Child Of The 1980’s

Today Is Saturday. Watch And Smile. If you ever wondered why ITV’s anarchic Saturday morning TV show was called Tiswas, then there is your answer.

Before Chris Tarrant started to annoy us all by asking Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestants if they were sure C was their final answer, and when Lenny Henry was still funny (sorry Lenny, it all started to go downhill after Delbert Wilkins), Saturday mornings were ruled over by a crazy mess of flans, water, musical guests and mad presenters who didn’t care what they were doing so long as someone got either wet or covered in foam.

Chris Tarrant and Sally James were the main hosts of the show, but only really because they were most capable of appearing sane for short periods of time. Chris would keep the show moving along, and was normally armed with a clipboard if I remember rightly. Sally James main role was to provide us with one of her “almost legendary pop interviews”, where she would ask questions to whichever musical act happened to be on that week.

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It’s funny how some shows just seem to run and run, and Blue Peter is one such show.  It must have been watched by at least three generations of kids by now, possibly even four, but for each generation there will doubtless be a particular set of presenters who stick in your memory as being “The Blue Peter Team”.

The show was devised by the humorously named Biddy Baxter, and the presenters I remember most are the trio of Janet Ellis, Peter Duncan and Simon Groom.  You could also add Yvette Fielding (better known now for Most Haunted), Mark Curry, the now late Caron Keeting (daughter of Gloria Hunniford, she sadly died in 2004 from breast cancer) and Sarah Greene to that list, but those first three are the embodiment of Blue Peter for me.

Janet Ellis (mother of pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor) was a favourite of mine because I used to love watching puzzle show Jigsaw, which she was also presenter on.  She most famously broke her pelvis whilst sky diving as part of one of her challenges.

Peter Duncan was also a bit of a daredevil, eventually getting his own spin off show Duncan Dares.  He ran in several London Marathons I believe, and also had the misfortune of having to wear a green and white checkered suit that made him look like a clown.  The suit was designed by one of the viewers in a competition, so he didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter!  Peter is currently the leader of the UK’s Scouts organisation, and I must say I think he’s an excellent choice.

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Good old Tony Hart. He was one of those BBC TV presenters who looked like a kindly old uncle, with his shock of white hair and his calm voice and mild mannered approach to teaching kids the basics of art. Watching him at work was always a pleasure, and like fellow artist Rolf Harris, he could create a stunning picture from a few simple lines with a thick black marker pen.

Every episode of Take Hart would teach you several new interesting ways of making a piece of art. Some were a bit messy or would be difficult to achieve on the often larger scale that Mr. Hart would work to. For example, painting a picture using paint rollers on a massive sheet of paper using emulsion paint was not the kind of thing your Mum and Dad would readily let you have a go at.

There were plenty of other things you could have a go at though, from the basics of drawing a simple cartoon character through to making three dimensional shapes out of drinking straws and cotton. These are the kind of things Tony taught you and made you want to have a go yourself.

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Hitting our screens in 1984 was the cult Thames Television kids science fiction show Chocky. Based on the John Wyndham (best known for The Day Of The Triffids) novel of the same name, the television version was adapted and updated for the 1980’s audience by Anthony Read.

The story revolves around a fairly average teenage boy called Matthew. Matthew is an adopted son to his parents, who start to worry when they notice that he appears to be talking to an imaginary friend, after all he’s a bit old for that kind of thing. As it turns out Matthew is not conversing with an imaginary friend at all, but a real live alien visitor called Chocky, who talks to him using a mix of telepathy and appearing as a big wibbly blue vortex thingy. They are even more worried when Matthew gets a fever and is unable to sleep because Chocky keeps talking to him all night, asking him questions about Earth.

The link with Chocky eventually does benefit Matthew though, as his intellectual and artistic skills are enhanced and his school work starts to improve dramatically. Unfortunately news of Matthew’s increased performance at school reaches a shadowy government organisation, who suspect that strange things are afoot. They kidnap Matthew to try and find out what is going on…

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Famous for its bright red front door with the huge yellow 7 and 3 daubed on, Number 73 was an ITV Saturday morning show of the kind that lasts most of the morning, and pulls together interviews, music, cartoons and a bit of comedy banter from the regular hosts. It first aired in 1982, only in the TVS region, which caused much consternation to those kids who would rather be watching Tiswas, which was still airing in most of the rest of the country - back in the 1980’s the ITV schedule varied from region to region much more than it does today you see.

Number 73 replaced Tiswas initially for just a six week run, but despite initial complaints it came back every year to cover the beginning of spring, when Tiswas no longer aired. The show was set in the titular Number 73, a suburban family home (well, a studio mock up of one anyway), which was inhabited by the slightly nutty Ethel Spoon (Sandi Toksvig), her nephew Harry Stern (Nick Staverson), her boyfriend Percy Simmonds (Patrick Doyle) and the forever rollerskate clad Dawn Lodge (Andrea Arnold). I think Dawn may have been a lodger (hence her surname) but I’m not 100% sure about that. For the first few series the cast were not credited, which led many kids to come to the conclusion that these were real people rather than actors.

In later years the cast was joined most memorably by artist Neil Buchanan, now host of Art Attack, pop singer wannabe Kim Goody and various others, including the papier mache head wearing Frank Sidebottom.

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Oh, how I loved Knight Rider. It was easily my most favourite TV show of the early 1980’s, and the first programme that I watched religiously, which is probably why I still have such fond memories of it.

The pilot episode sets the story, with copy Michael Long being shot in the head and announced dead. Actually he was saved due to a metal plate in his head that deflected the bullet, but which still caused massive facial damage. He was secretly nursed back to health by the Foundation for Law And Government (FLAG), who gave him a new face and a new name - Michael Knight. FLAG was an arm of the Knight Foundation who’s technology division had developed an amazing artificial intelligence that could speak and auto pilot a car (among other things). This technology formed Michael’s new car, the Knight Industries Two Thousand, or KITT for short.

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Whatchoo talkin’ about Willis?

Diff’rent strokes was one of those ‘nice’ programmes of the 1980’s that absolutely everyone remembers. It ran from 1978 to 1986, with a total of 189 episodes. One of the main aims of the programme was to explore racial and social issues, which was a first for a sit-com of this era.

Diff’rent Strokes took place in New York and centred around the day-to-day life in the Drummond household. Philip Drummond (President of the massive conglomerate Trans-Allied Inc) was a widower and had a 13 year old natural daughter, Kimberly.

However, the household was shaken up when Drummond’s black housekeeper died and her deathbed wish was that he would take care of her two sons, Arnold and Willis Jackson. As a man of his word. Drummond willingly took both of them in when she died, but there were more than a few double-takes as Mr D introduced the two black boys as his ‘sons’.

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Looking back now at the title sequence description of The A Team things were a bit laughable. They were a crack unit of commandos who were wrongly sent to prison for some crime that was never made clear. They escaped from prison to become soldiers of fortune living in the underground of LA. Yeah right! To me, that description sounds more like a group of over tattooed, leather clad hard nuts in dark glasses than the amiable bunch of guys they actually were. Don’t get me wrong, I loved watching the A Team as much as the next man, but you’ve got to admit that the description doesn’t quite match the reality.

Anyway, The A Team consisted of the leader Hannibal (the late George Peppard), who seemed to spend most of his spare time dressed as a big lizard that walked out of a lake for some B-Movie. He was never without a huge cigar in his mouth and always spouted the catchphrase “I love it when a plan comes together“. Face (Dirk Benedict) was the suave one who tried to crack on to whichever damsel in distress they were helping that week, whilst “Howlin’ Mad” Murdoch (Dwight Schultz) was the teams pilot, who was also a mental patient who normally had to be sprung from his care home every episode. Finally there was Bosco “Bad Attitude” Barracus, better known as B.A. (played by the gold clad Mr. T way before bling was considered cool) who was both the muscle and a mechanic and also owner of the A Team’s van - a big black Ford Transit style van with a spoiler on the back, and a big red Starsky and Hutch style stripe on the side. He was also afraid of

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