Chock-a-Block

CHOCK-A-BLOCK
Made by: BBC
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1981

This is one that most children of the eighties seem to forget about, but I thought it was the absolute coolest thing I’d ever seen. The set was supposedly futuristic and of the computer-generation (they had been raiding the Doctor Who props warehouse again), and every week, the presenter would ride into the studio on a little moon-buggy. It was presented either by Carol Leader or Fred Harris (both veterans of Playschool, and obviously contracted to do anything the children’s BBC bosses told them to), and they would alight and then declare ‘Chock-a-girl/Chock-a-bloke checking in!” My memory of the show’s content is a little hazy, but there was much learning of songs by tedious repetition.

At some point, they would insert a huge, chunky videotape into what looked like the Enigma mainframe, and there would be a ‘video’ of sorts, of the presenters gallivanting around in front of an unconvincing backdrop of somewhere like The Grand Canyon. The one thing that I remember most clearly is that one of these videos featured Carol singing ‘The Rain in Spain falls mainly on the Plain’ - this can’t have been on every week? I also remember being quite scared of Fred Harris, who someone unkindly pointed out to me had the same hair as the Yorkshire Ripper - but I think he was just a bit frantic and in-your-face for mid-morning TV.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 8/10