Bring Back Tiswas...
It's been a few years since I spent most of my day watching my children grow from young babies into toddlers and taking the first tentative steps into school. During that period, although I still worked, for a large part of the day I was a house-husband and spent a lot of my time trying to understand what children today see in the television programmes that educational psychologists have decided are best for them.
Take Tellytubbies. Four a-sexual, monitor-bellied conduits of video, who live together in a big house with a rampant vacuum cleaner and who's daily diet consists either of tubby toast (which is fine) or tubby-tustard (which has since become a euphemism for various bodily outpourings, enough to make Ben Dover blush). Now if that didn't emotionally scar your children, then todays offerings most certainly will.
Have you seen "In the Night Garden?" Honestly, Lewis Carroll, even in his most doped up days, would have looked at this and gone "Sorry man, I was wayyyy too stoned when I wrote this!" The Ninky Nonk on the Iggle Piggle Po with Wibbly Wobbly Woo and Wanky Spanky Flank Twat... Is it any wonder our children are entering nursery with the worst rates of literacy ever in the UK?
I think the reasoning behind this nonsense is that some 'educational psychologist', with a diploma in toddler linguistics and wallpapering from the University of Leighton Buzzard has noted that young children don't speak but make repetetive sounds (it's called echolalia if you want me to be technical) and they've thought "I know! To help them speak, we'll make programs that do the same!" Hence, Tinky Winky, Spanky Twanky, Nobby Jobby, Wucky Ducky and Ninky Nonk Goes Bonk with a Sponky Twonk Gonk...
Has it escaped their miniscule brains to consider the reason children perform this echoing of recognisable sounds is that they are actually trying to imitate REAL words? Like "Hello" "Mum" "Dad", "Cat", "Dog" and "Stop treating me like a vacuous imbecile and speak to me properly you cocking moron."
I long for the olden days, when kids TV shows were not primarily all about development but fun. Remember Tiswas? I know it was for older kids, but my god, what a program. The most educational thing about it was learning that Sally James bumps on her chest were rather nice and that Chris Tarrant was, and always will be, a complete berk. But it was compulsory viewing on a Saturday. Kids want custard pies and gunk, not phonetic prompting.
The Flumps was another, remember Pootle? The woollen capped, nasally challenged one who always got into mischief? Pootle had such a lasting impression on me and my wife, we named our first car after it. Can't do that nowadays. "Where's Ninky Nonk?" is likely to get you locked up when you say it too loud in the car park.
The Mr Men, with Arthur Lowe telling the story. Trumpton with Windy Miller, Camberwick Green, Rainbow, Bagpus, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Dangermouse (I maintain that role got David Jason the Delboy job), Crackerjack, The Muppet Show, Johnny Morris doing funny voices for animals in one of his various shows, Johnny Ball showing us how kids could be taught things and not just spoken to.
Of course there was some unutterable shite too. Does anyone remember that Vicky the Viking? Was that a boy or a girl? I never knew. Wattoo Wattoo? Some weird French bird thing that made about as much sense as a clue from 3-2-1. Button Moon. That was the cheapest show ever made, basically all the shit found in a disused props draw at an ITV studio, stick it in front of a camera and make up some crap story and the kids won't know any better. "Oh look, here's Miss unused sanitary towel! She's talking to Ben the broken drawing pin about why he's lost his prick..."
Best of all though, was Chorlton and the Wheelies...
For those of you that don't know. Chorlton and the Wheelies was about a dragon, called Chorlton who was brightly coloured, spotty and spoke like David Seaman. He lived in Wheelie town with these strange heads on wheels called the Wheelies (imaginative names wasn't the strong point of the writers, but we forgive them that for the genius of the rest of it).
The wheelies lived in fear of the witch called, Fenella who lived in a kettle called Spout Hall. Fenella was a miserable old bag who used to love spreading unhappiness amongst the population in her grating Welsh accent, something that the Welsh seem to enjoy doing to this very day. Fortunately, she was petrified of Chorlton, who she assumed was out to thwart her. Chorlton on the other hand, just wanted to be friends with Fenella and called her "Little old lady". Every show, she'd hatch a plan to make the Wheelies miserable and Chorlton would somehow thwart it, often accidentally. She'd head back to her kettle all frustrated and Welsh with a huge chip on her shoulder... again another Welsh trait that they captured fabulously accurately.
Can you imagine it nowadays? Chorlton would be "Chor Wor!" the Wheelies, "Wheely Beely", Fenella would be written out as being politically incorrect and replaced by a dyslexic, rusting ironing board called "Mouldy Foldy" and the most exciting thing that would happen would be Chor Wor taking his library books back. Not overdue of course, lest we damage the poor dears watching.
Things are so bad nowadays that I often yearn for the days when Noel Edmonds was running his Swap Shop and the most offensive thing Keith Chegwin had done was Cheggers Plays Pop, rather than get pissed a lot, divorce Maggie Philbin and whack his nob out on Naked Jungle.
Still, I find that less offensive than In the Night Garden or the Bloody Tellytubbies. And you can call me La La if you like.
Most of todays kids probably will.
Take Tellytubbies. Four a-sexual, monitor-bellied conduits of video, who live together in a big house with a rampant vacuum cleaner and who's daily diet consists either of tubby toast (which is fine) or tubby-tustard (which has since become a euphemism for various bodily outpourings, enough to make Ben Dover blush). Now if that didn't emotionally scar your children, then todays offerings most certainly will.
Have you seen "In the Night Garden?" Honestly, Lewis Carroll, even in his most doped up days, would have looked at this and gone "Sorry man, I was wayyyy too stoned when I wrote this!" The Ninky Nonk on the Iggle Piggle Po with Wibbly Wobbly Woo and Wanky Spanky Flank Twat... Is it any wonder our children are entering nursery with the worst rates of literacy ever in the UK?
I think the reasoning behind this nonsense is that some 'educational psychologist', with a diploma in toddler linguistics and wallpapering from the University of Leighton Buzzard has noted that young children don't speak but make repetetive sounds (it's called echolalia if you want me to be technical) and they've thought "I know! To help them speak, we'll make programs that do the same!" Hence, Tinky Winky, Spanky Twanky, Nobby Jobby, Wucky Ducky and Ninky Nonk Goes Bonk with a Sponky Twonk Gonk...
Has it escaped their miniscule brains to consider the reason children perform this echoing of recognisable sounds is that they are actually trying to imitate REAL words? Like "Hello" "Mum" "Dad", "Cat", "Dog" and "Stop treating me like a vacuous imbecile and speak to me properly you cocking moron."
I long for the olden days, when kids TV shows were not primarily all about development but fun. Remember Tiswas? I know it was for older kids, but my god, what a program. The most educational thing about it was learning that Sally James bumps on her chest were rather nice and that Chris Tarrant was, and always will be, a complete berk. But it was compulsory viewing on a Saturday. Kids want custard pies and gunk, not phonetic prompting.
The Flumps was another, remember Pootle? The woollen capped, nasally challenged one who always got into mischief? Pootle had such a lasting impression on me and my wife, we named our first car after it. Can't do that nowadays. "Where's Ninky Nonk?" is likely to get you locked up when you say it too loud in the car park.
The Mr Men, with Arthur Lowe telling the story. Trumpton with Windy Miller, Camberwick Green, Rainbow, Bagpus, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Dangermouse (I maintain that role got David Jason the Delboy job), Crackerjack, The Muppet Show, Johnny Morris doing funny voices for animals in one of his various shows, Johnny Ball showing us how kids could be taught things and not just spoken to.
Of course there was some unutterable shite too. Does anyone remember that Vicky the Viking? Was that a boy or a girl? I never knew. Wattoo Wattoo? Some weird French bird thing that made about as much sense as a clue from 3-2-1. Button Moon. That was the cheapest show ever made, basically all the shit found in a disused props draw at an ITV studio, stick it in front of a camera and make up some crap story and the kids won't know any better. "Oh look, here's Miss unused sanitary towel! She's talking to Ben the broken drawing pin about why he's lost his prick..."
Best of all though, was Chorlton and the Wheelies...
For those of you that don't know. Chorlton and the Wheelies was about a dragon, called Chorlton who was brightly coloured, spotty and spoke like David Seaman. He lived in Wheelie town with these strange heads on wheels called the Wheelies (imaginative names wasn't the strong point of the writers, but we forgive them that for the genius of the rest of it).
The wheelies lived in fear of the witch called, Fenella who lived in a kettle called Spout Hall. Fenella was a miserable old bag who used to love spreading unhappiness amongst the population in her grating Welsh accent, something that the Welsh seem to enjoy doing to this very day. Fortunately, she was petrified of Chorlton, who she assumed was out to thwart her. Chorlton on the other hand, just wanted to be friends with Fenella and called her "Little old lady". Every show, she'd hatch a plan to make the Wheelies miserable and Chorlton would somehow thwart it, often accidentally. She'd head back to her kettle all frustrated and Welsh with a huge chip on her shoulder... again another Welsh trait that they captured fabulously accurately.
Can you imagine it nowadays? Chorlton would be "Chor Wor!" the Wheelies, "Wheely Beely", Fenella would be written out as being politically incorrect and replaced by a dyslexic, rusting ironing board called "Mouldy Foldy" and the most exciting thing that would happen would be Chor Wor taking his library books back. Not overdue of course, lest we damage the poor dears watching.
Things are so bad nowadays that I often yearn for the days when Noel Edmonds was running his Swap Shop and the most offensive thing Keith Chegwin had done was Cheggers Plays Pop, rather than get pissed a lot, divorce Maggie Philbin and whack his nob out on Naked Jungle.
Still, I find that less offensive than In the Night Garden or the Bloody Tellytubbies. And you can call me La La if you like.
Most of todays kids probably will.
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