Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod!

Yesterday afternoon I went to the local shopping centre to have a mooch around. Having a peek at a cheap DVD stall lead me to almost gasp in disbelief. The previous night I'd been at Muz's, and we'd spent a bit of time sharing weird memories by searching for stuff on YouTube. One of my searches was for the clip from The Fast Show which parodies The Singing Ringing Tree, one of my strongest childhood TV memories. Last time I searched for the clip it wasn't there; this time it was. Muz wasn't familiar with the original show, so I spent some time trying to explain it to him to put the clip from The Fast Show in perspective. I remember it as an eastern european production of a fairy tale that ended up being quite scary.



Last time I tried to buy the original Singing Ringing Tree it was hard to find, and weirdly only available from Amazon in Germany in order to get the version with the BBC voiceover. Hence my almost gasp. There nestled amongst the $5 DVDs was a locally produced version of The Singing Ringing Tree - the cover design drew me in. So I paid my money and came away happy. I'm saving it to play when Muz is next here, so I have someone to bore to death with my memories. I particularly remember the spinning dwarf; the musical bridge; the giant fish encased in ice and the glorious 'technicolor' it was filmed in, which only added to the spookiness.


Wikipedia has this to say about The Singing Ringing Tree:

"Imagine a fairy tale conceived by Wagner and directed by Fritz Lang, with nods in the direction of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and German expressionism, and you'd be close."


See all the screen shots and read the full story of The Singing Ringing Tree here.

See the Fast Show parody here. You need to watch past the fake introduction!