Your Mother Wouldn't Like It

YOUR MOTHER WOULDN'T LIKE IT
Made by: Central Television
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: 1985-88

Well, the makers of this manic, slightly vulgar kids’ show were right about one thing: my mother didn’t like it. In fact, it was when she saw a sketch very similar to that of Mr Creosote in Monty Python's Meaning of Life, about a boy stuffing his face with fast-food, that she forbade me from watching it. Your Mother Wouldn’t Like It! was a more extreme version of Stop That Laughing at the Back, which it ran alongside for a while; it was a sketch-show where the humour and entire mentality was very anti-parents and anti-authority. Aren’t we clever and innovative?, they thought. And actually, they were right to some extent, because the show nabbed itself a BAFTA for Best Children’s Entertainment Programme. Your Mother Wouldn’t Like It was comprised of a sequence of often serialised sketches, including the escapades of Lonnie (Paul Stark) and Loaf (Ian Kirkby), the Sue Townsend-penned The Wimp (played by Simon Schatzenberger), and the real big-hitter, Palace Hill. Palace Hill was a Grange Hill spoof, with mock Prince Charles and Prince William characters in starring roles, complete with the big, sticking-out ears, of course. It was deeply unfunny, but managed to secure its own spin-off programme, which ran for a few series in the mid-eighties CITV wasteland.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 2/10