Jim'll Fix It

JIM'LL FIX IT
Made by: BBC
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1973-89

Theme tune: “If you want to sit in the Mastermind chair/Or stand on an aeroplane’s wing in the air/If you want to play the slide-trombone/Or operate a telephone/If you want to read the classified scores/Or if you want to take the floor/Jim’ll fix it!”

AND “Your letter was only the start of it/One letter and now you’re a part of it/Now you’ve done it/Jim has fixed it for you/There must be something that you always want to do/The one thing that you always wanted/Now you’ve done it/Jim has fixed it for you, and you and you, and ba-ba-baaaaa…”

Now then, now then children, what have we told you about talking to strange men? And, let’s face it, they didn’t come much stranger than Sir Jimmy Saville, ex-popular music disc-jockey and London Marathon enthusiast. In his pastel shell-suits and gold jewellery, he looked like some kind of pimp, or at least an aged Scouser thinking about stealing your hub-caps.

Every week, nineteen million people would watch Sir Jim read letters from members of the public, usually children, which began, “Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to…” There were about 350,000 letters annually, and the requests ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, and you had to worry about some of the kids; playing football with Kevin Keegan is fair enough, and meeting The Bay City Rollers is almost forgivable, but what about the boy who wanted to visit a Toby jug factory? He had obviously got the wrong show, and his letter should have gone to The Antiques Roadshow.

Nobody can easily forget the boy scout troop who wanted to eat lunch on a roller-coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach - what were they thinking? Or maybe it was the evil scheming of a very sadistic scout-master. Anyway, needless to say they ended up with face-masks of strawberry milkshake, and half-eaten hamburgers splattered all over their laps. Other noteworthy fix-its were the blowing up of a cooling tower, a kid who wanted to burn £1 million (was it one of The KLF while still in short trousers?), and someone who wanted to meet Manuel from Fawlty Towers. I, personally, never wrote to Jim, but someone I know wrote in begging to meet Nick Kamen, the model from the Levis laundrette advert - and Jim cruelly did not grant her wish.

At the end of the segment, after we’d seen the child having their dream fulfilled (often using the so-called magic of the blue-screen effect, which was a complete cop-out), they would return to the studio, dressed in their Sunday best and accompanied by whoever had helped them to achieve the fix-it eg. Kevin Keegan, Les McKeown, or a foreman from the Toby jug factory. Jim would be reclining in his fix-it throne, and would begin with, “Now then, Mr Keegan, sir, did little Johnny behave himself at your football ground?” When the adult responded in the positive, Jim would then invite them to present the child with the coveted, shiny Jim’ll Fix It medal. It was all a bit like speech day at a private school, or the Queen presenting the New Year’s Honours.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 7/10

(Thanks to www.raf.mod.uk for the borrowed pic)