Colm O'Regan: Four TV shows that will never turn up on a best-of list

Clockwise from top-left: The Girl from Tomorrow;Tales of Kilnavarna; Sharky and George; American Gothic

As a species, we have become very good at thinking of innovative ways to beat ourselves up. Things I simply don’t remember my parents worrying about. 

Of course, no child remembers what their parents, worried about because they didn’t constantly narrate their parenting in those days like we do.

But I can absolutely guarantee they never mentioned 'making memories'. It’s a phrase that has seeped into conversation. 

It’s no longer acceptable to just do nothing with the family. You need to lay down some lasting impressions.

With the mid-term just gone, I’m almost certain we made no memories. But they watched a lot of telly, and if my past is anything to go by, watching TV is also making memories. 

They’re not Instagram-worthy memories. But boy do they stick. And pop up at odd times. 

Often the stickiest memories are of programmes no one else talks about.

We are always going on about the theme tune to Glenroe triggering PTSD about homework, but what about the TV shows no one else remembers?

Here are four TV shows that may have no real cultural resonance for anyone else but me. They’ll never turn up on a “You know you’re Irish when” list. I bet you have a list too. 

The Jake and the Fatman theme tune. Elephant football from Thailand on George Hamilton’s Sportsworld. 

The time The Den came back too quick after an ad and we caught the puppeteer taking Zag off his head.

Tales of Kilnavarna, about 1984 or so

I thought I dreamt this show. Miley and Dinny from Glenroe in a show set in the countryside but it was during summer? But it existed. 

Based on John B Keane’s short stories. I always associate it with the curtains being closed to stop the evening sun coming in when we were watching television. 

Also, it was the first time I’d ever seen stars of one show appear in another show. It blew my mind. Like seeing your teacher in town in jeans.

The Girl From Tomorrow, 1990 

This is an Australian sci-fi children’s television series where Alana, a girl from the year 3000 comes back to the year 1990. I remember it mainly because of the word “Transducer”. 

A transducer in real life is the name given to anything that converts energy from one form to another like sensors, actuators, or antennae. 

In The Girl From Tomorrow, it’s a magical headband that allows your mind to make things explode or move. 

Every so often I say “Get the transducer” in an Australian voice in order to try and make the remote control come to me.

American Gothic, 1995

A brilliantly eerie creepshow that only lasted one season, American Gothic was one of those first shows that looked HBO-ish, and a cut above the normal Simon and Simon-type thing. 

I only watched one episode but it was enough to register. In it, a slightly possessed girl keeps repeating “Someone’s at the door” in a possessed southern-American accent. 

And to this day when the doorbell rings I say that.

Sharky and George, 1992

The stickiest of all. Sharky and George are the crime busters of the sea (private-detective fish). I’ll be humming that theme tune on my deathbed. 

My loved ones will think I’m doing some sort of spasm but I’m not. I’m mimicking the silly dance the evil octopus Dr Medusa does in the closing credits.

It’s too early to know what I’ll remember from this phase of life. So far there’s one episode of Schitt's Creek in 2017 that caused me to laugh so hard at 4.40 in the morning I woke the baby I’d spent an hour trying to get to sleep.

The children go to sleep much easier now. So it’s time to watch Severance. Now that’s where memories are made.

• Colm’s new show The Colm Before The Storm is on sale now. See linktr.ee/colmoregan.