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Archive for the ‘TV’ Category

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Pob’s Programme

Posted by Big Boo on March 10th, 2010

pobs programmeWhen Channel 4 first started airing in 1982 children’s programmes were fairly thin on the ground on the channel. They may even have been non existent because if I remember correctly it initially didn’t start broadcasting each day until late afternoon.

When kids programmes on Four did make an emergence though, they were often aimed at younger children and were actually very good. A good example of this is Pob’s Programme, which first came on air in 1985. It was created by Doug Wilcox and Anne Wood of production company Ragdoll. If that sounds familiar then Anne and Ragdoll have gone on to be incredibly successful with shows such as Teletubbies and In The Night Garden.

Back to our friend Pob then. Pob was a puppet with a large round (presumably wooden) head with big sticky out ears and pinky purple papery looking hair. You never saw his body because he wore a very long pink and yellow striped knitted jumper, the end of which stretched far away below him, and was slowly unravelling as if someone was pulling at a loose end.

Pob was supposed to live inside your television set, so our view was generally of Pob stood in front of the electron guns behind the glass of the screen. Pob would use the screen to write his name and draw pictures, which he did by breathing on the screen (it sounded more like blowing raspberries though) until it fogged up and he could draw on it with his finger.

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The Moomins

Posted by Big Boo on February 24th, 2010

moominsMoomins are odd looking creatures who most resemble hippos, and were the invention of Finnish artist Tove Jansson. The originally started life in a series of books, the first of which appeared in 1945. This book was called The Moomins and the Great Flood, and it told how the Moomin family came to live in the Moominhouse in Moominvalley.

The main hero of the stories was Moomintroll, who was a young inquisitive Moomin who was fascinated by the world around him. His mother and father, Moominmamma and Moominpappa, also featured heavily. Moomintroll had a large extended family who often came to stay, including a female Moomin called, no not Moomingirl or something like that, but bizarrely The Snork Maiden?!

Other frequent guests of the Moomins were Snufkin, a wandering lad who played the harmonica, and the frankly scary Little My, who seemed to have a permanent scowl on her face and who got irritated about things very easily. Little My lived almost permanently with the Moomins, and despite being a bit disruptive at times could often be useful to have around.

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Jossy’s Giants

Posted by Big Boo on February 17th, 2010

jossys giantsJossy’s Giants was a BBC kids show about a struggling youth football team, the Glipton Giants, who were managed and trained by ex pro-football Jossy Blair, hence the programme’s name.

Now, I’ve never really been a big fan of football, but for some reason I enjoyed Jossy’s Giants. OK, perhaps the show wasn’t entirely about football and was actually more about the kids that made up the team and, of course, Jossy himself, but there was a great deal of on pitch action and cameo appearances by big football names including Bryan Robson and Sir Bobby Charlton.

The kids who made up the Glipton Giants were apparently picked not just for their acting ability but also for their footballing prowess, which showed as they did have to play a fair bit of football in each episode and they were pretty good as I recall.

Whilst many of the story lines for the show were inevitably about the trials of both the football team and its members (this was a kid’s show after all) a fair amount of focus was also given to Jossy Blair. Indeed it is the plotlines that centred around him that I seem to recall most for some reason, including his run-ins with the manager of a rival youth team, opening up a sports shop and his attempts at wooing a local councillor.

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Bird’s Eye Potato Waffles

Posted by Big Boo on February 8th, 2010

potatio wafflesI picked up a box of Bird’s Eye Potato Waffles when doing the shopping the other day, partly because I hadn’t had any in ages, but mainly because they were on a special offer. A day or so later said box of Waffles was taken from the freezer to be cooked for dinner, and whilst waiting I was idly reading the packaging.

There was a little bit on there talking about some bloke called Colin who was the official Bird’s Eye potato guru (what a job title) who has apparently been making sure Bird’s Eye only pick the best potatoes so that Potato Waffles are as good now as they were when launched in 1981.

Suddenly my Eighties sense was tingling, and it made me realise I hadn’t written about a food related subject for a little while, hence the subject for today’s post.

Bird’s Eye Potato Waffles are basically mashed up potato moulded into a rectangular lattice shape. They’re the kind of food that could only be manufactured in a factory somewhere, as you’d never bother to even try and make anything similar from scratch, it just wouldn’t be worth the effort.

They’re tasty enough (especially if you cook them with a bit of cheese on top, that’s my tip) but to this day the thing that always pops straight into my head whenever I catch a glimpse of a Potato Waffle is the TV advert, in particular it’s jingle which gets lodged in your brain and refuses to budge.

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Stocking Fillers - Suppliers to Father Christmas
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Rolf’s Cartoon Club

Posted by Big Boo on January 27th, 2010

rolfs cartoon clubI’ve always been a bit of a fan of the work of Rolf Harris, even though he tends to be made a mockery of much of the time. OK, he may insist on making ridiculous noises with his mouth or wobbling a piece of cardboard around and calling it music, but the man is an incredibly talented artist (as you’ll know if you saw his programme where he painted a portrait of the Queen) and he was even, apparently, a champion swimmer.

In the eighties Rolf’s artistic skills saw him hosting a show called Rolf Harris’ Cartoon Time, which featured a number of classic cartoons (Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, that kind of thing) with Rolf showing you how to draw the different characters with a big thick marker pen in between the cartoons. This show was the seed which ultimately grew into Rolf’s Cartoon Club, the subject of todays post.

Rolf’s Cartoon Club was show on Childrens ITV, first airing in 1989 and continuing until 1993, and whilst a lot of fun to watch was also, dare I say it, quite educational too. The show began with more of Rolf’s mad sound effects and the weird heavy breathing thing he does, layered together into a theme song. It’s impossible to write down quite how Rolf pronounces the words “Rolf’s Cartoon Club”, so instead you’ll have to watch the clip below to hear what I mean.



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Thundercats

Posted by Big Boo on January 15th, 2010

thundercatsWhat was it about Eighties cartoons that meant they all had such brilliant theme songs? Thundercats is no exception, with it’s pop-rock musics and highly repetitive lyrics (Thunder-thunder-thunder-thunder-cats!) I can still remember it clearly today.

The cartoon itself was about a group of humanoid cats that were the last surviviors of the planet Thundera. Having escaped Thundera before it was destroyed by the evil (of course) mutants of Plun-Darr, the Thundercats end up on a planet known as Third Earth after many years in stasis.

Only seven Thundercat survivors make it to Third Earth, these being Lion-O, Tygra, Panthro, Cheetara, WilyKit, WilyKat and Snarf. Lion-O was a child when he started his journey, and I believe he was a kind of prince of Thundera, as he was entrusted with the magical Sword of Omens which contained the Eye of Thundera, a gem stone that gave the Thundercats great power. Poor old Lion-O though, he missed out on his teenage years, as he was a child when he was put into stasis, but something went wrong and when he awoke he had slowly aged to become a young man.

The Sword of Omens was a useful tool for Lion-O, not just because it was good for stabbing at things, but because it could transform into a massive broadsword, and Lion-O could look from the Eye of Thundera to give him “sight, beyond sight“. This power allowed Lion-O to see what was going on in other places, and help guide him in making the right decisions to be true leader of the Thundercats.

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We Are The Champions

Posted by Big Boo on January 8th, 2010

ron pickeringIf you’re currently wondering what a white haired gentleman has to do with a Queen song then you’re thinking of the wrong We Are The Champions. No, today’s post is all about the BBC sports game show of the same name, which was hosted by Ron Pickering, the aforementioned white haired gent.

We Are The Champions was basically a school sports day but on the telly. Teams of kids from different schools competed against each other in a series of events set out on a field and also in a swimming pool. The events were normally in the form of some kind of relay race (though not always) and involved the kids dashing under nets and over obstacles collecting rings or bean bags on the way.

Each of the teams wore different coloured shirts with a large geometric shape printed on in black, such as a big black circle or triangle. Each school obviously chose their best athletes to represent them (well, you supposed they did – it would be the sensible thing to do) whilst the sports-challenged members of the school cheered on from the side lines, normally with the odd air horn for good measure.

Mr. Pickering presided over the show with an authoritative yet friendly manner, befitting of his real job as a sports commentator and Olympic training coach. He started the show in 1973 and presented it for 19 years, until his death in 1991. At this point Gary Linekar took over the presenting duties, but the show finally came to an end in 1995, presumably because it was no longer cool enough for the TV schedules.

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Cadbury Fudge

Posted by Big Boo on December 14th, 2009

cadbury fudgeThere are a number of classic chocolate bars aimed mainly at younger children (those of around primary school age) which have stood the test of time.

These are the bars that I’m sure you all remember loving as a child, but for some reason as an adult you find yourself ignoring them when you’re looking at the chocolate shelf in a newsagent or supermarket.

Milky Way, Chocolate Buttons and Smarties are three good examples (although poor old Smarties have been somewhat usurped by M&Ms now, and they’ve got rid of the old round tube with the plastic lid with a letter on it) but today’s post is about the Cadbury Fudge, or Finger of Fudge as I always believed it was called when I was little thanks to the TV advertising.

It’s a simple but effective sweet. A long thin log of fudge coated in Cadbury chocolate, it had a nice creamy taste and best of all wasn’t an expensive chocolate bar. The TV advert embedded below claimed the cost to be 10 pence, but I’m not sure what year this would have been. The good news is that the Finger of Fudge doesn’t appear to have raised much in price over the years either, as it still only costs 15 pence today. Indeed you can buy a box of 60 from A Quarter Of for less than a tenner!

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