Dean Wilkinson - The Classic Childrens Television Quiz Book

Title Page THE CLASSIC CHILDRENS TV QUIZ BOOK Compiled by Dean Wilkinson Foreword by Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly Publisher Information First published in 2008 by Apex Publishing Ltd PO Box 7086, Clacton o n Sea, Essex, CO15 5WN, England www.apexpublishing.co.uk Digital Edition converted and published in 2011 by Andrews UK Limited www.andrewsuk.com Copyright 2008 by Dean Wilkinson The author has asserted his moral rights All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition, that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or t ransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder. Production Manager: Chris Cowlin Cover Design: Siobhan Smith Dedication In memory of Mark Speight 1965 - 2008, whom Timmy and I had the enormous pleasure of wor king with on Timmy Towers. A great talent, a great bloke and a great loss to childrens television. www.speightoftheart.org Introduction By Dean Wilkinson Working largely in childrens telly since 1990, Ive clocked up a few shows myself and modesty prevents me from including any of them in this tome - one would have thought! Youll find SMTV Live and Stupid in here somewhere.

Im really proud of these shows, especially Stupid, and when I snuff it I want there to be a headline in my local paper stating STUPID MAN DIES. The emphasis of this quiz book seems to be the childrens telly of the seventies and eighties. This is because I was a kid myself at that time spending hours upon hours watching the haunted fish tank trying to escape from the reality of a grim home life. And wow, was I spoilt for choice - so many classics! and Ive enjoyed all of those shows again whilst researching this book, either by hiring them from Amazon, bidding for the last tatty VHS versions on Ebay, or seeking out clips on You Tube. The American wit Lily Tomlin once said: If you read a lot of books you are considered well read, but if you watch a lot of TV you are not considered well viewed. Depends on the telly, Lily.

Id much rather spend an evening in front of a DVD copy of Children of the Stones or Dangermouse or Maid Marian and her Merry Men than doing anything else. I spent half my childhood watching telly, I wasted the rest, so Im spending my adult life catching up. Ive trawled the Internet, scoured books on TV history and bugged friends and colleagues in the biz for their memories, to make this the ultimate classic childrens telly quiz book. I hope Ive succeeded. Even if you dont remember the show, you can get a lot out of the DID YOU KNOW? sections, or glean amazing nuggets of information about kids telly by cheating and looking at the ANSWERS in the back. Impress your friends with some impromptu facts about Willo the Wisp, or The Double Deckers.

I hope youll come to realise, like I did when compiling this book, that as a kid I was incredibly lucky to have such a wide and varied choice of viewing. But, now Im a dad I find it heartbreaking that the childrens telly my daughters have to choose from is - colossal because of the myriad cable channels on offer, but - incredibly limited in terms of quality. Theres some really awful acquired American kids telly around. Really really awful! Not all of it though! Ive included the fairly modern Spongebob in this book because its a great example of superbly crafted telly for kids, AND it follows the golden rule, kids telly should entertain adults too. And the American Eerie Indiana was one of the best shows of the 1990s. Im a true Brit and we have got to get British childrens telly back into gear.

Just look at the multitude of superbly made, (sometimes without much of a budget), imaginative and downright awe inspiring shows mentioned in this book. Catweazle, Worzel Gummidge, Do Not Adjust Your Set, Thunderbirds, The Ghosts of Motley Hall - gosh the list was so huge I simply could not cram in every show I wanted to! We have to get back those glorious must-see-TV days! If the British television executives stopped wasting cash on banal rubbish and put the resources into good childrens telly, they could double, even treble their viewing figures! And our youth might grow up with a sense of magical wonder instead of the feelings of desperation, bitchiness and avarice that modern telly bestows upon them. Look at any of todays pointless celebrities and their God awful vehicles and just think about what theyre saying to our young people. The messages theyre sending out are downright dangerous! Bring back innocence, bring back imagination, bring back quality storytelling. Bring back British childrens TV! Show your support by joining the campaign Save Kids TV: www.savekidstv.org.uk Best wishes Dean Wilkinson Foreword by Ant McPartlin Be warned, be very warned: Deans Classic Childrens TV Quiz Book is going to cause you a whole load of brain-aching, memory- scraping, hair-pulling moments. You may very well find yourself angrily pacing the house for hours as the answer to a question like - which actor played Fred Mumford in the first series of Rentaghost - is on the tip of your tongue! However, you may, like me, be pushed over the edge when some annoying git rings you up and gives you the answer before it comes to you! What were the chances of that?! And even if you dont recall some of the many many programmes mentioned in the book, theres still a boat load of facts and figures about the childrens telly of days gone by thatll keep riveted for hours upon end.

This is nostalgia at its best, so get comfortably seated on your Raleigh Chopper, open a can of Top Deck, a packet of Spangles, and dip into The Childrens TV Quiz Book and discover just how misspent your youth was. Ant McPartlin Foreword by Dec Donnelly Cheers, Dean, The Classic Childrens TV Quiz Book has opened up a new social chapter of my life. I can now steer any conversation around to childrens TV and rattle off fascinating fact after fact Ive gleaned from this tome of tots, toddlers and teenage telly testimony, impressing anyone within earshot. For example, I rang Ant and said, Morning Anthony, not to be confused with the late Anthony Jackson who played Fred Mumford in the first series of Rentaghost in 1976. You see what I did, I flawlessly steered the conversation around to a subject I was knowledgeable in after having read the Rentaghost section of The Childrens TV Quiz Book. I not only impressed my friend, I also imparted my learning to him.

I put the icing on the cake when I sang the entire theme tune to Rentaghost to Ant and by the end of it hed hung up - presumably overwhelmed with euphoric nostalgia for his youth. Indeed, the man Ant is now feverishly banging on my front door with a cricket bat in his hand. Bless, he wants to play in the park like the youthful carefree young scallywags we once were. Enjoy the book, Im off to play out! Dec Donnelly Questions A Plethora OPuppets Childrens telly has given us so many puppets over the years and they are a merchandising mans dream. Pinky and Perky for example (they never married did they!) Puppets are immortal, but their human animators and sidekicks are not and many tend to move on to more grown-up telly before they get typecast. Can you match the anthropomorphic characters with their one time, on screen human collaborators? 1.Nookie Bear 2.Gordon the Gopher 3.Lord Charles 4.Sooty 5.Orville the Duck 6.Lambchop 7.Posh Paws 8.Zig and Zag 9.Ed the Duck 10.Basil Brush Humans: Chris Evans, Andi Peters, Noel Edmonds, Roy North, Roger De Courcey, Ray Alan, Shari Lewis, Mathew Corbett, Phillip Schofield, Keith Harris DID YOU KNOW? Orville The Duck was named after Orville Wright who also wished he could fly.