A look at Children's ITV in 1987, particularly the Autumn when Knightmare was shown.
Children's ITV - 1987
The Children's ITV studios were based at Central Television in Birmingham (PO Box 55 etc...), as Central TV held the ITV network contract to provide this service for most of the time since Children's ITV began in January 1983.
In 1987, a live service with regular presenters were introduced for the first time, and these were Gary Terzza and Debbie Shore.
Debbie demonstrating a Children's ITV yo-yo, which was one of the competition prizes back then!
I have taken the above snaps from before and after other Children's ITV shows I recorded during 1987. Some of which could possibly be from the era before the Knightmare even began!
Thanks to Neil Jones for the following two sound clips from Children's ITV in 1987, one from before the commercial break and the other from just before the first ever episode of Knightmare started on Monday 7 September 1987. These are MP3 files, and should also work using RealPlayer.
The female presenter gets a bit tongue-tied in saying "The Dungeon master leads four friends through the hazards of the perils of the castle of confusion", only to be interrupted by Gary so they can get to the commercial break on time.
After break, quick plug for Teddy Ruxbin (cartoon about some teddy), followed by a 'lobster mobile' that went round the country. Followed by Scooby Doo plug as well as a 'Splash!' mention (old magazine programme transmitted in the Friday Afternoon (4.40pm) slot of Children's ITV at this time).
Adverts
Look In magazine did a double page spread on Knightmare at the start of the Series 5 and 7 seasons. Sidriss Starshine sent me some scans of the publicity photos used in these articles, and they are in the Pictures section.
Whilst going through some of my old tapes, I found a couple of adverts just before Children's ITV started on a Wednesday in 1987. One was for Oracle Teletext, and the other was for Look In magazine - both of which do not exist anymore! I have created a RealMedia clip of this:
Some screen-shots from this clip... should take you back a bit! (I don't know when exactly during 1987 this was, but it could even be the era before Knightmare even began!
So the clip shows the end of the advert for 'Smiths Jackets' with that catchy theme tune "We want to be... Jackets".
Then onto that advert for 'Oracle Teletext' featuring the Jones family and how they are all instantly up to date as they have access to Oracle on ITV and C4...
... and therefore know what's on and where to go. In this case a 'Wet Wet Wet' concert at the Hammersmith Odeon!
"So what have the Jones's got that other people don't have?"
Yes. Far better than the Teletext that replaced it in my opinion :)
Then Timmy Mallet shouts to let everyone know about this weeks edition of 'Look In'
"TV and sports stars...
BRILLIANT competitions...
Terrific picture strips..."
"It's yer action, paction weekly!"
Only 30p?
Kyle Minogue?
Schedules
Have a look at scans of TV schedules from Monday 7 September 1987 - the date of the first ever episode of Knightmare, and also indecently the first day of morning programmes on ITV, as the usual schools programmes were moved to Channel 4:
BBC1 :: BBC2 :: ITV (London) :: Channel 4
