What's top of the box? (From This Is Local London)

What's top of the box?

1:27pm Friday 17th November 2006

• Print
• Email
• Share

I READ at the weekend that the BBC is planning to relaunch its children's channels CBBC and CBeebies. Thank goodness for that.

I think children nowadays get a raw deal as far as bespoke televisual entertainment goes. Just a few minutes sat in front of the box watching the inane twaddle of today's children's TV presenters and the awful shows being served up is enough to make anyone yearn for a spell in the straitjacket and padded cell.

So I reckon the BBC's revamp - on my licence fee of course - is long overdue. One of the new series apparently being planned is a million-pound-a-minute epic called the Roman Mysteries - that's a far cry from the shows I used to watch in my formative years.

I hate sounding like a grumpy old git in a queue at the bus stop "but when I was a kid, children's TV was champion".

I loved shows like the cartoon Top Cat. Remember that?

TC and his gang, comprising Benny the Ball, Choo Choo, Brains, Fancy Fancy and Spook (he's the one that everyone forgets!), were the feline equivalents of Sgt Ernie Bilko and the troop of Fort Baxter.

Bilko was a bit before my time, but just like the Phil Silvers character, Top Cat was always wheeling and dealing, looking for a fast buck and hoping to hit "the big one'", much to the consternation of local neighbourhood cop Officer Dibble, or Dribble as TC referred to him.

The American series was renamed Boss Cat for British audiences because there was a cat food called Top Cat on sale in the UK and though there were only 20 22 minute episodes made in 1961 and 1962 the theme tune will stick with me forever.

Yes, TC was the "indisputable leader of the gang. He was the boss, he was the VIP, he was the championship, he was the most tip top, Top Cat" - who can forget lyrics like that?

As far as my children are concerned today's equivalent of Top Cat is The Simpsons - they simply can't get enough of the unlikely and slightly anarchic challenges that befall Springfield's totally devoted but dangerously dysfunctional family.

My wife Wendy reckons "Simpsons time" is the most peaceful time of the day in our house because all the children sit and watch in silence until the credits begin to roll at the end.

I must confess, it's one of the few contemporary shows I enjoy too. It has clearly managed to bridge the generation gap because I'm still not sure if the satirical humour delivered by Matt Groening's show is aimed at me or my children.

It seems strange that back in the days of black and white TV we only had two channels to watch. Now with Sky, cable and digital networks, children have a countless selection of programmes to choose from. But has that improved the overall standard of children's TV? Not one jot as far as I am concerned.

As I recall TV seemed to have so much more drama in those days with the family sat around en masse to watch their favourite shows. You had only one chance of catching them, as there was no omnibus, few re-runs and certainly no chance of recording them or catching them again on one of the Gold channels.

I remember with great fondness watching shows like The Saint with Roger Moore as Simon Templar on a Sunday evening. We would all be there to watch, filled to the rim after a roast dinner and home made apple crumble, but always able to find room for a cornet from the ice cream man who had an uncanny knack of arriving in Ilkley Road with Greensleeves blaring out precisely half way through the latest action packed instalment.

The ice cream man doesn't create such excitement when he comes calling nowadays because we all have a tub of ice cream in our freezers, just as the drama and entertainment around the TV is rarely replicated because we are spoon fed such rubbish.

• Print
• Email
• Share