Subscribe!The Family-Ness (1984)
First episode title: Elspeth and Angus Meet the Loch Ness Monster
How familiar with the show am I?: I seem to vaguely remember it from childhood.
If you've heard of anything about Scotland, you've probably heard about the legend of a monster in its Loch Ness. Well, this show is about a whole family of them! And it's full of stereotypical Scottish accents provided by a pair of definitely English actors.
This is a very short show, so we won't get to see very much of each character, but I'll linger on whatever bits I can. There's a talkative narrator on this show so almost every moment that doesn't have character dialogue has an explanation of what we're seeing.
We're immediately introduced to a man named Mr McToot (sources differ on how to spell the surname) who couldn't look any more stereotypically Scottish - he has ginger hair and a beard, a kilt and a tam o' shanter, and is carrying bagpipes even when he's not playing them, which is presumably the reason for Mc"Toot". And he has two children, a boy called Angus and a girl called Elspeth, both also redheads. Angus's T-shirt has a "T" on it - for "Toot"? Elspeth wears a bow on her head because she is a cartoon girl. Standing outside their house, their father tells them to be back from playing within an hour, and that's the last we see of him in this instalment.
The kids race off towards the loch. Do I need to explain that "loch" is simply the Gaelic word for a lake? The most interesting thing about that is that "loch" and "lake" aren't related words. They have completely different derivations. I know, it's hardly believable.
There's a pale green "mound" by the lake and the two of them don't seem to notice that it isn't normally there despite living so close by. Instead they just race towards it. Angus gets there first and jumps onto it, and is shocked to realise that whatever it is, it's alive. He tumbles down off it and some details become clearer - a tail to the side, and two legs sticking up out of it. Elspeth gets scared and says it must be the Loch Ness Monster, but Angus points out that it doesn't matter what kind of creature it is, it must be stuck in a hole, with just its bottom half visible. So, the right thing to do is to help it.
Elspeth looks a lot less scared once Angus makes his suggestion and goes over to where he is, jumping onto the mound and sliding down the tail to each him, and they pull on the tail to try and free the animal. Here's a tip: there is pretty much no animal where pulling on its tail would be the right method for removing it from something it's stuck in. As they struggle, another monster emerges from the lake! The narration identifies this one as "Ferocious-Ness, the Loch Ness Monster". Yes, look at that pun. You will soon discover that every single monster in this show has a name like this. Also, Ferocious-Ness seems to be the one monster that isn't green, instead being brown with dark spots.
Elspeth and Angus are shocked to see Ferocious-Ness but then he speaks to them, telling them the monster trapped in the hole is Silly-Ness and he's always ending up in situations like this. But he also says that the kids are in much worse trouble because contact between Nesses and humans is strictly forbidden. As if they had any way of knowing that!
Then another monster starts to emerge and Ferocious-Ness tells them they're about to see who it is that makes the rules: Her High-Ness, a queen monster wearing a crown and jewellery. The children are of course even more surprised, but they have their wits about them enough to bow and curtsey, and the queen appreciates their good manners. Her voice is an impression of a typical English queen, rather than sounding Scottish like Ferocious-Ness.
The queen is holding a rope, and she throws it over a tree branch that's overhanging Silly-Ness - she orders the children to tie the rope around his feet. Two other monsters called Mighty-Ness and Heavy-Ness pop up to pull the rope from the other end, pulling Silly-Ness out of the hole! There are some comic book style visible sound effects in this sequence, like a "PLOP!" when Silly-Ness hits the branch, and a "CRACK!" when it breaks! The two monsters that were pulling on the rope fall backwards in the water, causing a wave that crosses the lake and drenches a lorry driver who's sitting by his truck eating a sandwich.
This attracts his attention to the lake, and he sees the monsters! He says he'll need to tell the police, and there's a great gag where he opens the lorry door and another wave engulfs him, like the water had filled the truck but waited for the door to be opened before it came out again. But he gets in again, following the sign to Inverness, which is the nearest big city to Loch Ness.
The queen decides to reward the children for their help in freeing Silly-Ness by giving them two "Thistle Whistles", golden whistles shaped like the thistle which is the national flower of Scotland, that they can use to summon a Ness in times of need. They immediately blow on them, which wakes up all the rest of the monsters in the lake - dozens of them at least, peeking the tops of their heads above the water. A bend in the road takes the lorry driver closer to the lake again and now he's shocked to see even more monsters than before! He's so panicked that he knocks over the next sign to Inverness.
In the city, the driver rushes into the police station to tell "Sergeant McFuzz" he's just seen hundreds of Loch Ness Monsters, and the sergeant responds by pointing out that it's April Fool's Day. So, of course, he doesn't believe him. The end! When we got so close to the end with the lorry driver's story still unresolved, I almost thought the episode was going to end on a cliffhanger, but nope!
This was a cute enough show. As often happens with shows this short, I wish I'd got to see more about the characters - out of the various Nesses described in the show's theme song, only Ferocious-Ness actually showed up in this particular episode. Still, I have no real complaints here!