Sunday 25 September 2011

Catweazle - children's UK tv programme


This UK children's tv programme was about 1971 to 1972 and ran for two seasons, I think. Catweazle was a wizard or enchanter from the time of the Norman invasion of England. It starts of with the duffy old wizard in his poor rags searching the forest for herbs. He is seen by a party of Norman horsemen who give pursuit. Catweazle jumps into a lake and when he comes up for air he is in a small pond in a field. The year is 1971 and he has gone forward in time. Every week he has all sort of mad adventures - mistaking combine harvesters and tractors for strange monsters and aeroplanes as giant monster birds. Twentieth century life is beyond his understanding. He still has belief in his wizard powers. In one episode, he comes across a man who has a bad cold and sore throat. He has lost his voice. Catweazle hears a record playing a song and is mesmerised and convinced, the man with the lost voice has his some how had his vocals mysteriously put upon the black vinyl disk. With great aplomb, the duffy old Catweazle crunches up the record in a bowl and tries to feed it to the man in the in his sick bed, thinking, with ill deserved confidence, that he can give the man his voice back.

Above is the clip where Catweazle begins his strange adventure from the Middle ages to the twentieth century.


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