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More inessential shit from the backwaters of old TV you somehow still remember

Started by non capisco, November 02, 2020, 11:08:01 PM

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Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on November 12, 2020, 02:39:49 AM
I remember me and others at school being under the impression that they picked the kids that hosted each series from random schools, and we hoped they'd choose our school.  I was told years later by a bbc guy that someone had 'taken a backhander' to allow the kids of bbc employees and their friends be the hosts.  Another version I heard was that they were from an acting school.  Either way, anyone hoping they'd choose their school didn't have a hope in hell of being chosen.

I KNEW IT!!!

Hugo Rune

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on November 12, 2020, 02:39:49 AM
I remember me and others at school being under the impression that they picked the kids that hosted each series from random schools, and we hoped they'd choose our school.  I was told years later by a bbc guy that someone had 'taken a backhander' to allow the kids of bbc employees and their friends be the hosts.  Another version I heard was that they were from an acting school.  Either way, anyone hoping they'd choose their school didn't have a hope in hell of being chosen.
Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?, to give the full Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem-inspired title, was good advice that I usually followed whenever it came on. Fucking awful show.

The Welsh media is (and was) a very small pool so whenever the show came to Cardiff the same "talent" would be netted and dumped onto the screen for our viewing pleasure. As you said, it was always the kids of BBC employees. Or kids from local drama schools. The same kids over and over on different shows.

To be fair, it was nothing to do with backhanders and everything to do with who you knew and sheer convenience on the producers' part.

I went through Welsh medium education and a shit-tonne of my classmates' parents worked either at the BBC or HTV so we were always getting picked as extras and shit on the telly — usually on Welsh Language stuff but occasionally English Language shit like Why Don't You..?

I turned up on the telly myself a couple of times. Once in primary school (I was paid in book tokens!) and a couple of times in high school as a teenager.

In fact, Cardiff is such a small pool, you're constantly bumping into people who've done stuff in the media. A mate of mine I worked with recently in IKEA presented Why Don't You..? as a kid.[nb]World's most boring anecdote.[/nb]

Gulftastic

I remember the Why Don't You? gangs being region based and hating it being the Liverpool mob's turn.


Hand Solo

Quote from: Gulftastic on November 12, 2020, 07:49:33 AM
I remember the Why Don't You? gangs being region based and hating it being the Liverpool mob's turn.

Coincidentally I watched a bit of an episode last week because I was trying to find an episode with the out of tune shitter later theme I remember, it happened to be a Scouse stage school bastards episode.

buzby

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on November 12, 2020, 01:53:17 AM
Another old memory is of two kids on Swap Shop singing a song with the lyrics "I hate babysitters", one kid singing the other with a keyboard constantly playing the same note over and over again.  Years later I discovered one of them (presumably the one with the keyboard) was Adamski,
Are you sure it was a keyboard and not a ukelele?
That would have been 1979 and 11-year old Adam 'Adamski' Tinley and and his 5 year old brother Dominic in their 'kid punk' band The Stupid Babies doing their song Babysitters.

They recorded it on a cassette alongside another song Baby Blues and sent it to Bob Last's FAST Product label as a demo. Last included both songs on his Earcom 3 compilation. John Peel was a big fan of it.
https://biggolddream.com/2018/02/12/fast-earcom-3-the-stupid-babies-and-5-year-old-punks-and-adamski/

Quote from: Gulftastic on November 12, 2020, 07:49:33 AM
I remember the Why Don't You? gangs being region based and hating it being the Liverpool mob's turn.
Racist.

The kids on Why Don't you were mostly child actors (e,g, Pauline Quirke, Alex Fletcher, Ben Slade) or from drama/talent schools (Gideon Coe, Ant McPartlin), especially come the mid-80s when Russell T. Davies started adding storylines to the series (Ben Slade then became a permanent fixture, starting off in Cardiff and moving to whichever region the show was being produced by next, including the Liverpool episode linked above).

Jockice

I've despised Pauline Quirke since I was a child because she used to appear on kids' TV so often. She even had her own show. And now I have a partner who voluntarily watches Birds Of A Feather. Grrr.

And yes, I was always bitterly disappointed that whatever school I happened to be at the time was never chosen for a programme. I suspected it was a fix at the time and now I'm totally sure.

Gulftastic

Due to my primary school's proximity to the YTV studios in Leeds, kids from there were often picked to appear. I myself appeared in 'How We Used To Live' when I was about 6. Can't remember a thing about it, aside we were sat around a big table at a family meal in the episode. I also appeared in 'My World'. Again, can't remember much about it at all.

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: buzby on November 12, 2020, 08:36:05 AM
Are you sure it was a keyboard and not a ukelele?

Yes, I've heard the song on youtube.  The kid doing the vocals sounded older than the one on the record and sung 'sitters' with a glottal stop.
The other kid stood behind the keyboard and just sortof went 'plonk plonk plonk' playing the same note while the other kid sang.

Maybe they made enough money from the record and a tv appearance on some regional show to buy a keyboard and made another appearance a little later?


*I read about it somewhere.  Some regional show hosted by Frank Bough or if not him then someone of that ilk.  But that wasn't the show I saw them on.


Quote from: Hugo Rune on November 12, 2020, 05:20:33 AM
Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?, to give the full Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem-inspired title, was good advice that I usually followed whenever it came on. Fucking awful show.

When the show first started I'd have been about 4 or something.  I'd have been watching whatever show preceded it, probably Ring-A-Ding or Heads & Tails or something like that.  Then the title Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead? would appear on screen and my mum would say "Oh, alright then." and switch the TV off.  I didn't actually see the show for a year or two later!

All I remember about the show itself is the kids pretending there was a creature called "a Doris" and occasionally it'd whizz across the room accompanied by the sound of those little plastic things with a little propeller inside that makes a 'woop woop' sound.  Tony Hart's show did the same schtick but without giving the creature a name.

Hugo Rune


JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: Hugo Rune on November 12, 2020, 01:17:14 PM
"Woofumpuss".

Ah, thanks!  I just remember it whizzing by and Tony Hart looking a bit befuddled before carrying on with whatever he was doing.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Gulftastic on November 12, 2020, 10:09:02 AMDue to my primary school's proximity to the YTV studios in Leeds, kids from there were often picked to appear. I myself appeared in 'How We Used To Live' when I was about 6. Can't remember a thing about it, aside we were sat around a big table at a family meal in the episode. I also appeared in 'My World'. Again, can't remember much about it at all.

You might be able to find yourself on YouTube, they've got dozens of the former on there, and some of the latter too (although they're quite tricky to find; I had some success with "my world itv schools").

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on November 12, 2020, 12:04:29 PMAll I remember about the show itself is the kids pretending there was a creature called "a D*ris" and occasionally it'd whizz across the room accompanied by the sound of those little plastic things with a little propeller inside that makes a 'woop woop' sound.  Tony Hart's show did the same schtick but without giving the creature a name.

This is just about the only thing I remember from the show.  But, as I recall, it didn't make the woop-woop propeller noise (that was Vision On's Woofumpuss).  The D*ris only "appeared" (it was invisible) if one of the kids said its name, at which point there'd be ghastly wet sucking noises (like somebody sucking up mud with a vacuum cleaner) and the kids would all throw themselves round the set in mock agony, as if being attacked.

We used to re-enact this in the playground quite frequently.

Whereas the Woofumpuss was visible (a big fuzzy worm on an invisible string) and came with the propeller woop-woop noise.


Quote from: Hugo Rune on November 12, 2020, 01:17:14 PM
"Woofumpuss".

I was heartened to read just the other day that Wilfred Makepeace Lunn is still very much alive.  His doorbell was fantastic.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on November 12, 2020, 12:04:29 PM
When the show first started I'd have been about 4 or something.  I'd have been watching whatever show preceded it, probably Ring-A-Ding or Heads & Tails or something like that.

Or Silas, which was on every day of every school holiday ever.

Menu

Quote from: buzby on November 12, 2020, 08:36:05 AM


The kids on Why Don't you were mostly child actors (e,g, Pauline Quirke, Alex Fletcher, Ben Slade)

That's rubbish. Pauline Quirke is a grown woman.

Gulftastic

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on November 12, 2020, 03:16:48 PM
Or Silas, which was on every day of every school holiday ever.

'Heidi' and 'Huckleberry Finn & Friends' seemed to be on constant rotation in my youth.

Menu


Menu

Quote from: Gulftastic on November 12, 2020, 06:47:53 PM
'Heidi' and 'Huckleberry Finn & Friends' seemed to be on constant rotation in my youth.

Yes! Especially Huck Finn. I can still see that showboat(is that the right word?) going down the river in the opening titles, and even now I can remember the theme tune. Although like Top Cat the words were totally indecipherable for some reason.

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: Menu on November 12, 2020, 06:51:55 PM
Yes! Especially Huck Finn. I can still see that showboat(is that the right word?) going down the river in the opening titles

I remember in the opening or closing titles one of them did that thing when you jump up and click your heels together* and I could never do it.

* Kindof to one side, not in a nazi/jackboots way.

Mobbd

Since we're onto kids' TV now (Why Don't You), I can remember a surprising amount about Wacaday. I think I might have really liked it or something. Fucking hell.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that everyone who watched Wacaday remembers Pinky Punky. But nobody but me seems to remember that it was originally a write-in competition to decide his name. Pinky Punky was around for ages but everyone forgot it was a competition winner who had named him, which I always found a bit off. Should have given that kid a writing credit.

I was not that competition winner in case you're wondering. I did, however, win the competition to name Tom Paris on Star Trek: Voyager.

non capisco

Quote from: Mobbd on November 12, 2020, 08:07:38 PM
Since we're onto kids' TV now (Why Don't You), I can remember a surprising amount about Wacaday. I think I might have really liked it or something. Fucking hell.

I have a lot of memories of the Wide Awake Club that refuse to shift. There was some kid on once with some kind of illness, Tommy Boyd essentially asked 'What is it that you've got?' and for some reason the kid said 'Ben Nevis.'

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Mobbd on November 12, 2020, 08:07:38 PM
Since we're onto kids' TV now (Why Don't You), I can remember a surprising amount about Wacaday. I think I might have really liked it or something. Fucking hell.
I was on Wacaday in 1986, and lost the word association game. The greatest shame of my life.

Jockice


Glebe

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on November 11, 2020, 07:40:12 PMI remember this... Might have been 'Def 2' / Snub TV.

Hmmm, maybe Asborb... delighted somebody else remembers it!

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: Mobbd on November 12, 2020, 08:07:38 PM
But nobody but me seems to remember that it was originally a write-in competition to decide his name. Pinky Punky was around for ages but everyone forgot it was a competition winner who had named him, which I always found a bit off. Should have given that kid a writing credit.

I vaguely remember that.  Other memories are of Timmy Mallett travelling to various countries, seemingly just so he could make an awful pun.  The show's budget must've been huge.  "I'm in Kenya... Kenya believe it??!!", and him knocking on the door of the Kremlin and saying "Is Len In?", and some game with him having a little plastic figure jump off a diving board into a bowl of borscht.

Hand Solo

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on November 13, 2020, 01:15:59 AM
and him knocking on the door of the Kremlin and saying "Is Len In?"

I recall he had a repeating segment where he used a Boglin toy with a Russian background for the section called The Gremlin In The Kremlin.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Menu on November 12, 2020, 06:51:55 PM
Yes! Especially Huck Finn. I can still see that showboat(is that the right word?) going down the river in the opening titles, and even now I can remember the theme tune. Although like Top Cat the words were totally indecipherable for some reason.

The flashing blade, tintin, white horses, Robinson Crusoe plus one of the old 30s serials like Flash Gordon

Ambient Sheep

All of those for me, Robinson Crusoe & White Horses in particular... except The Flashing Blade which I don't remember at all.

I still remember a few years ago, when I first thought to look up the Robinson Crusoe theme on YouTube, bursting into tears of nostalgia within a few bars of that beautiful soaring theme starting.  Looking at Wikipedia it would've been the Summer 1972 9.30am showings I saw... 9.30am definitely rings a loud bell, and I'd've been 7, which fits my memories.

(I had a similar, but milder, experience a few years earlier, when the opening scenes of the wonderful film Me Without You used the White Horses theme.)

Astonished to discover from that page that the theme was specially written for the UK version; it wasn't in the original Franco/German version!


Jesus, continuing to read, the BBC archive twats strike again:

QuoteIn 1997, the complete series was released on VHS video by Network in four volumes. This was thanks to the work of Tim Beddows who tracked down the only known English language prints in a French film vault. However, these were 16mm prints, since the original 35mm prints used by the BBC between 1965 and 1982 had been junked, and no other 35mm prints could be found.

In 2007, Network released the series on DVD. Once again these were the recovered 16mm prints...

Complete fuckheads.

Quote from: Hand Solo on November 12, 2020, 08:20:12 AM
Coincidentally I watched a bit of an episode last week because I was trying to find an episode with the out of tune shitter later theme I remember, it happened to be a Scouse stage school bastards episode.

Rare sighting of the early T-less RTD in the credits for those. And even rarer credit for him as director, one of the million different jobs he did on Why Dont You in that era. He'll have written the scripts for those too, hence prominence of the Cardiff Ben character...

(sorry, see this has largely been covered...)

buzby

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on November 13, 2020, 08:48:34 AM
Jesus, continuing to read, the BBC archive twats strike again:

Complete fuckheads.
I don't think you can really the blame on the BBC for that one. They didn't make the series or the 35mm prints, they were bought in from the French production company Franco London Film. Either the BBC sent their copy back to FLF when their broadcast rights expired, or FLF didn't ask for them back and the BBC had 13 reels of 35mm sitting there they no longer had the rights to broadcast.

If the BBC's copy was a dupe (the English dub had previously been syndicated in the US) then FLF should have still had the 35mm master back in Paris and it would be them who subsequently lost/binned it. If the copy the BBC had was actually the master (which was probably unlikely, as it would mean FLF would have not have been able to sell it to other English-speaking countries after 1965) then FLF should have asked for it back when the rights expired.

ZDF in Germany were co-producers of the series, and presumably retained the 35mm master of their 4-part re-edited German dub.

Chriddof

Quote from: JesusAndYourBush on November 13, 2020, 01:15:59 AM
Other memories are of Timmy Mallett travelling to various countries, seemingly just so he could make an awful pun.  The show's budget must've been huge.

By the late 80s / early 90s TV-am were absolutely raking it in - according to Wiki it was "the world's most profitable TV station in terms of turnover", thanks in part to a big emphasis on children's advertising (toys, fast food) being aired during stuff more aimed at parents.