UK posters only: Parents and ITV

I *loved* Swap Shop.

Haven't we had a thread about this, or it's at least cropped up before? I tried to look but search can't cope.

taking sides: sides

We weren't allowed to watch The Six Million Dollar Man until I was really really old, and I think that was more because it was seen as being trashy than through any fear that we'd try and jump off buildings etc.

My parents used to deplore Home and Away / Neighbours but they never stopped us from watching them

(Current Neighbours=dud, current Home and Away=classic)

ITV was great because it had ADVERTS! except for "midlands parade" where the ads were just rubbishy still pictures of furniture warehouses in darley dale and meesham, or bilston staffs

i can remember when it was "part" (as my wee sister always called it and still does), we wd wait w.bated breath to see if we got "proper" (ie moving) ads, or "midlands parade" (at which a tremendous cry of small-s anguish went up)

later on i wz very sniffy abt magpie cz of the guy w.curly hair and tight trousers — i distrusted the cut of his jib

Magpie geezer mark refers to was Mick Robertson.

I just got hold of the fantastic theme tune (and the Magpie theme) on the 'Magpie' compilation: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008RH9T/ref=sr_aps_music_1_1/202-6628933-1949462

Ha - I didn't realize that the Magpie theme was by the Spencer Davis group!

"ah phew! it's joy! no! it's a boy! no, a girl!! well cool, whatever it means in any context relating to my life...."

This was when we HAD a telly; we got rid of it for years.

Ouch, I know a few people who had this happen to them. Getting your TV wrong can be as bad as having a comedy birthname. I had the same thing with toast.

I changed my e mail address and redid my ILX prefs and the name Momus was taken (by me). If someone moderator wants to wave a wand and turn me back into Momus, that's fine by me.

Well, he no longer wants anything to do with Demon (or vice versa?), so the old address had to be junked, though this doesn't explain the change of name on ILX admittedly, hm.

Alfie, your 'please sir, which side of this double-sided toast should I butter?' story is very cute.

BBC always seemed better because it went on for longer, but that 'longer' always seemed to include Newround and Blue Peter, which of course were the most unfashionable things to admit to watching.

(Hello etc.)

I really quite dislike ITV in general. Except Coronation Street and the Bill, and even they are crap these days.

Not exactly. According to this site - http://www.aceofwands.freeserve.co.uk/ace.htm - all episodes from the third and final series still exist, and a DVD might be released at the end of this year from the same people who brought out that recent "Goodies" DVD.

I remember flicking back and forth during cup final coverage to try to pin down what was different. My impression actually was that it was greener on the BBC and somehow more 'wholesome'.

Which are currently most annoying? The red-and-white themed BBC1 promo
clips that precede a lot of programmes (people in wheelchairs dancing etc. etc.) OR the ITV ones which feature various of their contracted personalities gazing out smugly as the camera tracks across. For me the BBC ones are marginally worse.

Ditto. I always thought they were odd, and as a kid it pissed me off no end. Now, I do the same and kind of see their point. (Oddly enough, theough very pro-BBC, I don't think they really cared about ITV. TV in general was vaguely discouraged, but not to the point of actually stopping me or my sister numbing our brains in front of CITV for an hour each day. EastEnders was a strict no-no until my dad got hooked himself.)

My son (aged 2) loves the BBC ones. Every time they come on he has to get up and dance along with them. Guaranteed entertainment in our house.

Also my mum has been addicted to Coronation Street since time began.

Bit of family history - we obtained our first TV in 1974 when my nan came to live with us. She hadn't had a TV In her old house, but used to visit a friend down the road at the same time each week and watch hers. As a consequence, the only TV programmes she ever watched were Upstairs Downstairs and Sale of the Century, as these were on when she visited her friend.

Odd that I should be posting all this when both the guy who played Zammo McGuire *and* Nicholas Parsons were both on Never Mind the Buzzcocks this week.

by the time I was growing up things had got more complicated (the ITV ban thing was a result of the idea that the BBC was a Tory broadcaster, and that largely broke down in the mid-80s; not even Checkland and Hussey could reverse that, let alone Birt, and Dyke has merely completed the process) and we switched channels fairly easily; dad was a natural ITV viewer (hence he now watches Sky Sports and attheraces), mum a natural BBC2 viewer (hence she now watches BBC4 and UK History). I mainly watched the broom cupboard on BBC1, though. my favourite Children's ITV programme in the late 80s was a repeat from the early 70s, which might say something (it wasn't Ace of Wands, though, for which see http://offthetelly.users.btopenworld.com/aceofwands.htm ).

the greatest irony of all this is that ITV *then* had far more of a public service ethos amid the adverts than any of the snobs gave it credit for (in the mid-80s Coronation Street, Crossroads and Emmerdale Farm, as it was, had a mere seven episodes between them every week; now there are *nine* episodes of Corrie and Emmerdale alone). ITV *now* is in fact what the more self-consciously middle-class parents quite wrongly believed it was back then; a downmarket, trashy pile of shit. the snobs were wrong about the old ITV, but if it had been the same as ITV is now, they'd have been right.

the not receiving BBC2 thang that Robin mentions brings back memories! The tv which we were given in 1974 so my nan could watch her unlikely two favourite programmes was a cast off from a school friend of my mother's. It was b&w of course...my parents didn't move to colour until 1982, and incredibly didn't get a video until 1990! There were VHF and UHF dials and different aerials for different channels. I can't remember the exact details, but one aerial was the classid hey-kids-lets-draw-a-TV-aerial type, i.e. a round base with two extendable, twiddle-able straight aerials coming out of it, which stood atop the V - this was definitely for picking up BBC1 and is still used by my parents as a radio aerial on their hi-fi. The other also had a round plastic base, but had two diamond shaped bits on top and theoretically was used to pick up BBC2. I say theoretically - BBC2 was always viewed through a snowstorm when it was viewed at all and my father had to walk round the living room with the aerial to find the best reception spot. My favourite programme on BBC2 was Play Away - when recption was poor, I was distraught at the prospect of not being able to watch Floella Benjamin, Brian Cant et al.

My dad was always a strict BBC man however so I got a good grounding in some of the best dramas of the period (Secret Army, Tenko, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). I do remember him taping (and heavily censoring as it turns out) I Claudius for me when it was repeated in the mid-80's.

My grandparents however were defiantly populist ITV people - Mr. and Mrs., Crossroads, Play Your Cards Right and my grandma was a very undiscerning viewer of the Australian soaps. She used to love Prisoner: Cell Block H.

it was made by Filmation I believe...which also brought us the Tarzan cartoon - Janeless, monkey instead of chimp wtf????

Ho hum.......

the Tarzan cartoon - Janeless, monkey instead of chimp wtf????

since I posted this I have discovered that the monkey called N'Kima is from the Edgar Rice Burroughs original and so this cartoon was truer to the books than the much more celebrated RKO films!