Great news, parents! In just a few short weeks, a new Horrible History DVD will be released. Imagine the look of absolute delight on the faces of your children as they giddily unwrap their present and realise that their favourite CBBC show has created new material.
And then imagine the growing look of horror on their faces as they scan the cover of the DVD case and see that the main image is a clenched fist and some spiked knuckledusters. And then their violent disappointment as they slowly put two and two together and realise that instead of buying them Horrible Histories (a DVD of sophisticated yet child-friendly historical parody sketches from most of the people behind Ghosts), you have actually bought them Horrible History (the new limited edition four-DVD boxset of violent, decades-old kung fu movies by the Chinese director Chang Cheh).
Maybe your children won’t mind. Maybe they’ve grown up watching the work of Chang Cheh, and they’ll excitedly tell you that they hope the films in the box set can live up to the standard set by The Sword Stained with Royal Blood or The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. More likely, though, they’ll berate you for ordering something online without properly checking it first.
In fairness to all parents, what on earth was this box set thinking? None of the films contained within (Marco Polo, The Pirate, Boxer Rebellion and Four Riders) are called Horrible History. The only thing that warrants the title is the fact that the films are both historical and quite violent. So they could have called it anything, and yet they ended up naming it after a beloved children’s show. It does seem a little careless.
Especially when film companies usually twist themselves into pretzels to avoid this sort of thing. Remember when The Avengers came out in this country? The film-makers were so worried that people might think it was a remake of the dismal 1998 spy film starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman that its UK release retitled it to Avengers Assemble. A far worse name, but a worthwhile move.
Similarly, in 1993 John Hughes wrote a movie based on the American comic strip Dennis the Menace. In America, the film was called Dennis the Menace. But here, where we have a different Dennis the Menace, the film’s title was changed to just Dennis. This, at least, stopped British viewers from being angry that the film was about a cute little blond kid and not a psychopath in a stripy jumper. Even Top Cat had its name changed here, to Boss Cat, to stop British viewers from thinking the whole thing was an elaborate commercial for the UK cat food brand Top Cat.
Sometimes you hope that film companies would do this sort of thing more often. Blindly order a film called If from the internet, and it’s a 50/50 chance that you’ll either get a soppy American film about Ryan Reynolds tooling around with a big purple monster, or a Lindsay Anderson film about Malcolm McDowell gunning down a crowd of people at a boarding school.
And, look, I get it. I’ve written some children’s books called The O.D.D. Squad, which would be great were it not for the fact that there is also a very popular Canadian kids’ TV show called The Odd Squad. So now every time I go into a school, I have to spend about 15 minutes gently deflating everyone’s excitement by telling them that it’s actually a book about a clever octopus rather than an adaptation of their favourite TV show. It’s a nightmare. It’s a wonder that I’m not booed straight out.
But at least it’s tonally similar. If a kid is accidentally bought The O.D.D. Squad by someone who thinks they’re actually getting The Odd Squad, at least the product they receive will still be for them. If a kid went to see Dennis thinking it was a new big-budget Beano adaptation, they’d still end up watching a film about a child with a pathological desire to cause violence. If they went to see Avengers Assemble thinking that it was a sequel to the Uma Thurman film, well, they’d probably be quite relieved when they discovered that it wasn’t.
But a violent kung fu box set is wildly different to an educational comedy show for children. Giving it an almost identical name seems like a recipe for Christmas disaster. Although – title aside – it does look pretty awesome, so maybe I’ll buy it for my kids and keep it for myself.
