Thinking back to my Sixties and Seventies childhood many of the TV programmes I watched here in England seemed to have been on one after another in an endless stream of goodness and joy.
But this can't be right.
Certain things I know: The Magic Roundabout was always at the end of Kids TV weekdays before the grown-up stuff started like the News. Other possible finalists were Rhubarb and maybe even Jackanory. These all ended around 5.45 I think. Is that right?
Another deffo was Crackerjack, which we all know was on at 5 to 5. You got a pencil too!
Beyond these fixtures I'm stuck. When was an hour long show like Thunderbirds on? After the News? When was Scooby do on? Around 5pm. When did Kids TV start? 4pm?
What about stuff like Watch with Mother, Andy Pandy, the Woodentops and my favourite, Tales from the Riverbank? Were these on during the week? During the day?
Saturdays is safer ground. I know I saw programmes like the Banana Splits and the Double Deckers on Saturday morning. That means I saw Shazan, the Three Musketeers, Danger Island and the Impossibles on Saturdays too.
Sundays was a desert. Nothing for Kids as far as I recall. Is that correct readers?
What was kids TV scheduling like in your country when you were little?
I think some kids programmes were on in the morning. Andy Pandy, The Wooden Tops and Bill and Ben.
ReplyDeleteMore grown up kids programmes started around 4PM and, as you say, finished before 6pm. The latest usually being Magic Roundabout and Jackanory.
A few, like Captain Pugwash were on around lunchtime. Perhaps even Noggin the Nog was on at this time.
Crackerjack and Blue Peter were on between 5 and 6pm.
Lots of kids programmes on in the morning on Saturday followed by World of Sport
Happy times
For some reason I thought Andy Pandy was on during he day Khusru but no idea why. I will have been so small there's no way my useless memory goes that far back. Magic Roundabout was a sort of book end to kids TV and Zebedee, with his Time For Bed sign-off, was always a sad moment for me. I had to wait a whole nother day for more telly!
DeleteBetween about 4pm and 5.40pm both ITV and BBC for shows like Thunderbirds, Blue Peter, The Tomorrow People etc. Just before the news and always finished with a 5 minute cartoon or stop motion animated show. The 'Battle of the Planets' cartoon was 4.45pm on Mondays on BBC1. Also lunchtimes - up to about 1.40pm for shows for younger kids - Mary Mungo and Midge was 1.30pm on the BBC. On Saturdays you had them from about 9am til 12 noon. Then there were the school holidays when they put them on every weekday morning - usually repeats. Also I recall back in the late 70s Saturday early evenings - around 6 to 8pm you'd get shows like Man From Atlantis, The Gemini Man, Fantastic Journey and before them you'd have cartoons - Pink Panther and such. Great programming, or maybe it's a case of rose tinted spectacles, but they did seem to have good evening lines ups - particularly the BBC with Grandstand, the footie results, cartoons, the news, then Dr Who, Morecambe and Wise, Mike Yarwood or something, then Starsky & Hutch or Kojak after 9pm and Dave Allen.
ReplyDeleteI do think it was great programming Yorkie. Now its all bunded away on seperate TV channels like CBBC. Still, we had our time and today's kids have theors and I'm sure they will be nostalgic about Paw Patrol. the original series of Scooby Do was better though!
DeleteTvrdb.com and the BBC genome are good places to dig around (the BBC genome allows you to search for specific programs which is very handy). Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a region-specific itv listings archive (there are dvds of tvtimes available, but I think its a mix of different regions - at least when they were available as an online resource about 18 months ago they were a mix). So when I was having great fun watching Captain Scarlet in 1971 on a Saturday morning in ATV(Midlands) other eegions had other stuff on. On BBC, Playschool started 4.20 pm, then after that we had all of our favorites until 5.45 for the news. Eg Marine Boy was on at 5.25 50 years ago today.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes it was an endless stream of goodness and joy. When one series of something ended, another something replaced it.
Go spend a while looking at these listings and remember the good times of kids tv.
Yeah I also remember the ITV regions often showed different shows at the same time. If you were lucky and your TV could pick up a couple of regions (we could get Yorkshire and Tyne Tees) you could see two different episodes of say Space 1999 in the same week on different days. Sometimes you'd be unlucky and see that somthing like Thunderbirds was being shown in a region you didn't get. Very annoying. I remember that if you bought Look-In magazine at the time it listed the kids shows for all the various regions.
DeleteThe BBC genome sounds fascinating Timmy. Marone Boy, 50 years ago. Oh my God, I need some oxygum! I feel old! I adored the intro to it, with the screeching singing and the monster crab. And Seven Arts? Who were Seven Arts?
DeleteI got Look-In Yorkie. It was ace. I loved it when it arrived with my parents' papers every week. My favourite issues were the Kung-Fu ones and somewhere I still have a page or two I tore out and kept and the free metal Dragon badge!
DeleteI have said this before, but to recap - television in NZ started in 1960, and expanded to cover the four Main Centres (the four largest cities - Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, and their surrounding areas) by 1962. Transmission only began at 4pm most days, and 2pm on Tuesday and Thursday. Later it increased to 2pm all week days. Programmes for children were on 'after school', although there may have been something on earlier for the little ones. No morning TV until much, much later. Not sure when the general evening TV programmes started, but the evening news was originally on at 7pm, it was only in the 1970s, I think, that it was moved to 6pm. Many people were not happy about that. Disneyland, introduced by Walt Disney himself, was on a 6pm on a Sunday evening, just before the news. Colour TV arrived in 1973, just in time for the Commonwealth Games of 1974, which were held in Christchurch. A second TV channel arrived in 1975, but both were state owned. The first non-state channel, TV-3, did not enter the scene until 1989, after de-regulation ended the state TV monopoly.
ReplyDeleteEarly programming was aimed at housewives (we still had them in those days) during the day, small children in the afternoon just before the older, school-age children arrived home in the late afternoon for their programmes, with the news at 6pm from the 1970s. In the school holidays there were one or two 'suitable' movies on during the day. Morning TV only arrived much later in NZ.
Not exactly TV, but when I was little, radio station 1ZB had a request session on Sunday morning. This started at either 6am or 7am (perhaps the latter, it was a long time ago) and ran until 9am. You could write in and request a story or sometimes a song. By the end it had become mainly a music request show, with the old stories being rarer and rarer. No idea when that ended, perhaps when 1ZB changed over from being a normal music station to ultra-boring talkback, with boring adults complaining about everything.
Fascinating Paul. I wonder of that echoes the evolution if Kids TV in Oz too? Its funny you mention radio, it became important to me too on Sundays with the Chart show. I'd set up my tape recorder and mic and record the top twenty on a tape. I remember having to remember to turn the tape over I think. A C90. How long was the top twenty? Now, that has got me thinking.
DeleteThunderbirds was premiered at 6:30PM on TWW here in Wales in November 1965. The first block [which ran for some 16 weeks] was on at that time, just after the Local News, followed by Emergency Ward 10. Then it was repeated on both TWW and the second Wales TV service; Teledu Cymru on a Sunday. This is somewhat simplified.
ReplyDeleteSometime after the start of the summer holidays in 1966, they ran the second block which took it to the end of the first series, and neatly followed into the second. Thunderbirds was then repeated continuously here in Wales until TWW closed in 1968. The replacement TV company; HTV, ran it periodically at 4:55PM, regularly up to October/November 1970 when it was essentially shelved.
Back in the day too on TWW, both Gigantor and Space Patrol were aired on a Sunday aftrenoon.
I have a feeling Thunderbirds was on later over here too Bill. Maybe 6'ish till 7 rings a bell. I'll have to look it up for the channel we had in the North West of England. Granada I think. Hard to believe that each TB episode was a hour long. Like small feature films every one. What a lot of hard work! But quite wonderful!
DeleteI distinctly remember having to sit through the end of Grandstand on Saturday afternoons to see Doctor Who at 5pm!
ReplyDeleteAh yes, me too Looey. The Pools were the bane of my life. I can recall the those random names of footy teams like Queens Park Rangers and Partick Thistle. It went on and on! Still, my Dad won some dosh one week and I got a few quid to spend at the newsagents! Sweets and some comics. Oddly enough I remember buying a Shoot comic. I was interested in footy as well back then esp. Leeds United. I even had their autographs. All gone now. Strangely, I miss the Pools now and watching my old Dad cross the teams off on his pink sheets, his own little slice pf heaven.
DeleteIn the early 1960s, mainstream children's TV on BBC started at 5 on weekdays. This was put back to around quarter to 5 when Jackanory, for younger viewers was put on (stories being read). Later, the BBC at least, put it back to 5 to 5, not sure why. Most programmes were half an hour long, so ended at 5.25 or 5.30. They included Blue Peter etc. Just before the news on some days at least, were short episodes of either the cartoon TinTin, Oliver Postgate's Noggin the Nog, or Captain Pugwash (I think). Magic Roundabout, and another French concotion, Hector's House were quite late in the 1960s I reckon.
ReplyDeleteITV probably also had about the same time slots, with two programmes before 6pm (one might be a Gerry Anderson show).
The "Listen With Mother" episodes were shown around 1pm, presumably when mothers had stopped for lunch with their offspring.
Hectors House! Yes! I found a plastic wheelbarrow toy with a wind-up Hector a few years back Andy. There was a lady cat as well in it I think but the name escapes me.
DeleteJust looked up about Granada and found 'Four Feather Falls' Special feathers for the hero
ReplyDeleteNice going Khusru. I've never seen FFF.
DeleteIn Hector's House, the cat was Zaza, and there was a female frog called Kiki.
ReplyDeleteof course Mish, Zaza!
DeleteWoodsy, Just found out (BBC Genome) that Watch with Mother- The Flower Pot Men, was on at 15:45 on the day I was born. No, I didn't watch it that time
ReplyDeleteA special day Khusru for you and your Mother!
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