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Before he went grey and started hanging out with Fern Britton on This Morning, Phillip Schofield was best known for hosting Children’s BBC from the legendary Broom Cupboard – otherwise known as the BBC1 continuity room, the place where the announcer sits when telling you what TV programme is on next. By sticking a camera in the room a mini studio was formed from which Phillip and the other Children’s BBC presenters that followed him could introduce the days kids TV shows.
The first broadcast from the Broom Cupboard came on September 9th 1985, and was an immediate success. Not only was Mr. Schofield introducing the programmes he was also responsible for pressing all the buttons and twiddling all the sliders to start the programmes running as well as fading his own image and voice up onto our screens. The whole affair was perhaps a little rough around the edges, but this was part of its appeal and what kept us watching. In fact, one such mistake almost cost Schofield the job, when he mistakenly brought up the BBC1 globe instead of himself, then lost sound when he did return to the screen. He was apparently only saved the chop because the then Head of Presentation found it the most amusing thing he had ever seen.
The fun continued by involving the watching kids too. Viewers could send in their pictures which were pinned to the back wall of the Broom Cupboard, and they could also request word sheets for the theme tunes for some of the popular cartoon shows, which Phil would sing along with live on air – The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds spring to mind as good examples of this.
Schofield was later joined in the Broom Cupboard by Gordon the Gopher, a squeaky glove puppet that he had been given as a gift. Kids went mad for the Gopher, and he became a star in his own right. Gordon the Gopher toys were one of the most popular toys for a period in the late 1980′s.
Eventually Phillip Schofield was offered the job of presenter alongside Sarah Greene on new Saturday morning magazine show Going Live! with Gordon following him too. His replacement was Andy Crane, and Gordon’s was Edd the Duck. Crane did a good job of replacing Schofield, and eventually went on to present videogames show Bad Influence and Saturday morning show What’s Up Doc? (alongside Most Haunted’s Yvette Fielding and Radio DJ Pat Sharp) for the ITV.
When Crane left things started to deteriorate. His replacement was Andi Peters, who I always found a little over excitable and his attempts to carry on the singing of theme songs were generally pretty dire – his singing voice wasn’t great. He too was finally replaced by the even less effective Toby Anstis, and eventually the Broom Cupboard went off air in September 1994 to be replaced with a larger proper studio and multiple presenters. It seems however that the BBC may be trying recapture the glory days, as they have a slightly more polished attempt at replicating the Broom Cupboard for the CBBC Channel, featuring new presenter Ed Petrie and puppet helper Oucho the Cactus, who seems to have a wonderfully gruff mumble for a voice.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Was wondering if you would consider linking to our site http://www.schofieldfans.co.uk in your article. Phillip is involved with the site, he posts on the forum so always looking for more fans to check us out! Thanks
Ellen
March 31st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Consider it done Ellen! Hope you liked the article – I’ve added the link to your site on Phillip’s name in the first paragraph, plus it’s also in your comment!
April 10th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Thanks Big Boo! Yep great article!
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
[...] aspect of Dogtanian was the theme song, which everybody (including Philip Schofield on the Children’s BBC Broom Cupboard) used to sing along with. I defy you not to join in with its catchy tune when you watch [...]
August 26th, 2008 at 11:16 am
[...] a stalwart of the BBC’s childrens line up, appearing both in the afternoon kids TV slot on The Broom Cupboard and also during the school holidays in the morning programmes. It seemed like it was good filler [...]
February 17th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Hi There,
I have recently made a short film which is a bit of satirical homage to the BBC broomcupboard. Would love to hear your thoughts and even better if you could post something on here about it, that would be great, I think your readers will like it…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f7jIrJkRSc
Thanks!
Jen Moss
March 11th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
i fink babies are better because we where all babies go ocho
October 26th, 2009 at 10:02 am
[...] to childrens television of the mid 1980s I often end up reminiscing about Childrens BBC and the Broom Cupboard, with Phillip Schofield, Andy Crane or Andi Peters (OK, maybe not Andi Peters quite so much) [...]
January 30th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I think there should be a dedicated channel on SKY called (of course) The Broom Cupboard. Non stop kids programmes from the 80′s and early 90′s – Ulysses, Thundercats, Cities of Gold, Jimbo, Dogtanion, Willy Fogg, Duckula – also classics from other channels as well like T-Bag….it would be awesome
January 30th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I second that. What a great idea, and The Broom Cupboard is a great name for it.
The closest we have at the moment (on a regular basis anyway and that I know of) is Nick Jr. Classics, which airs around 8pm or so on Nick Jr. They play some old toddler classics like Bagpuss, Rainbow and The Clangers, but not the kind of programmes you InstantChilli mentions.
February 28th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Hi Guys and Gals
I know this is a long shot. But can anyone rememeber the TV series where two boys went exploring in the countryside somewhere and get lost in a cave. Im sure it was a sort of time warp and when they did finally come out they had been missing for years.
I know its a long shot but alot of time has passed since then and many pints have been downed!
November 5th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
I loved Philip and Gordon and Andy and Edd!
Ah, the good old days! I miss them.
I agree with InstantChilli but I think the channel should be on Virgin and Freeview as not everyone can or wants to subscribe to SKY channels. Or even if the BBC had the channel to go along with CBBC and CBEEBIES.
On another note: Does anyone remember the schools show where there was a woman who had curly brown hair, wore a boiler suit and drove an electric car? It’s bugged me for years. lol
November 8th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
It’s good to see that Philip Schofield has managed to do so well off the back of the broom cupboard. Andy Crane was quite successful for a time, but I haven’t heard much about him for ages. Andi Peters pops up occasionally on TV still.
The fate of Simon Parkin always makes me chuckle though. He presented various kids shows, including the Broom Cupboard for a while, before moving into radio, but now he’s back on TV as the weatherman in my local ITV region, Meridian!
As to the request about the boiler suited, electric car driving woman, could that show have been Chock-A-Block? The woman would have been Play School presenter Carol Leader (she shared presenting the show with fellow Play Schooler Fred Harris), and she drove around in a yellow car which looked like it was made out of Lego. The main of the programme was Carol or Fred (Chock-A-Girl and Chock-A-Bloke) singing songs and playing games with the titular Chock-A-Block, a computer with a TV screen and some of those tape reels beloved of Sci-Fi shows from the Sixties. That would be my best guess anyway…