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In the days before dedicated kids TV channels, The Red Hand Gang was one of those US TV shows that the BBC always pulled out of the archives to fill in gaps in their children’s TV schedules in the afternoons and during school holiday mornings. Being the BBC though, it was, of course, quality filler material!
The show was an American take on the Enid Blyton Famous Five tales, where a group of kids get together to solve mysteries which they just happen to stumble upon. In this case though we swap the English middle class boarding school kids and the seaside setting for a group of every day inner city kids.
There were five kids in The Red Hand Gang. Frankie was the leader, whilst J.R. was the athletic one, Doc was the clever one, Joanne was the tom-boy, and Li’l Bill was the youngest, and brother of Frankie. They were also accompanied by their dog, Boomer, who even ended up getting his own TV show later on!
The gang got their name from the fact that they used to leave a red hand print on walls to mark where they had been. That was perhaps a bit naughty for the Beeb, but the rest of the show was fairly innocent stuff, with the kids tracking down clues, discussing plans in their clubhouse and they bringing the villains to justice.
The show sadly only managed half a full season before it was cancelled, and to all accounts appears to have had a bigger following in the UK than it did in the States. The thing I will always remember it for though is the title sequence, with the kids bouncing it from all angles (presumably on a trampoline) with the “la-la-la-la-la” theme tune playing in the background.
Oh, and the fact that Doc was played by an actor named James Bond III!
Buy The Red Hand Gang at Amazon.co.uk
I LOVED the Red Hand Gang…. but finding other people who seem to remember it is a hard task!
La-la la la la – la la la – la la la la la la la!!
It seems really familiar but I’m just not sure! Any idea what year it was played on the beeb?
Not sure, but I would say early eighties. I’m sure I would have been 10 or 11, so maybe 1983/84, and perhaps earlier too?
A quick bit of research reveals it was first shown in the US in 1977 so posibly a year or so after that ?
How is this out on DVD and far better stuff isn’t ?????
I must admit I never saw the show myself; indeed, this is the first time I’ve heard of it. I am familiar with the whole “gang of kid detectives” thing, though, as books with that theme seemed to be pretty popular back in the ’80s as well (maybe they still are!). I remember a series of American novels that revolved around a quartet of amateur sleuths who called themselves T.A.C.K. (after their first initials), as well as a book about another bunch of budding P.I.s who named themselves the Barton Street Detectives (although one person who wasn’t too fond of them referred to them as the Barton Street Defectives – oh, how I laughed at that at the time!). Meddling kids, you’ve gotta love ’em!
Indeed. Scooby Doo just wouldn’t have been the same without the meddling kids line and pulling the mask of the creature at the end.
And the funniest thing was, the ghostly pirate, glowing radioactive creature from outer space, or whatever the monster for that particular episode was (damn, some of those things used to give me sleepless nights at the time!) would usually turn out to be the kindly, charming old man who’d been so helpful to them earlier on, or some other equally unlikely culprit! Really, though, have you ever heard of a real life criminal going to all the trouble of disguising him/herself as some terrifying monster to “scare everyone away” from the scene of his or her crimes?
A pity criminals don’t follow Scooby Doo behaviour. You’d probably keep bumping into headless horsemen and Egyptian mummies if they did. 😉
didnt the red hand gang advertise super bazooka gum in the late 70s when it came out?
I seem to remember them in the ad sitting in a diner