Child Of The 1980's

Record Breakers is another BBC childrens TV show like Blue Peter, that tries to be a little more intelligent than most children’s shows, and that ran for years and years (although it fell far short of Blue Peter).  It started airing in 1972, and came to a close in 2001, so it was on our screens for nearly 30 years!

The name that is most associated with Record Breakers is Roy Castle, who was the host of the show from the beginning until 1994 when he sadly died of lung cancer, which as a non smoker he attributed to years of playing the trumpet in smokey jazz clubs.  Roy was a variety artist through and through and was an accomplished trumpet player and tap dancer, though he could turn his hand to just about anything entertainment related.

The show was co-hosted by twins Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter.  I must say I never remembered Ross, he was a bit before my time, but I certainly remember Norris.  Both brothers were editors of The Guinness Book of Records for many years, and both had photographic memories.  There was a segment on the show where kids could ask the brothers questions about world records, and they could always answer them!  I remember one time a boy in the audience called Norris out on a question about the biggest diamond (I think).  Turns out the little upstart was wrong and Norris was correct!

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The Krankies were a comedy double act who first appeared on the variety circuit in the late 1970′s.  They were so popular that during the 1980′s they were a mainstay of childrens television, with both their own tv shows and guest appearances on shows such as Crackerjack.

They were portrayed on stage as Wee Jimmy Krankie and his father, although in reality they were Scottish husband and wife Ian and Janette Tough.  Ian was the straight man to Janette’s cheeky schoolboy character, the whole act working so well because Janette was not very tall and so appeared childlike because of this.

The double act’s main catchphrase was Fan-Dabi-Dozi, which Jimmy Krankie would utter often during the course of their routines, much to the appreciation of the audience who would normally join in.  They did experiment with other catchphrases (see the video below where they use Hubba-Dubba-Doobie) but ultimately Fan-Dabi-Dozi was what most people will remember most.

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Over the years the wonderful children’s TV presenter Brian Cant has made some brilliant shows aimed mostly at the younger ages.  He was a regular presenter on Play School and voiced puppet shows such as Camberwick Green and Trumpton.  However there is one of his shows that appears to have been forgotten by most on the Interwebby, and this is Bric-A-Brac.  Indeed, I couldn’t find any pictorial record of the show at all, so a picture of Brian will have to suffice!

Bric-A-Brac was aimed squarely at pre-schoolers and was normally shown in the early afternoon on BBC2 regularly during the early 1980′s.  Brian played the owner of a junk shop, hence the title of the show, who after welcoming you into his shop would scour the shelves to find items beginning with that episodes chosen letter of the alphabet.  This was always amusing to little kids as Brian would first announce the letter (let’s say F for example) and would then make his way round going “What can we find that begins with fuh?“, with particular emphasis on the sound of the letter.

I seem to recall that after finding a few items Brian would then read a short story about one of the things he found or would play some kind of guessing game with them.  If he didn’t do this then I’m not sure what else he did to fill the ten minutes or so that the show lasted for.

Quite often many of the things he found were wind up toys, and at the end of the show he would wind them up and let them bounce about as the end credits rolled.  I do recall that the theme music was very short but fitted the show very well.  It started with sounds of winding up clockword mechanisms and they played out a very short chorus on what I think was most probably a tuba.

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Rentaghost first hit BBC1 in 1976 and ran for nine series right through to 1984.  Created by writer Bob Block, the show was a childrens comedy about a group of ghosts who ran a ghost hire company, unsurprisingly called Rentaghost.

The original line up of spooks, which I personally only have very vague memories of, were Fred Mumford, Timothy Claypole and Hubert Davenport.  Mumford was a recently deceased man who was a bit of a loser in life, so decided to make something of himself in his death by setting up Rentaghost.  I do recall he often used to go and visit his Mum and Dad for advice, but I can only assume that they realised he was already dead!

Hubert Davenport was a prim Victorian gentleman, who I always mistook for Jon Pertwee’s Doctor Who, whilst Timothy Claypole was a medieval court jester who didn’t really have a proper understanding of the technology of the day.

The three ghosts would be hired to carry out various types of ghostly duties such as haunting mansion houses, or so the theme tune, sung by Claypole actor Michael Staniforth claimed.  In truth most episodes (certainly in later series anyway) revolved around some kind of problem caused by one of the ghosts – usually Mr. Claypole!

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Jigsaw was a BBC childrens show that aired from 1979-1984.  It was devised by Clive Doig, who was also responsible for those Trackword puzzles in the back of the Radio Times (do they still feature in the Radio Times?  I’ve no idea as I haven’t needed to buy a copy in years thanks to Sky’s on screen planner!).

It was initially hosted by mime artist Adrian Headley (although he did speak a fair bit on the show) and Janet Ellis of Blue Peter fame, aided by a little orange jigsaw piece named Jig, who was voiced by John Leeson (the voice of K9 from Doctor Who).

The idea of the show was to identify a six letter word from clues given by the presenters in the form of sketches.  Each sketch represented a different letter and once all the sketches had been aired the word was revealed thanks to a series of cardboard letters on twirly poles.  There were normally a couple of words to guess each episode, with one being a write in competition word (answers on a postcard please!).

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Bigfoot and the Hendersons is a 1987 film about an American family who encounter the legendary Bigfoot whilst returning from a family holiday in the wilderness.  It was released in the UK under this title, but in the US it was known as Harry and the Hendersons.

The Henderson family are driving home from their holiday when they come across a large hairy creature lying in the road.  Unsure what to do, they strap it to the top of their car and return home to there house in the Seattle suburbs.

The creature turns out to be a Sasquatch, better known as Bigfoot, and when it finally regains consciousness it sets to exploring its new environment, the Henderson’s house.  After investigating a stuffed deer head hanging on the wall (and making a huge hole in the wall whilst trying to discover where the back half of the deer could be) the head of the family, George Henderson (John Lithgow) attempts to calm the confused beast.

Before long the Sasquatch has become a member of the family, and is named Harry by them.  Despite his initial clumsiness Harry is actually a very kind and gentle creature, but he soon becomes intrigued by his new surroundings and sets off to explore the area, leaving a trail of panic and mayhem unintentionally behind him.

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With the news that TV legend Timmy Mallett just entering the jungle on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (a UK reality TV show) I was reminded of the show that he will always be best remembered for – Wacaday.

Wacaday was an incredibly popular early morning show that was always shown during any of the school holidays at 9am.  It was part of the line up for TVam, the company that broadcast breakfast television to the nation on ITV during the 1980s.  This timeslot would normally have been occupied by Roland Rat Superstar, but the ailing TVam had sold the rights to Roland in 1985 to the BBC and so Wacaday was conceived to fill the void.

With the sale of Mr. Rat taking place just a matter of a couple of weeks before a school holiday it was deemed the easiest way out was to make a spin off show from TVam’s Saturday morning kids show The Wide Awake Club.  One of the presenters of this show was Timmy Mallett, who was chosen to host Wacaday.  Mallet was (and still is) a colourfully dressed bespectacled loon who was little more than a big kid himself, although one with an ego the size of a planet.  There’s no doubt that Timmy Mallett brought the show to life, but he could be a bit grating at times.

The format of the show was half an hour packed with jokes, games, reports and cartoons (there seemed to be a predilection towards shape changing warrior robots as I believe both Transformers and Gobots cartoons were often aired).  Most series featured reports by Timmy from different parts of the world, in an attempt to be educational which often failed thanks to Timmy’s tomfoolery (timfoolery?).  Looking back it’s amazing how much was squeezed into a half hour TV programme.

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Aardman Animations may be better known now for Wallace and Gromit, but back in the 1980′s their most famous work was the little orangey brown plasticene man called Morph.  Morph first appeared as a little bit of light relief on childhood hero Tony Hart’s art show Take Hart, but before long was graced with his own short show, naratted by and starring Mr. Hart.

Morph lived in a little wooden box on Tony’s desk, which had a hook fastener on the front that Tony could lock shut when Morph started misbehaving, which happened quite frequently.  Morph was a bit full of himself you see, and it got him into trouble at times.

The Amazing Adventures of Morph started in 1980 and the series introduced us to Morph’s extended family, each of whom seem to speak in a similar way to Morph, that being a series of strange squeaky sounds.  The characters were beautifully animated however, and whilst you might not have been able to understand a word they were saying (thankfully Tony translated most of what they said) but you could get the general idea from the way they moved their arms about, or the expressions on their faces.

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