Batman

BATMAN
Made by: ABC/TCF
Shown on: pretty much every terrestrial channel in the UK
Years shown: 1966 onwards
Theme Tune: “Dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, dinna, Batman!!”

A stalwart of Sunday afternoons, I will have nothing said against this unusual (read: incorrect) interpretation of Bob Kane’s original comic-book characters. Everyone knows it was as camp as Christmas, but you can’t help having a soft spot for this straight-laced Caped Crusader - although not as soft as his stomach by the final series. The situation was as follows. Bruce Wayne (Adam West) was a millionaire who lived in the modestly-named Wayne Manor just outside Gotham City. He co-habited with his young ‘ward’ Dick Grayson (Burt Ward), his English servant, Alfred (Alan Napier), and his deluded old aunt Harriet Cooper (Madge Blake), who at least made the whole living arrangement seem a little less suspect.

But little did his aunt know, Bruce and Dick are really the crime-fighting super duo, Batman and Robin, and below the mansion lies their Batcave, containing the clunky Bat-Computer and, of course, the Batmobile. The Dynamic Duo were always on hand to help out Police Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton, although not that one unfortunately) and ‘Oirish’ Chief O’Hara (Stafford Repp) whenever they needed it, i.e. always. The Commissioner would just pick up the red Batphone, or beam the Batsignal from the top of his building, and Batman would be on the case. The secret door to the Batcave was hidden behind a bookshelf, and was opened by a switch located in a bust of Shakespeare; the pair miraculously changed into costume while sliding down the Batpoles, and would speed out of the cave. Sometimes they might be joined by Batgirl, who, unbeknown to them and to her father, was really Commissioner Gordon’s librarian daughter.

A typical day for Batman and the Boy Wonder would consist of defeating one of a number of camp and colourful villains, including Penguin (Burgess Meredith), Joker (Caesar Romero), the slinky Catwoman (Lee Meriwether/Julie Newmar), and green goblin-esque Riddler (Frank Gorshin.) Even more far-fetched additions were made to this line-up of shame, including Egghead (Vincent Price) and King Tut (Victor Buono), an Egyptology professor who was hit on the head with a rock, and as a result occasionally believes himself to be a real Egyptian pharaoh.

The hardest thing to buy into was that these pantomime criminals would manage to find a bevy of henchmen to help them in their plans of world domination. But then, these stooges were a requirement for the routine fight scenes that everyone loves. They had to be beaten to a pulp by Batman and Robin’s skilled fighting techniques, which often included hanging from chandeliers to kick people in the face, and Batman picking up Robin so he can boot someone in the chest. Marvellous. The impact of the punches and kicks were rarely seen because they were blocked out by the ‘Zap!’, ‘Sock!’, ‘Biff!’, ‘Zowie!’ signs which would flash on the screen, just to add to the delicately-crafted realism.

And if this seemed over the top, then we are forgetting many of Robin’s acute observations, which would go something like “Holy nuclear time-bomb, Batman!”, or “Holy hole in the road, Batman!” - always stating the obvious. Inevitably, the things you remember as funny as the aspects which were not supposed to be comedic: Bruce Wayne’s crap Batdancing, Adam West’s paunch, the scenes when the duo were clearly crawling across the studio floor when they were supposed to be scaling a high wall with the Batcables. But it was all great fun, and there was even a film (1966), which was mindlessly enjoyable and nothing like the recent film franchises. And I am not ashamed to admit that I had a Batman outfit when I was five, although the mask was claustrophobic and the utility-belt was a bitter disappointment. But even at that age I wondered why the so-called criminals didn’t just move to another city - providing it wasn’t Metropolis, of course.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 8/10

(Thanks to the Casual Gamers website for the borrowed pic!)

Bananaman

BANANAMAN
Made by: 101 Productions
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1983 onwards (probably still turning up on Nickelodeon)

Everyone remembers the deal: the marvellously-named Eric Twinge lives at 29 Acacia Road, and whenever he eats a banana he turns into Bananaman, “Ever alert for the call to action!” Muscle-bound, with an unfeasible jawline, and dressed in blue and yellow spandex, Bananaman was actually quite a prat, and more often than not needed help from his friend, Crow (a crow, as if you hadn’t guessed.)

Eric fancied the glamorous news-reader, Fiona, but she was only interested in his fruit-fuelled alter-ego, which is of course a steal from Superman; also, his enemies include General Blight, Dr Gloom and the alien Nerks, whose stupid names spoof the ludicrous villains from the 1960s Batman TV series. To make all this subversiveness credible, the voices were provided by comedy darlings The Goodies - Tim Brooke-Taylor (Eric), Graeme Garden (Bananaman) and Bill Oddie (the police commissioner.) Unfortunately, this didn’t stop the cartoon from being fairly lame, especially following the introduction of the hero’s friend and comrade, Appleman.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 4/10

(Thanks to a very strange foreign website for the borrowed pic!)

Bagpuss

BAGPUSS
Made by: Smallfilms
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1974 onwards

Created by bonafide stop-motion animation geniuses, Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, Bagpuss is as much a favourite with reminiscing university students today as he was when he was in his 70s heyday. One of the most-missed things about children’s shows of this era are the strange and unlikely situations they come up with. As we are reminded in each of the 13 episodes made, a little girl called Emily owned a shop. Okay, hold up. A little girl owns a shop? But this is shop is different because it doesn’t sell anything. What? Perhaps Emily should have checked the dictionary for a definition. Instead, she collects things that other people discard and brings them to Bagpuss, a stuffed toy cat, in order for him to examine and mend them. There is no adult supervision whatsoever.

Emily then utters what is essentially an incantation, where she summons, “Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss, oh fat, furry catpuss! Wake up and look at the thing that I bring. Wake up, be bright, be golden and light. Bagpuss, o hear what I sing!” You never question this kind of thing when you’re three years old. Apart from the pink, stripy “catpuss” himself, the roll-call included Gabriel the toad with his banjo, Madeleine the rag doll, Professor Yaffle, a woodpecker-shaped bookend, and the mice on the Mouse Organ (named Charlie, Jenny, Janey, Lizzie, Eddie and Willy, which not many people know.)

The mice were somewhat obsessed by DIY, and whenever something new was delivered by Emily, and once Professor Yaffle had pontificated and wrongly guessed what it was, the mice would squeak, “we will fix it, we will mix it, we will polish its top, top, top!” Ah, such a work ethic. Although they did go on strike once.

It was deliberately left ambiguous as to whether the whole thing was just a figment of Emily’s over-active imagination (she was based on, and played by, Peter Firmin’s daughter Emily), but most pre-schoolers would see nothing wrong in this magical set-up, and rightly so.

For the completists among us, the episodes were: ‘Ship in a Bottle’, ‘The Owls of Athens’, ‘The Frog Princess’, ‘The Hamish’, ‘Flying’, ‘The Ballet Shoes’, ‘The Wise Men’, ‘The Giant’, ‘The Mouse Mill’, ‘The Elephant’, ‘Old Man’s Beard’, ‘The Fiddle’ and ‘Uncle Feedle’.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 7/10

(Thanks to the BBC's Cult TV website for the borrowed pic)

Around the World with Willy Fogg

AROUND THE WORLD WITH WILLY FOGG
Made by: BRB International
Shown on: BBC1
Years shown: 1983 onwards
Theme tune: “Eighty days around the world/We’ll find a pot of gold just sitting at the rainbow’s ending…” (and then some other less comprehensible lyrics)

Based, of course, on Jules Verne’s fictional adventures of upper-class English playboy, Phileas Fogg and his butler Passeportout, some French loon had the bright idea of recasting the story with talking animals. This time around, Willy Fogg is a sharp-suited lion, who is bet £10,000 by a wheelchair-bound old goat (yes, literally), Lord Guinness, that he can’t make it round the world in 80 days. He is joined in his travels by his faithful manservant, Rigadon the beaver (?), and the Spanish mouse, Tico, who seems to live in Rigadon’s hat. They are pursued throughout by Transfer, always introduced as ‘the Insidious Transfer’, who had the ability to disguise himself as anything he fancied - except that his glowing red eyes were always a bit of a give-away. The whole thing was a bit tiresome, and culminated in the thrilling ‘cliff-hanger’, where Fogg thinks he has lost the bet until he realises that they ‘lost’ a day when crossing the international dateline, and have therefore reached London within the set time. Hurrah! One other noteworthy character was Romy, the Indian princess who Fogg bravely rescues and then falls in love with; she is a cat, but is somehow the same size as Fogg, a lion. Willy Fogg was diverting enough, but not as good as Dogtanian, which must have sprung from the same crazed minds. People who watched Children’s BBC at the time must also remember ‘broom-cupboard’ presenter Andy Crane’s pointless obsession with the theme-tune, to the point where he produced a lyric sheet for kids to send off for. As if anyone else really cared.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 5/10

(Thanks to the Watched It! website for the borrowed pic)