In televisual terms, there have been a number of minibooms in programmes dealing with fortean topics, but none has been so instrumental in widening public interest as that which spanned much of the 1990s. Ghostwatch had hit British screens in 1992 and sent a small tsunami of reaction through the networks – although a fair bit was opprobrium, it signalled a willingness to hear more. Then The X-Files landed and thrust fortean themes right into the mainstream. The Alien Autopsy hoax rode the wave, and then in 1997 someone had the bright idea of looking at the leading magazine in the field and, well, televising it.
Rapido TV had first made a splash in 1988 with the eponymous Europop-culture magazine programme , fronted by the energetically sardonic Antoine de Caunes, whose distinctive delivery was used to great effect from 1993 in Rapido’s next project, . Like its predecessor, this series had a vaguely surreal, gonzo-gazette feel, which suited a weekly sally into Continental weirdness with the bodywork of strange phenomena, and as a blueprint used this very organ.
