SMALL-SCREEN SHUKER SIGHTINGS - A CLICKABLE COLLECTION OF MY TV APPEARANCES

 

Screenshot from one of my appearances on GMTV during the early 1990s (© Dr Karl Shuker/GMTV – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

I tend to be elusive, and reclusive, at the best of times (almost as much, in fact, as the cryptids that I investigate!). So it should come as no surprise to learn that anyone who knows me well will tell you that appearing on television is something that I loathe doing – as in loathe with an absolute, abiding passion. And here's why.

Firstly, as is also true with a surprising number of actors (surprising in the sense that because they do it as a profession, one might therefore expect them to be long since accustomed to this), I simply don't like seeing, or hearing, myself on the small screen – never have done, never will.

Secondly, I abhor the devious, dubious practices that TV interviewees are sometimes subjected to – such as (very) selective editing of recorded interviews prior to their actual screening, including slyly presenting the interviewee's words out of context; and unexpectedly assailing the interviewee in live programmes with deliberately provocative questions that are unrelated to the subject officially under discussion and are specifically designed to confuse and/or ridicule the interviewee.

Thirdly, there is the not insignificant matter of some TV companies doing their utmost to avoid offering the interviewee a fee for their appearance, for travel expenses, or for their time spent providing TV show researchers with masses of free information – information, moreover, that is then frequently used in those TV shows but without giving their unpaid source any onscreen credit or recognition either. And so on…

 

Screenshot from one of my favourite TV appearances, being interviewed by Richard & Judy on This Morning in 1995 (© Dr Karl Shuker/This Morning – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Consequently, once I had achieved a measure of ongoing success with my writing career, i.e. by the late 1990s, I made a conscious decision to bow out of TV appearances whenever possible and allow my books and articles do my talking for me instead – a decision that I've adhered to ever since (although I do not totally rule out future TV appearances if the subject to be discussed is sufficiently enticing and the TV company involved is one that I feel happy to work with).

Prior to my retirement from the small-screen showbiz world, however, I had taken part in quite a variety of high-profile TV shows, and had obtained recordings of a fair few of them, especially those that I'd actually enjoyed participating in, and which had not subjected me to any of the unpleasant practices outlined above. Moreover, because those latter interviews also contained information that I considered may be of interest to other cryptozoological enthusiasts, during the past few years I've uploaded them onto YouTube in order to make them readily available to viewers, and also, hopefully, to preserve them long after I'm no longer here to do so personally.

There may be other such recordings lurking in my archives that I've overlooked (and there are also currently on YT some TV programmes or videos uploaded by other YT users that feature me). In addition, I know that I have a number of my many radio interviews preserved on audio cassette tapes that I have yet to convert into MP3 files and upload onto YT. Meanwhile, however, in order to enable easy access to what is already there, it has occurred to me that a directly clickable list of those recordings would be highly beneficial to potential viewers.

[NB – The following clickable list of interviews is not arranged in strict chronological order because I don't have precise recording dates for some of them, so  I cannot be absolutely certain 30-odd years down the line which was produced first in certain cases, but they were all recorded during the 1990s unless stated otherwise. One clue to their correct chronological order, however, may be derived from taking note of how much, or how little, hair I still possess in each of them!] 

And so, as they used to say in the classic UK children's TV show Blue Peter, here's one I made earlier (click the red description below for each video in order to go directly to that video on YT):

 

Being interviewed by Anthea Turner on GMTV during the early 1990s (© Dr Karl Shuker/GMTV – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

Interview in early 1990s with Anthea Turner on UK breakfast TV show GMTV re mystery cats.

Interview in early 1990s with Michael Wilson on UK breakfast TV show GMTV re mystery cats.

Interview in early 1990s with Lorraine Kelly on UK breakfast TV show GMTV re mystery cats.

Interview in early 1990s with Mike Morris on Live Wire, screened by former UK Cable TV channel Wire TV, re mystery cats.

 

Screenshot from my interview with Mike Morris on Live Wire during the early 1990s (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Interview in 1993 with Andy Crane on former Saturday morning ITV show What's Up Doc re new and rediscovered animals as featured in my book The Lost Ark (1993).

Part 1 of an extensive three-part interview in 1993 with John Hammond on former UK Cable TV channel Wire TV re new and rediscovered animals, plus cryptozoology in general.

Part 2 of an extensive three-part interview in 1993 with John Hammond on former UK Cable TV channel Wire TV re new and rediscovered animals, plus cryptozoology in general.

Part 3 of an extensive three-part interview in 1993 with John Hammond on former UK Cable TV channel Wire TV re new and rediscovered animals, plus cryptozoology in general.

 

Screenshot of Richard Uridge wearing my self-customised biker's jacket in a Midlands Today news report, autumn 1993 (© Dr Karl Shuker/Midlands Today – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Something different: Two local TV news reports from autumn 1993 re a then-current Black Leather Jacket museum exhibition featuring one of my own self-customised biker jackets (seen being worn by motorbike-riding Midlands Today presenter Richard Uridge in the second news report).

Interview re British mystery cats in an episode of the 1994 TV documentary series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe, narrated by Carol Vorderman.

[and here, uploaded by someone else, is the entire episode]

Part 1 of the three-part cryptozoology-themed mid-1990s interview with myself and veteran Nessie seeker Steve Feltham by husband-and-wife TV presenters Richard Madeley & Judy Finnegan on UK breakfast TV show This Morning.

Part 2 of the three-part cryptozoology-themed mid-1990s interview with myself and veteran Nessie seeker Steve Feltham by husband-and-wife breakfast TV presenters Richard Madeley & Judy Finnegan on UK breakfast TV show This Morning.

Part 3 of the three-part cryptozoology-themed mid-1990s interview with myself and veteran Nessie seeker Steve Feltham by husband-and-wife breakfast TV presenters Richard Madeley & Judy Finnegan on UK breakfast TV show This Morning.

 

Screenshot of my live appearance on Sky News, mid-1990s (© Dr Karl Shuker/Sky News – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Live interview in mid-1990s on Sky News re the Bodmin Beast.

Interview re Morgawr the Cornish sea monster in Season 3, Episode 2 of the UK ITV documentary series Strange But True? presented by Michael Aspel; this episode was first screened on 6 September 1996.

Part 1 of my three-part mid-/late 1990s interview for UK monthly mysteries magazine Fortean Times on the subject of cryptozoology.

Part 2 of my three-part mid-/late 1990s interview for UK monthly mysteries magazine Fortean Times on the subject of cryptozoology.

Part 3 of my three-part mid-/late 1990s interview for UK monthly mysteries magazine Fortean Times on the subject of cryptozoology.

 

Screenshot from my three-part Fortean Times interview (© Dr Karl Shuker/Fortean Times – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only

Interview in late 1990s re British mystery cats, on former UK TV news programme 3D, presented by Julia Somerville.

 

Speaking at the CFZ's 2007 Weird Weekend conference (© Mark North)

Speaking at the official launch of my first CFZ Press-published book, Extraordinary Animals Revisited (2007), during the CFZ's 2007 Weird Weekend conference.

Speaking at the official launch of my second CFZ Press-published book, Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008), during the CFZ's 2008 Weird Weekend conference.

 

Snapped with CFZ friend Nichola Sullings at the CFZ's 2008 Weird Weekend conference (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Something different: my poem 'Airport' being read aloud by Silas Hawkins, from my first published poetry collection, Star Steeds and Other Dreams (2009).

Something different: my poem 'The Loch Ness Monster' being read aloud by Silas Hawkins, from my first published poetry collection, Star Steeds and Other Dreams (2009).

Speaking re giant spider reports documented in my book Mirabilis (2013), in an excerpt from a lengthy radio interview on Coast To Coast AM, first broadcast in 2013.

 

Lecturing at the very first Fortean Times UnConvention, in 1994; as far as I am aware, however, no video recording of my presentation exists – but I'd be happy to be informed otherwise, and even happier to be able to view any such recording! (© Lars Thomas)

 

Sadly, my TV debut (and still among my favourite small-screen appearances) is not included in the above list, because so far it does not appear to have been uploaded onto YT by anyone – fyi, it was in a 1987 TSW (Television South West) documentary entitled The Beast of Exmoor. However, I do own an official VHS video recording of the entire programme, kindly gifted to me by TSW, so it is not lost (which is very fortunate, because TSW closed down at the end of 1992).

Moreover, as I mentioned earlier here, I may have in my archives some additional TV recordings featuring me, plus cassette recordings of various radio interviews with me that I definitely have, all of which I'll upload onto YT at some stage. Once I do, I'll insert clickable links to them in this present listing. So be sure to check back here from time to time if you'd like to access them for future viewings (and listenings – hey, did I just invent a new word??).

Finally, I can't go without mentioning one of the most popular ploys that TV companies have tried when attempting to solicit my services for free – namely, emphasizing all the publicity that I'll derive from appearing on or assisting their show. Every time I've received that spiel, I've had to exert severe self-control in order to prevent myself from answering back with the withering reply that British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood allegedly gave when responding to a similar statement in a similar situation: "Darling, I don't NEED the publicity!" Wonderful!

 

Just in case you thought that I'd forgotten – here am I with Mom and Chris Tarrant after my appearance on a certain TV quiz show a long, long time ago… (© Dr Karl Shuker)

 

UPDATE: 30 April 2022 - I've also recorded a fair few radio interviews down through the decades, but here is the very latest one, recorded yesterday and uploaded today by Dark Waters onto YouTube. Namely, my appearance on the famous Dark Waters Radio show, in which he and I chat about all manner of mystery beasts, from bigfoot and dogman to water monsters, secret snakes, and much much more!

Dr Karl Shuker on the Dark Waters Radio show (© Dark Waters - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

SEA MONSTERS, DRAGONS, AND A PILOT WHALE SKULL

 

CFZ Deputy Director Graham Inglis holding the Falmouth pilot whale skull back in June 1996 when we met at Hay-on-Wye (© Dr Karl Shuker)

I was recently perusing through various old photograph albums as well as a sizeable number of unsorted packets of sundry photos that I'd snapped long ago, stored away, and largely forgotten about afterwards when I opened two such packets whose contents I'd not seen in many years, but which were and still are of notable cryptozoological significance. Consequently, after having made those pictures public for the very first time anywhere when I posted them on Facebook a few days ago, I am now formally publishing them for posterity as a ShukerNature exclusive, a mere 24 years after they were snapped, together with the somewhat sketchy background information that I have uncovered so far concerning the specimen depicted in them. If any readers have additional details or amendments appertaining to what I have documented here, I would be very grateful to receive and incorporate them herewith, fully-credited as always.

 

CFZ Director Jonathan Downes and I, presenting the Falmouth pilot whale skull's left-hand profile, at Hay-on-Wye, June 1996 (© Dr Karl Shuker)

A somewhat grey, windy, but thankfully dry day in June 1996 found me taking an 80-mile ride on my motorbike from my West Midlands home to Hay-on-Wye, the small yet world-famous 'Town of Books' on the English-Welsh border, which at its peak of popularity contained within its modest-sized borders almost 40 second-hand book shops. You'll not be surprised to learn that this town had long been a popular place of pilgrimage for me as a serious bibliophile, visiting it and making profuse purchases there several times annually for many years (sadly, however, most of the bookshops that I used to visit are now long gone, and they have not been replaced by any others either, so it has been several years since I was last there).

 

Close-up view of the Falmouth pilot whale skull's left-hand profile (and making handy use of Graham's packet of Golden Virginia tobacco as a source of scale for the skull's size!) (© Dr Karl Shuker)

On this particular day, however, its books and bookshops were, for once, of only secondary interest to me, because the primary reason for my visiting Hay that afternoon was to meet up with a coterie from the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ), who were bringing with them a remarkable cryptozoological specimen for me to see in the flesh – or, to be precise, the bone, as it was a skull, but no ordinary one. After what seemed like an interminable time caught behind what was assuredly the lengthiest and slowest-moving articulated lorry in existence, and on rural roads far too winding for me to risk overtaking it, I finally reached Hay-on-Wye where, waiting to greet me and anxious as to why I was so late, were CFZ Director and longstanding crypto-friend Jonathan Downes, his first wife Alison, and the CFZ's video/films expert Graham Inglis (who is also now its Deputy Director).

Jon and I, presenting a dorsal view of the Falmouth pilot whale skull that clearly reveals its nasal cavities and characteristic pilot whale rostrum (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Moreover, carefully carried by Graham was the specimen that had brought us all together that day – what I shall refer to here as the Falmouth skull (see later for details), aka the alleged skull of a certain Cornish sea monster. Needless to say, the briefest of glances revealed that in reality it was from a cetacean, specifically a pilot whale, which we already knew anyway, but it was wonderful to see and hold it, a truly spectacular zoological and erstwhile cryptozoological exhibit, as my photos of it here readily reveal. But what was its history? As I noted above, the details concerning this specimen that I have so far uncovered are somewhat sketchy and currently incomplete, but they do provide a general overview, and are as follows.

 

Close-up of dorsal view of the skull – like all toothed whales, pilot whales possess a pair of internal nasal cavities but only a single external blowhole (© Dr Karl Shuker)

The Cornish coasts have long been deemed to be the domain of a Nessie-like sea serpent dubbed Morgawr, and particularly during the mid-1970s a fair few alleged sightings of a long-necked maritime cryptid with humps along its back were reported by the media. So too were the notorious 'Mary F' photos, ostensibly depicting just such a beast, which were sent anonymously to the local Falmouth Packet newspaper and published by it during March 1976 after having supposedly been snapped a month earlier at Trefusis Point. Back in January of that same year, however, and first brought to cryptozoological attention via a brief mention in A. Mawnan-Peller's privately-published booklet Morgawr: The Monster of Falmouth Bay – A Short History (1976), what to some had seemed to be more substantial evidence for a sea monster, albeit a dead one, had surfaced, literally, on Durgan Beach, Helford River – the carcase of an unidentified creature, where it was encountered by Falmouth resident Mrs Kaye Payne.

 

Vintage illustration of the dorsal view of a pilot whale skull, whose very appreciable morphological correspondence to the Falmouth skull confirms that the latter is indeed that of a pilot whale (public domain)

Despite inciting much local speculation that it may actually be the corpse of Morgawr itself, this intriguing specimen was carried back out to sea by the outgoing tide before any scientists had visited to examine and formally identify it. After the Falmouth Packet reported Mrs Payne's discovery of it, however, the newspaper was contacted by teenage amateur naturalist Toby Benham, from Mawnan Smith (a village roughly three miles south of Falmouth). As the Packet then reported in an article entitled 'Not a sea monster, says Toby', published on 5 May 1976:

The mystery of the bones of Durgan Beach may have been solved this week by 13-year-old Toby Benham, a keen student of skeletons.

Toby believes the bones, found at Durgan by Mrs. Kaye Payne of Falmouth, come not from a 20 foot sea monster as has been suggested, but from a whale.

He came to this conclusion because he thinks the bones form part of a skeleton he discovered on nearby Prisk Beach just after Christmas.

Toby of…Mawnan Smith, studied the "Packet's" photograph of Mrs. Payne holding a bone from the beach, and he is convinced it is one of those he saw.

"I am sure it is from a whale," the young naturalist said emphatically.

STORM TIDES

His explanation for their appearance at Durgan is equally emphatic. Storm tides swept them around from Prisk, he says.

The original skeleton was about ten feet long and the skull which is now one of the prizes in Toby's collection of bones, looks like that of a whale.

He said the skull had what appeared to be blow-holes and it seemed very similar to pictures he has of whales' heads.

If Toby was correct in his assumption that the Prisk carcase he saw and the Durgan Beach carcase encountered not long afterwards by Mrs Payne were one and the same, and that his 10-ft size estimate for the Prisk carcase's length was also correct, then we must assume that the 20-ft estimate attributed to it when on Durgan Beach was an exaggeration. Also, bearing in mind that he took away the skull from the Prisk carcase, it would be interesting to know whether the Durgan carcase was headless – if so, this would strengthen Toby's case for the two carcases being one and the same. Conversely, if the Durgan carcase included a skull, this would obviously disprove his case.

 

Close-up of the Falmouth pilot whale skull's right-hand profile (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Indeed, it is because of the above-revealed uncertainty as to whether this skull does have anything to do with the Durgan Beach carcase that, unlike various other chroniclers, I have deliberately chosen to refer to it here on ShukerNature not as the Durgan Beach skull but merely as the Falmouth skull. Taking these nomenclatural nuances even further, a far more appropriate, unequivocally accurate name for it would be the Prisk Beach skull, because we do at least know that it was obtained by Toby from the Prisk Beach carcase. Just to make matters even more confusing, the skull has also been dubbed by some the Durgan Dragon (more details concerning this moniker's origin would be greatly appreciated).

 

With Jon, Graham, and the Falmouth pilot whale skull at Hay-on-Wye, June 1996 (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Anyway: as the years passed by, Toby reached adulthood and moved out of the family home, but he left the skull behind, where it remained outside as an unusual garden ornament and door stop for quite some time, until finally his mother donated it to the art department of Toby's old Falmouth school (name presently unknown to me, and now closed), as revealed both in a Morgawr review article penned by Jonathan Downes that appeared in the 2002 CFZ Yearbook, and also in a short account on this specimen contained within English cryptozoologist Neil Arnold's book Shadows on the Sea: The Maritime Mysteries of Britain (2013). According to Neil's account, after learning about the skull and its whereabouts, Jon contacted a teacher in the school's art department named Mr Brown, and was granted permission not only to take as many photographs of it as he wanted, but also to borrow it for direct examination and identification, which Jon did (in 1996), whereupon he readily recognized that it was a whale's skull.

 

A living pilot whale (public domain)

Further study narrowed the skull's taxonomic identity down to one or other of the two species of pilot whale – the short-finned pilot whale Globicephala macrorhynchus and the long-finned pilot whale G. melas. These exhibit considerable anatomical variation and overlap with each another, thereby making it difficult to specify the skull's precise species, but British palaeontologist and fellow crypto-enthusiast Dr Darren Naish who has closely examined it has informed me that he believes it to be G. melas, stating in a Facebook post:

If you look at the tip of the whale's rostrum, you can see that the maxillae are visible virtually all the way to its end, rather than roofed by the premaxillae for most of the rostrum's anterior half. This feature shows that it's G. melas rather than G. macrorhynchus.

 

Vintage engraving of a pilot whale from 1900 (public domain)

Meanwhile, as confirmed by Jon in  his afore-mentioned Morgawr article, the proprietors of Toby's old school kindly agreed to donate this skull to the CFZ Museum, which is where it has resided ever since. It is good to know that this cryptozoologically-relevant specimen is safely preserved and its current location verified – all too many crypto-specimens have been lost, discarded, or even destroyed down through the years. And so, another monstrous mystery of the maritime kind is duly if belatedly documented here on ShukerNature.

 

My sincere thanks go to Jon and Graham from the CFZ for kindly making the skull available for me to directly observe back in June 1996. Be sure to click here to visit the CFZ's official website and discover who they are and their substantial contributions to cryptozoology.

 

Jon looking on while I balance the skull of a pilot whale on my knees, as you do… (© Dr Karl Shuker)