As discussed previously, Tim is a former TV producer. Best known for co-creating and producing Art Attack alongside his business partner Neil Buchanan. They both ran the TV production company The Media Merchants in the 1990s and 2000s.
In the first part of the interview we discussed his early career working as a researcher for Runaround, HOW and No.73. As well as a lengthy discussion about Art Attack.
In this second half of the interview, we discuss the other shows The Media Merchants made such as Zzzap!, It's a Mystery, Terror Towers, WOW and Telegantic Megavision. As well as the end of Art Attack and subsequently The Media Merchants.
I feel really lucky to have got this one as Tim hasn't done many interviews as far as I know. He is responsible for creating and working on so many iconic 90s shows that I remember well.
Tim's TV career started out in the 1970s as a researcher for Southern Television (the then ITV franchise holder for the South East of England). Working on shows such as The Saturday Banana, Runaround and HOW.
In 1982, Southern Television was taken over by TVS (Television South), Tim was a producer for TVS on the likes of Do It, On Safari and No.73. It was whilst working on No.73 where he met Neil Buchanan which would lead to a professional partnership which would fuel much of his TV career.
In the late 1980s, under the collective name of The Media Merchants. Neil and Tim created a children's art show called Art Attack. A pilot was filmed in 1989 and the show was green lit with the first edition airing in June 1990. Art Attack would go on to run for 17 years.
In 1993, history repeated itself when TVS lost it's ITV franchise and was taken over by Meridian. By this point Tim and Neil had set up The Media Merchants as a company to continue making Art Attack. Over the next 15 years they produced the likes of Zzzap!, It's a Mystery, Animal Crazy, Terror Towers, WOW and many more.
In this first part of the interview we chat about Tim's early career with Southern Television and TVS and Art Attack. Part two will be out on January 5th.
I was really glad to get Richard on the podcast, he is someone I'd wanted to interview ever since I started this project. In April 2024 a one off event was held in Nottingham called 'Sooty This Is Your Life' which was a look back at Sooty's career, with some interviews and behind the scenes bits that was intended for older fans. Afterwards there was a meet and greet where I met Richard where I was able to ask and here we are!
Richard has always been a magician, starting at a young age. In 1985 he won Young Magician of the Year and part of the prize was to appear on The Sooty Show. Little did he know that in 13 years time, his life would change forever based on that one off appearance. In-between this he also ran funfairs and amusement arcades with his brother.
In the 1990s, Matthew Corbett the then current owner of Sooty decided to retire. He sold the rights to the format and a new presenter was needed. They needed someone who had an understanding of magic and a performance background and one of the names suggested was Richard Cadell.
After many months of auditions and being on a list with several other names, Richard was picked and the rest is history! Richard was selected along with Liana Bridges to front the show and they first appeared on the final series of Sooty & Co. The first series without Matthew was Sooty Heightswhere Richard, Liana, Sooty, Sweep, Soo and Scampi ran a hotel, it aired for two series.
In 2001 the show was revamped, the title was reverted to just Sooty and was still set in a hotel (albeit a very different looking one to the one previously). Richard Cadell remained but Liana was dropped from the show and Vicki Lee Taylor became the co-host. This was a bit of a rocky time for the show as by this point the format had been sold to another company that deals with children's television formats and a lot of changes were made which didn't go down well with fans. Richard had no control over the format at this point, he was incorrectly blamed for the route the show went by viewers. In 2004 ITV axed Sooty and Richard went back to running his theme park.
In 2008, the rights to Sooty had been put up for sale and Richard decided he had to put things right and bought the rights meaning he had full creative control of the format. He worked incredibly hard with the old Sooty crew to get the show back on TV. After producing a pilot in 2009 called The Big Day Out, Richard was able to convince ITV to have the show back and in 2011, Sootyreturned to our screens and has become a hit all over again with a new generation of fans.
This is a real treat of an interview, Richard talks about his early career, how he got the job of Sooty, the rocky period in the early 00s and how he brought the show back. There's some great anecdotes!
Once again I have been spending my summer chatting with people about their memories of working in children's television in the UK. I wasn't sure if I was going to be doing another series but a few opportunities came up which I couldn't refuse, so here we go! This time around though it is a much shorter series of interviews, however it's still a great bunch. To start off in this edition I am chatting with actor and voice artist Brenda Longman.
Brenda Longman is best known as being the voice of Soo the panda, Sooty's girlfriend. Brenda has been part of the Sooty team since 1981, taking over the role from the original voice of Soo, Marjorie Corbett. Not only has Brenda been the voice of Soo but she has also appeared on screen as Mo From T'Market in Sooty and Co and Dotty in Sooty Heights. As well as appearing as several extras and bit part characters throughout The Sooty Show.
Brenda started out in classical singing and has a long career in acting on stage alongside her role as Soo. We talk about all of this and many Sooty topics including how she became the voice of Soo, the story of Soo winning The Weakest Link and that infamous episode of Sooty and Cowhich caused a bit of a stir at the time. Enjoy listening/watching, it's a great episode with some wonderful anecdotes from one of the UK's most iconic kids TV shows.
Robin has appeared on the podcast before chatting about Rosie and Jim with his co-stars Rebecca Nagan and Neil Brewer but I wanted to chat with him about his wider CV of work.
Robin trained in puppetry at The Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre in Birmingham. His best known work is with Ragdoll Productions working as a puppeteer on Pob's Programme(as Pob), Rosie and Jim(as Jim), and Tots TV(as Tom). He also appeared in character on Boobah(as Grandpapa) and Blips(as Mr.Perfect).
After working with Ragdoll for nearly 25 years Robin stepped down and has since moved to North Carolina and works for Noble Cider.
Liam presented the in-vision continuity links on CBBC which broadcast from Studio 9 of BBC Television Centre between 2000-2001. Before moving to GMTV kids and hosting the weekend shows Diggit and later Diggin' Itfor a few years. Before moving to Studio Disney as part of The Disney Channel.
Liam in his CBBC days along with Michael Underwood, Angelica Bell and Adrian Dickson.
These days Liam is performing standing up comedy and panto every Christmas.
Enjoy this chat, some great memories are shared of those golden days of live kids TV before and after school, performing to large crowds at live events and the many pop stars of the day that appeared regularly on children's TV.
In this edition of the podcast I am chatting with Lee Pressman who talks about his career writing for children's television. This is the first time I have interviewed someone who has entirely written for kids TV rather than appear on it.
In this chat we discuss Lee's career beginnings in the early 1980's, writing for shows such as Play Away and Rainbow. In the mid 80's he formed a writing partnership with Grant Cathro, where they created a number of shows for the next 15 years such as T-Bag, Spatz, Mike and Angelo, Cone Zoneand Polterguests. All of these shows are discussed including how they came about and why Mike and Angelo survived the loss of Thames Television but T-Bag and Spatz did not.
We also talk about Lee's writing work since the 2000's which has included Shaun the Sheep, Thomas and Friends and Fireman Sam.
Enjoy this interview, some really interesting anecdotes are shared!
Also a big thanks to VideotapeFTW on Youtube who made this interview possible.
Marc's CV is extraordinary, with thousands of adverts, cartoons, TV announcements, video games and films under his belt. Marc's voice is one I heard a lot during my childhood, as during the late 90's/early 00's his voice was frequently heard on Cartoon Network, CITV and adverts for Tomy Toys. It wasn't until 2015 I would learn who the man behind the voice was...
Back then I was involved in Big Centre TV, the then local TV station for Birmingham and The Black Country on Freeview Channel 8, which unfortunately only lasted 18 months. I attended the launch of the channel and one of the people speaking was Marc and as soon as I heard his voice I instantly recognised it.
Fast forward to Christmas 2022 and I attended a comic con in Telford which Marc was appearing at and we got chatting and I asked if he would like to be on my podcast and he agreed and this is the result. Over the course of just over an hour we discuss Marc's career beginnings in radio and CITV which lead to job offers from The Disney Channel and Cartoon Network because of his ability to create a range of voices and mimic famous cartoon characters. Which has led to him being the UK based voice artist for Scooby Doo and Shaggy and Johnny Bravo.
We discuss his voice work on the likes of Fifi and The Flowertots, Bob the Builder in the US and Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
Also this is the first one I'm uploading with the video included as well as the audio in the youtube version. I did this with most of the interviewees this series. Just testing the waters really, I have always been more an audio guy but I thought I'd give it a go.
After a break, I'm back with a new bunch of interviews and to start off I'm talking to someone who has worked more behind the camera than in front of it.
I have been in touch with Nic since the early 2010's as Nic worked on some of my favourite shows from my childhoodand he has always been happy to answer my questions, tell me great anecdotes and has helped with some of my research for this project for which I am very grateful.
In this chat Nic talks about how his love for No.73 (an 80's Saturday morning show) lead to him a few years later working in television at The Maidstone Studios in Kent. This lead to working for The Media Merchants, working on shows such as Zzzap!, Art AttackandIt's a Mystery. Doing everything from making art work to appearing an an extra. As well as when he briefly did some presenting on Quid's Infor Channel 4 and Slop's Diner on Telegantic Megavision for CITV.
Nic with Francis Wright, working on 'The Head' segments for Art Attack in 2004.
Since The Media Merchants closed in 2007, Nic worked on other kids art shows Finger Tipsand Mister Maker for The Foundation production company.
Since 2016, Nic works for Terrific Televisiona production company set up by himself and business partner Driana Jones (who also worked on all the same shows I've just mentioned) which is based at The Media Merchants former home of The Maidstone Studios. Terrific TV has produced My World Kitchen and Nick Cope's Popcastfor Cbeebies, The Makeryfor Sky Kids and the third version of HOWfor CITV.
I don't really write on here much these days as most of my traffic and interactions come from Twitter and Facebook but in true old school style, I thought I'd write a blog post.
2022 saw no regular podcast series in the Autumn as has been the case for the last few years. This was due to two reasons, firstly my mental health had taken a bit of a bad turn and I just didn't want to overload myself with projects and work. Secondly I actually found it very difficult to get anyone on board to take part. With lockdowns somewhat over, everyone is playing catchup and is busy I guess!
So what does 2023 bring, well the first week of January was certainly a busy one with a lot of anniversary's. Firstly we had CITV's 40th anniversary, fans of CITV will remember that in 2003 and 2013 that there were big celebrations on TV to mark the 20th and 30th. However, disappointingly (but not surprisingly) there was nothing this time around. So it was up to the nostalgia anoraks to do something, I was really busy with another project so just quickly chucked together a compilation of idents. However HalfbrickVHS did a week of clips from his VHS collection, so do check out that.
Tots TV hit 30 years on January 4th and I had nothing really planned for it, I was just going to do a post on my social media feeds with some photos. I am still in touch with Robin Stevens (who played Tom) after our Rosie and Jim chat a while ago. We managed to organise a video call and this is what was created...
The big anniversary for me was the 30th of Zzzap! I had spent a month or so working on it nearly everyday and wanted to cram as much material as I could. The end product was this 25 minute documentary which I am incredibly chuffed has been well received by fans and production crew. Even if it does feature a cameo from me doing some terrible Zzzap! style acting!
The future of the podcast is still a bit uncertain. I have a few irons in fires currently about potential interviewees. I am finding that my wish list is getting shorter and everyones way more busy than 2 years ago. So it may be a case that interviews are more sporadic instead of a series. I'm going to see what I can get recorded in the next 2-3 months and go from there.
I recently announced via my social channels that I'll be taking a bit of a break and a full podcast series won't happen this autumn/winter like it normally does but I hope to start up again in 2023. However, I had recorded one interview in March of this year and I didn't want to save it for a whole year. It's too good not to let out! So here is a one off special interview with Steve Ryde.
In the chat we talk about Steve's time with the Central Television Junior Workshop where he appeared in Your Mother Wouldn't Like Itand Palace Hillbetween 1985 and 1991.
Between 1993 and 1998, Steve voiced the out-vision continuity pres links for CITV live for 5 days a week, nearly every week. Sometimes he'd appear in the promos too, donning many daft outfits. He'd take a few weeks off to film Wizadora where he played Tatty Bogle the scarecrow, taking over the role from Joe Greco.
Steve as Tatty Bogle with Wendy Van Der Plank as Wizadora.
In May 1998, CITV underwent a big relaunch and returned to in-vision pres continuity. Steve was chosen to be the producer and was responsible for choosing Stephen Mulhern and Danielle Nicholls to be the new faces of CITV.
In the early 2000's, Steve moved to CBBC where he devised Dick and Dom in da Bungalow and leant his vocal talents to commentating every single games of Bogies.
Dave Chapman is an actor, puppeteer and voice artist who has an incredibly long CV. The main highlights we go over in this chat is Dave's beginnings in puppetry with the Jim Henson Company in the 1990's and then perhaps Dave's best known puppetry work which is Otis the Aardvark on CBBC which he did for five years.
Chris has been a part of kids TV in the UK for 30 years. Starting in the early 90's as a continuity presenter on Children's BBC, presenting links from the broom cupboard. After a few years he appeared on the likes of The Friday Zone, Fully Bookedand Playdays.
During the early part of the 2000's Chris appeared on CITV as the second host of the adventure gameshow Jungle Run which he presented for two series. As well as voicing Amber and Scarlett plus Hot Rodney on the animated show Dream Street.
Around the same time he also appeared as both Sad Man and Bad Man in the Channel 4 learning series Maths Mansion.
Since it's inception in 2002, Chris has been a regular face on Cbeebies. Starting off a continuity presenter and then creating and presenting the hugely successful Show Me, Show Meand writing Old Jack's Boatwhich starred Bernard Cribbins.
In this interview I chat with Rebecca Nagan and Robin Stevens who puppeteered Rosie and Jim and also Neil Brewer who presented the show between Series 5 and 8.
I originally interviewed Rebecca in 2019 about her career in puppetry and after this chat asked if it would be possible to speak with Robin. We were put in touch with each other and an interview was agreed but for a while we couldn't find a mutual free time to do it as Robin now lives in America and also runs a cider business. Also Covid-19 happened soon after which delayed it further.
Fast forward to 2021 and I decide to try and ask again, Robin had the great idea of having everyone take part. He was in touch with Neil as well, so a group chat was created and this very interview was organised.
Originally I was intending for this one to have a visual element as well as the normal audio podcast as we all spoke with our webcams turned on and I did record the video and audio. Unfortunately afterwards I discovered the video side hadn't recorded properly and lagged really bad. Fortunately the audio recorded absolutely fine so this is presented as a normal podcast.
In this interview we discuss how each person became involved with the show. Favourite memories and episodes and memories are also shared of the two presenters prior to Neil. John Cunliffe and Pat Hutchins who are both sadly no longer with us.
This months podcast is one I was so proud to get as it's a chat with someone who was a big part of my childhood, it's a chat with CITV's Danielle Nicholls!
Danielle's first showbiz break actually wasn't in kids TV but in music as she was a member of the short lived pop group Pure Gossip. Danielle didn't particularly enjoy her time there so after leaving the group, Danielle spotted an advert looking for new presenters for CITV and the rest is history!
Danielle alongside Stephen, 1998.
Danielle presented the in-vision continuity links on CITV alongside Stephen Mulhern (and later Andrea Green and Tom Darvill) between 1998 and 2001. Which back then came live from Birmingham every week.
Presenter group shot from 2000. Danielle and Stephen alongside Andrea Green and Tom Darvill.
During this time she was also one of the presenters on the second series of Mad For Itand also made a guest appearance on Sooty Heights.
Sooty Heights, 2000.
Over on Channel 5 she co-hosted the karaoke show Night Fever alongside Madness frontman Suggs.
The Night Fever crew.
These days she can be found on Twitch with her sister Jodie, streaming and gaming regularly under the name Biignoobs. Additionally she has recently began stand up comedy.
A big thank you to Danielle for taking time out of her day with her children during the school holidays to chat with me, some great anecdotes and memories are shared of those brilliant live days of CITV. Enjoy!
One thing I am fascintated by is looking back on or talking about TV shows which aired on the likes of CITV, CBBC, Milkshake etc etc. Which for whatever reason don't seem to be as well remembered as the likes of Art Attack, Chucklevision, Fun House and stuff like that. This may be for various reasons such as not running for very long, having little to no reruns or no home video releases.
I have decided to start a video series on this topic. Here's part 1 and part 2 is definitely in production. I'm not sure how many I'll do, I'm thinking about 5 or 6. They'll be occasional, every month or two I'm looking at.
Here's part 1, featuring the likes of Snug & Cozi, Against All Odds and Out of Sight. Enjoy!
Nigel was lucky enough to start his career while he was still at school. Presenting for the UK version of Nickelodeon in the mid 90's where he stayed for the next two years.
Nigel in his Nickelodeon days.
In 1997, he made his first appearance on CITV on the magazine show Sticky which was an attempt to rival Blue Peter over on CBBC. A trial run was aired for eight weeks before never returning. However this wasn't to be Nigel's only foray on terrestrial kids TV...
In the meantime Nigel started presenting for the UK version of The Disney Channel. Something he continued to do for eight years. Starting in 1997 and leaving in 2005. A long side this he was able to take part in his original love of radio, presenting on Capital Disney for a number of years.
His other ventures on CITV included being part of the presenting team for the second series of Mad For Itin the year 2000. The following year he presented the game show Twister which was an attempt to refresh the Fun House format, however it would only run for a single series.
Since his days in kids TV, Nigel has presented for the Sky channel Film 24 and also presented The Hub on ITV's This Morning. To this day, for a number of years Nigel has been the pitch side reporter for Arsenal FC.
I was really chuffed to get this interview as Mike is someone I remember seeing during my days of watching Kids TV, especially on CITV.
However, Mike's Kids TV career actually started on the then new UK version of Nickelodeon in the mid 90's, which he stayed with for four years. Presenting numerous live shows and continuity links and also The Red Lobster stage tours.
Mike in his Nickelodeon days.
In 1997, he jumped to ITV to host the gameshow It's Not Fairwhich was part of the Saturday morning show Scratchy & Co. Which was a fairground based gameshow with crazy assault courses and lots of gunge.
In 1998 Mike created the live entertainment show Mad For Itfor CITV which is what I best know Mike for. It was a thirty minute show filled with games, competitions, pop acts... oh and of course, more gunge! It ran for two series and 39 episodes before being (in my opinion unfairly) axed when it was hitting it's stride.
Yiolanda and Mike - Definitely Mad For It!
My memory's of the show remained quite vivid, especially since I kept one episode on VHS tape for years. What's nice is a number of episodes have now popped up on youtube, some in rather nice quality! To this day I use the dance tune that became the Mad For It theme tune ("Harmonica Man" by Bravado if you're wondering) as the opening music to a radio show I host.
After that, Mike went on to present for Channel 4, for The Big Breakfast and The Richard and Judy Show. As well as making a cameo appearance in The Office. In more recent years he's appeared on Shameless and My Mad Fat Diary. He regularly does panto and stand up comedy and in 2018 released an autobiography called Oh, I Remember Him!
You can follow Mike on Twitter and you can find his website here.
It's back! Can you believe it? Not only that for a FOURTH series, I certainly would never have thought that my crazy little project would go on for this long.
To start off this new series, I am incredibly proud to present a chat with someone who I watched a lot during my kids TV watching years and is also someone I have been requested to interview A LOT over the last few years, first episode of the new series I am chatting with Michael Underwood.
In this mega 90 minute edition we discuss Michael's career in children's television at length but Michael had a pre-fame appearance on TV. He was one of the lucky six contestants who took part in the first Christmas special of The Crystal Maze in 1990. Naturally seeing as I am a big fan of that show we talk about that first.
We then chat about Michael's path to CBBC presenting through the Saturday night talent show Whatever You Wantwhere Michael won a six week contract to present the continuity links. In the end Michael ended up doing 3 years with CBBC and also presenting the make and do show The Make Shift.
Michael then jumped to CITV (which is explained in the chat) where he got the chance to present a wide range of really great shows such as Eliminator, The Big Bang, Ministry of Mayhem and of course the excellent Jungle Runwhich we discuss at length. Over 25 minutes of this chat is Jungle Run talk alone!
In 2010 Michael married fellow CBBC presenter Angelica Bell. These days Michael has decided to step down from TV presenting for the foreseeable future and is now a primary school teacher. He also hosts a radio show on Virgin Radio, you can follow him on Twitter.
Remember Wizadora? If you're a regular follower of this blog or the youtube channel then you probably do. It was a pre-school show aired on CITV in the 1990's featuring the title character, a trainee wizard and her group of peculiar looking friends who all lived at her cottage. Such as Hangle, The Draw People, Filbert and Tatty Bogle.
The show actually started in 1991, written by Carolyn Callum and Don Arioli and developed by Oxford University Press and was designed to help teach English. With Maria Gough in the title role (also there's rumours Connie Booth played the role in an unaired pilot, how true this is I don't know) Originally broadcast on SWR in Germany. To the best of my knowledge I don't think it was ever aired in the UK but if anyone knows different let me know!
The version we know better was aired on CITV and produced by Meridian Broadcasting who had picked up the format and gave it something of a complete design overhaul. Starting in 1993, Wendy Van Der Plank took the role of the trainee wizard for five series and Lizzie McPhee took over the role for the final two series of the show between 1997 and 1998.
This interview came about rather unexpectedly. I had always wanted to interview both the CITV Wizadora's but found finding a way to contact either rather difficult. Then one day I happened across this video on Youtube. Which features Lizzie talking about mental health as well as her day's on Wizadora so I got in contact with Sean who created the video, who put us in touch.
In this chat we discuss just about everything to do with the show. How Lizzie unexpectedly got the role and how it was the complete polar opposite to her previous acting work. Her memories of working on the show and working with the likes of Brian Murphy (Stan the shop keeper) and Steve Ryde (Tatty Bogle) as well as Hangle puppeteer Michael Bayliss.
With many thanks to Lizzie for taking part and if you want to read more about her time on the show. I recommend the book Legends of Kids TV which also features anecdotes from Lizzie.
Also, that's it for this series! Many thanks for listening, I'll be back later in the year with a new series.
