Introducing: Please Release Me

Hello, all. Just a quick note - click the menu bar under the logo to go to a new page I've set up, called Please Release Me. Everything you'll need to know will be there.

Ta ta.

It weren't like that in my day.

Hello, everyone. Blimey, I haven't posted since Christmas Day. The main reason is because I was finishing off Destinauts issue 2, which is now posted in its entirety. Click the cover below to read it (and see how 3 present-day supervillains fare against the Nazis).

So, anyway, kids TV. Back when this blog started in November 2009, I was out of work, and subjected to loads of pre-school kids TV, as my daughter, who had just turned 3, was not yet in nursery. The rubbish I saw across Playhouse Disney and Cbeebies drained my will to live. Disney's endless, soulless, Groundhog Daily repeated CGI dirgefest saddened me beyond belief; despite the schmaltziness that Disney had become (a little unfairly) known for, I've always been impressed by the quality of their cel-animation (ie, proper drawings and that). However, their pre-school output was full of cheap, cold CGI tat. I wasn't comfortable with my daughter being subjected to that (despite 2 genuinely good shows in Handy Manny (CGI with a heart) and Imagination Movers), so we tried Cbeebies (but not before my daughter started developing an American twang).

It was a little better, but seemed a little too young, even for my (very forward) 3 year old girl. In The Night Garden, despite its obvious made-to-sell-toys design, is actually a fine show, believe it or not; it's actually supposed to be shown just before 7pm (when the channel closes), with the aim to help the child settle down for the night. But, in the Beeb's wisdom, they used to show it around 11am. Brilliant. It makes no fucking sense at that time of the day. In fact, it makes no fucking sense anyway, what with its Ninky Nonks, Pinky Ponks and Wanky Wonks. It's currently back in its proper timeslot, but my daughter's moved on (the introduction of the fucking creepy dirtgirlworld was the last straw for me). Thank Christ. It is, overall, a very condescending channel. Kids don't need that.

Months later, and for the past couple of months, I've been at home with my daughter during most of the week (flexitime thingy arranged with work). As of last month, after going through loads of (incredibly tacky and cheap) kids channels, I finally settled on CBBC for her. Do you know what? It really, really surprised me (and managed to fire off some nostalgic synapses).

I was ready to hate everything. As it turns out, Copycats (starring bargain bin reality TV losers Sam and Mark, the latest attempt by the BBC to create their own Ant & Dec), a gameshow whose format has been pilfered from abroad, feels very much like Fun House, Double Dare and stuff that used to be on 'proper' kids TV (ie when I was a kid). People making tits of themselves, essentially. Relic, a co-production with the British  Museum, is in the tradition of Knightmare and The Crystal Maze (not as good as either, mind you), and strives to be educational. Little Howard's Big Question (starring comedian Howard Read and his animated 6 year old self) is pitched perfectly; it educates, is fun and has little in-jokes for the adults. Great stuff.

Alternating animal shows Roar and Deadly 60 (and their ilk) have been a staple of kids TV since the 60s, so it's great to see stuff like that is still around. Gastronuts and Junior Masterchef have been pretty good (and surprisingly unpatronising), but I doubt kids would be that interested (my daughter dips in and out, but tends to ignore them). Richard Hammond's Blast Lab seems to not know who it's aimed at; indeed, the kids in the audience and the contestants often seem a little bemused as to what's happening (they're probably wondering why there's a man shorter than them hosting the show), as it switches between Brainiac and the inner workings of Peter Simon's tortured mind every few minutes.

Young Dracula has actually entertained, and is probably as dark (in places) as you can expect kids TV to get in a comedy drama (which sadly ceased production 3 years ago on a cliffhanger), M.I. High is a fun show (though less so now that Danny John-Jules has left), and Paradise Cafe is a New Zealand oddity where kids run a (ahem) smoothie bar on a beach, and have to deal with (ahem) sea ghosts, and feels very much like loads of kids shows that came from Australia in the 90s, like Round the Twist, Girl From Tomorrow and so forth, only with horrible acting.

The animated portion of the day is awful, though. Outdated Canadian cartoon Mona the Vampire, featuring a mentally ill child dragging two of her friends further and further into her imaginary hellscape, has been on the channel for over a decade, as has "what the fuck is that character supposed to be" borefest Arthur. These two feel like generic, lazy scheduling that has always plagued kids TV in one form or another, just throw whatever they still have the broadcasting rights to at the poor children (it's the same reason the fucking Raccoons were still on TV at the start of the last decade). Post modern, polished What's New Scooby Doo has now been replaced with The Scooby-Doo Show from 1976, complete with shaky, classic Hanna Barbera animation and self-perpetuating rolling backgrounds. It must've been very jarring for kids to see this sudden change, but I love it. At least these ones are long before Casey Kasem insisted that Shaggy became vegetarian because he had in real life. Shaggy wanting to eat tofu? It just seems wrong. Bizarre Spanish cartoon Eliot Kid seems to have lost something in translation, the League of Super-Evil is fine, and Shaun the Sheep is surreal genius.

I mentioned nostalgia at the start of this piece. Firstly, I have to mention The Slammer, hosted by Ted Robbins. It's essentially a talent show (a format I actually despise on primetime), but this being a kids show, it's set in a prison (HM Slammer), and the kids in the audience (who judge the winner) can be brutally honest. It was lovely seeing a child describing former CITV cunt Stephen Mulhern as "boring". About time too, I say. Anyway, it's littered with "jokes for the grown-ups" that kids won't pick up on, but it was the cast that caught my attention. Mr Burgess (the Mr McKay-alike warden) is played by Ian Kirkby. I had that nagging feeling I'd seen him before; it turns out he was a regular in Palace Hill and Your Mother Wouldn't Like It from 1985 to 1990. I'm so old.

(Palace Hill clip starts halfway through this... just after the credits of Round The Bend, featuring dozens of recognisable names...)

Kirkby plays Chelsea Bun, the character with the rabbit. Criminally never repeated or released on video or DVD, this as YMWLI were the anarchic shows that the kids had for satire back then. It also featured a character called Jimmy the Time Warp Kid, who's a schoolboy from the 40s. He's played by Steve Ryde, who, aside from playing Tatty Bogle in Wizadora, went on to produce The Slammer, Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow, and...

The Legend of Dick & Dom. Now, for years, I've disliked these two for no reason at all. They were undeniably popular, but I'd barely ever seen them in anything. Whenever I did see them on TV, they seemed to be talking about various bodily functions (one of my pet hates on TV, particularly kids TV - it's lazy and idiotic to assume that all kids find this kind of thing amusing. I never did). But, this show came on. Initially, I was annoyed by the title (yet another fucking D&D vehicle, I thought), I then noticed that it featured the brilliant Stephen Furst as a main character, and was clearly a parody of fantasy films from Krull to Lord of the Rings. Then, I found two things. Fisrtly, it reminded me heavily of Maid Marian & Her Merry Men in tone, look and humour, and secondly, I found I was enjoying it. It's one of those shows which is wasted on kids. They even slip in the odd joke for adults, too (Man: "Oi! Don't touch that, Dick!" Dick: "How did he know my name's Dick?"). Oh, and Brian Blessed turned up in an episode as the king, too. That is a seal of quality.

Okay, so as you can tell, I'm largely impressed with the current state of the output on this channel. It's never going to match what I saw in my own childhood (or indeed yours), and the playing field is very different now; back in the 80s and 90s, there were about 2 hours of children's programming across 2 channels (the Broom Cupboard on BBC One with Pip Schofield/Andy Crane/Andi Peters/Philippa Forrester) or CITV (with Tommy Boyd/Jeanne Downes & Scally etc), with the Wide Awake Club for a couple of hours on Saturday mornings, with the consecutive options of Swap Shop/TISWAS/Saturday Superstore/Get Fresh/Going Live/Motormouth/Live & Kicking/Ghost Train. My memories of kids TV will be very similar or identical most people of a similar age. You won't get that today; it's too divisive, too many channels (mainly filled with random imports of dire quality - at least there was some vetting back in the day, as they had to be selective due to limited broadcast hours to make sure it was of a particular quality). It's a shame. In a decade or two, you probably won't get as many people speaking passionately about the nostalgia they have for their childhood television, but if you do, you'll get vastly different accounts, followed by embarrassed silence. 

So where does the channel go wrong? Well, aside from the shonky cartoons, they are definitely obsessed with Dick & Dom, devoting a whole weekend to them last week (though this does show the sheer volume and variety of work they've produced), and child-faced Barney Harwood seems to be their default choice for shoving on anything at all (including the embarrassing Bear Behaving Badly and perma-show Blue Peter). More dreadfully though, it's their obsession with Dani Harmer. Who? She's the jazz-hands me-me-me 'star' of Tracy Beaker, who's apparently tried launching a pop career, and has a sitcom on the channel called Dani's House, where she plays an actress. Called Dani. Quite why they adore her so much is beyond me. Her face seems to be expanding on a weekly basis like an orange satellite dish, and she has short little t-rex arms. Don't believe me? Next time she's on TV (which is probably right now, as they show adverts for Tracy Beaker Returns at least hourly on CBBC and/or BBC One until primetime kicks in), have a look. You half expect Jeff Goldblum to blunder in, muttering some lines in a half-arsed drawl like he never doesn't.

The absolute, absolute worst though is Sadie J. I hate this show. Why? Because, all things considered, it's a cunt. With a laugh track. It's about a 13 year old jazz-hands bitch, played in full drama school show off mode by a girl who speaks exactly like Michael fucking McIntyre. Her best friend is an extremely camp gay kid, a stereotype that gets another demographic box ticked. Whilst I don't have a problem with gay kids being represented on TV (in fact, it would be a step in the right direction if handled correctly), the portrayal is so hideously, stereotypically contrived, I think it'll do more harm than good. The characters speak in fucking text speak. "O. M. G!" said one. "L. O. L!" said another. Oh do fuck off. Okay, so it's supposed to be aimed at girls (yet was created by a man), so I'm not supposed to get it. My daughter sat there watching it, looked at me, and asked "is this meant to be funny?" 

She's a sharp one, my daughter.

So, this one show has destroyed my faith in the channel, nay, humanity. Bastards.

Seriously, the main problem with this channel (other than this one piece of crap) is that the schedules will change almost on a fortnightly basis; they show consecutive episodes of programmes daily, so will have covered the entire run of something  very quickly. Back in the day, you'd have to wait a week between episodes as there was less airtime to fill, making programmes something to look forward too. Nowadays, it's all very disposable. I do feel sorry for kids nowadays; they're not given enough time to fall in love with shows. I doubt they'll look back fondly and remember any of them.

Oh, but Newsround's got an updated version of its original theme tune back from the John Craven era! That makes it all better.

ADDENDUM: Horrible Histories is one of the greatest shows ever made. Seriously. Watch it on iPlayer if you get the chance. Wasted on kids.