Trivia / Screen One S 4 E 9 Ghostwatch

• Banned Episode: The BBC were quick to scrub the special from their history following the negative press it got following the suicide of a teen who allegedly watched it. It has never been rerun on the network (as of 2023, it still hasn't), the Beeb never brought it up ever again and they, for the most part, pretended it never happened. This eventually ended around the special's tenth anniversary, when it was released on DVD, playing up the controversy in the taglines.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The writing credit at the opening was a last minute addition insisted on by The BBC, who had very nearly pulled the entire broadcast.
  • Other ideas that were nixed after consultation with BBC higher-ups were the inclusion of a high-pitched frequency that would agitate any dogs proximate to the TV during broadcast^note due to technical limitations in broadcast soundtracks at the time, this wouldn't have been possible even if permission had been given and a line delivered by a possessed Parkinson telling viewers that "the ghost is probably in their house".
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • There have been allegations that prior to the broadcast, Sarah Greene performed an item promoting the film on the childrens' Saturday-morning entertainment show which she co-presented, Going Live!, which gave no hint that the programme would be fictional. This was seized upon by people who accused the BBC of an irresponsible hoax, but Greene denies it, and people have searched unsuccessfully through editions of the show that might have been involved without finding anything like it. She did, however, make an appearance on the Children's BBC strand one week after the broadcast to reassure younger viewers that none of it was real, which may have been the source of the rumours.
  • It's been suggested that Mike Smith's demands for reassurance of his wife Sarah Greene's wellbeing at the climax are genuine, a fairly ridiculous claim, not least because the Foxhall Drive scenes were filmed well in advance of the studio scenes.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Real-life spouses Mike Smith and Sarah Greene play themselves in the special.
  • Suzanne and Kim Early are played, respectively, by real-life sisters Michelle and Cherise Wesson.

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