Television series
Round the Twist
- Absurdist comedy
- Magical realism
- Light-hearted
A cult slice of Australian children's TV from 1990, adapted from Paul Jennings' short stories, following the Twist family as they move into a lighthouse where ordinary life keeps getting derailed by talking statues, gender-swapping ghosts and other gleeful absurdities. It's weird, a little gross, oddly moral, and completely unafraid of unsettling its young audience. Great for nostalgic adults and curious kids who like fantasy served strange.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like children's stories with a sly, slightly eerie streak, where ordinary family life tips into the peculiar and the sensible grown-ups are left bemused.
Skip it if the episodes are short and the sets and effects show their age, so the oddness can feel thin if you want rapid, polished invention.
What it asks of you: Half-hour episodes, one after another across four seasons, asking for little more than a willingness to let the weirdness unfold at a gentle, unhurried pace.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Goosebumps1995
R.L. Stine's gleeful appetite for grossing kids out while still landing a proper scare mirrors Jennings' own trick — creepy, funny, never quite safe.
But Episode quality swings wildly and some entries feel rushed compared to the source books.
The Worst Witch1998
British boarding-school magic played with the same dry, slightly wonky charm — spells go wrong, kids get embarrassed, nothing is ever too polished.
But More gentle sitcom than eerie adventure; lacks Round the Twist's edge of genuine strangeness.
My Parents Are Aliens1999
A family sitcom that treats the fantastical as everyday domestic chaos, much like the Twists shrugging off ghosts and curses over breakfast.
But Broader, sillier, and squarely aimed at younger viewers with less bite.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Round the Twist
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Catweazle1970
Decades before the Twists met their ghosts, Catweazle proved the format — ordinary life derailed by magic nobody else can quite believe — could carry a whole kids' show. Round the Twist inherited its DNA of bafflement played for laughs.
A grubby, bewildered 11th-century wizard stumbles into 1970s England and tries to make sense of tractors and telephones — chaotic, funny and strangely tender.
But Slow by modern pacing standards and very much a product of early-70s British telly, dated effects included.
More like this (5)
Ocean Girl1994
Australian coastline, family secrets and a supernatural mystery washing up from the sea — the same sun-bleached, slightly eerie backdrop.
But Plays it straighter and more earnestly; the anarchic humour is largely absent.
Jim Henson's The Storyteller1988
Jim Henson's fairy tales go properly dark and strange, with the same appetite for unsettling kids without traumatising them.
But Puppetry and folklore replace the suburban-Australian setting entirely; a very different texture.
Grim Tales1989
Rik Mayall narrates macabre fairy stories redrawn with a wicked grin — a cousin in spirit to Jennings' moral-but-mischievous plotting.
But Short, cheaply animated, and very much of its era; a curio rather than a binge.
ParaNorman2012
Same trick, different toolbox — take the fears and grossness kids actually enjoy and wrap them around a real emotional core, just rendered in stop-motion instead of live-action sitcom.
A stop-motion horror-comedy about a boy who talks to the dead, gleefully macabre and genuinely moving, with the same nerve to scare kids a little.
But Two hours instead of a season, and the animation's gothic style is a world away from Round the Twist's sunny lighthouse setting.
Lake Mungo2009
Strip out the comedy and gross-out and you're left with the same bones — an ordinary Australian family, a strange coastal town, secrets the adults can't quite explain. Lake Mungo plays that premise entirely straight, showing how dark it could get.
An Australian mockumentary ghost story that takes small-town secrets and coastal unease dead seriously, building genuine dread instead of laughs.
But Slow, quiet and unmistakably adult — a ghost story that lingers rather than entertains; no jokes, no eels.
People
Cast
Writing
- Paul JenningsCreator
Production
- Patricia EdgarExecutive Producer