Happy Days

So, Blue Peter has been celebrating its 50th anniversary as one of the world’s longest running Children’s TV programme……Well, I was always more of a Magpie man myself. BBC was always a little posh and keen to educate in my formative years and I seemed to prefer the allure of Jenny Hanley over Lesley Judd. And, who can blame me? Give me a Hammer Girl over a ballet dancer any day

But, the anniversary has prompted me to think back to those halcyon days of 1970s and early 1980s TV. I never really bothered about Blue Peter until Sarah Greene. Well, why would I? But, I did find Sarah and the likes of Janet Ellis could be a little diverting in the late afternoon. And to be honest, John Noakes apart, the male presenters were always a little dodgy. Peter Duncan, John Leslie – need I say more?

In my day, as a kid, you took TV as it came. Which wasn’t often. Breakfast TV didn’t start until 1983. When I was very young (or occasionally ill) I would walk home from junior school for lunch and take in the occasional Mr Benn, Trumpton, Camberwick Green, Tales of the Riverside, or, Pipkins, with that truly irritating Brummie hare! 

Animation and cartoons were pretty rubbish – who could ever get their head around Noggin the Nog or understand what on Earth (or whatever their volcanic, hollow planet was called) the Clangers were on about? The American imports were always so much better. I used to fancy Penelope Pitstop. These were the days of Dastardly and Muttley, the Harlem Globetrotters and the Jackson 5 – back in the days when the only children that Michael Jackson shared his bed withwere his own brothers! (How did he ever get away with it?)

The home grown stuff was pretty rock n’ roll though, alegedly full of drugs and sexual innuendo. Just take Zebedee in the Magic Roundabout or the whole mythology built around Captain Pugwash with  Seaman Staines, Master Bates, and Roger the Cabin Boy. None of it is true you know.

Sundays were dull. These were the days when TV schedulers believed that children should be sat around the Sunday dinner table with the family and playing in the park. It was so bad that you would look forward to Songs of Praise. No, actually, it was never that bad. There was always the Adentures of Black Beauty. It was always a bit girlie but at least there was Judy Bowker. The Christmas holidays were long, with only black and white Tarzan movies (Johnny Weissmuller) or Flash Gordon (Steve Holland) to accompany your home-made mince pie breakfasts. The summer holidays would have been unbearable without the Banana Splits and their friends – the Three Musketeers, the Arabian Nights and Danger Island.

Kids today? You don’t know what you are missing. What are your favourite TV shows from way back then?

 

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