The A-Z of kids shows we watched in the 80's!

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I will now go onto a schools TV show that as a kid I hated watching at school because history just bored me silly! Nevertheless, it had a memorable theme tune and its subjects covered an interesting range of recent historical events.

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Back in the 80's I actually appeared (very briefly) in a Schools TV show. It must have been circa 1987 and the show was called All Year Round and the ITV schools cameras visited the junior school I was at at the time and filmed my class participating in a paper airplane project. We all had to make a paper airplane of our own design and then throw it to see how far it would fly! My design flew like rock as I recall but at least the TV cameras recorded me in thus far my only TV appearance. Unfortunately, after the episode was broadcast it was edited to include clips from other schools and my brief appearance was removed on all subsequent broadcasts. Shame!

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Today I will submit a schools show with a title that won't exactly make you jump out of your seats with excitement but the story within the episode is a bit on the weird side. The show is called Middle English and this story ran into three episodes back in 1985 and is called Interference. Some very strange things begin to happen in the second episode indeed.

Episode 1:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOVohCSLeno
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e2XtGeK3qo

Episode 2:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsAW5m6ddUw
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7E3Y7GRYdo

Episode 3:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYIHu14c4M0
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbpF5f4XGDA

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And I'm back again with another schools TV shows you probably hoped you would never see again!


This video contains two intros from the same show but it is the second one that I remember most.

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Ooh, lets see what rubbish I can drag up this time from the murky past!

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I will now delve into the murky world of science and maths shows. These were the bane of schools TV when we were kids and we didn't want to watch them but our teachers tried to drum all of this stuff into us whether we liked it or not. For Maths shows the BBC gave us Maths Topics, Maths File, Maths Help and Everyday Maths while ITV churned out Basic Maths and Junior Maths. In the world of Science however the BBC threw at us Exploring Science, Science Topics, Science Workshop and Investigating Science while ITV gave us Starting Science, Evolution, Your Living Body, Scientific Eye and Chemistry In Action.

If you ever wanted to know where I got all of those programme titles from (you probably don't though) I got them from a dedicated schools TV website because I'm not as well read on some kids TV shows as I am on others.... so there!

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Another week has passed and the countdown to this weeks topic has started.

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This weeks topic is:
Saturday Morning TV
and this will incorporate not only the normal shows you remembered watching on Saturday mornings like Going Live etc. but also the cartoons and other kids shows that were broadcast on Saturday mornings - most of which have already been featured earlier on in the A-Z but can be featured here again.

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It's hard to believe that in the late 70's and early 80's we used to get up in the morning and switch onto Noel Edmonds as he presented Swap Shop but when that finished the BBC came up with a similar idea called Saturday Superstore and hosted by another radio DJ in this case Mike Read.

ITV weren't much different either. They had the long running TISWAS hosted by another radio DJ turned TV presenter - Chris Tarrant this show was succeeded by a less than interesting show called Number 73.

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I can't go on about Saturday morning TV without mentioning this classic clip from Going Live.

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It was Saturday mornings in which the BBC put a few classic 80's cartoons on shortly after their Saturday morning kids show started. I remember getting into both Dungeons and Dragons and Thundercats during this time and both shows are still timeless to this day.

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Not exactly 80's Saturday morning TV but Parallel 9 was one of the last great weekend kids TV shows.

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It's Saturday morning and I've ran out of things to put on here!

I wonder if Star Fleet falls under the subject of Saturday morning TV? I remember it being on at Saturday dinnertimes but was that still classed as the Saturday morning schedule?

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I'll end this weeks (seemingly solo) discussion on the show that started Saturday morning kids TV.

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Feb 5, 2010 11:55:56 GMT @zudobug said:

Not exactly 80's Saturday morning TV but Parallel 9 was one of the last great weekend kids TV shows.

Thanks for this, I LOVED Parallel 9. Only Going Live was better!

Live and Kicking was okay, but a bit bland.

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My topic for this week will be:
Children's TV hosts

Back in the 80's we had a lot of colourful TV hosts that, although they have moved onto different TV work now will always be remembered (by me at least) for their stint on kids TV in the 80's. My first submission is Andy Crane!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Crane

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Philip Schofield shows us the kind of personality that is sadly lacking in today's kids TV presenters.

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And now onto another legendary Childrens BBC host - Andi Peters and his sidekick Ed the Duck!

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The BBC may have had the most well known presenters but ITV also had their fair share of 'legends'. Here's Tommy Boyd from 1992 - over ten years after he first started doing the job.

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And now for an unsung hero of kids TV presenting. Derek Griffiths has done many kids TV shows from the sixties right through to the eighties. I first remember him as the presenter of a nature show for kids called Heads and Tails before he briefly hosted Childrens ITV and provided the vocals for a large number of the Look and Read theme tunes. But, this wasn't his only claims to fame as he was also a long running presenter of Play School. There must be some kids TV presenters today who aspire to reach the status in kids TV as he did during his heyday. Anyway, for more info check out his wiki entry:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Griffiths

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Childrens ITV seemed to have more presenters than I actually remembered as Wikipedia lists about thirty or so of them!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CITV#Presenters

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Just like the past few days I can't be bothered to look for a Youtube vid on kids TV presenters so I'll just end this weeks topic with a wiki of Childrens BBC presenters.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CBBC_presenters

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This weeks topic goes into the world of
Classic Repeats
In other words kids shows that were originally broadcast in the 60's and 70's but due to their timeless appeal were repeated in the 80's.

I will start with a classic 60's number that is still timeless today as it was 40 years ago.

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Now for a classic show from 1979 that was repeated at dinnertimes throughout the 80's in 'See-Saw' kids TV slot.

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A true 70's classic from the legendary team of Cosgrove Hall.

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And now for my all-time favourite 70' show that became my favourite cartoon when I was very young. These days I still rate it as one of my favourite cartoons but I don't think it was Cosgrove Hall's best ever cartoon which goes to Dangermouse. This is Jamie and the Magic Torch.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_FQKHQDYk

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Before Trumpton was Camberwick Green was!

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Although I'm not particularly a fan of Thunderbirds my brother is and I still watched the repeats of the show in the 80's.

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And now for my last delve into the archives this week we have Chigley - the final series of the Trumpton trilogy and also the worst of the three.