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You’ll need to be one of the older Children of the 1980’s to remember Fingerbobs, since it was actually a 1970’s kids show. I have very fond memories of sitting watching this excellent show, spellbound by it despite the fact it was so very simple. Even now the show oozes with a charm that is simply missing entirely from todays kids tv shows, and at the end of this post you can check out an episode for yourself. But first, what was Fingerbobs for those that don’t know?
Fingerbobs was a show created by Michael Cole, who also created another favourite of mine, Bod. It was presented by Rick Jones, a very laid back Play School presenter and coincidentally member of little known rock band called Meal Ticket. Rick played the part of Yoffy, who with his roll neck jumper, neckerchief and copious facial hair looked all the world as if he was going to launch into some out there beatnik poem any minute. To some he looked a little more sinister though, as a friend at college once said when we were reminiscing about old kids television they thought he looked a bit like a child molester…
Anyway, whether you thought of Yoffy as the friendly uncle or the strange bloke hanging around the school playground at 3pm, there’s no doubting that once the puppets came out Yoffy melted into the background as if he wasn’t there at all. The best known of the puppets is surely Fingermouse, who was little more than a grey glove and a piece of grey paper rolled into a cone with some whiskers stuck on the end. This may sound pretty naff, but once Fingermouse came to life you failed to notice Yoffy’s arm coming out the back and instead were awe struck at this “wonder mouse”, as his little signature song pointed out. It was almost as if it were a real mouse.
Now this always confused me, and still does to this day. How come there can be two different sweets with the same name? I’m referring to the oddity that is Refreshers.
The other type of Refresher are made by Matlow’s and must have been around for just as long as the others, possibly even longer going by the design of its wrapper which looks a little old fashioned today. These Refreshers were named as simply “chewy sweets” by the wrapper, but they had a fizzy sherbet like centre which is why they were called Refreshers. They were available in a small size just a little too big for the average childs mouth, or a very long bar which you had to bite bits off of.
When these came out in the late 1980’s I really wanted a set, but there were two drawbacks. First they cost a fair whack, and secondly you really needed a group of friends with them to make it worthwhile. Suffice to say I never got a Laser Tag set, but that was OK, as since then I’ve had the chance to play the game in places such as Laser Quest and Quasar, and I’m pretty rubbish at it.
Cheesey. Tacky. Inane. Stupid. Cheap. Brilliant. All words that could be used to describe TV game show Blankety Blank. First airing in 1979 and continuing throughout the whole of the 1980’s, this was a game show that not so much broke the mould, but was made with the mould after it had already been broken.
It wasn’t until the 1990’s that stereo television broadcasts started, the main reason being that until then most television sets were graced with but a single speaker. You may well think therefore that broadcasting a television programme with a stereo soundtrack in the 1980’s would have been impossible, but not so!
The Choose Your Own Adventure series of books were incredibly popular during the 1980’s as they gave you, the reader, the chance to alter the story you were reading, at least by a limited degree anyway, as you were obviously limited to what the author the book had written.
