Child Of The 1980’s

When it came to the school holidays if there was one thing you could be almost certain of appearing on the BBC morning kids tv schedule it would have been Why Don’t You? The show is another shining example of the BBC’s ability to make long running TV series, with it first appearing on screens in 1973 and disappearing 42 series later in 1995.

The premise of the show was to give you ideas for things to do once you finally switched the goggle box off. Indeed, its official full title was actually Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set And Go Do Something Less Boring Instead? but being a bit of a mouthful was thankfully shortened to just Why Don’t You? The format as I remember it best was a group of vair unobnoxious child presenters informing you of things to make or cook and introducing short films following some viewers hobby, rounded off with some jokes and sketches.

During the 1980’s there were a number of Why Don’t You? gangs, as they were called, who all hailed from different parts of the UK. Initially there was just the Bristol gang, but they were soon joined by gangs from Newcastle, Liverpool, Cardiff, and cities in Scotland and Ireland too, though I forget which ones now. This was quite amusing as some of the kids had some pretty thick accents.

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Gerry Anderson is a bit of a sci-fi legend, and I guarantee you will have watched, or at least heard of, one of his many series from over the years. He is best known for his puppet TV shows, the most famous of which is surely Thunderbirds, but also included Stingray, Fireball XL5, Joe 90 and of course the subject of this post, Terrahawks.

The first series of Terrahawks hit our screens in 1983, and was set in the year 2020. Funny, that doesn’t seem quite so far away now does it! Earth has come under attack for a race of androids who have set up a base on Mars from which they launch their attacks. In response a special force called the Terrahawks was put together to fight off this unwelcome menace.

The Terrahawks were led by Doctor Tiger Ninestein, so called because he was one of nine clones, originally created by a Professor Stein! He is joined by Captain Mary Falconer, who was pilot of the Terrahawks main space craft known as Battlehawk. Lieutenant Hiro is a brilliant scientist who works from space in an orbiting space station, and there are two fighter pilots named Hawkeye and Kate Kestrel. Kate also happens to be a famous pop star, so she has to balance saving the Earth with recording her latest hit, much to the annoyance of her manager (I think that’s what he was anyway) who had the wonderful name of Stu Dapples (Stewed Apples - I have no idea what the relevance of this was!).

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It’s Friday, it’s five to five, it’s…

Love it or hate it, Crackerjack (Crackerjack!) managed to notch up almost 30 years on the old goggle box. It originally started way back in 1955 in glorious monochrome, hosted by none other than the late Eamonn Andrews, who you will more likely remember as the man with the red book who surprised celebrities on This Is Your Life. Perhaps your parents watched it too?

Crackerjack (Crackerjack!) was a kids variety show featuring comedy sketches, music and competitions. As the years went by it featured many stars who became household names in the UK. Max Bygraves, Leslie Crowther, Michael Aspel and Ed “Stewpot” Stewart all hosted, whilst comedians such as Don Maclean (no, not the singer), Ronnie Corbett and Bernie Clifton (the guy who was always “riding” a fake ostrich) plied their trade in front of the kids. Most of these names featured before the 1980’s, but I felt they were worth a mention in order to demonstrate the long history of the show.

In the 1980’s we were treated (if that is the right word) to the hosting skills of Stu Francis, a slightly camp comedian who seemed to have come straight from being a children’s entertainer at a holiday camp. Stu played on his general lack of butchness with his seemingly endless stream of catchphrases ranging from “Ooh! I could wrestle an Action Man!” through to the most famous example of “Ooh! I could crush a grape!“. Catchphrases were always a big part of Crackerjack’s (Crackerjack!) appeal though, as all the kids in the studio audience were expected to shout out the name of the show whenever anybody said it. OK, I know it’s a lame joke to do this in the written word, but that’s not going to stop me!

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Roland Rat Superstar, self proclaimed saviour of TVam, as well as self proclaimed superstar for that matter, first hit our TV screens in 1983. He was brought in to introduce the five minute cartoon breaks that TVam had at certain times every morning. My favourite of these was Superchicken, but that’s potentially something for another time.

Anne Diamond and Nick Owen would hand over to Roland from their comfy sofa to Roland and his Shedvision. This was a motif that was set to continue with Roland Rat. Whilst he pretended to have all the trimmings of a superstar, everything around him was quite obviously not all that wonderful, as broadcasting from a shed is a good example of. Roland would come on screen, usually insult Anne and Nick in some way, and then the cartoon would start.

Roland was soon joined by fellow puppet Kevin the Gerbil, a slightly effeminate rodent with a penchant for anything pink. This was particularly irritating to Roland when he instructed Kevin to get a car for him, which ended up being an old Ford Zodiac sprayed pink, with Ratmobile written along the side.

Another associate who arrived slightly later was Errol the Hamster, who was in charge of anything technical to do with sound or video. It was Errol’s job to start the cartoons running, which was cued by Roland shouting “Errol! Run VT“. Errol was a Welsh hamster, which meant that Roland usually poked fun of him with jokes about leeks.

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The Fraggles were a group of funny little care-free creatures that lived in caves and were generally always ready to party with a song and a dance. The programme was made by Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, and the Fraggles were of course made out of the same sort of spongey looking material that was used for the Muppets themselves, with a bit of fur added in for good measure.

Whilst there were a great many Fraggles, the stories generally revolved around five in particular. Gobo was, for want of a better word, the leader, being a very practical Fraggle, though one with a taste for exploring. Gobo’s best friend was Wembley, a younger more excitable Fraggle who was very indecisive, mainly because he didn’t like to let anybody down. Mokey was a bit of a hippy, female Fraggle, who had a very calming influence. Her friend Red was the exact opposite, and could be described as the closest the Fraggles had to a stuntwoman! Finally there was Boober, who’s biggest interest was doing the laundry, and was guaranteed to always find the down side in everything.

The Fraggles shared their caves with the Doozers, little green characters who were constantly busy building structures. One of the reasons they were kept so busy is because the structures were made out of little crystal rods, which the Fraggles found very tasty and would often break off a length and eat.

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Like the campaign to save the phrase Nitty Nora from becoming a trademark of a chemical company (if you’re quick there’s still time to pledge your support to this one today), here’s another campaign we at Child of the 1980’s feel strongly about, covering as we do some of the finest examples of children’s TV (in our opinion) from the 80’s.

The Save British Kids TV campaign has been set up to try and redress the balance in terms of kids television programmes that are made in the UK. It is alleged that only 1% of the programmes aimed at children that are currently shown on British TV have originated in the UK, a statistic I personally find startling and disheartening. Apparently the main UK TV stations, aside from the BBC, have either cut or completely removed from their budgets the commissioning of new programmes aimed at children.

To illustrate the point, a video has been made from old clips of The Wombles, a classic show from the 1970’s (which was still shown a lot in the 1980’s and is still shown today). It’s called Badass Wombles of Central Park, and gives a chilling (and hilarious) example of what The Wombles could have been had it come from the US! Obviously this is a bit of an exaggeration (there are some fine US kid’s shows such as Sesame Street after all) but it makes a good point. You can view it below, or on the campaign website.

If you are a UK citizen then please show your support by signing up to the Number 10 petition and by e-mailing a letter to your MP, both of which are easily achievable via links on the Save British Kids TV website.

In 1987 Sylvester McCoy (real name Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith) took over from Colin Baker as the seventh incarnation of Timelord Doctor Who. Sylvester first came to the public eye as part of the comedy act “The Ken Campbell Roadshow”, where he played the part of a stuntman called Sylveste McCoy (note the lack of an R in the first name), putting nails up his nose and ferrets down his trousers, among other things (perhaps playing the spoons - this was a favourite mannerism of his Doctor). A reviewer of the show believed that Sylveste McCoy was the actors real name, which prompt Percy to adopt it as his stage name. Later, when he realised that Sylveste McCoy contained 13 letters, and believing this to be unlucky, the R was added to become Sylvester.

Sylvester’s career took him through childrens TV, via Vision On (with Tony Hart), Tiswas and Jigsaw with Janet Ellis before landing the role of Doctor Who. Given the show was finally axed by the BBC in 1989 he was officially the Timelord for only two years, however he is credited as having the role until 1996, since he appeared in another of the Doctor’s Children In Need charity specials in 1993 (called Dimension in Time) and also reprised the role in the much anticipated US pilot/film in 1996, resuming some continuity for the Doctor and handing over the reigns to Paul McGann.

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Colin Baker took over the role of the Doctor from Peter Davison in 1984, unusually midway through a series rather than at the end (the only other to date is when Patrick Troughton took over from William Hartnell). The regeneration occured at the end of The Caves of Androzani in a fairly quick manner with little warning, much to the surprise of the Doctor’s assistant at the time, Peri (pictured).

This Doctor was far more flamboyant and argumentative than most, with brightly coloured yellow trousers and a patchwork quilt coat more befitting of a clown. Personally I never much cared for this incarnation of the Doctor, finding him loud and rude, although the blame can’t be laid at Baker’s feet for this, being a product of the writers at the time. I therefore have few memories of any of the stories starring Colin Baker.

Interestingly, Colin Baker appeared in the show before he became the Doctor, in the Peter Davison story Arc of Infinity. In it he stuns the Doctor with a gun, leading to the joke that he got the part by force!

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