Vintage Kids TV

[Del Boy]

I don't know How! he does it    Yes I agree Fred always did look 50.
He had a versatile career including news presenting and author alongside the children's tv programs we know him best for.

[B16YUG]

I had the strangest of dreams the other night... and I found myself humming the themetune of Chico when I woke up.


Who remembers watching Chico the Rainmaker - it was the strangest of programs.... maybe I was dreaming of Leslie Ash before she had her trout pout!

[Sparky]

Anyone remember the Cartoon "Wimpole"?

In this episode, about a film crew - the director in this,  according to the creator is based on the late, great Sweeney Director Terry Green who was good mates with him.

They've even got the gear they're using reasonably accurate for a cartoon too.

[Vienna]

Jun 30, 2020 16:47:00 GMT D.C. Burtonshaw said:

ITV I think had a competitor to Cheggers Play Pop, Razzamataz, which was a kids gameshow with a Pop music theme with contemporary Bands and singers appearing on it. One of the presenters was a young Lisa Stansfield, just 16 then. It ran from 1981 to '87.

Gerry, I saw at least one Razzmatazz episode from around 1985 at a Kaleidoscope event in Birmingham a year or so ago. I presume they had been wiped originally but had been found by someone recently or somebody who might have recorded it at the time.

Vi

[Sparky]

Jul 1, 2020 13:36:37 GMT Vienna said:

Jun 30, 2020 16:47:00 GMT D.C. Burtonshaw said:

ITV I think had a competitor to Cheggers Play Pop, Razzamataz, which was a kids gameshow with a Pop music theme with contemporary Bands and singers appearing on it. One of the presenters was a young Lisa Stansfield, just 16 then. It ran from 1981 to '87.

Gerry, I saw at least one Razzmatazz episode from around 1985 at a Kaleidoscope event in Birmingham a year or so ago. I presume they had been wiped originally but had been found by someone recently or somebody who might have recorded it at the time.

Vi

I thought I had read somewhere that most if not all of the Razzmatazz episodes had been wiped - or even lost.

Home video recordings have been quite a saviour to finding some thought lost programmes - as Kaleidoscope have discovered.

I was quite surprised that even by 1981 - they were still wiping stuff on mass - as video tape by then was much easier to store, good quality and much cheaper too.

ITVs archiving and record keeping was second to none - as it was done regionally.

All this went downhill in the 1990s when all these large Media & Communications industries were allowed to buy into the ITV system.

The attitude of these new companies was to ignore most, if not all Archive material - as it was seen as a huge money pit, as it needed to be stored, looked after and the various forms transferred to new formats when needed.

So the first casualties were the Archiving staff, and then scaling down of archives into one big centralised thing - without the correct records and data.

So - amongst all this, a heck of a lot got skipped, lost, stolen in some cases, wiped or even transferred to some "flavour of the month" medium that is hard to access these days. So not technically lost.

A lot of Childrens TV along with Schools TV was lost as that was deemed as worthless.

Luckily, the boneheads that ran these media companies - wanting to play at being a Big US Broadcaster (on a budget) - didn't realise that the real value was in DVD release of material until it was too late - when stuff had been lost - and poor old Network DVD along with the likes of Kaleidoscope and many enthusiasts & volunteers had to pick up the pieces.

While at Central, I saw literally wheel barrow loads of tape and film going into walk in skips when they closed the Birmingham Studio.

Luckily (with permission) I managed to recover a bit of it... one was the first ever Schools Programme ITV showed in 1957, in a can labelled "Unknown junk".....

[D.C. Burtonshaw]

Jun 30, 2020 18:05:54 GMT Sparky said:

Jun 30, 2020 16:47:00 GMT D.C. Burtonshaw said:

I thought of a few more which I don't think have been mentioned but 2 more Childrens BBC gritty crime fighting dramas were "Out of Bounds" from 1977 and "King Cinder" from the same year (set in the world of "Speedway" which starred a pre Blue Peter, Peter Duncan and Tony Caunter as his screen dad).

A couple of quite silly "Gunky" game shows involving contestants getting covered in gunk were "How dare you!" on BBC and I'm sure there was another called "Your Mother wouldn't like it!"

ITV I think had a competitor to Cheggers Play Pop, Razzamataz, which was a kids gameshow with a Pop music theme with contemporary Bands and singers appearing on it. One of the presenters was a young Lisa Stansfield, just 16 then. It ran from 1981 to '87.

And The Really Wild show? (Animals programme). Quite a groovy them tune actually!

I remember Razzmatazz - didn't Lisa Stansfileld present it along with Alistair Pierrie?

Tyne-Tees didn't make much notable for the ITV network (apart from the Tube and Supergran) - this was a bit more radical than Cheggars Plays Pops.

I used to think the theme tune was Led zeps "Whole lotta love"....... Suppose it was similar.

Yes Alastair Pirrie was his name, other presenters were Lyn Spencer, Brendan Healy and Suzanne Dando.

Also........ has anyone as this is a long thread, did anyone remember "Runaround" with Mike Reid?? Teams of kids who had a studio bound multiple choice questions first asked by Mike, who then gave them the go-ahead to "Runaround naaaow!" by runninf and then jumping on different squares, then the studio went darker and the correct answer was revealed.

In between question rounds they had guests bringing in various items of interest to the studio, like animals, antiques, vehicles, or acrobats,  or the army giving a demonstration on what they were trained in etc.

[Sparky]

Jul 1, 2020 14:56:51 GMT D.C. Burtonshaw said:

Also........ has anyone as this is a long thread, did anyone remember "Runaround" with Mike Reid?? Teams of kids who had a studio bound multiple choice questions first asked by Mike, who then gave them the go-ahead to "Runaround naaaow!" by runninf and then jumping on different squares, then the studio went darker and the correct answer was revealed.

In between question rounds they had guests bringing in various items of interest to the studio, like animals, antiques, vehicles, or acrobats,  or the army giving a demonstration on what they were trained in etc.

I remember "Runaround" - Mike Reid always gave a slightly uneasy feel to the show.

To me it seemed like a kids show presented by a villian out of The Sweeney

"Runaraaaaaaaaaaaaand!"

That was made by Southern TV - as was 'Saturday Banana' - with Bill Oddie; not sure if it was seen beyond the Southern TV region though.

[Nightfly]

Nice to have a journey back into the golden days of Children's TV.  In the 70s, both the BBC and ITV seemed to produce serious kids TV drama and I always got the impression that the same resources as adult drama were called upon.  There were a few that stuck in my mind from ITV:-

Follyfoot - Yorkshire TV 1971-73.  The story of a girl from a privileged background, virtually abandoned by her career driven parents and sent to live with a kindly Uncle who runs a horse sanctuary.   I never bothered with this one at the time as I dismissed it as a drama only of interest to young kids with an interest in horses. I rediscovered it many years later and found it to be a well crafted series dealing with issues of class, emotion/romance etc and the cast were superb. I believe actor David Hemmings had a crack at directing a few episodes.

Follow Me - HTV 1977 - Set in Bristol, a boy goes to stay on his father's boat and befriends a runaway girl who has been accidentally caught up in espionage. I have the Network DVD but have yet to set aside time to watch it again, but it was a great drama from what I can remember.

Children of the Stones - HTV 1977 - filmed in Avebury. A scientist and his young son move to the village to investigate the ancient stones and find that most of the residents have an eerie over polite manner to them with their equally strange children being exceptionally gifted, finally realising they are being brainwashed by the Lord of the Manor (played by Iain Cuthbertson).  I was totally gripped by this at the time and I think it still stands up as being one of the best children's dramas ever produced. It was like Armchair Thriller for kids !  Luckily the series is available on YouTube.

A Place to Hide - ATV 1976 - A retired magician opens a guest house in the country.  His guests turn out to be a bank robber and his son and daughter who have just got away with £100,000 from a raid. Arthur White plays the father with Frances Tomelty and Brian Capron as his daughter and son. The robbers are model guests until the son of the guest house owner discovers the hidden loot and the owner and his family are taken hostage. Episode One is on one of Network's "Look Back" compilations, but I've yet to find the remaining episodes.

[Cartman]

The only one of those I remember was Follyfoot, which, as you say was very good. The theme tune was quite good too

[Arthur Pringle]

I recently got the Network dvd of 'Tom Grattan's War', this was a YTV serial made from 1968-1970 about a boy from London evacuated to a farm in Yorkshire during WW1. Filmed entirely on location & in colour ( colour tv being in its infancy ), it was shown on Saturday afternoons.

nostalgiacentral.com/television/tv-by-decade/tv-shows-1960s/tom-grattans-war/

The dvd is out of print & the only clips I can see on yt are from Israeli & Italian youtubers.