I don’t know if any
of you remember an old children’s television programme called “Brody”? Probably
it never even aired outside the U.K., but as a child circa 1980 I was quite a
big fan. Not because of the main character, Brody, a twelve-year-old boy who was
always getting into mischief and adventures … but because of his friend Claire,
a pretty blonde girl who was supposedly the same age as him, although I seem to
recall reading somewhere that she was actually sixteen at the time the series
was filmed. Looked young for her age, I guess.
Anyway it was made in the
late sixties I think – maybe as late as 1970 – and I think they only ever made
one series of ten or twelve episodes. It was set in the Lake District
(north-west England for the non-Brits among you), and to be quite honest it
wasn’t a particularly good or well-made programme. I never saw it repeated after
1980 or 1981, though as I grew up and we acquired a VCR, I kept hoping they’d
repeat it so that I could record it.
The thing about the show that so
mesmerised young Arthur was that this girl Claire wore, almost exclusively,
those wonderful late 60’s minidresses that were barely long enough to cover the
buttocks. Every episode (at least it seems that way to my admittedly imperfect
memory) featured her panties on several occasions. I think that because it was a
children’s show, it kind of got a free pass and got away with things that a
programme aimed at adults would not have.
For example, in one episode
they were looking for a lost dog on a rainy day. There was a lot of mud – I
remember them trudging through the woods and getting their feet muddy. And then,
at one point, Claire slipped and fell down a muddy bank, sliding down from the
top to the bottom … on her bottom. Shrieking and with her legs apart. With the
camera, to my eternal delight, looking up at her from the foot of the slope, so
that the audience could see Claire’s panties, looming larger and larger in the
middle of the screen, with mud piling up in front of them. This shot probably
only lasted for a second or less, but in my memory it replays in slow
motion.
On another occasion, they found a tiny, secret door in an old
mansion, and had to crawl in on their hands and knees. In any other show, I’m
sure, the boy would have gone in first, and they would have then cut to a shot
of the two of them crawling along, seen from the front. But not in “Brody”!
Nope, Claire crawled in first, with the hem of her dress arcing over her
buttocks and her white panties on full display. We didn’t see Brody in this shot
– I’m sure he was sitting there with his mouth wide open. But the best was yet
to come! At this point, Claire almost chickened out, saying that it was very
dark up ahead. And she stopped – in exactly that position, and had an entire
conversation with Brody which lasted, I’m guessing, over a minute. The camera
kept cutting to and fro from Claire’s panties to Brody’s expressionless face
(the boy was a very wooden actor). This was the longest panty-shot of the entire
series and oh how I longed to have that scene on video!
In another
episode they climbed a tree to escape from vicious dogs. At one point, the
branch Claire was holding snapped, and she fell, but managed to hold on to a
branch with her legs. For a brief moment she was upside down, and her dress fell
almost all the way up her torso, even exposing her bra. Imagine how excited I
got at that brief glimpse of bra! Well actually, I was probably less excited at
that time than when I was recalling the scene a couple of years later, when I
was old enough to have more of an appreciation for breasts. But I know that I
enjoyed seeing Claire’s panties (which of course were also fully revealed in
that scene – and from the front, no less).
Later on in the same episode,
I think – though they kind of all blur together – they had to climb over a wall.
Brody went up first, then he helped Claire up. At this point the wonderful
shortcomings of those late 60’s minidresses came to the fore, as Claire reached
up with both her arms, and the hem of her dress rose up to reveal probably about
half of her panties. Fantastic!
There was a lot of running, jumping,
climbing over things, crawling around, not to mention falling over, in “Brody”.
Quite honestly, it would have been rather impossible for Claire’s panties
not to have made an appearance at some point. But the director was
clearly (with hindsight, though it may not have been so obvious to the more
naïve audiences of the day) a pervert, and took almost every opportunity to show
off Claire’s undies.
There were a few disappointments along the way,
however. There was one scene in which they were crossing a deep and allegedly
treacherous bog, by walking across a narrow and slippery log. I remember hoping
and hoping that Claire would fall in – but she didn’t! I was very disappointed
when she safely reached the far side. Another time she was in her parents’ car,
and she was sitting with her knees together and her dress nice and high up on
her thighs … and I kept hoping she would move, or the camera angle would change,
so that we could see her panties … but it didn’t. I think that was in one of the
early episodes – the director definitely started getting more bold as the series
continued.
One of my favourite moments came when they were following a
gang of robbers, and Claire was caught by them. One of them grabbed her from
behind, his arms going around her waist. As she struggled, he lifted her up off
the ground. Her dress got pulled up in front, revealing her panties (yet again).
She struggled and kicked wildly for, I don’t know, ten seconds or so, while her
panties were showing. Then he dragged her to a room, with her dress still up
around her middle, and locked her in. In that episode, for some reason, they had
the actress in slightly smaller panties than usual, which made the scene all the
sweeter.
Towards the end of the series, the panty shots actually got more
graphic, and this may have been why the series came to an end. I don’t know –
maybe it had nothing to do with it. But I remember one scene which, thinking
back, makes me wonder how the hell they got away with airing it at four o’clock
on a Thursday afternoon. It was a scene in which Brody, Claire, and Brody’s
younger sister (whose name I can’t recall) were traversing a cliff above a
raging river. Now I’m sure it wasn’t really as dangerous as it looked, but
nevertheless I don’t think they used any safety equipment and I’m sure for
safety reasons they wouldn’t be able to get away with this kind of scene these
days.
Anyway, one particular part involved stepping from one little ledge
to another, which was several feet away. Brody went first, and made it across.
Then Claire went … and for no good reason, as she was starting to step across,
the camera angle changed – to directly beneath her, looking up. As Claire’s legs
stretched wider and wider apart, the camera actually seemed to zoom in a little
on the narrow strip of cotton between her legs. She was practically doing the
splits – it was just amazing. So she made it across, and the camera went back to
its previous angle (I assume it was filming them from the other side of the
river). Then, the coolest part: Brody’s little sister couldn’t stretch that far,
no matter how she tried. So Claire and Brody had to go back – and again
the camera switched angles to look up at Claire’s panties. The second shot
wasn’t as good as the first, but for me it was awesome that Claire had just
exposed herself for nothing.
That was probably the most gratuitous and
explicit upskirt shot, but another one springs to mind that was almost as bad
(or ‘good’, rather). In an episode in which Brody falls down a mineshaft, Claire
initially tries to climb down the ladder to rescue him. From the outside, we see
Claire putting her foot on to the top of the ladder, then turning around and
starting to climb down. Then the camera switches to right below Claire, but
strangely it manages to catch her climbing on to the ladder again. So
essentially we see the same thing from above and below. No reason to back up the
action those few seconds, except that the best part of the upskirt shot is when
Claire steps across on to the top of the ladder – a nice wide spread of the
legs, and a very clear view of her panties. As she starts to descend, it quickly
becomes too dark to see her panties very well. But I’m tickled pink that the
director (or editor?) decided to back up the action a few seconds just so that
the upskirt shot wouldn’t be missed.
I have to say, the director was a
wonderful philanthropist. It would have been easy for him to shoot this footage
for his own amusement, and then use less ‘naughty’ footage for the final cut.
But no, he cut it to show Claire’s panties many times, and somehow it all got
past the censors. Maybe nobody ever bothered censoring children’s television in
those days – I don’t know. But it’s amazing what they got away
with.
Frequently, it seems to me, Claire would sit cross-legged, with her
panties showing. I remember a game of cards in which she was sitting this way,
and also a time when she and Brody were discussing plans with Brody’s uncle, who
was apparently the only adult they could safely confide in.
Claire was
almost always wearing an ultra-short minidress, but on one occasion she and
Brody decided to take a swim in a small lake. Brody, who was wearing shorts,
swam in just those (and presumably whatever he had on underneath). Claire,
however, took off her dress and shoes, and swam in her bra and panties. Somehow
this was less exciting than the many upskirt shots, but it was very cool
nonetheless. I wish I could say that when she got out of the water, her
underwear had become transparent, but unfortunately the scene ended with them
still in the water, and in the next scene she was dressed again.
Well, so
those are my reminiscences on “Brody”, one of many short-lived and (in most
cases) forgettable series that made brief appearances on British television in
my childhood. I have emailed the Internet Movie Database about the show, since
they currently have no record of it, but all they said in response was that I
should find out some details about the show and then add it myself using the
title submission form. But I don’t even remember whether it was BBC or ITV. If
anyone remembers the show and can tell me the name of anyone associated with it
(particularly the actress who played Claire), please let me
know!