Emotive? Contentious? Well yes actually!
When I was at sixth form we used to think we were intellectuals. We read The Times, debated Margeret Thatcher and whether she was a heroine of our time or the worst thing to ever happen to this country. We wore black clothing and DMs, we listened to James, Wonderstuff and EMF, we passed our driving tests and drove old bangers and laughed haughtily at Viz and The Sun. We also spent many a happy hour sitting in darkened rooms, drinking snakebite and black and reminising on the programmes of our childhood (bearing in mind we were 17 and not even really out of that childhood it all now seems quite funny, but at the time we thought we were deep!). We wistfully talked of Playschool, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Chorlton and the wheelies, Paddington Bear, Fraggle Rock and the Magic Roundabout. Oh and remember that phase for making kids TV theme tunes all ‘house and hip’? I recall dancing to the Sesame Street theme tune, Trumpton, ‘Charlie says’ and so on in nightclubs.
When I was working as the manager of a well known card retailer we were one of the shops who stocked Teletubbies during that pre-Christmas madness when every parents wanted them for their children and we were beseiged by phonecalls and visitors constantly asking after Dipsy, Po, La-la and Tinky Winky. Amazed at the power of these odd looking soft toys, and the fact the theme tune was in the charts and that seemingly sane parents in a fairly poor area of the south coast were buying not one, not two but all four of these soft toys at 25 quid a throw I checked out the show to see what it was all about. I was 24 and admit to completely missing the point even after watching a couple of shows in the name of research!
Then I had Davies. At first during those shadowy, scary days of being home with a new born after working full time Richard and Judy were my friends. And Trisha. And those true life films from America where a teenage girl sees her face on a milk carton and realises she was kidnapped as baby and the parents she thought were her own are actually babysnatchers and her real family have never given up hope after all these 14 years of finding their little baby again….but I digress… So after a period of realising I needed to stop watching such daytime TV (at one point I seriously considered becoming a professional game show contestant. I watched Countdown and Weakest Link and thought if I did enough research in that manner I would eventually learn all the answers to every general knowledge question ever asked and be able to make a killing.!) and I turned over onto CBeebies 🙂 And gradually, after watching most shows repeated three times a day and with some critical input from a toddler I developed opinions and thoughts on them. Hell I even started to care about some of them 🙂
Inspired by reading the link to Richard Herring’s bit on Big Cook Little Cook on Alison’s blog I begun to form more concrete thoughts on what I like and loathe about certain programmes. It’s a work in progress but I have found it strangely relaxing to rant about them so expect more! So far here is Dora
Spider, The Tweenies and Bob the Builder.
I am starting to really worry about you Nic….
I think Bob is gay.
Can I offer some assistance to get them online in some format other than doc?
He could be couldn’t he? \That would explain the whole dungarees thing! You see I’ve been shielded from realising this by the fact his voice is notorious straight man, lad and love rat Neil Morrissey… So d’you reckon Wendy knows?
Nic -for goodness sake do domething! LOL!
Actually I can’t believe I sat and read it. So maybe that should be Roslyn do something!
Think Bob is gay also.
It’s the Wiggles that concern me…..
well I haven’t got time to read them now but I’ll be back, can’t you just post them as blog posts?!! Steve is yelling at me already and I’m not even half way round the ring … 😉
Well, I’m impressed that you could link to them, even if it was a word doc. I need to learn how to do this.It was Barney Hannah was into – now what’s that about. And Jay jay the jet plane. BTW, have you gone mad today?
Argh Barney. Don’t get me started on that 🙂
And yes, quite possibly have gone mad today, I think its the relief of yesterday being over, the kids behaving like loons and dragging me down with them and slight hysteria about the Amazon order 🙂
Roslyn, so totally agree about the Wiggles. They are just too freaky especially that dance with the adults dressed as flowers. Gave me the chills!
Nic, the spider link isn’t quite right, its got an extra bit in it that goes to a search engine and gave me a zillion (OK 3) pop up windows. That, of course, may have been intentional but just thought I’d mention it!
Off to read the .docs now!
Ditto the whole Bob YMCA-barn-dance-construction-worker-navy dungarees theme… I bet he’s even got a ‘Native American’ suit in his wardrobe, and stick-on porn-style facial hair to match. Mrs Potts obviously has the hots-potts for him, but I’ll wager he favours Mr Bentley who temptingly drops his pen awaiting for Bob to bend over… BTW, if you should ever figure out why Pilcard can’t talk, maybe this concept would explain why Mickey Mouse’s dog, Pluto, walks on four legs & barks, but Mickey’s friend, Goofy, also a dog, walks on two legs & sounds like his has an IQ less than tree bark. Or maybe that’s just the magic of Disney? And just don’t get me started on “Max & Ruby”…
Well I have been wondering about Bob for a while 😉 It’s just that I’m sure Wendy keeps hinting to him to take her out for a meal or to a disco but Bob never bites. I can’t make up my mind whether she works for him or not. She’s certainly better at putting up wallpaper than he is LOL Don’t get me started on the Wiggles!
rofl @ Nigel, I had the village people in mind too! I do think he might be more into Mr Sabbatini the pizza man though. Its that openly flamboyant, sexy accent and can cook thing too…. and Max and Ruby were actually due to be my next pondering 😉
Just read your comments on Tweenies etc above. You know what is even more perplexing about them? They must have been going for at least 5 years by now and they are still only 4!!!! I think someone should be looking into their medical histories myself! And when they are on an outside assignment they are different. They never show their full bodies like they do when they are in a studio. I’m sure they are just puppets outside – what’s that all about then?? Now you’ve got me as nutty as you Nic!!
Well Bob and Wendy are definitely not ‘doing it’ that is for sure. I reckon that teacher is after him too, so Wendy had better make her move.
Oh god, the Wiggles, WHAT is that all about? Those men have degrees in Child Studies!
Err – I’ve been know to wer dungarees (aka bib and brace) when doing the DIY……
And anyway – animals can’t talk everyone knows that…… (the bird doesn’t wother, nor Scrufty)