Anyone remember Superchannel?

The Express

Hi Folks,
I remember this was on the Cablelink package in Dublin back in the early nineties.

Can't exactly remember the programmes but think there were a lot of infomercials for carrot shredders that would go on for about an hour - and always had an English bloke doing the demo?

Any other memories?

WindSock

There was a thread here not too long ago

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055248457&highlight=super

icdg

Since that thread was mainly about children's programmes rather than Super itself...

Super Channel would have been on Cablelink from 1987 or thereabouts. It was originally not that dissimilar from the Sky Channel of that era, mostly general entertainment programming, although Super originally concentrated on British programmes rather than American ones (having been originally owned by the ITV companies). It then turned into a documentaries type channel for a while. NBC then bought it out in 1993 when it became NBC Super Channel. After they took over, the channel moved to the "Where The Stars Come Out At Night" format with Today during the day, some documentaries (a bit of a hangover from the previous era), ITN and NBC news in the evening, and later at night, lots of Leno, Conan, etc. Oh, and Profiler, about the only drama the channel still screened at that stage.

The "Super Channel" part of the name got downgraded to Really Small Letters in 1996 with NBC becoming the main brand. By that stage the channel was filling its airtime with CNBC Europe simulcasts for huge chunks of the day and lots of golf at the weekend - a lot like CNBC Europe, really. By 1997 the "Super Channel" was dropped and it was just NBC, but the channel died a death not longer after that - really it had become CNBC Europe 2 at that stage. A German channel took on the NBC name for a while after, but it wasn't really the same Super Channel we had known. Cablelink replaced it with CNBC Europe from 5am-11am and National Geographic for the rest of the day (basically, airing what was aired on NBC's old frequency on Astra).

bob50

The Super Channel came on in 1987 it also started showing the american wrestling in Ireland for the first time

Anyone remember Hulk Hogan The cowboy Randy Savage

It also used to show pop ideos presented by the mullet wearing Pat Sharp


Also it had an american fashion prog

WindSock

Some shots on this link

http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/otherchannels/superchannel.html


Does anyone remember a horror type film that was about a dolls house and there was green ooze in it? Whatever happened to the dolls house, happened to the main house too. I don't think it was ther Twilight Zone, but it may have been.

The Mulk

WindSock wrote: »

Some shots on this link

http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/otherchannels/superchannel.html


Does anyone remember a horror type film that was about a dolls house and there was green ooze in it? Whatever happened to the dolls house, happened to the main house too. I don't think it was ther Twilight Zone, but it may have been.

Vaguely remember that. The house turned out to be in a micro wave in the future, and the ooze was a 'candy' bar of some description.

stovelid

Was that the channel that Nino Ferretto(?) was on?

ixoy

Used to love SuperChannel (in its original style) as it showed Robotech (all 3 series) and repeats of Doctor Who (primarily the Tom Baker era). Great early morning stuff.

And yeah, I remember the green ooze candy bar piece, although I thought it was an episode of the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits.

The Mulk

ixoy wrote: »

Used to love SuperChannel (in its original style) as it showed Robotech (all 3 series) and repeats of Doctor Who (primarily the Tom Baker era). Great early morning stuff.

And yeah, I remember the green ooze candy bar piece, although I thought it was an episode of the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits.

Yeah, prob was one of those, been wracking my brain trying to remember it.
The house was getting very warm and every door or window had sheets of stainless steel in front of it(the inside of the oven). The father went out and got stuck between the house and the oven wall. All the time the green ooze which was coming from the fireplace was getting bigger!

WindSock

Great stuff, this is something that I have been wracking my brains for years on. Was there a symbol in the house too, like a Z or something?

The Mulk

WindSock wrote: »

Great stuff, this is something that I have been wracking my brains for years on. Was there a symbol in the house too, like a Z or something?

Rings a bell alright, was the symbol on their clothes or themselves too, like a company logo?

nlgbbbblth

The programme you are talking about was an episode of Hammer House Of Mystery and Suspense.

The episode is called "Child's Play"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088909/

It was broadcast on RTE 1 on a Friday night in November 1984.

The series was released on DVD in 2005 (two separate box sets - Child's Play is on "volume 2") but has since been deleted and goes for silly money on ebay and Amazon Marketplace.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hammer-House-Mystery-Suspense-Vol/dp/B0007NBJ78/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1268432848&sr=8-5

Just before it went out of print, Play and Sendit were trying to flog it for a tenner sterling.
The discs are copy-protected - just checked.

WindSock

Wow, thanks nlgbbbbth! It's on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI5FjSn3qRw

One of my lifes great mysteries has now been solved :pac:

The Mulk

Thanks for helping me solve that mystery!
might be able to get some work done next week, rather than googling 'dolls house and ooze'!:D

BlaasForRafa

Super channel used to have the DTM (German Touring Cars) races on sunday afternoons in the early nineties, they had some great motor racing action.

There used to be a music program called the Golden Age of Rock and Roll presented by John Sebastian, that introduced me to some great hippie era music.

telecinesk

Have buried on a vhs the official opening of superchannel in was it 87? Think its sitting on my youtube account hidden. Wow what a let down when NBC took over.

DeadSkin

Super channel was excellent for music, they showed clips from Rock in Rio and some other live stuff.

There was a show on at lunchtime everyday where a band would play their favourite videos, think it was called Wanted.

marwelie

WindSock wrote: »

Some shots on this link

http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/otherchannels/superchannel.html


Does anyone remember a horror type film that was about a dolls house and there was green ooze in it? Whatever happened to the dolls house, happened to the main house too. I don't think it was ther Twilight Zone, but it may have been.

I asked about this exact film in the Film Identification Thread.
Check out Reply#144 (and don't have nightmares ;o))

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055692262&page=10

Benny_Cake

There was some type of radio-style show on it in the early to mid-90s (it was when MTV wasn't being shown on Cablelink over some dispute or other). Think it had a blue screen, wish I could remember the name of the DJ.

The "artistic" films shown at night were greatly appreciated as well:D

bonerm

Yeah I remember this channel. We got it in Dublin in 1987 along with Sky channel and Eurosport. In retrospect they were junk channels but they had that American razmatazz style that was never-before-seen by us kids from the generation of just 6-channels so it was very exciting for a while.

SuperChannel I recall in particular for the following:
- They showed (Filmations) Ghostbusters (not the Bill Murray franchise one!). I'd was mad about this show for a while and would get up every saturday morning to watch it
- There was a kind of citv/cbbc show hosted by Anthea Turner and Bruno Brooks (for some reason I used to fancy Anthea at the time! Dunno why. I think she had the whole big hair + leather jacket thing going on - strange for a kids tv links show, but there you go)
- The showed a lot of BBC progs (esp comedies) from the 1970's and early 80s. I think this was the first place I ever saw "some mothers do ave em" for example

Good times.

Skerries

i used to love Friday evenings as i would go off and buy the chipper dinner after school and come back and eat it while watching Blakes 7 repeats
they also used to show RentaGhost and other cartoons like G.I.Joe and Robotech
The music videos were great and when my cousins would come over from England they loved all the channels with the music such as Sky and MTV
The music got worse as the years went on, they were showing obscure European stuff with no big names
There was a show i used to "watch" called On the Air which was more like a radio show as in between each video the hosts would talk while a moving image was on the screen repeating over and over

tref

I remember that film but never knew the name or ever saw it again, it has driven me nuts for years. Turns out they were all dolls inside the house. The brother of the girl who owned the house had put it in the microwave and the candy bar was melting down the chimney, the dolls were losing use of their arms and legs. One of the real parents took the house out of the microwave in the end.

Grid.

Used to be as good as MTV for music vids, I still have some tapes from the late '80's;)

nlgbbbblth

tref wrote: »

I remember that film but never knew the name or ever saw it again, it has driven me nuts for years. Turns out they were all dolls inside the house. The brother of the girl who owned the house had put it in the microwave and the candy bar was melting down the chimney, the dolls were losing use of their arms and legs. One of the real parents took the house out of the microwave in the end.

Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense
Episode called "Child's Play".

Benny_Cake

Benny_Cake wrote: »

There was some type of radio-style show on it in the early to mid-90s (it was when MTV wasn't being shown on Cablelink over some dispute or other). Think it had a blue screen, wish I could remember the name of the DJ.

I don't remember the DJ but the programme was called On The Air.

chalkitdown

tref wrote: »

I remember that film but never knew the name or ever saw it again, it has driven me nuts for years. Turns out they were all dolls inside the house. The brother of the girl who owned the house had put it in the microwave and the candy bar was melting down the chimney, the dolls were losing use of their arms and legs. One of the real parents took the house out of the microwave in the end.

Thanks you clown, I was going to watch that.

Confused2011

Was this the same as multi channel? Oh god I can remember getting it we thought we were millionaires!

Mike 1972

Superchannel meh !

Who remembers Music Box (its predecessor) a good couple of years before MTV made it to this side of the Atlantic.

Floppybits

Ah super channel. First time I had seen american wrestling. It along with Sky and eurosport where the first of these channels. One thing that does stand out for me were the ads for these phones that were all different shapes and sizes. Think the company was called yoki or something like that, always wanted one of their phones.

icdg

Confused2011 wrote: »

Was this the same as multi channel? Oh god I can remember getting it we thought we were millionaires!

Multi-channel was the common name in Munster for Cork Communications Limited which traded as Cork Multichannel. Eventually evolved into Chorus.

Big Tone

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Superchannel meh !

Who remembers Music Box (its predecessor) a good couple of years before MTV made it to this side of the Atlantic.

Yea that was pre-Superchannel circa 85/85 there was a VJ Nino Firetto I think his name was, all the girls went crazeee for the guy, but to us guys he was just a silly clown with long hair. Pat Sharpe was another VJ.

Remember Linda De Mol live with the European Top 40 from The Escape in Amsterdam...happy days.

old hippy

I remember Superchannel showing Eastenders but they had to stop because of royalty rights. They also used to show Tom Baker era Doctor Who, iirc.

AnalogueKid

I remember the opening night of Super Channel. They had this amateurish launch with a nonplussed Maggie Thatcher as the celebrity to cut the ribbon - truly embarrassing.

I always confuse early Super Channel and early Sky One. As far as I remember, Nino Ferretto was on Super Channel, whilst Pat Sharpe was on Sky (skytrax). Maybe Nino was also on Sky for a while.

Another music show they had on Super was "On The Air" hosted by a cute German woman who used to play Rush videos (a rare thing on Irish TV in those days).

Was Linda De Mol the shexy Dutch blonde on Sky who hosted the DJ Kat show? Kristiane Backer from MTV Europe a few years later was also one of my first crushes...... (drools)

icdg

AnalogueKid wrote: »

Was Linda De Mol the shexy Dutch blonde on Sky who hosted the DJ Kat show?

Linda de Mol did indeed host the DJ Kat Show on Sky Channel (the proto-Sky One). She is a sister of John de Mol, founder of Endemol Entertainment (responsible for unleashing Big Brother on the world) and producer of the DJ Kat Show up until Sky Television launched and production was moved to England.

Big Tone

Of course Superchannel was already on air before the official launch.

Snakeblood

bob50 wrote: »

The Super Channel came on in 1987 it also started showing the american wrestling in Ireland for the first time

Anyone remember Hulk Hogan The cowboy Randy Savage

It also used to show pop ideos presented by the mullet wearing Pat Sharp


Also it had an american fashion prog

Wrestling and Pat Sharp were both on Sky, Super had the FunBus for kids programming and other bits and pieces.

kiwi_40

Super channel was great, as someone said, cablelink came in and brought us from 6 channels to 15 ish, super and sky being two of them. I remember Super use to have 3 music shows an hour each between midnight and 3.00am ,i was in college so use to stay up. Nino feretti was one and Amanda Reddington another, cant remember the third, I think it was Simon something, use have darts thrown at him. Was great for music videos etc

GhostyMcGhost

This thread is a bit retro

George White

WindSock wrote: »

Some shots on this link

http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/otherchannels/superchannel.html


Does anyone remember a horror type film that was about a dolls house and there was green ooze in it? Whatever happened to the dolls house, happened to the main house too. I don't think it was ther Twilight Zone, but it may have been.

Child's Play - an episode of Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.

Lorelli!

I remember Superchannel. I remember I use to like Amazing Discoveries :pac: i think it was on Superchannel. It was tacky and pretty bad and so rehearsed with an awful phony and cheesy sales presenter. I don't know why but I liked it

I also remember watching Bonanza on this channel for a while.

We had Cablelink. I don't remember losing MTV but I do remember that Sky was not available in it for a year or two in the early 90s. We originally had Sky and that was where we found The Simpson's. I remember we knew that Sky was being removed from Cablelink before it went off and my brother started recording every episode of The Simpson's that he could before it went so we could watch them again.