ITV's Tales of the Unexpected brought inky-black humour to small screen Credit: ITV/Shutterstock Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected is remembered not only for its “twist in the tale” endings, but also its opening sequence: the eerie fairground waltz theme tune; the quasi-Bond titles, with the silhouette of a naked woman (well, she looked naked) dancing with fate itself – a gun, a roulette wheel, tarot cards, faces of death; and lastly Roald Dahl, sat at a crackling fireside, introducing that week’s strange yarn. It’s during one of these softly-spoken introductions that Dahl ponders the streak of deathly black humour that underscores his tales. “If a bucket of paint falls on a man’s head, that’s funny,” says Dahl to the camera. “If the bucket fractures his skull at the same time and kills him, that’s not funny – it’s tragic. And yet, if a man falls into a sausage machine and is sold in the shops at so-much a pound, that’s funny. It is also tragic. So why is it funny? I don’t know.”