The Test Card Girl: The Lasting Legacy of Test Card F | An AMTV Documentary

As a now retired TV Engineer that started work in the 1960's I have a framed TEST CARD F hanging in my hall just for the memories.

Fun fact Carol is left handed so they actually flipped the slide round to make it seem as if she’s right handed.

As a retired TV engineer I thoroughly enjoyed this video - brilliant.

I remember as a young teenager being home alone at night after my little sister had been rushed to hospital with a dangerously high fever. I sat in front of the TV all night with this test card on to not feel so alone and anxious. Seems so strange now to look back and remember that being the only thing I had to watch on TV during the night

I actually have the physical Norwegian Test Card F :) When I started at NRK R&D, I took over the offices of a retired engineer who hadn't bothered to clean out anything. And sure enough, gingerly packed inside a 4x5" slide film box, there it was.

My older sister was terrified of that test card. Turns out she was not the only one. Still freaks her out decades later!

Never thought I’d spend 20 odd minutes of life watching a program about the test card. All the times I’d want to turn the TV off once the channel closed down or I woke up on the couch. Brilliant and informative 👏👏

Growing up in New Zealand in the early 80's I never saw Test Card F, so I was watching this with an interested detatchment, but when Test Card G appeared I felt 40 years drop away and there I was, 6 years old and waiting for the sunday morning cartoons to start. Wow.

Nice video. We don't use it on the air, of course, but Card F is seen in our master control at WLIO Lima, Ohio as part of the screen saver on a computer.

Test Card F is one of the best ever. That little girl and her clown doll Bubbles were so iconic, BBC2 and other commercials caught notice and made their own versions of it.

Pure nightmare fuel as a kid 😂 It’s 1996, I sneak down stairs at 5am to watch come cartoons on our new spangle Sky box. I flick the tv on to be greeted by Carol Hersee and her clown along with eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat full volume. I never messed about with the tv after that 😂

I remember waking up early during the 80s as a kid and just sitting and watching test card f... I remember that high pitch hum putting me in to an almost hypnotic state..

Having more TV screen time than anyone else in world history is an incredible claim to fame, and it's highly unlikely that anyone will ever beat her. Bubbles was the scariest toy I'd ever seen when I was a child. Thanks to Adam, I at last know the name of my early morning childhood tormenter! ;-)

As a child I was given a kit to make one of the clowns used in the Testcard. Being fairly young, it certainly didn't look like the one on screen. lol

Test card F has always fascinated me yet it still unnerves me whenever I look at it. When I was little it used to TERRIFY me, to the point at which it became my biggest fear 😭 I was born in 2000 and I remember seeing it still in use. I used to avoid watching TV at night in case it came on 🥴

why does this make me cry? I used to watch this on late sleepless nights in the early to mid 00s in my grandmother's house as I kept the tv on throughout the night to help my fear of sleeping in a Bungalow house (people walking outside) The noise of the testcard amongst 24 hour news was comforting.

I knew the photographer who took the photo of Carol Hersee for the test card. The late David Jones, who worked at the BBC and drank at my local pub in Newdigate, Surrey. A jolly nice chap he was too.

Brilliant as always. Fun fact about F that I don’t think was mentioned is that the “X” in the game of noughts and crosses is the exact centre of the image 😎. Another bit of design genius from Mr Hersee.

Despite those who would deride the presence of the test card F on our TV screens, I always felt a certain degree of comfort/affection toward it, growing up. The immortal words of the presenters saying, '... we return to a trade test transmission', with a slight pause before the card came up and the music started seemed rather homely and wholesome. In that, even when there were no programmes on, they still wanted to have their presence felt by any who continued to watch. Like welcoming an old friend into your house. The musical element added to that, with the selection of music being, (generally), easy on the ear, and complimented the test card itself, very well. Hearing any of it now instantly takes me back to a time when things were far less complicated, when you could spend a few hours chilling out, listening to anything from light orchestrations to funky jazz/electronica.

As a child of the 60’s I remember what seemed like an eternity, sitting in front of the huge tv that had screen doors to hide it as it wasn’t an accepted piece of furniture back then, and watching this test card in black and white waiting for the ten minutes of ‘watch with mother’. It was as boring as the test card but it was all we had. They were not ‘good old days’ , It’s wonderful how technology has moved on and how much entertainment and education our young people have today at the touch of a button.