Mary Whitehouse (1910-2001) was the founder of the National Viewers' And Listeners' Association (now mediawatch-uk), and was well-known for her campaigns to 'Clean Up TV', which she often saw as epitomising a "moral collapse" in Britain. While Mrs. Whitehouse had numerous supporters, there were others who saw her activism as misguided and excessively prudish, and she was maligned and satirised by many.

Knightmare became one of Mary Whitehouse's targets early on. In 1987, she branded it "damaging"; but as Tim Child explained in an interview with Wilf Wright in The Quest magazine (Volume 1, Issue 3), Mrs. Whitehouse made this remark without having actually seen any of the series:

'Mary Whitehouse did actually apologise after she saw the programme. The newspapers ambush poor old Mary, and they say, "There's this new television show coming out and they're killing children on it. What do you say to that?" And she's got no choice! She says, "I think that's terrible," and the next thing that happens is there's a headline saying 'This Thing Must Stop'.

She's caught betwixt and between - once she's put herself up as having had an opinion she's openly abused by certain elements of the press.'

Anglia Television's archives reportedly hold letters exchanged between Mary Whitehouse and Tim Child that are accessible for research purposes.

Mary Whitehouse was also linked, albeit passively, to 1990s BBC comedy series The Mary Whitehouse Experience, in that her name was used in theirs (quite obviously). One of its most popular recurring sketches was History Today, in which two elderly academics - one unnamed (played by David Baddiel), the other named Professor F. J. Lewis (played by Rob Newman) - commenced a scholarly discussion which would descend into puerile taunting of each other, highlighted by demeaning variations on the phrase "That's you that is." History Today and Knightmare formed the joint inspiration for KMRAmDram's 2007 production, KM-Today.

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