| Bad Influence! | |
|---|---|
 Presenter Violet Berlin |
|
| Format | Children |
| Starring | Violet Berlin, Andy Crane Andy Wear (as Nam Rood) Sonya Saul |
| No. of series | 4 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Yorkshire Television |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CITV |
| Original run | October 1992 – January 1996 |
Bad Influence! was a mid 1990s British factual television programme shown on Children’s ITV that looked at video games and computer technology. It was shown on Thursdays at 4:45pm between October 1992 and January 1996 and had a run of four series of between 13 and 15 shows of twenty minutes. For at least two of the four series, it had the highest ratings of any CITV programme. Bad Influence! featured SNES/Mega Drive era game reviews, the latest hardware news and in-depth looks at gaming issues and new technology. The show was originally presented by Violet Berlin and Andy Crane in the studio and Z Wright in the US. They were also joined by a character called Nam Rood (Door Man backwards) , crazy cheat expert in the basement who in giving viewers cheats for the video games featured on the show by sticking them to his head would refer to things as "slimy fertlers". [1]
By the fourth series, Violet presented the US reports and Andy was joined by Sonya Saul in the studio. At the end of the programme, viewers were encouraged to record the 'datablast,' a number of pages of game articles and information that were flashed rapidly onto the screen during the credits, using a Commodore Amiga. Viewers could then read the pages by replaying their video recording and pausing each page. During the first series a spin-off magazine was launched, although only two editions were produced. The production company behind the programme was Yorkshire Television in Leeds.
