Introducing the new ‘What Did You Watch’ blog series

Over the Christmas holidays, Asa and I had a conversation about children’s television programmes, probably prompted by the endless hours we have to endure Team Umizoomi and Wallykazam! I was intrigued that although there are only four years difference in our ages, our TV viewing was so entirely different, but as I thought back over the last 17 years of having children I realised there were only a couple of shared programmes that they enjoyed at the same age.  So I decided to find out if we all had different TV favourites when we were growing up,

The first What Did You Watch post is looking at my favourites, mostly during the 80s!

1 . Playschool – I have vivid memories of returning home from playgroup and switching on to find out which window they would be going through today, with the help of Jemima, Humpty, Big Ted and Little Ted, (and that other doll that I could never remember her name) my favourite presenter was Floella Benjamin, she always had so much energy. Obviously back in the old days, that was the only children’s television, until later in the afternoon, a half hour slot of amusement before the grown ups took over again! (probably not quite that harsh, but that’s how I remember it!) I would beg my mum to make all the things I saw on Playschool, but they never turned out the way it did on TV.

2. Look and Read – I LOVED this series, every Friday morning our teacher would take us all into the hall and wheel the TV on the trolley in, so that we could watch the latest episode in the story, who remembers Dark Towers and Boy From Space ? It was the highlight of the school week and it nearly always ended on a cliffhanger, but it was educational too, the little character Wordy would pop up during the show and help you with your spellings. Some of the stories had booklets for you to work through and answer questions back in the classroom, to keep the enthusiasm going until the next week, and who could forget the Magic E song, unless you have never seen the programme and you will have no idea what I am talking about!

3. Willow The Wisp – I LOVED this programme, narrated by Kenneth Williams and starring Mavis the Fairy, Arthur the cockney caterpillar and Edna the Evil witch, who was a television! Looking back on it now, it was completely bonkers, but I thought it was brilliant. Set in Doyley woods, they would get up to all sorts of stuff, I particularly liked it when Edna zapped people with her aerial. It would be on between the main kids drama of the day and the news.

 

4. Why Don’t You ? – I think one of the main reasons I loved Why Don’t You was because it was only shown in school holidays, so when you heard that theme tune, you knew it was a good day! It was about different groups of teenagers that were sent letters from members of the public with ideas of things to make or do, or a good day out, and lots of talking socks…

5. No. 73 – I used to love No.73 on a Saturday morning, some of you may not have a clue what i’m on about if you lived up north, because this show was broadcast in the South, if you didn’t have it, you were probably still watching Tiswas (which I loved too, especially the phantom pie flinger!). It had a character called Ethel who was played by Sandi Toksvig that lived at No.73 with her nephew and a lady on roller boots, it ended every week with the Sandwich Quiz, it had all sorts of guests with madcap things going on and lots of buzz and activity.

I guess some of these show my age, I was a kid growing up in the 80s, do you remember any of these.

Check back next week to find out which lovely blogger is featuring and what their top five kids TV shows were.

If you would like to take part, please get in touch