Oh Globbits!

April 30, 2011 11:49 AM

Nearly twenty years before the debut of the Academy award-winning clay-mation film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Steve Box, Terry Brain, and Charlie Mills created one of the most widely-recognized British kids' shows of the 1980's... The Trap Door.

"The world of The Trap Door is completely inhabited by monsters, and almost all the show takes place in the monsters' castle, and especially the pantry or cellar where Berk, the castle servant and central character of the show, resides. Beneath the castle are a series of dark and mysterious caverns inhabited by all manner of "horrible things", accessible by the eponymous trap door in the bowels of the castle."

SERIES 1
1. Episode 1
2. Episode 2
3. Episode 3
4. Episode 4
5. Episode 5
6. Episode 6
7. Episode 7
8. Episode 8
9. Episode 9
10. Episode 10
11. Episode 11
12. Episode 12
13. Episode 13
14. Episode 14
15. Episode 15
16. Episode 16
17. Episode 17
18. Episode 18
19. Episode 19
20. Episode 20
21. Episode 21
22. Episode 22
23. Episode 23
24. Episode 24
25. Episode 25

• An Interview with Terry Brain
• Series 1&2 are available on DVD for super cheap
• [Previously]

posted by lemuring (13 comments total)

A very enjoyable "The Trap Door Annual" exists, but is quite rare nowadays.
posted by lemuring at 11:54 AM on April 30, 2011

The Trap Door was amazing!

I would also recommend the later (regular animation and less dark) series, Stoppit and Tidyup which was also by Mills and Brain (here's a sample episode)
posted by Bwithh at 12:12 PM on April 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

BURT! FEED ME!
posted by Not Supplied at 12:43 PM on April 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

This also gave rise to a most excellent Spectrum game.
posted by Auz at 12:45 PM on April 30, 2011

Oh I LOVED this show (and the game) as a kid.

Voiced, of course, by the amazing Willie Rushton.

The theme tune was awesome, which makes Episode 15 - where Berk finds an old radio and the cast dance around to an extended version of the incredibly catchy theme tune - a must-see.
posted by sleepcrime at 1:03 PM on April 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh man, you just made my evening.
posted by jonnyploy at 1:28 PM on April 30, 2011

YEEESSSS!!
posted by TwoWordReview at 2:06 PM on April 30, 2011

This was our drug of choice in college.

There goes the rest of my evening.
posted by ceiriog at 2:37 PM on April 30, 2011

There's something down there.

Brilliant show. Thanks for the episode links, I'd looked on youtube before but somehow I never noticed all of those. Probably will buy the DVD too actually, that is really cheap.
posted by lucidium at 3:03 PM on April 30, 2011

Fantastic. I happily confess I have all of these on video (and no video player to play them on anymore). I bought them when I was in my thirties. They're that good. I love the fact that "Drut" is "turd" spelt backwards. The show was full of sly nods like that.
posted by Decani at 3:25 PM on April 30, 2011

I had a game based on this for my Commodore 64 back when trilobites roamed the seas. Had no idea there was a show behind it.

Neat!
posted by sonascope at 4:08 PM on April 30, 2011

The game was even niftier on the Spectrum, 'cos it had large colour sprites that didn't have attribute clash. That took very careful design.
posted by scruss at 7:12 PM on April 30, 2011

I lived for this show when I was a kid. I also had the c64 game, too, tho it always felt like a poor ZX specturm port.

The ZX Specturm game: video
The c64 version": video
The amstrad cpc version: Terrible video
The making of the trap door: Woo accidently youtube fines
posted by jaymzjulian at 1:19 AM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]