KIDS’ TV SHOWS I
GREW UP WITH
MAINSTAYS
In
the previous three articles, covering action cartoons, comic cartoons and
literary adaptations, I have been sticking largely to series from around the
time of my own childhood, in the 1980s and early ‘90s. They were, after all, my
formative years – I was born in 1982, and the bulk of my experience of children’s
television dates from about 1985 to 1995. However, children’s television has
been around for a whole lot longer than I have, and it would be foolish not to
take the time to look at those mainstays of children’s TV and film that have
been around since before my parents’ time. So here is the fourth and final
section of my article – children’s TV mainstays.
What would the
world be like if Walt Disney had not been born in 1901? The first animated film
of any description was actually made in 1906, but it may well have just become
a brief fad, had not Walt and his brother established their animation studio in
1923, five years before releasing the first (short, black & white) cartoon
featuring the most enduring icon of animation, Mickey Mouse. Ten years after
that, in 1938, came Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the world’s first
feature-length animation, in glorious Technicolor. Since then, the animation
industry has just grown and grown, with Disney spearheading the format over the
years with such legendary animated classics such as Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi and
Peter Pan, to name but a few. I’m not sure if I’ve ever read the original
tales, although I have heard that in some cases (especially more recently),
they have deviated from the original storylines somewhat. The relative
innocence of these tales has kept them from dating, and thanks to DVDs, their
enduring popularity among succeeding generations of young children is assured.
And of course,
the ‘80s heralded many Disney cartoon shows with memorable characters and theme
tunes, most notably Duck Tales (I still get a kick out of that theme tune even
now), but also Gummi Bears (probably my second favourite of the Disney bunch
from this era), TaleSpin, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, and I’m not sure what
else! Granted, not everything they touched turned to gold – the less said about
the series they made of Winnie the Pooh, the better – but as long as the genre
of children’s entertainment exists, it’s a foregone conclusion that Disney will
be in the vanguard.
The other
godfather of comic animation, Warner Brothers were the talent behind Bugs Bunny
& co. Where would we be, I wonder, without catchphrases such as “What’s up,
doc?” or “That’s all, folks!” as made famous by Bugs and the stuttering Porky
Pig. Curiously, thinking about it now, it occurs to me that a large number of
their characters seemed to have speech impediments of some sort or other –
aside from Porky’s stutter, I seem to recall Daffy Duck had a lisp, and most
notably, Foghorn Leghorn had a different sort of stammer, with whole words –
“What, I say what’s goin’ on here?” etc. Now, I haven’t seen these in a long
time, except for three or four that I have as bonus features on the DVDs of
classic films such as Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood (from 1938,
starring Errol Flynn – if you’ve never seen this you don’t know what you’re
missing). But some of those ones are actually rather clever – such as
“Carrotblanca”, which puts Bugs Bunny in Humphrey Bogart’s shoes, with just
about the entire WB cartoon cast as the other characters from the movie,
cramming the entire storyline into a mere ten minutes.
Then there were
the ones with Wile E. Coyote’s ill-fated attempts to catch the Road Runner,
which conveyed the entire storyline without a single word of dialogue, save for
Road Runner’s catchphrase, “Beep-Beep!”, all to that same wonderfully comic,
fast-paced theme tune. Probably not something I’d go out of my way to watch
again as an adult, but I’d certainly have a look if they came on again – and in
any case, they were enjoyable enough as a child. And that’s what cartoons are
for, really; if they are clever or well written enough to enjoy as an adult,
that’s a bonus. And considering that, like Disney, Warner Brothers have been
making cartoons since before my parents’ time and will doubtless still be doing
so when I have children of my own, I think it’s safe to say that the appeal of
their cartoons is not limited simply to their target audience, and their
enduring popularity is guaranteed as long as there is a demand for cartoons.
Another
collection of historical greats here, dating back to the 1950s. William Hanna
and Joseph Barbera were, I believe, the first people to start creating cartoons
specifically as television series. As such, these shows have tended to be
repeated more closely together than the various Disney and Warner Brothers
cartoons, which despite having recurring characters, were made individually
rather than as series. This made for more instantly memorable recurring themes,
such as Yogi Bear’s fondness for stealing picnic baskets, to the chagrin of
Ranger Smith, and Top Cat’s hare-brained schemes, which would frequently harass
Officer Dibble to a similar extent. Perhaps even more famous among children of
all generations, though, is Scooby Doo, which has had perhaps more incarnations
on screen than any other cartoon – different scenarios, different combinations
of characters, but always on the trail of a ghost who turned out to be a guy in
a costume, a fact which was parodied in the live-action feature film outing a
few years ago, along with every idiosyncrasy the show had to offer.
Other
Hanna-Barbera shows included Huckleberry Hound, Quick-Draw McGraw, Deputy Dawg,
Touché Turtle, The Smurfs, and of course Dick Dastardly and Muttley in their
various guises – trying to cheat to win the Wacky Races (typically by placing
Penelope Pit-Stop in danger), or their hare-brained schemes to Stop the Pigeon.
But of course, the best remembered of their shows has to be The Flintstones;
Yabba-Dabba-Doo became one of the most memorable catchphrases of the cartoon
world, and the influence of the series is still felt today – Fred Flintstone is
arguably the prototype All-American-Husband on which the likes of Homer Simpson
are based.
Another
noteworthy point is that shows such as The Flintstones and Top Cat were, I
think, the first cartoons to specifically have a theme song, rather than just
an instrumental piece to signal what show was on (The Flintstones being the
more memorable of the two) and while the style of the song has dated somewhat
since its initial broadcast something like half a century ago, the song is
still firmly affixed in the memory of many a person who heard or even sang
along to it as a child, myself included. Of course, its popularity among young
children was ensured by the inclusion of dinosaurs alongside the human cast,
despite the fact that the dinosaurs became extinct all of sixty million years
before humans first evolved. We know this, and we don’t care, because it makes
for a fun show.
Tom and Jerry
(MGM)
So far as I
know, MGM stuck to the same two animated stars. There were plenty of variations
on the theme, but the format was the same, with the cat always trying to catch
the mouse and never succeeding, unless Jerry let him – one I remember
specifically was when Tom was thrown out of the house because he couldn’t catch
a mouse, and Jerry realised it was no fun without him, so they engineered a
plan whereby Tom could “catch” Jerry in front of his owner, thus restoring her
faith in her cat’s abilities, and in return they could exist reasonably
amicably, putting on the show every so often. Sometimes Jerry had help from a
dog, known alternatively as Spike or Butch, but whatever he was called, Tom was
terrified of him.
Actually, Tom
and Jerry are probably the most name-checked cartoon characters ever –
certainly they gained great fame for the violence of their antics, and have
often been (needlessly) cited as a potential bad influence on children. This is
political correctness gone too far! If you’re looking for a subtler joke about
these cartoons, you have to look to Red Dwarf, in which the Cat says, “I know
this game, it’s called Cat and Mouse. And there’s only one way to win – don’t
be the mouse! The mouse never wins, unless you believe those lying cartoons!”
What better immortalisation could they ask for?
Created by the
late, great Jim Henson, Kermit, Miss Piggy et al recently celebrated their
fiftieth anniversary. After originally scoring a hit children’s programme over
here (more successful than in America, but then that’s probably because of the
difference in humour between our two nations), these hybrids of marionettes and
puppets (hence the name – after all, the alternative, parionette, is a bit of a
mouthful) subsequently accumulated great success with a variety of films.
While I’m not
familiar with the early films, I have seen some of the more recent adaptations,
which pay homage to famous literary works, and I must confess to a particular
fondness for their take on A Christmas Carol – save a few additions to
accommodate all the characters, it’s a very faithful telling of the tale.
Indeed, while some of the details in Treasure Island and The Wizard of Oz, for
instance, have been sanitised for the younger audience, or adjusted to suit
either the Muppet characters (Miss Piggy as Benjamina Gunn opposite Kermit’s
Captain Smollett) or the human guest stars (Ashanti as Dorothy dreaming of
being a singer), the plotlines are basically the same as the original books –
making the Muppets possibly the last refuge for faithful(ish) film adaptations!
These were the
most sophisticated puppet characters of their time (which is no slight to Gerry
Anderson’s shows such as Thunderbirds by any means), and they also appealed to
adults – from snippets I’ve seen of the Muppets in their heyday, there were
certainly jokes that a grown-up audience would get that would be completely
lost on the children. As I understand it, this is the same premise that has
been used to considerable success more recently by The Simpsons.
Another show
that’s approaching the half-century mark, Blue Peter has been a British
television institution since 1958, and is responsible for the catchphrase,
“here’s one I made earlier”. Of course, the days of children making things out
of everyday household objects are sadly a thing of the past (bring back Bitsa,
I say!) but the format of the show in general seems to have remained the same.
Mind you, having watched a few recent episodes, it does seem that the
presenters are trying more to be “with it” than “educational”. Still, the
appeals are as active as ever – the team will ask the public to donate a
particular item for a good cause. The latest one doing the rounds is “the disc
drive” – donating unwanted CDs, DVDs and games for Barnardo’s. This sort of
thing has been going on for a long time; they always ask for a particular item
to be donated, never for money, and there is something rather charming about
it. It almost feels as if the children can work magic with an innocent
household object!
The other great
tradition is the pets – since the phone-in scandal, they’ve been somewhat
overstocked with pets, now with two dogs and two cats! The other most prominent
feature on this show is that the presenters routinely engage in challenges and
learn to do things, recent ones ranging from swamp football to steam-train
driving! So at least it’s still putting ideas in children’s minds, and that is
to be encouraged.
A permanent
fixture on children’s television for thirty-six years now, this has possibly
been invaluable in getting children to take an interest in current affairs. It’s
had a variety of presenters over the years, and it’s been a long time since I
could have named any of the current team, but the iconic image of this series
has to be John Craven. I remember once playing a board game with my dad, and
the question came up, “who is the presenter of Newsround?” – to which I said,
“I don’t know who presents it nowadays, but the answer on the card is John
Craven.” As he would have had even less idea of whom the presenter was at that
time, and I had given him the answer on the card, he accepted my statement.
From what I
have seen of the show in more recent times, it is considerably glossier than it
was in my youth, with a distinct celebrity focus, but I think that’s really
just a sign of the times - everything comes with ten times as many bells and
whistles as it used to. CBBC is breeding a race of Hello magazine
readers! But at least the programme is being informative to some degree, and
that can’t be all bad.
Going pretty
much continuously since the mid-80s, this is basically a sitcom, whose
influences lie heavily with the old circus clowns and mime acts going all the
way back to Charlie Chaplin. Is there anyone of a certain age who, when they
hear builders or removal people saying, “To me! To you!”, doesn’t think of the
Chuckle Brothers? Having seen a few recent episodes of late, I have noticed a
slight expansion of the cast (the main focus of the show is still on Paul and
Barry, but there are more guest characters now than there used to be) and I
think that probably detracts from it a little bit. Retrospectively, I have to
admit, this is not especially my cup of tea, but I enjoyed it enough at the
time. And certainly, to have kept going like that for two decades does take
some doing, so credit to them.
To sum up, it almost goes without saying that for all these shows to have gone on for as long as they have is a sure sign of quality. Of course none of them are quite the same as they were when they first began, and in some cases that’s not always a good thing, but then nothing stays the same for that long a period – insert cliché of your choice here! We all have our own different memories of these shows, and so do so many other generations of fans. You can almost tell how old someone is by their choice of Blue Peter presenters! And who can truthfully claim never to have sat in front of the telly and lapped up a Bugs Bunny or a Mickey Mouse cartoon?
Of course we mustn’t forget the mainstays of yesteryear, no longer running, such as the various art programmes, like Take Hart and Hart Beat, presented by the wonderful Tony Hart, who must have taught countless young children (including myself) to draw; or shows like How, and its sequel, How 2, both presented by Fred Dinenage (with a variety of co-hosts over the years), which between them answered all sorts of weird and wonderful questions for several decades. Or indeed our own Knightmare! Eight years is a very respectable run, however you look at it. Likewise, in various settings, from a school to a theme park to a city apartment, Bodger and Badger ran for about a decade, chronicling the misadventures of handyman Simon Bodger, played by ventriloquist Andy Cunningham, along with his sidekick Badger, who would cause all varieties of mischief, often involving instant mashed potato.
Then there are the evergreens like Gerry Anderson’s various series, especially Thunderbirds – not such a “long-running” programme in the sense of new episodes being made over a long period, but the thirty-two that were made are dusted down every so often to appeal to a fresh audience – which it never fails to do. Who can forget the time when Blue Peter showed us all how to make our own Tracy Island, and were inundated with so many requests for the instruction sheet that they ran out and had to keep reprinting it!
However much the long-running shows may change, almost inevitably for the worse eventually, it’s impossible to become completely disillusioned about them. Somewhere, in some deep dark recess of the mind of anyone of a certain age, lurks a memory of these programmes that will still make you smile, and keep on smiling no matter what. Here’s to longevity!
I certainly echo that sentiment, Liam,
with the online version of TES now approaching its seventh birthday. Hmm, I
seem to remember setting myself the task of choosing a personal favourite from
the shows you’ve mentioned. I have many fond memories of watching a Sunday
morning segment on ITV called The Disney Club, which used to feature Chip and
Dale Rescue Rangers, Gummi Bears and a live-action show called Teen Angel, but
I think my absolute favourite offering that you’ve mentioned has to be The
Muppet Christmas Carol – an absolutely brilliant film, parts of which I still
can’t watch without blubbing!