1997

A Scare at Bedtime was an Irish television show, produced by Double Z Enterprises and broadcast by RTÉ, featuring the two puppets Podge and Rodge as the hosts of a spooky tales and urban myths comedy show. It ran from 1997 until January 2006.

A Scare at Bedtime was originally commissioned by RTÉ to fill a ten minute gap that was left before the 23:00 News due to the short running times of American shows that preceded it. This show took its name from the nightly RTÉ 1 show called A Prayer at Bedtime, which overlaid the text of a Roman Catholic prayer over serene images with choral music playing. A Scare at Bedtime, first aired in 1997, is close to being the polar opposite of this, with extremely adult content, lewd jokes and slightly obscene anecdotes being related by the two puppets and ‘Tales of Caution’ acted out in live action segments. Podge’s origins on The Den is ignored, as the backstory gradually established on A Scare at Bedtime, presents Podge and his identical twin brother Rodge to be both in their sixties, and living in Ballydung Manor, a converted insane asylum for most of that time, with a lunatic nurse that they call “Granny” who practices the dark arts . They were also then given full names also: Padraig Judas O’Leprocy and Rodraig Spartacus O’Leprocy.