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Kids' TV

Started by imitationleather, February 06, 2004, 06:39:05 PM

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imitationleather

I am probably the only person here who watches the CBBC channel (oh gawd, what a twat I sound like), so this thread is probably going to sink to the bottom faster than a shit laid by someone who eats nothing but hammers.

But anyway, has anyone here ever seen Even Stevens? It's an American comedy about a gang of teenagers and against all odds, it's one of the best things for children I've ever seen. Seriously! Instead of harping on about "relationships" and "issues" it's a genuinely well-written sitcom and the kids are pretty good actors.

It's on the CBBC channel at 6pm. I know, I know, that's Simpsons time. But if like me you're bored of watching the same episode for the tenth time, then this could be a very decent alternative.

Anyway, since that doesn't really deserve it's own thread I'm going to give this thread another purpose. What would you say has been the best kids TV programme from the past 10 years? Round the Twist? Something else?

There has been a rather bizarre amount of nostalgia over the past couple of years for kids TV that was infact complete and utter shite (Rainbow, anyone?) and I think that what's around these days is infact the best ever. Dick and Dom in da Bungalow, for instance, is the best Saturday morning TV show ever (well, the best since Going Live, which is the first one I remember). If you haven't watched it, I really recommend that you do. Dick and Dom are great at ad libbing and really seem to love what they do, which is extremely rare for television these days.

Well, maybe this isn't the strongest thread ever. But I think that this forum is in a bit of a rut at the moment, and this is my rather futile way of trying to turn the tide.

EDIT: Oh sod the 'Modern' bit and just use this thread to harp on about how Magpie was just like Blue Peter on drugs...

Lt Plonker

Quote from: "imitationleather"There has been a rather bizarre amount of nostalgia over the past couple of years for kids TV that was infact complete and utter shite (Rainbow, anyone?)


You've made a powerful enemy. ;)

Rainbow fucking well shits over awful guff like the Tweenies and Fimbles. I remember it with much fondness and went to see it live with my mummy. Teen Angel is good fun. They're repeating it on CITV, but I remember it from years ago.

I miss Button Moon, too.

imitationleather

Oh yes, Button Moon is great. The most surreal piece of kids' TV ever.

Umbrellas floating about in space and a cuckoo clock that's half bird and flies around, anyone?

I keep meaning to get the DVD because I saw an episode a while ago and it's just as good as I remember it.

Rainbow is shit though.

fanny splendid

Rainbow was crap.

The Tweenies is actually very good. I used to teach 3, 4, and 5 year olds, and I can definitely see how useful that program would have been. A lot more useful than the Teletubbies, anyway.

Today's episode was all about playing mummies and daddies...

monkhouse terror

You're just saying Rainbow is shit to be cool aren't you? How can you not like rainbow? A scary gay bear, a maniac puppet with a ZIP for a mouth (that's right a fucking ZIP), and the other one. Actually all I remember now is how much it scared me.

I really love 'Arthur', the episode the other day where DW learnt how to say the word fuck and they had an entire episode of 4 year olds uttering the word whilst being bleeped was fantastic. The spoof they did of the Soprano's in the same episode was great. I remember they even did a tribute to south park a while ago, based on the 'anal probe' episode, they copied the animation style and everything, although it obviously wasn't about anal probes (there's a limit to kid's TV I'm afraid). The stories and characters themselves are also so much better written than any of the other shite import cartoons we get.

Maid Marian and Her Merry Men is still the best 'kids' programme ever though. Along with Chuckle Vision, which is comedy genius.

Trouser Cough

Rainbow could be pretty surreal as well..

The episode at the beach were Bungle refuses to come out of the sea because his trunks have been washed away, caused my young head almost to get a feedback loop - 'but isn't he starkers all the time?'

Yvonne of the Yukon seemed to make me laugh on more than one occasion - though this could be due to still be slightly pissed from the night before.

The Hoobs are totally brilliant, especially Roma who talks as if she smokes 50 B&H a day. - this could be because im entering a second childhood of some type.

fanny splendid

Quote from: "monkhouse terror"You're just saying Rainbow is shit to be cool aren't you? How can you not like rainbow? A scary gay bear, a maniac puppet with a ZIP for a mouth (that's right a fucking ZIP), and the other one. Actually all I remember now is how much it scared me.

Me, cool? heh heh heh.

Nah, it was always on when I got home from school, and I just found it boring. Why couldn't everyday be Saturday; Captain Caveman day?

dan dirty ape

Quote from: "Trouser Cough"



The Hoobs are totally brilliant, especially Roma who talks as if she smokes 50 B&H a day. - this could be because im entering a second childhood of some type.

Groove sounds a lot like Stewart Lee doing his 'Plinny the crow' voice.

I've yet to watch the hallowed Dick and Dom, but can anyone confirm or deny they had a game on it called 'sweaty flaps', as someone at work probably erroneously claimed.

Marcus Or Relius

I always liked Bagpuss, that stripy moggy seemed like a really easy life; wake up, have a chat to a wooden woodpecker, watch some weird mice sing a song or two, then go back to sleep. Sorted.

hoverdonkey

I can proclaim that we have Button Moon on DVD, and that is certainly not an attempt to be cool. Ms Donkey insists that the Moomins were even more surreal than the Moon lot, but I don't remember them.

Dangermouse was the greatest. He was fantastic. Wherever there was danger he was there. With an ace sidekick and jokes I get now that I never did when I was supposed to be watching it. 'Boomerang' channel on Sky is best for old cartoons.

monkhouse terror

Quote from: "hoverdonkey"I can proclaim that we have Button Moon on DVD, and that is certainly not an attempt to be cool. Ms Donkey insists that the Moomins were even more surreal than the Moon lot, but I don't remember them.

I'm agreeing with ms. donkey, the moomins are obviously the product of a very warped/drugged up mind. There is something very sinister about them (I don't know what they are, they look like some kind of weird hippo-pig-mini milk hybrid) whereas button moon never really was, at least to me. The moomins are eastern european I think though, and most kid's programmes from that kind of area around the former soviet union are pretty strange (singing ringing tree?) The moomins I also find very scary. Most children's TV scares me though it seems. I'm fine with "Zombie Flesh Eaters", just don't show me rainbow.

Speaking of surreal kids TV my mate matt (mecha jesus on here) assures me that the boobahs is the most fucked up programme ever. I've only ever seen a bit of it really early in the morning, and in my sleep deprived state I was so confused by it I turned it off. What I remember is a load of creatures that looked like inflatable gimps dancing around a screen, whilst things like jack russels seemed to appear at random by the side of them. I assure you this was not a dream, but it could have been made worse by the fact I was half asleep as the music seemed to speed up and slow down a lot.

mwude

SMTV when presented by Ant & Dec absolutely shited on any other saturday morning kids show I've ever seen.  I would happily get up on a saturday morning to watch.  It was aimed perfectly at kids who wanted to be treated like grown-ups, & grown-ups wanting to be amused like kids.  Lucky sods who grew up with that.

That show - along with Hong Kong Phooey, Dangermouse & Trapdoor - I could watch all day long.  Not in a post-modern retro uber-cool ironic metrosexual y2k4 type way, more of a "funny programmes make me laugh" thing.

Synchronised Cocks

Some of my faves when I was growing up.

Batman
The Banana Splits
The Clangers
Barnaby
Pogles Wood
Mary Mungo and Midge
Andy Pandy
Crackerjack
Animal Magic
Vision On
Teddy Edward
Jackanory
Magpie
Rupert Bear
The Wombles
Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley
Ivor the Engine
Play Away
Crystal Tips and Alistair
Rentaghost
Ruhbarb and Custard
The Flumps
Chorlton and the Wheelies

They make crap telly these days, though. Never as good as it was back then.

weirdbeard

It wouldn't be a kids TV thread if no-one mentioned Rude Rainbow.  Well Here is the full 3 minutes of it.  16 meg.  Great stuff.  All together now... 1 skin, 2 skin, 3 skin...

And I spent a few hours downloading a load of Kids TV titles from Here the other day.    I was grinning like an idiot seeing the titles to Postman Pat and Button Moon again.  And I was well pissed off when I went onto BlackStar and saw there wasn't any classic Postman Pat episodes on DVD.

Gazeuse

The  new Basil Brush show is really good.

My favourite was always Sooty...I remember Harry Corbett (Actually saw him live on Bournemouth pier) but I really liked Matthew too

weirdbeard

Quote from: "mwude"Trapdoor ....

I found out that the other day that Channel 4 show this at 6am on Saturday mornings.  I better set my video, I haven't seen this for ages.

Dr. Gizmonic

I remember a really bizarre BBC Kid's drama about a giant clock that connected two worlds. One was modern-day Australia and the other was some scary dimension ruled by a TV show. Can anyone give me the name of it?

I also remember Jupiter 9, a strange drama about a family on the run from Jupiter with a twist. The head of the household was the little girl.

Hmm, and the Demon Headmaster.

I was always rather fond of Maid Marrion and Blockbusters, though. Not to mention Nightmare on the grossly inferior ITV.

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: "Gazeuse"The  new Basil Brush show is really good.
About 10 years ago on This Is Your Life, they "ambushed" their person in a theatre, and then did the show from there.  One of the "guests" was Basil Brush who popped up from one of the boxes at the side of the theatre.  The guy doing the voice was really drunk, slurring his words and fluffing his lines.  It was really funny.    I reckon they must've got the original bloke and he ruined any chances of getting to do the voice of the new Basil Brush with his little performance that night.

Rubbish Monkey

Quote from: "weirdbeard"Here is the full 3 minutes of it.  16 meg.  Great stuff.  All together now... 1 skin, 2 skin, 3 skin...
And I spent a few hours downloading a load of Kids TV titles from Here

hahaha i got this in my email (the script).... i didn't relly belive it to be all that true. Fucking class. Thanks.

Blue Jam

Quote from: "monkhouse terror"You're just saying Rainbow is shit to be cool aren't you? How can you not like rainbow? A scary gay bear, a maniac puppet with a ZIP for a mouth (that's right a fucking ZIP), and the other one.

The "other one" was only the gayest one of all- George, possibly the gayest children's TV character ever. He had pink fur, blue eyelashes and was always very coy. Further evidence, if any were needed:
http://www.tellytunes.com/wallpapers/rainbow_george_1024.jpg

Quoteand Marian and Her Merry Men is still the best 'kids' programme ever though.

Yes, yes and yes. I quite agree. I saw a few of them when they were repeated in 2001 and they're still good.[/quote]

weirdbeard

Quote from: "Gazeuse"The  new Basil Brush show is really good.

My favourite was always Sooty...I remember Harry Corbett (Actually saw him live on Bournemouth pier) but I really liked Matthew too

Fucking hell.  I've only just gone a found an old Sooty video of mine.  'Sooty's Time Capsule'.  Christ, I musn't have seen this in 10 years.   We'll, I'm off to watch it right now.

weirdbeard

Quote from: "weirdbeard"Fucking hell.  I've only just gone a found an old Sooty video of mine.  'Sooty's Time Capsule'.  Christ, I musn't have seen this in 10 years.   We'll, I'm off to watch it right now.

Awww, that was great.  I'd forgotten how much of a hero Sweep was of mine when I was a kid.  And there was the strange site of Rory McGrath playing a frogman.   Just found out that was released 16 years ago.  Mustn't have been longer than that when I last seen it.

Cerys

Quote from: "Synchronised Cocks"Some of my faves when I was growing up.

<long list snipped>


Maybe you can help me.  I remember a cartoon which always seemed to start off with a piece about a hunter and a rabbit.  The main part of the cartoon was about a dog called Fig.  I've been going nuts trying to find out what it was.  Save my brain?

Rubbish Monkey


Smackhead Kangaroo

Quote from: "monkhouse terror"The stories and characters themselves are also so much better written than any of the other shite import cartoons we get.

YOu do realise that the imports we get are cut to ribbons though don't you? Removal of any hint of homosexuality, hell removal of boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, airbrushing or colour changing (yes to green) of blood, cutting of violence, rewriting of scripts to tone down language remove religious references and add in lines like "it's ok I can see their parachutes", mutilation of story continuity in order to best work round those trickycut scenes.

Hopefully this abut covers it. Bearing this in mind  it's hardly surring that they end up shit, not least of all becuase of substandard voice acting.

Synchronised Cocks

Quote from: "Cerys"Maybe you can help me.  I remember a cartoon which always seemed to start off with a piece about a hunter and a rabbit.  The main part of the cartoon was about a dog called Fig.  I've been going nuts trying to find out what it was.  Save my brain?

No idea! Sorry. Anyone else know?

Hairy Chin

The kids TV shows I remember loving through my childhood were
Transformers
Button Moon
Rainbow (yes, as pointed out, a FUCKING ZIP for his mouth - and he only had one arm too)
He-Man (MILES better than the version that's on now)
Teenage Turtles (the version that's on now is more based on the ninja turtles than the hero ones we had here in the UK)
I used to watch Chocabloc too - but nobody I know remembers that. I think it was probably crap, except for the buggy he used to drive on, which I wanted.
Number 73
Wide Awake Club - which then turned into Wacaday when Boyd, Strachan & Buchanan packed up and left Mallett on his own

But now I think Dick & Dom is the only good show on of a weekend morning. Unfortunately I'm on-air when they're on, so I can only watch it with subtitles, which is a bit shite. I'll admit, when I saw the trailers I thought the show would be fucking terrible - bit I gave it a look and was more than pleasantly surprised. I love the show, and the challenges they give people out and about in town centres, I remember the black-haired one (see, it's MUCH harder to know who's who with subtitles alone) went up to some old woman, she said no to making a fool of herself, and he made quite a snide, sarky comment as the old bat shuffled off - I wish I could remember it, but fair play to them keeping it in a kid's show! Also the part of me that will always be a naughty kid thinks the 'BOGIES!' bit is very funny too.

EDIT:
to add Trapdoor, Postman Pat, Dangermouse, Knightmare and Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors to the list. Although I don't remember that much about J&TWW now, apart from cars turning into plants. It may well have been incredibly shit.

FURTHER EDIT:
Nearly bloody forgot The Mysterious Cities Of Gold off my 'Haiy Chin List Of Personal Telly Nostalgia (and a bit about Dick & Dom)'

Marcus Or Relius

Quote from: "Hairy Chin"
I used to watch Chocabloc too - but nobody I know remembers that. I think it was probably crap, except for the buggy he used to drive on, which I wanted.

I can't for the life of me remember what Chocabloc was - time for a quick spot of googling - but I remember the name...it stirs some vague memory in me. I definately remember the name.

I used to love the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles circa 1990 - even though I was fifteen damnit! I shoulda been chasing girls, not watching mutant turtles beat up mutant rhinos.

/shakes fist at memory of wasted youth

Dr David V

I've been watching some kids TV recently, and I've come across some rather weird programmes.

Rule The School - a bunch of kids, run by the token Scottish 'serious' one, teach a load of teachers how to be 'cool', which included learning how to dance like Justin Timberlake, rapping like Eminem, texting, playing basketball and acting. The outright smugness of the 'teachers' made me laugh the most, and it was amazing to see some of the 'pupils' resort to the same childish manners that they give out detentions for today. Very weird TV.

Globo Loco - I've mentioned this before. It's like Banzai for kids. One of the people who hosts everything on CITV, introduces a series of challenges set by 'Dad', who looks like something out of the League of Gentlemen, of which a bunch of kids have to second guess the results to win prizes. Then at the end they throw a load of potatoes at some TVs on a rotating sofa and win a toilet roll.

Dangerville - a rather unconvincing reality-TV spoof, featuring five 'contestants' who have been picked to go on a game show set in a specially built town, and having to face challenges such as live tigers, alien tentacles made out of plastic tubing, drinks made out of chemical sewage and an evil major. Were it not for the crap acting of the children, the fact it had two highly recognisable faces/voices commentating (Little's Mark and Ralf) under the guises of Bob and Dave, the poor acting of the crew, and the fact it had the cliched 'baby falling down the steps' scene, it could have been really good. However, it's just another piece of demented children's television.

Boobah - the Teletubbies for people who can't understand the Teletubbies. There appears to be no discernable plot to speak of, it's just a load of coloured blobs prancing around making soft noises to ambient music, with interspersed footage of over-enthusiastic actors being crap. Ideal if you're on LSD or you're under 1. Oh, and it's made by GMTV, so it's evil.

Vermschneid Mehearties

Rainbow was class, and anything on CBBC after 1996 is rubbish. So there.

I guess that's the sort of mentality we'll all adopt. In 40 years the Fimbles watching generation will be harping on about how class that was, and how the new kids TV 'The Goerbals' is just demeaning.

Knightmare. Now that was children's television.