Bad Influence!

Did You Know?

• A spin-off series called Bad Level 10 aired on The Children's Channel, with 26 ten-minute episodes from 20 February 1995, presented by Violet Berlin alongside Steve Keen.
• The working title of Bad Influence! was Deep Techies.

Format

Bad Influence! first aired during the 16-bit era, covering the newest games and computer tech through detailed news, previews, and reviews. The show lasted through four series, with the final one covering the launch of the Nintendo 64, then called the Ultra 64. Its original presenters were Violet Berlin and Andy Crane, both children’s TV hosts, working from a studio, while American teen actor Z Wright sent in location reports from the US for the first three series. A character named Nam Rood, which is “door man” spelled backwards and played by Andy Wear, served as the show’s cheats segment. He was an anarchic “furtler” (meaning a techie) who lived in a shed for the first two series and then in a basement for Series 3. Three times per episode, between mock experiment comedy sketches, he gave out gaming cheats written on cards stuck to his forehead, greeting viewers with “slimy furtlers” and “scrotty furtlers.” In a 1995 episode, he offered a cheat for “Sonic Six,” a game that never existed then or now, which supposedly let players access “The forest level” as a new character called “Elbows the Squirrel.”

Transmissions

The first three series of Bad Influence! aired on Thursdays without breaks, except for two weeks during Christmas in the first series. Series 4 was different: it moved to Wednesdays, though its final episode aired on a Tuesday. This series faced several interruptions, skipping 18 October 1995, 22 November 1995, and 20 December 1995. A three-week gap separated the penultimate and final episodes, which aired on 2 January 1996—the only episode broadcast that year. In the Czech Republic, the show began airing in February 1994 on TV Nova as Špatný vliv, supported by the video game magazine Excalibur.