Saturday Superstore

SATURDAY SUPERSTORE
Made by: BBC
Shown on: BBC1
Years shown: 1982-87

This giant of Saturday morning TV had a presenting team who felt like an extended family. Bespectacled Radio 1 DJ Mike Read was like the uncle who knew lots about pop music; John Craven, with his knitted jumpers and sensible haircut, was a bit like your dad on a good day; Sarah Greene was a sexy aunty and Keith Chegwin…well…he was the older brother who was fun for half an hour, but who you then wished would bugger off back to his modern apprenticeship.

Saturday Superstore was a blueprint for its successor, Going Live! - it had a casual, relaxed atmosphere, but at the same time it had a format, and you felt like the presenters were on top of it all, despite the appearance of chaos, sometimes. Hey, even John Craven got to loosen up a bit. There were a multitude of celebrity guests, including the biggest coup of them all - a question and answer session with Margaret Thatcher (who, Chegwin famously later remarked, had hairy legs.) One of the best-remembered features of the show was ‘Search for a Superstar’, which encouraged viewers to write in and nominate themselves, or others, as great singers/dancers/comedians/magicians etc., and then they would appear on the show and would be put to a vote. I can clearly remember a bunch of kids performing ‘Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat’ from Guys and Dolls, complete with a rowing boat on the studio floor, in case you were in any doubt. People may also recall a quartet of teachers singing ‘The Laughing Policeman’, while dressed in full uniform, and with a flashing blue light on top of the piano - well, they were from my future middle school, Marden Bridge, and I was still suffering Mr Chapple, Mr Nicholson and Mr Phillips’ rendition of it five years or so later. The emerging winners of the competition might stir a few nasty memories too: they were Claire and Friends, with a sickly song called ‘It’s ‘Orrible Being in Love When You’re Eight and a Half’ (which reached number 13 in 1986.) Gap-toothed Claire was actually nine when the record charted, but I remember the so-called video, where she hung around an older boy while he played conkers, and warbled to him, “I’ve got your picture on my wall/ Got your name upon my scarf”. Excuse me while I undergo hypnosis to remove those lyrics from my brain.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 9/10

(Thanks to www.bbc.co.uk for the borrowed pic)

Rolf's Cartoon Club

ROLF'S CARTOON CLUB
Made by: ?
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: 1987-1992

Australian entertainer, Rolf Harris, had already acted as a link between Warner Bros cartoons for Rolf Harris’ Cartoon Time, but eventually he got a permanent slot on ITV. His Cartoon Club was set in what resembled a jazzed-up art classroom, where Rolf would dazzle you with his etchings and teach you about animation, while surrounded by furiously industrious children with sketch pads. He would circulate among them, giving them tips and encouragement - although, surely, he wanted to be frank about some of the more lacklustre efforts. Children at home could also send him pictures to put on display, and he would mark them on his unique map of Britain and Ireland, which he’d drawn to look like himself and a koala (I was, and still am, quite in awe of the ingenuity and creativity of that map.) Kids at home could also join the Cartoon Club and receive the obligatory newsletter, badges and a poster. The main events were, of course, the cartoons themselves, which were usually Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Tweety-Pie, or Roadrunner, and Rolf would draw something to give you a clue as to what was coming up. At the end of the show, he would say, “See you on Rolf’s Cartoon Club next week”, which was accompanied by a really irritating hand-jive, or perhaps, in retrospect, it was sign language, which I suppose is permissible, then.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 5/10

(Thanks to www.hhg.org.uk)

Record Breakers

RECORD BREAKERS
Made by: BBC
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1972-2001

Theme tune: “If you’re the wildest, the mildest, the cleverest child/The strongest, the longest, you’ve never been wrong/The latest, the greatest, then you can say/That you’re a record breaker!”

Roy Castle was Record Breakers, and after his death in September 1993 from lung cancer, it was never the same. A born-entertainer, Castle was upbeat, enthusiastic and clearly passionate about the excellent programme he presented for over 20 years. Record Breakers set out to show children the extremes of human achievement; it travelled around the world to interview people who can only be described as obsessives or lunatics (often Ashrita Furman, who did all kinds of pointless things, like pogo-sticking up the CN Tower, and running backwards while juggling), and also presented over 300 record attempts in the studio itself, usually something like plate-spinning, bubble-blowing or brick-lifting. Roy was assisted by Ross and Norris McWhirter, the twin founders of The Guinness Book of Records, who were utter fact-fiends and could recall to memory anything from the book when needed. Ross McWhirter was tragically killed by the Provisional IRA in the early '80s, but Norris continued alone, appearing for ‘Norris on the Spot’, where he would answer (clearly pre-rehearsed) questions from children in the audience. Roy Castle was certainly no stranger to records himself: at various times, he was part of the largest tap-dancing troupe at BBC Television Centre, became the biggest one-man band, performed the fastest tap dance (an amazing 24 beats per second), wing-walked across the English Channel, appeared atop a 39-man motorbike pyramid, and took part in a 400ft death slide from the top of Blackpool Tower. That deserves some respect.

In the late eighties, Castle was joined by ex-Bucks Fizz singer, Cheryl Baker, and also received reports from America by Ron Reagan Jr (who, after Castle’s death, became a permanent presenter.) Other presenters of the later era include Mark Curry, and former British athletes Kriss Akabusi and Linford Christie - but when it became Linford’s Record Breakers, it was time to switch off.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 8/10

(Thanks to www.tv.cream.org for the borrowed pic)

The Really Wild Show

THE REALLY WILD SHOW
Made by: BBC
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1985 -present day

When Johnny Morris hung up his zoo-keeper’s uniform, it was time for a new generation of animal-lovers to teach us about the eating habits of the Emperor penguin, and the hunting techniques of the black panther. The Really Wild Show was presented by the balding and ebullient Terry Nutkins (allegedly missing part of a thumb due to an encounter with an otter), Nicola Davies and Chris Packham, who, in the early years, had a ludicrous bleached-blond Mohican haircut. I thought Packham was rather dishy, despite his mild speech impediment, which meant he came out with sentences like, “Look at how the piwana attacks its pwey.”

There were reports by the presenters from different parts of the world (or Chester Zoo), showing you weird and exotic creatures, and they also brought dubious things like snakes and tiger cubs into the studio for the children to pet, and to ask questions about. There were also fact slots with wacky facts about various creatures you’d never heard of, and an opportunity to put the ‘experts’ on the spot about their specialist species. Later on, this developed into a quiz, where the presenters were positioned at the top of a slide which led to a vat of BBC gunge, and if they failed to answer the questions correctly, they were submerged. Actually, this tended to happen even when they were right. Michaela Strachan (formerly of the Wide-Awake Club) joined Terry and Chris in the early nineties, and enjoyed flirtatious banter with a now sensible-haired Packham, before he and Nutkins left and there was no longer any reason to watch. The major accomplishment of The Really Wild Show has to be that it made natural history and environmental issues interesting for those without Friends of the Earth membership or a season ticket to London Zoo - it was watchable, fast-paced, and you felt that you weren’t being short-changed because the presenters really did know what they were talking about.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 7/10

(Thanks to www.worldofowls.com for the borrowed pic)

Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids

RAINBOW BRITE AND THE COLOR KIDS
Made by: DiC Entertainment/Starry Night Productions
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: early-mid 80s

If you are the kind of person who is easily nauseated, it is advisable that you skip this and move straight on to The Really Wild Show. Rainbow Brite was a cross between The Care Bears and The Flower Fairies, and it was execrably and unequivocally awful. Also, in a worrying trend among American cartoons, it was based on a series of Hallmark greetings cards. The story was that a girl called Wisp stumbles across a place called Rainbowland, and decides she wants to save it from The Dark One, who has turned it into a dark, gloomy, colourless place. She is given the task of finding the Color Belt and the Sphere of Light, and while on her crusade she befriends a sprite called Twink, and a pony called Starlite, who she rescues from imprisonment in ice. Wisp also finds a baby, who, as luck would have it, turns out to be the sought after Sphere of Light. With me so far? Anyway, she somehow hears the pleas of the Color Kids, who have been banished to the far reaches of the world, and sets out to rescue them. Once they are released, she squares up to the Dark One. Her mission complete, the Color Kids give her the name Rainbow Brite - they each represent a colour of the rainbow, and are responsible for allocating everything in the world the right colours, while she wears multi-colours and has supreme rule over them all. She also had some sickening pets called Puppy Brite and Kitty Brite. Ho hum. The kids were: self-styled romeo, Red Butler; Lala Orange, who fancies Red; basin-haired Canary Yellow; Patty O’Green, whose pants were visible under her dress; macho jock, Buddy Blue; pretentious and artistic Indigo; and introverted Shy Violet, who looked like someone’s granny. Each of the kids had their own fuzzy sprite too, who they got to do all the dirty-work, mining the Color Crystals in the Color Caves; their names were Romeo, OJ, Spark, Lucky, Camp, Hammy and IQ. Rainbow Brite’s sprite, Twink, was white because he was once thrown into the Pits (should have felt at home there, considering the general standard of the cartoon), and had all the colour drained from him. Ha ha.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. The resident bad guy was Murky Dismal, a squat, grey little man with a temper; and his sidekick was Lurky Dismal, a brown, furry thing with a big nose and red trainers, who was extremely dim and gullible. Mrs Dismal, Murky’s matronly, handbag-toting mother, also appeared from time to time. The Dismals all worked for the Evil Princess, who wore black spandex and had a shock of hair like Bonnie Tyler’s, only pillar-box red; she loved jewels, and her purpose was to gain control of the planet Spectra, which was covered in diamonds. Her domain was guarded by Count Blogg, a corpulent, green-hued man with an outlandishly-shaped white beard and an orange robe. Somewhere in this corrupt hierarchy was Sergeant Zombo, the knight who ran the prison planet.

Okay, I can see the end in sight. Among the marginal characters who cropped up now and again were Stormy, a stroppy girl who controlled the storms with her horse Skydancer, and would help out the Color Kids; Moonglo, a girl who brightens the night sky, and owns a Nite Sprite; Tinkled Pink, who just seemed to love pink; Krys, a sexist space-cowboy type, who loves himself, and rides an electric horse called On-X; Orin, a sprite from Spectra, who united Krys and the Color Kids; Wajah, a seemingly German-speaking grey alien whose species gain their energy from colour, and who crash-landed in Rainbowland; and Plock, an entrepreneur who initially wanted the Color Caves, but then gave them up for a good cause. Someone pass me a paper bag. Finally, there was Brian, a boy from earth who accidentally ended up in Rainbowland when he walked through a rainbow; Rainbow Brite then gave him a key, so he could return whenever he wanted. I know what I would have done with it…

SQUARE EYES RATING: 1/10

(Thanks to www.lilbb3.tripod.com for the borrowed pic)