Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Apr 21, 2021 12:02:01 GMT
We got YTV in Black & White after my Grandather re-rigged the aerial when he brought a new Colour TV. We had ATV in colour - but I struggled to tune the old B&W in (it had a knob you turned like on an old radio and you had to find the channels)
I only really remember Tiswas on a Saturday.
So by the late 70s, it must have been the case that some regions took one programme, and other areas had their own. While others shared another programme. I didn't know they did Calendar Kids - surprised Richard Whitely wasn't on it! The original version of Countdown was called Calendar Countdown. I can just about remember those old sets with the dial to tune the stations. I think it was a VHF/425 line set we had. This must have been up to the very early 70s. It was before we got a relay TX in our area and we had a "H" shaped aerial pointing to Emley Moor on the roof which was hit and miss. Our village was also served by a kind of crude cable TV service run by a TV dealer called "Ramsbottom's" in the nearby town of Keighley. It literally consisted of coax cable strung between houses coming from their own relay on a nearby hill. I think this was the only way you could get BBC 2 in our village. Kathryn Apanowicz and Mark Curry were probably about 16/17 when they did "Calendar Kids" but were already YTV veterans having been child stars in "Junior Showtime" some 5 years or so previously. The old VHF sets were 405line and used those massive H and X aerials - you had one for BBC (Band 1) and one for ITV (Band 3)
The UHF colour sets were 625
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Apr 21, 2021 12:25:50 GMT
The old VHF sets were 405line and used those massive H and X aerials - you had one for BBC (Band 1) and one for ITV (Band 3)
The UHF colour sets were 625
Ah, 405 lines - well I was close(ish). It would be the late 70s before we got a colour set. My parents were put off for years after hearing stories of the early colour sets overheating and bursting into flames.
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Apr 21, 2021 13:25:43 GMT
Funny you mention Cable TV... My youngest sons school was built in the mid 50s, that still has a hard wired cable TV supply to each classroom - this was (aparently) used in the 50s and 60s as part of some trial educational programmes circuit available to schools only. The snag was that schools needed to fork out on TV sets, which weren't that cheap.
Instead they just settled for broadcasting them during the day via BBC and ITV.
Anyways...
Here's a couple more.
Screen Test ran for years if I remember.
Then there's the kids version of It's a Knockout
Then there's this. For me - it felt like this was a show for swotty kids. Richard Stilgoe reminded me of the Embarassing parent rolling up and standing at the back of the school disco, or even that embarassing humanities teacher who constantly drops bad jokes and gaffs and thinks he's hilarious.
The show contestant intros reminded me of Show & Tell at primary school. Tedious and patronising.
I think he did a version of the theme to this at some point.
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Apr 21, 2021 19:41:35 GMT
Screen Test ran for years if I remember. They ran a Screen Test Young Film Maker of the Year contest for a time too, where kids could send in their 8mm films. Mini documentaries, 3 minute dramas or animation - anything was fair game.
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Apr 21, 2021 22:42:12 GMT
Looks like they even got actors who resembled the Pardon My Genie cast for Rentaghost.
As a youngster my brother once approached Ron Pickering at some event for an autograph, he claims Pickering told him to eff off.
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Apr 22, 2021 6:12:33 GMT
Screen Test ran for years if I remember. They ran a Screen Test Young Film Maker of the Year contest for a time too, where kids could send in their 8mm films. Mini documentaries, 3 minute dramas or animation - anything was fair game. Yeah, my brother and I entered it - we sent in an 8mm stop frame animation using Lego bricks. It took ages to make.
We didn't get short listed - but they did send the film back.
"Why Don't You" did the same thing some years later - we didn't enter that one!
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Apr 22, 2021 8:14:36 GMT
They ran a Screen Test Young Film Maker of the Year contest for a time too, where kids could send in their 8mm films. Mini documentaries, 3 minute dramas or animation - anything was fair game. Yeah, my brother and I entered it - we sent in an 8mm stop frame animation using Lego bricks. It took ages to make.
We didn't get short listed - but they did send the film back. Great stuff ! Do you remember Roobarb creator Bob Godfrey's series "The Do it Yourself Animation Show" around that time ? It was in several parts and Bob showed you how to get started with a Super 8 camera, four domestic light bulbs and a beer crate to act as a makeshift rostrum. It was quite extensive and he covered all kinds of techniques and spoke with other animators like Terry Gilliam etc. Some of the episodes have made their way on to YouTube.. I used to have the accompanying book to the series years ago.
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Apr 22, 2021 8:36:15 GMT
Yeah, my brother and I entered it - we sent in an 8mm stop frame animation using Lego bricks. It took ages to make.
We didn't get short listed - but they did send the film back. Great stuff ! Do you remember Roobarb creator Bob Godfrey's series "The Do it Yourself Animation Show" around that time ? It was in several parts and Bob showed you how to get started with a Super 8 camera, four domestic light bulbs and a beer crate to act as a makeshift rostrum. It was quite extensive and he covered all kinds of techniques and spoke with other animators like Terry Gilliam etc. Some of the episodes have made their way on to YouTube.. I used to have the accompanying book to the series years ago. Didn't watch it at the time, though did see the episode years later. My brother was more into chopping up magazines and messing about with them - he could draw, so could modify pictures. I can't draw for toffee. He couldn't quite grasp the concept of why we needed to have lots of table lamps to illuminate it all.
Here's the clip of the Godfrey show. People forget how way ahead Gilliam was - the "cut & paste" animation format is very popular today with Memes and all that polava. Thing is, it's much easier to do it in Photoshop and Flash these days.
Kids these days can't be arsed to use a pair of scissors unless they want to stab someone or their teacher.
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Jun 5, 2021 15:29:51 GMT
Here's an obscure one that some might remember. Catch Kandy - an Australian series made in 1973 and shown in the UK a few years later, usually during the summer holiday mornings when the Schools & Colleges programmes were on a break.
Catch and his sister run away from home when they mistakenly think they have killed their Uncle after he his knocked unconscious after slipping on a roller skate ! They are befriended by a Zoologist who lives in a cave in Sydney Zoo. It had some nice location shots as I remember and was in the tradition of the good old children's adventure series' that seemed to be around in the 70s. The theme song has stuck in my mind for many years.
The kids summer schedule at ITV in the 70s seemed to rely quite a lot on imported shows. There was a Canadian series called The Beachcombers too which I don't remember being as attention grabbing as some of the others.
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Post by Steve Austin on Jun 5, 2021 20:26:29 GMT
Here's an obscure one that some might remember. Catch Kandy - an Australian series made in 1973 and shown in the UK a few years later, usually during the summer holiday mornings when the Schools & Colleges programmes were on a break. Catch and his sister run away from home when they mistakenly think they have killed their Uncle after he his knocked unconscious after slipping on a roller skate ! They are befriended by a Zoologist who lives in a cave in Sydney Zoo. It had some nice location shots as I remember and was in the tradition of the good old children's adventure series' that seemed to be around in the 70s. The theme song has stuck in my mind for many years. The kids summer schedule at ITV in the 70s seemed to rely quite a lot on imported shows. There was a Canadian series called The Beachcombers too which I don't remember being as attention grabbing as some of the others. I don't remember this Nightfly but I do remember "The Beachcombers", that is to say I remember the title sequence but not a lot else.
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