An Appreciation of Children’s Television by Sir Hartley Hare
Chapter 4 – Don’t leave me with that man
The 1970s dawned in the British Empire of Land with a new sense of optimism. A young David Attenborough, high on his own supply, sensed the beginning of a new cult of environmentalism. With that in mind he contacted the then poet laureate for the mad – Sir John Betjeman – to write the theme for a programme about hanging around in parks at night:
“When underground or overground
Madame Cholet and me
What bliss it was to forage on
The Common with Madam C
Glorious in her burrow
Divine it was to be
Recycling all the everyday
With the beauteous Mrs C.
Busy in her kitchen
Unmatched, attached, yet free
My wonderful Wimbledon womble
How uncommon are we?”
Upon reading this, Radio 1 DJ Mike Reid was so enraged he used his morning show to denounce it as “blatant pornography”. A recorded version of the poem went on to be number one for six weeks. Sadly, it was never used by the BBC in any form.
Chapter 5 – Provincials
As the years wore on it became apparent that Children’s TV needed new, fresh voices. Two things had taken hold of the nation’s youth. Puppetry and heroin.
With this in mind a young David Attenborough searched the nation and its colonies for a blend which could make children’s television seem relevant once more. With Jim Henson and Irvine Welsh he felt he had hit upon a winning formula:
“The sweat wiz lashin affae Frog Boay. He wisnae sick yet bit it wiz in the post. It wiz time tae play the fukin music. Time tae dim the lights. The **** kent. He couldnae pick oot a vein and they auld ****s oan the balcony kept peerin et him. It wiz time awright. Fur the maist sensational, perspirational, expirational – this was what he called a ****in muppet show.”
The effect was immediate and overwhelming. So called ‘Muppet Chic’ was de rigeur on the catwalks. Suddenly, a pig making love to an amphibian seemed not only possible but desirable. On heroin.
Chapter 6 – The end
By the late nineties it was clear that television made specifically for children could not continue. All entertainment at this point was already being made for children.
A final broadcast of Rainbow – a programme promoting the very best values of Britain: a man, a hippopotamus, a man wearing a bear suit sleeping with the hippopotamus and a gimp – was the very last hurrah. The Scottish poet Hugh McDiarmid was appropriately commissioned to write its final celebratory theme in incomprehensible Scotch:
“Oer aboon the strechts and bummels
A watergaw fu resplendit
The Laverock sang aw tae himsel
Abody hert it smirkit
An nae lang mindit
As shin as yer e’en were closed yestreen
I curst the earth and aw that’s in it
And begged the deil, ma bonnie cooth;
Cause ruin uninhibitit.
Daubit thi hale worlt
Wae thon watergaw”
The broadcast was given added poignance by the eventual execution of hairy swingers Rod, Jane and Freddy for their part in the Manson Family murders.
And so we reach the present with all of this history behind us. Will we see their likes again? Has children’s TV became a thing of the past?
Only the future remains. How will children’s TV look in a hundred years? Will we be embroiled in a personal war for survival with a Clanger? Will Bagpuss still sound like a continence device? Only the historians of the future will say.
Goodnight Children. Goodnight everyone, everywhere.
