean films comparable to the 70s Hong Kong martial arts films.

There was a lot of government censorship at the time, which may have kept the Korean film industry from developing its own equivalents.

Your best bet might be When Taekwondo Strikes/Sting of the Dragon Masters:

Which I believe is a Hong Kong film.

That'll do nicely - "with deadly kicks" - quality!

Evan said: When Taekwondo Strikes/Sting of the Dragon Masters

Twin Peaks count?

Funny thing is that a lot of what's considered cult TV in the U.S. is or was (as far as I can tell) more-or-less mainstream TV in the U.K.

Doctor Who, The Prisoner, The Young Ones, Blackadder, and so forth.  Even Monty Python.

Or Buffy?

Evan said: Doctor Who

Yeah PBS was big in my childhood home for the Tom Baker years.

Star Trek (the original) used to be Cult TV back in the 70s/80s, before Next Generation.

Other classic U.S. cult shows:

Twilight Zone:

Outer Limits:

Night Gallery:

Chiller (basically, trashy horror films shown on a local NY TV station):

Absolutely terrifying to a little kid.

Remington Steele count?

Evan: Yeah, even something as complex and demented as Sapphire & Steel was mainstream television in the UK in the early 80s. It went out at around 7pm on a weekday night on ITV.  

Never even heard of Sapphire & Steel before you posted it, but interesting that the opening borrows from both the opening to The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. 

(And that I posted clips from both of those shows before I viewed the Sapphire & Steel opening.)

They were always trying to scare the kids.

 

This one was broadcast Sunday lunchtime, as your mum was making the roast and your dad was sleeping off the ale. It chronicled a rapidly vanishing pastoral world. This episode contains a spokeshave, a clog, a bung-hole borer, a ram's pole and ponies the Vikings used.

And another English one, broadcast very briefly on some U.S. cable channel:

My Saturday nights in my 20s consisted of going to friend's house and watching the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood (with the Clannad soundtrack), Doctor Who and Tomorrow People. 

grant said: Robin Hood (with the Clannad soundtrack)

That was a religious experience for me including that soundtrack.

I have a friend who DJs on Fridays at the pub I work at. He's been known to slip in 'Robin (The Hooded Man)" as his final tune from time to time.

It was filmed in the grounds of Blaise Castle in Bristol.

I'm watching this at the moment: 

That was a strange one.  Strange cast.  Strange concept.  Strange story.  Never really took off.

But I still remember "see God, Kai."

Yeah. Although I don't really mind it just being a single season thing. Unlike, say, Carnivale, I'm not sure that John from Cincinnati necessarily needed to run for more than one season. I'm up to episode 6 so far, and I rate it up there with Twin Peaks. Love it. 

The Tomorrow People. I was very disappointed when I discovered that jaunting belts didn't actually exist.

@genlob, Now you've got me wanting to watch Robinhood all over again.

At the moment I'm watching a lot of the House of Elliot. For those who missed it in the early 90s, it's a BBC production about two sisters running a fashion house in 1920s London. The whole thing is sort of a tone poem about how jolly challenging it is too be a woman or in love or creative. On at least one occasion they do the Charleston.

However, it doesn't really translate to short clips. So instead, here is French and Saunders send-up of The House of Elliot.

It did have its moments, XK.

Does anyone remember a show called Phoenix starring the guy that was Khan's second-in-command in Wrath of Khan? Keywords: extraterrestrial; men-in-black; ancient Egypt. I think he was roaming around the country (like every other nominally sci-fi series in the late 70s/early 80s) dodging The Man and healing people with his alien miracle technology. Possibly before ET was made. He was cuter than a Spielberg alien, but, you know, they hadn't started that wave of their propaganda yet. 

I remember Jack Hargreaves!  His programme was always on before the proper telly started.  Us kids used to call him Boring Jack Hargreaves like it was his official name.

Can't believe we've got The Water Margin up there but not Monkey.  This shall be rectified forthwith:



Yeah, that's actually a badly-dubbed Japanese TV show based on Journey to the West.  Yeah, with pretend stick-fighting and funfur.  And sideburns.  You're welcome.

Mordant Carnival said: I remember Jack Hargreaves! His programme was always on before the proper telly started. Us kids used to call him Boring Jack Hargreaves like it was his official name.

Wonderful. He was on in that time between coming back from church and waiting for the Big Match (with Brian Moore) to start. At the time it was sooo boring, even made "Weekend World" look fun. It's only as an adult I realised what a gem it actually was. What they should've done is have Catweazle introduce it instead of Jack.

I know!  Totally failed to appreciate poor Mr. Hargreaves at the time, now I'm mining the internet for exactly that sort of info.

Anyone remember the witch from Pogle's Wood? Very scary for a 5-year-old...

Bees:

Herbalist:

This is interesting: in a Google search for Cult TV 70s, Liminal Nation is in the top 10 hits.

I was trying to think of a few more that were (as far as I know) distinctly American, so here's

Get Smart.  Mel Brooks and Buck Henry do a brilliant spoof of James Bond, Our Man Flint, and on and on. 



H.R. Pufnstuf.  70s acidheads Sid and Marty Croft do . . . well, I'm not even sure how to describe it.



Quark.  Richard Benjamin as a space garbageman.  Bizarre. 



Freaks and Geeks.  The show that launched Judd Apatow's career, along with a half-dozen actors from James Franco to Seth Rogen.  So accurate it's painful.



And does the U.K. get the current U.S. show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?



Cruel.  Brutal.  Amazing.

From the same studio that gave us Bagpuss, Ivor The Engine and The Clangers came this take on the Norse sagas.

 

 

There's something about Postgate's voice that is truly magical.

There has been some interesting sport on tv in the UK over the years. In the 70s Yorkshire TV ran this series featuring traditional pub games like table football, bar billiards, arm wrestling, skittles and shove ha'penny. Here the final reaches its tense conclusion. Hosted by the wonderfully haired Fred Trueman. The table skittle stars are fighting it out for a hundred and fifty quid.

 

 

Does the U.K. get American Horror Story?

Very strange, and not in a Mighty Boosh sort of way.  In a David Lynch sort of way.

And the most disturbing opening credits I've ever seen.

Here's a show that was wildly popular at the time, and still has a cult following.



Were they manufactured?  Yes.  Did they play their own songs?  Generally no.

But they had Neil Diamond, Carole King, and Gerry Goffin writing their songs.  And Glen Campbell and some of the best session musicians in L.A. (James Burton, Hal Blaine, and Larry Taylor) recording them.

Which gave us this:


And this:


And this:


And this, from their cult movie Head:


And one they actually wrote and performed:


And a truly freaky TV show.

Third weirdest Monkees thing: ZILCH:



Second weirdest Monkees thing: They opened for Hendrix. Disastrously. A Very Strange Tour Indeed.

First weirdest Monkees thing: "This is our friend Frank Zappa. He's going to play the car for y'all."

Zappa also appears in Head, with a cow, telling Davy Jones to spend more time on the music "because the youth of America depend on you to show the way."

Randy scouse git - big LOL.

The wiki entry says The Monkees were known as the pre-fab four. I always thought that was The Rutles, spoof Beatles band of Neil Innes and Eric Idle, first seen on Rutland Weekend Television.

 

Here are The Rutles themselves

One of my favorite albums of all time was a Rutles tribute album, which really, trying to explain to people, seems like an exercise in obscurantism. But it had Bongos, Bass and Bob (Penn Gillette's band) on it! And Shonen Knife! And Bongwater! And King Missile! And Unrest! And Galaxie 500! And the songs were actually really good.

This was my favorite track:



Wound up on bajillions of mixtapes from 1993 to 2003 or so.

grant said: Second weirdest Monkees thing: They opened for Hendrix. Disastrously.

Weirder than that: Hendrix opened for The Monkees.  Disastrously.  Because Hendrix didn't appeal to their audience.

Oo! Of all the things to get backwards.

And this evening I heard "I'm a Believer" on the radio for the first time in years.

Two days after posting.  My synchronicities are getting lazy.

Throughout the 70s the BBC ran the drama series "Play for Today", with writers like John Osborne, Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale and directors including Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Lyndsay Anderson.

Some stand outs were "Abigail's Party", "Nuts in May" (both with Alison Steadman) and "Gangsters" but my favourite was this by Dennis Potter Blue Remembered Hills

Goodnight Davy, lad.

 

Damn it.

But now maybe David Bowie can change his name back.

He was apparently at a ranch the next county north of mine. The biggest celebrity there is Burt Reynolds. I wonder if they ever hung out.