Operation: Mystery! (1968–1971)
8/10
Scared us 10-12 year old kids breathless
5 March 2015
In the south of Denmark many people watched German television in the seventies. It was before satellite or cable TV, and Denmark only had one channel, which was very culturally conservative. So when my redheaded playmate Jan told me about a really scary show they were showing in the children's programs on German TV, I had to watch it. And did scare me? Yes. Images are burned into my memory: An Archer who walks out of a painting and shoots a man in the room, a giant eye filling the sky and driving a man to madness etc. After a short while German TV realized it was actually made for adults (actually because of countless horrified parents calling in and complaining)and took it of.

It kind of became the stuff of legends for people my age when we talked about TV from our childhood: "Do you remember that Japanese show on ZDF - with the ghost in the lake - and the eye in the sky???", but no one remembered the name or knew what it actually was.

Along came the internet, and suddenly I found out, that a lot of people in Germany had the same fixation (probably born around 1960 all of them). They tried to get it shown on TV Again - but with no results. But a German video-company specializing in cult-TV released it on DVD, so I could watch it Again.

Did it hold up to the expectations? No, of course not, nothing can live up to the thrills you had with movies, books and comics as an 11 year old. But it has its charm - and is actually still quite creepy at times.

I give it 6 for the actual quality, and 10 for the nightmares it gave me as a child.
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