New video series - Kids TV shows you may have forgotten!

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!

Jack's Throwback Attack Podcast - S4 E3 - A Chat With Nigel Mitchell

 

It's podcast time once again and this time it's a chat with Nigel Mitchell!

 

Jack's Throwback Attack · S4 E3 - A Chat With Nigel Mitchell

You can also listen to the chat on Youtube, Soundcloud and Apple Podcasts. 

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 It in 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. 

You can follow him on Twitter. 

Jack's Throwback Attack Podcast - S4 E2 - A Chat With Mike McClean

It's podcast time again and this month it's a chat with Mike McClean!

 

Jack's Throwback Attack · S4 E2 - A Chat With Mike McClean

You can also listen to the chat on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 

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 Fair which 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 It for 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. 

Jack's Throwback Attack Podcast - S4 E1 - A Chat With Michael Underwood

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.

 

Jack's Throwback Attack · S4 E1 - A Chat With Michael Underwood

 You can also listen to the chat on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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 Want where 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 Run which 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. 

Jack's Throwback Attack Podcast - S3 E8 - A Chat With Lizzie McPhee

It's the final podcast of the series and to finish things off, here's some magic memories with Lizzie McPhee.   

Jack's Throwback Attack · S3 E8 - A Chat With Lizzie McPhee

You can also listen to the chat via Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 

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. 

Jack's Throwback Attack Podcast - S3 E7 - A Chat With Joe Grossi

It's podcast time once again and this time something a bit different as this podcast explores a BBC Kids TV show from the 1980's.

     

The chat can also be found on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

In this edition I chat with actor Joe Grossi. Way back in 1987 Joe played Hopkins, the butler for Lady Fox Custard (played by Carry On star Joan Sims) in the Children's BBC series Simon and The Witch. It was based around a series of books written by Margaret Stuart Barry and featured Simon (played by Hugh Pollard) and his best friend The Witch (played by Elizabeth Spriggs). The Witch would often create havoc with her magic spells. To the delight of the children that went to visit her and annoying teachers and authority figures. 

Hugh Pollard as Simon and Elizabeth Spriggs
as The Witch.

Out of the twenty five episodes made over the two series, Hopkins appeared in almost all of them and became a favourite character with fans of the show. Hopkins would always switch from speaking with received pronunciation around Lady Fox Custard to his original cockney accent when around the children. Often helping them out with their schemes and joining in with the mischief. Especially with Lady Fox Custard's nephew Cuthbert (Played by Ilan Ostrove) who Hopkins would always help sneak off to visit the Witch and distract her ladyship. 

Now if you're a regular listener you will know I normally only focus on UK Kids TV shows from the 90's and 00's as that's when I grew up. I don't normally cover 80's TV shows, however Simon and the Witch did have a repeat run on the now defunct satellite channel BBC Choice. I seem to recall it was the summer of 2000 I saw it and I instantly loved it, so much so I even bought a few of the books which I read over and over. 

VHS copies of the episodes made their way on to Youtube in the late 2000's which gave me the opportunity to watch them again and then fast forward to 2018 when I was originally started this project up and a new facebook group called Simon and the Witch Memory Board appeared, run by none other than Joe himself. So I dropped a message asking if Joe would be interested in answering a few questions about the show, this was back when this project was going to be more of a blog and the podcasts hadn't been thought of. Joe replied back and agreed to and... I forgot to reply back! Ooops!

Joe as Hopkins. This image
was used in the end credits
of the show. 

During the summer of 2020, due to lockdown I was a bit bored one day and one of the things I was doing was going through a bunch of VHS tapes that I'd been given to look for any interesting content to digitise before throwing them away. On one tape from 1993 in an advert break was an advert for Argos featuring Joe. Sporting a white suit with the Argos logo emblazoned all over it. I decided to recontact the group and asked Joe if he had a copy to which it turns out Joe had copies of all the adverts he'd been in... except that one! So I digitised it and forwarded him the clip and off the back of this we got talking again about doing an interview and I said would you be happy to do a podcast and well, here it is!

Joe in a 1993 advert for Argos

It's a wonderful discussion, I love Joe's story telling of his career and some wonderful anecdotes are shared about Simon and the Witch especially about working with Joan Sims and also Ilan Ostrove who unfortunately passed away in 1997 at the age of just 22. Joe also talks about what life is like being an actor and the various other cool things he's been in such as The Da Vinci Code and even starring alongside David Jason in a cigar advert!

Joe with Joan Sims who played
Lady Fox-Custard.

Oh and you no longer have to make do with ropey VHS copies of the show, as it was all released on DVD in 2018. 

Joe's website can be found here. 

Sit back and enjoy the chat!

Jack's Throwback Attack Podcast - S3 E6 - A Chat With Ronnie Le Drew

It's time for another podcast and it's a chat with someone you could subscribe as an absolute stalwart of puppetry. Someone who had a career spanning some fifty years and is showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. It's a chat with Ronnie Le Drew. 

   

Jack's Throwback Attack · S3 E6 - A Chat With Ronnie Le Drew

You can also listen to the chat via Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 

In this bumper ninety four minute edition of the podcast, Ronnie talks about his career in puppetry. Starting off with a love for puppets as a child and then fresh out of school joining the Little Angel Theatre in London which specialised in puppetry in the mid 1960's. 

Ronnie (Centre) outside the Little Angel Theatre
with John & Lyndie Wright, Christopher Leith,
Joyce Wren and Mary Kenny in 1964. 

From humble beginnings this lead to a varied career in TV and film. Ronnie's best known work is that of being the puppeteer for Zippy on Rainbow. Which Ronnie has been doing since 1973! Roy Skelton was the original voice of Zippy, however Ronnie has also provided the voice since the show was briefly revived twice in the mid 90's after the original Thames version finished in 1992and also during any sporadic appearances on other TV shows such as The Last Leg. 

Ronnie's work as Zippy spans nearly 50 years
as of 2021!

Aside from Rainbow, Ronnie has also had a long association with Sooty. Puppeteering Sweep for the most part as well as occasionally the other characters for a few years during the Matthew Corbett days in the 1970's and also alongside Richard Cadell both in the late 90's and also in 2018. 

Ronnie with a 1970's Sweep puppet which was
a gift from Matthew Corbett

Ronnie also puppeteered for other kids TV shows such as Mortimer and Arabel, Roger and the Rottentrolls and Jay's World. 

Moving on from TV, Ronnie has also done a lot of film work. Helping operate many characters on the likes of Labyrinth, Little Shop of Horrors and The Muppet's Christmas Carol. 

Ronnie now has an autobiography out called Zippy and Me which tells the story of his career and you can also follow him on Twitter. 

A great read! I recommend it