"Kids these days" "in my day" "back in the day" "when I was growing up we had..."
I became more and more aware of my dislike for new things and change. Which is quite weird as I like new things, especially gadgets. So I thought about comparing things between my childhood and my daughters (she is six.) I want to see if she has it better now or I had it better then. But more of a comparison than competition.
Now let's get a little understanding here. Firstly, I had a pretty good childhood. My parents loved me, I was well looked after and I had friends. More than some people can say. This isn't about "woe is me." Secondly, I understand there will be major differences, she is a girl and I am a boy. There will be different types of toys and programmes, but I don't see that as a problem, as I will try to take that into consideration. Thirdly, and most honestly, I will be biased towards my own fond memories. The rose tinted glasses will be in evidence, as many things may not stand up now. However I am writing it, so tough.
Children’s TV is available 24/7 now, there is just too much! It just doesn't feel special at all anymore. Constant streams of repeats. When I was at school it was much more limited, with a choice of C-ITV or CBBC between 3.10 and 5.30 on weekdays. With a Saturday morning show, and some cartoons on a Sunday morning.
Most of the younger children's programmes seem pretty similar to my era. Start Something is like Play Away. The cartoons seem to be a bit more educational, with aims of teaching friendship, team work and sharing. I don't remember things like that when I was younger, but I'm sure they must have been in there.
Moving to slightly older and CBBC/CITV. They would start with the younger programmes and getting older through the 2 hours. Short cartoons to begin, followed by a serial animated series (Mysterious Cities of Gold, Round the World with Willy Fog) on BBC. With Newsround at about 5, followed by Blue Peter or a children's drama like Grange Hill or Round theTwist. All hosted by a man with a puppet gopher in a broom cupboard, reading out birthday cards, generally being silly and posting out song sheets. ITV had basically the same premise. With usually Looney Tunes starting things off, followed by a range of cartoons, He-Man, Thundercats, Dangermouse, and ending with something like Press Gang, or even better, Knightmare! The basic premise behind Knightmare was genius, 3/4 contestants went in to a virtual reality world of the dungeon, progressing down to reach the prize. You could never see that now, and yet it was brilliant. Both channels had art shows too. I grew up with Hart Beat featuring Tony Hart and Morph, and on ITV they had the also fantastic Art Attack, which I am pleased to say Disney Junior has revived (although it's not the same without Neil Buchanan.)
Saturday mornings was the other mainstay of children's TV. From The Multi-ColouredSwap Shop, to Saturday Superstore, where kids from around the country would phone up to swap toys they no longer wanted, for something they did. Then followed by Going Live and Live and Kicking. On ITV you had, Tiswas, No.73, Get Fresh. The Wide Awake Club was also on in the gap between Breakfast television and the morning magazine show. They all featured a range of celebrities with interviews including live phone-ins, cooking features, fun games and cartoons. I was always a BBC man on Saturday mornings, but quite often turned over for the cartoons on ITV too.
Lastly, we have the holidays. This is where they put more programming on for kids, mainly during the mornings. I remember Wacaday being on on ITV. This was hosted by the "brilliant" Timmy Mallett and quite often featured Transformers as the cartoon, I don't remember any other one on there. It also featured a game called Mallett's Mallet, a version of a word association game, but involving getting hit on the head by a foam mallet. I don't recall any other programming on ITV during the holidays, mainly because I turned to BBC after that. With programmes like Junior Kickstart and Why Don't You. This was a magazine style program designed to give you ideas of what to do, and where to go out and about. Each week it would be hosted by a group of kids in a different part of the country. They would also show some of the BFI kids films, and there would be other movie which I was gripped by, Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, and where my love of Sherlock Holmes came from.
I think children nowadays miss out on a lot of great programming, because it is there 24hours per day, I feel the quality in a lot of it lacks. Having 20 episodes of Peppa Pig in a row, or access to Netflix and Amazon Prime, meaning they can series mash Go Diego Go and Dora the Explorer (with her bloody map and back pack) means that it feels less of a treat. Although I try to restrict my daughters viewing time, and encourage her to play games and with her toys, I find it hard as it is easy entertainment. Trying to encourage her to watch more movies and less constant repeats of the same shows we have seen 100 times.
I'm not saying it's all bad, at all, but I do think there has been an overall drop off in quality over quantity. Let me know in the comments what you think, what do you remember as your favourite programmes from your childhood, and leave links for YouTube videos of the themes for us to look at. My list is by no means exhaustive, and it would be great to see what others watched too.
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