(UK) Children's TV
May 31, 2007 11:53 AM   Subscribe

Influenced by two related news items...
Were you a Blue Peter or a Magpie kid ? And on Saturday morning: Swap Shop or Tiswas ?
posted by Webbster (29 comments total)
 
I'm hot for Miss Hoolie of Balamory. Even if she looks like a clown in still photos.
posted by Mayor Curley at 11:58 AM on May 31, 2007


Additional: Ah just thought of it now.. I should have included links to some Youtube clips for the Phantom Flan Flinger or Posh Paws ...
posted by Webbster at 12:04 PM on May 31, 2007


I love Blue Peter!
posted by k8t at 12:08 PM on May 31, 2007


I loved Blue Peter! We were in England for seven or so months when I was a kid, and I have fond memories of the show.
posted by rtha at 12:10 PM on May 31, 2007


I just bought a huge Moomins DVD box set, to go with my multiregion DVD player, so that my offspring will not be cultrally deprived. Rather amusingly the DVDs seem to have been printed in Germany, so each one is emblazoned with the message "DIE MOOMINS!".

I'll need to get some British kids TV shows to go with it as well. And a bunch of old black and white movies. And instead of kids music The Beattles, Pink Floyd and Stevie Wonder, which is what I was raised on. Basically I want to raise her exactly as i was raised, in a cruel attempt to imprint my personality on her.

Poor child.
posted by Artw at 12:14 PM on May 31, 2007


Swap Shop came to my home town, Hitchin, so I went along and swapped my game of Rebound for, I think, a skateboard ... or maybe I have that backwards! Yeah, I was that much of a dork.

Local resident and BBC newsreader Richard Whitmore also showed up, and I can attest that Keith Chegwin is even more of a twat in person than he was on TV. For one thing, he couldn't be bothered to remember what county he was in (Hertfordshire) and kept referring to it as Herefordshire.
posted by kcds at 12:39 PM on May 31, 2007


Blue Peter... I loved my badge.

I also remember watching an brilliant claymation programme called "Morph" that came on before it.
posted by modernnomad at 12:46 PM on May 31, 2007


I was, specifically, this kind of kid (link goes to YouTube playlist of my favorite British shows I watched as a kid).
posted by jonson at 12:59 PM on May 31, 2007


modernnomad: Morph was an early Aardman animation on Tony Hart's show "Take Heart" (or Heartbeat if you're younger than me).

Coincidentally, I was watching CBeebies with my boy today (he's been laid up ill on the sofa all day) and during "Smart" - a new "art for kids" program - they had Morph and Chaz on it. I swear they had the same music for the pictures the kids sent in during "the Gallery" segment too...
posted by davehat at 1:01 PM on May 31, 2007


kcds - ah well, at least you cna console yourself that in Hertfordshire, Herefordshire and Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen...

And I used t pop into Hitchin all the time as a kid. Not that it adds much to the conversation as I could tell you very little about it now, except I used to like the way the little bookshop in the lane part that led off to the market smelled, and it was quite nice being able to sit in the churchyard by the river... ah the happy days of childhood. Thesedays it's probably full of chavs, the bookstore is most liekly gone and theres a probably a huge waterstones on the edge of town
posted by Artw at 1:04 PM on May 31, 2007


Here's a comment I made earlier... Just need to get some sticky-backed plastic and we'll be finished.

Each Year, just before Christmas, Blue Peter always made the coat hanger Advent Wreath - that was a fire just waiting to happen.

And you can't mention Blue Peter without mentioning the Elephant
posted by azlondon at 1:11 PM on May 31, 2007


BLUE PETER all the way.

Too old for Swap Shop but enjoyed Tiswas enormously as a teenager.

Let's also hear it for JIM'LL FIX IT and IT'S A KNOCKOUT, please.
posted by unSane at 1:27 PM on May 31, 2007


It's a Knockout, 1981, from Luton
posted by unSane at 1:28 PM on May 31, 2007


Texan bars, space hoppers, Spangles, white dog poo, etc.
posted by the cuban at 1:53 PM on May 31, 2007


I'll see you Take Hart and raise you one Vision On.

(I thought that both Chris Tarrant and Noel Edmonds were too interested in making the cameramen laugh, frankly. Most weeks I'd switch between them for about an hour, then watch some Open University, then wander away and do something less boring instead.)
posted by Grangousier at 2:01 PM on May 31, 2007


I was a Blue Peter and a Swap Shop kid. Like unSane says Jim'll Fix It and It's a Knockout were also favourites. Anyone remember Rentaghost?
posted by ob at 2:23 PM on May 31, 2007


Blue Peter... I loved my badge.

Oh, my. This post and mention of the Blue Peter badge brought memories flooding back. I'm calling my parents tonight to see if they kept our badges, school and house pins, etc.
posted by ericb at 3:43 PM on May 31, 2007


I only had a blue badge, but as an ex-pat American in Scotland I was proud of it and wore it on my school blazer with pride.
posted by ericb at 3:46 PM on May 31, 2007


Artw - yes, Burgess Books. Great bookshop. Closed down within the last year or so :( There is a moderate-sized bookstore in the market square - Ottakar's - but it's a soulless corporate thing compared with Burgess's.

And while there is no Waterstones on the edge of town, the town is indeed chav-infested these days.
posted by kcds at 6:17 PM on May 31, 2007


Magpie and Tiswas.

Blue Peter and Swap Shop were teh ghey, even before such a thing existed.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:51 PM on May 31, 2007


Blue Peter has never been the same since Christopher Trace left...
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 7:38 PM on May 31, 2007


Blue Peter has never been the same since Christopher Trace left...

Never mind that, what about the dream team of John Noakes, Peter Purves and Val Singleton?
posted by greycap at 11:40 PM on May 31, 2007


And John Noakes strange swimming trunks too.
posted by A189Nut at 12:42 AM on June 1, 2007


Anyone remember a show called Havakazoo?
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:56 AM on June 1, 2007


Swap Shop or Tiswas ?

Is that even a question? Only people who had absolutely no soul in childhood could possibly answer, 'Swap Shop'. Like my sister. Oh, the fights we had on a Saturday morning.
posted by MrMustard at 3:28 AM on June 1, 2007


I have no soul. Well, that's not true, my parents had no soul. If it wasn't on the BBC then, as far as my parents were concerned, it didn't actually exist.
posted by vbfg at 4:04 AM on June 1, 2007


That's tantamount to child abuse. My guess is that this will contain most if not all of the material that I own on my two 'Best of...' videos. Buy it and reclaim your childhood.
posted by MrMustard at 6:14 AM on June 1, 2007


I do feel kind of deprived. All the primitive and formative sexual desires of my contemporaries seem to revolve around Sally James. It was Janet Ellis for me.
posted by vbfg at 6:18 AM on June 1, 2007


Never mind that, what about the dream team of John Noakes, Peter Purves and Val Singleton?

You may dream of Peter Purves, but as far as I'm concerned he's an interloper. Val, on the other hand, was always a dream.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 9:48 AM on June 1, 2007


« Older Recycle your computer junk   |   Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments