#hacker is a puppet from cbbc in the uk | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

conhivemindcent · 2 years ago

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Hi, I also grew up with Steve Backshall on TV, and I thought I could help with British children’s TV.

There are two BBC children’s channels - CBeebies (which you’ve mentioned, it’s for younger children under 6) and CBBC (for 6-12 year olds). Deadly 60 was on CBBC and so was Iain Stirling (specifically I remember he did a show called The Dog Ate My Homework, which is essentially a children’s panel show themed around school. I enjoyed it as a 11-year-old though I doubt I’ll enjoy it as much now).

Deadly 60 had a game I used to love playing on the CBBC website where Steve was in Madagascar and had to climb around and take pictures of animals. I had a lot of fun but found the later stages really hard and I hated losing health by animals or falling. Helped to fuel my love of lemurs, and I will always be thankful for that.

I think a lot of this is before my time (I mostly watched CBBC in the mid 2010s). Noel Edmunds used to host Multi-Coloured Swap Shop in the 70s/80s on BBC1 (it wasn’t until 1985 that cbbc became its own block and 2002 until it became its own thing). Mr Blobby was from Noel’s House Party but I don’t think that was a kids show. And as a kid, I never really saw him. Or Basil Brush. I grew up with the puppets Hacker and Dodge T Dog. (Hacker Time was one of my favourite kids shows, again idk how well it holds up.)

Similarly, I never saw Richard Bacon on Blue Peter. I can’t remember who was on Blue Peter when I was a kid, but not him. Again, this was in the 90s, so I wasn’t even alive. Similar case with Rainbow - stopped airing in 1997 and I was a 2000s baby. I never saw any Ant and Dec children’s shows but they stopped doing kids shows in 2001. I first saw them when I watched Saturday Night Takeaway. Thankfully I never saw Savile either. If I remember correctly I would’ve been about 6 when he died and 7 when the expose came out. So I suppose that’s something good about being modern.

I don’t think Simon Amstell did anything kids related but again, I have a much more narrow scope of children’s television. He could’ve done everything in the 90s and I wouldn’t know.

Postman Pat I remember! Postman Pat and his black-and-white cat (Jesse). Always charming, but I never really remembered much of the episodes plots. So I can’t say whether he got bothered by dogs (though it could just be people making fun of dogs hating postmen). I liked the old stop-motion style, and looking at him now… oh why did they move him to cgi?

Peppa Pig… exists. It’s probably the most watched kids show and I really liked it as a kid but yea, it’s grating and annoying. An episode of it got banned in Australia; the Queen was in it and there was a walking talking potato. Also all the characters are alliterative but not George, Chloé or Alexander? Like in one episode they oppose the name Michael Rabbit but George Pig is ok with them? I don’t know if David Baddiel’s wife is in the show, but Grandpa Rabbit is Brian Blessed. Shame this is the one I recognise most about. But then again, the show has become a common laughing point not only in the Uk but also internationally with memes. The creators also made Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom which I believe is much better. Can be annoying and is for kids, but it’s much better.

There was also a game on the CBeebies website for Peppa Pig where you had to play against the adults to score in basketball. I had fun with it as a kid. Dead simple though.

I could probably share more about specifically 2010s children’s shows if you’d like to hear.

(Also unrelated to children’s shows but I watched it as a kid, Zoe Ball used to host the companion show to Strictly - It Takes Two and now has a breakfast show on radio 2)

I have literally never heard of any of the NYT 2024 contestants. Not just don’t know who they are, but I have absolutely never heard any of those names before in any capacity.

I realize that’s not that surprising, because I live in Canada. But I did think I had an okay grasp on people who are on UK TV. I acquired this grasp by watching a lot of their long- and short-running panel shows, and every time I heard a reference I didn’t get, I’d look it up so I’d know for next time.

I’m remembering last year at Just For Laughs, when I went to a club night called Brit-ish that was hosted by Tom Allen, and he referenced Mock the Week, and people cheered. He seemed surprised that the Canadian crowd knew about Mock the Week, which struck me as slightly condescending, thinking a bunch of people who had specifically shown up for a lineup of British comedians would not know about one of their extremely popular mainstream British comedy shows. But then Tom Allen said we might know that but we don’t know most British television, do we even know about The One Show?

I did, of course, know about The One Show. I know it as that thing where Jason Manford lost his job due to, in the delicate words of Frankie Boyle, having a wank in a hotel room. When Tom Allen asked that question, my mother even leaned over to me to whisper that she knew what The One Show was, because she’d watched a lot of WILTY and they’d had Alex Jones on (not – you know, not that Alex Jones, the Welsh one). My mom isn’t nearly as steeped in British television as I am, but even she had picked up on some of that. If you watch enough panel shows, you’re going to pick an understanding of British cultural references and TV personalities even outside of comedy. I know about lots of those. I certainly know about The One Show.

I do not, however, know who a single person on NYT 2024 is. That doesn’t mean they’ll be bad. Lots of people I’ve never heard of are very good at many things. I’m just saying, apparently I don’t know as much as I’d thought about people on British TV.

#con(versation)#british television

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