From the anarchic to the educational, British children once enjoyed a golden age of children’s television. On CBBC and CITV, there was no shortage of thrilling gameshows, mischievous puppets, imaginative storylines – and, of course, gunge.
But over the past decade, kids’ TV has been in steady decline – spending by public broadcasters on original children’s programmes has fallen by 30% since 2013. Last year, the BBC announced that it would make its main children’s channel, CBBC, online only. And last Friday, ITV’s service, CITV, was shuttered and content moved to the ITVX streaming service. To get some perspective on the demise of kids’ programming, we asked the people behind some of the biggest and silliest kids’ TV shows what they think of children’s TV today.
Dominic Wood and Richard McCourt
“It was such a glorious era when Saturday mornings were CBBC v CITV,” says Dom, who used to star with Dick (Richard McCourt) in Dick n Dom in Da Bungalow – an utterly ridiculous, slime-filled gameshow on CBBC. “[Kids] would go to school and everyone was talking about it from the weekend.”
CITV’s closure marks the end of an era. “There’s nothing we can do – technologies move forward,” says Wood. McCourt agrees. “Sadly, kids now don’t watch television,” he says. “That’s the truth. These days they take their content from their phones or iPads.”
Dick and Dom’s anarchic comedy was, in many ways, ahead of its time. “A lot of people say to us: ‘You were kind of the original YouTubers,” says McCourt. “Short videos of comedy and pranks – that’s the stuff we were doing back in 2002. It is strange that the kind of stuff we did then is the stuff kids love now.”
Wood wonders if the world may need that sort of children’s TV more than ever. “Everything’s got quite heavy and serious,” says Wood. “All everyone needs is a bit of stupidness.” He recalls one example, in which McCourt pretended to give birth to tens of babies covered in custard. “It was silly, and it was fun. That whole era, that way of watching TV, that family time is gone,” he says. “But we’ve got to move forward.”
Dave Benson Phillips
Despite all the changes, Dave Benson Phillips thinks that a good programme stands the test of time. This includes the gameshow he presented, Get Your Own Back (GYOB), which allowed children to get revenge on adults by ejecting them into a tank of gunge – which, as Benson Phillips remembers it, smelled distinctly of sour milk.
“The adults who watched GYOB as children are now showing it to their children, and these kids can’t believe what they’re seeing,” he says. “They are absolutely enamoured with it. It was so innocent, so anarchic, so fun.”
Were the show to be recommissioned today – Benson Phillips lives in hope and all the equipment (including the gunge tanks) are stored in his house ready to go – he thinks only minimal tweaks would be needed for today’s audience. “I mean, it’s perfect.” He is less sure whether gunge could become the staple of children’s shows that it once was. “It just got done to death,” he says. “It wasn’t special any more. It’s a shame – it used to be a great thing to do.”
Benson Phillips would “love” to bring back GYOB but doesn’t dwell too much on the past. “I don’t know what children will be watching in the future. They’ll probably develop holograms … it will all be very Star Wars,” he says. “Television has to evolve with the times.”
Hugo Myatt
“I just think it’s so sad,” says Hugo Myatt, reflecting on the demise of children’s TV. “There’s nothing really challenging or enlightening for [kids] – there’s nothing they can achieve. With tiny toddlers, that’s fine, but when they get older, they want a bit of a challenge.”
Throughout its run from 1987 to 1994 on CITV, Myatt played the dungeon master Treguard in Knightmare – an adventure gameshow that was famously difficult (there were only eight winning teams in eight series). The format saw four children attempt to complete a medieval-themed quest, usually involving riddles, that left teenagers befuddled and, often, terrified.
“The riddles were very challenging,” recalls Myatt. “Mostly, I knew the answers, but every now and then, I was thinking: ‘Oh God, what happens if they ask me?’”
It’s not the sort of show Myatt can see working today. The programme’s computer-generated fantasy seemed groundbreaking then, but he doesn’t think a series involving such technically demanding visuals would appeal to today’s TV executives. “It was quite an expensive show to do,” he says.
In Myatt’s view, part of what made it so successful was that the contestants didn’t take part for a prize or fame, but because they were excited by the challenge. “Nobody became a star through Knightmare,” says Myatt. “One of the problems for me, today, is that everyone wants to be in showbusiness.”
Ronnie Le Drew
The voice of the rascally puppet Zippy in the CITV television series Rainbow isn’t happy about the channel’s closure, but he understands. “It’s really sad CITV is going to just be another streaming thing,” says Ronnie Le Drew. “I can only talk about my grandchildren, but they go on their iPads – and they love playing games.”
He does think Zippy would appeal to children in the same way today. “Because of his naughtiness,” he says. “He was a showoff – but he did get his comeuppance.” Specifically, Le Drew is talking about moments in which the zip across Zippy’s mouth would be fastened. “Lots of people waited for that and if he wasn’t on the programme, they would write in and ask: ‘Why wasn’t he zipped up?’”
Le Drew is optimistic about the future of puppetry, once a staple of children’s television. “After Rainbow finished, I thought: ‘I’m not going to be doing puppets any more in television and film, because everyones loves all this CGI and computer graphics,’” he says. But since Covid-19 halted all his TV and film work, Le Drew has noticed more interest in puppets from directors. “They’re saying they like the idea that there’s a person underneath the character, rather than a cartoon or computer-generated figure, because they’ve got soul.”
Tweenies
“I think there is a gap for just pure entertainment and joy,” says Sally Preisig, a puppeteer who originally voiced Bella in The Tweenies. The BBC show, which followed four garish live-action puppets of preschool children (including Bella), ran from 1999 to 2002.
“What we lack today is live, 3D – so not a cartoon,” says Preisig, who helped to design Tweenies as well as working on projects including The Muppet Christmas Carol. “Puppets are really good. Just look at The Muppets. There’s a frog talking to a bear; it was just fantastic. It’s exactly what makes the world go round and makes us adults go, ‘Yeah, brilliant’.”
Tweenies may have looked like light entertainment, but each episode was a labour of love. “We never took our work half-heartedly,” says Preisig. “The scripts never went out unless they were absolutely perfect.” Part of what made Tweenies so inspiring to children were the “carefully written” storylines. “Some were nature-driven, some were to do with morals, or art. It wasn’t just kids messing about,” says Preisig. “It was all about friendship.”
Preisig is still contacted by older fans “all the time” who miss the show. “They can quote the scripts, they love it,” she says. She thinks more children’s programmes like Tweenies are much-needed. “It’s good to get kids away from the TV, but there are also those times that you need them to be entertained,” she says. “Good telly is so valuable. It’s educating through entertainment.”
The Krankies
When the Krankies – the Scottish husband-and-wife-comedy duo Janette and Ian Tough – performed to a live audience of children, “you could hear a pin drop,” says Ian. He is not sure whether children watching in the studio today would be as transfixed. “They wouldn’t be able to put their phones down,” he says. The same goes for children at home. “Kids don’t sit around watching telly any more. They get all their news from TikTok. It’s scary.”
The Krankies first performed their act, in which naughty schoolboy Wee Jimmy ( Janette) torments his guardian (Ian), to adults in bingo halls and nightclubs. They had never envisioned it as an act for children until after they appeared on The Royal Variety Show in 1978 and were asked to present Crackerjack! – the BBC children’s entertainment show. “We toned down the jokes a bit,” recalls Ian, “but not a lot.”
Wee Jimmy didn’t patronise children and Ian feels kids miss a character like that. “We created a kid who talked back to adults – and they adored it.” He recalls that some children believed Jimmy was a real boy and were heartbroken after discovering he was played by Jeanette. “They believed he was one of them.”
Ian thinks comedy has become too serious – especially for children – saying: “It used to be plain funny.” He also laments the idea that families don’t watch television in the same way today. He has recently re-watched clips of Seaside Special, an entertainment show filmed at a circus big top in 1975 in which the Krankies performed. “That was an absolutely excellent show for the whole family to sit and watch – with acrobats and dancers,” he says. “Janette and I thought: ‘Why has it all gone out of the window?’”
