Pervy Pete and Skrarky Voice Noakesie (Blue Peter)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Blue Peter
Date:	14/09/01 (524 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Noakesie, Shep

Disadvantages: Tortoises, The Appeal, The new presenters

"Ruff!!"

"Get down Shep."

Those two phrases can mean absolutely just one thing - the mean spirited and cynical eye of dave27 turns upon the fertile ground of Kiddies TV and the most famous children's show of all time - even got a theme tune written by that hippie boy/old f**t Mike Oldfield, 'Portsmouth' - the one, the only, Blue Peter.

These days, Blue Peter seems to shed and discard its child like and very juvenile posse with the same readiness as Manchester City dispose of managers, but there was a time back in the 1960's, when there were three enormous giants filling our screen, like huge, unchanging guardians of the moral good, always there, always consistent, always treading that loving line between being patronising and being cool, Val Singleton, Peter Purves and John Noakes.

These people were squeaky clean and wholesome and enormous fun, apart from the sour faced and very self regarding Purves, but even he would never have sunk so low as the bad boy of the BP history, Richard Bacon, Mr Silver Nose himself. Indeed, can you imagine the lovably clumsy, skrarky voiced, stereotypical Yorkshireman, the dishevelled John Noakes doing speed or having a toke. He might have made a Christmas decoration out of a reefer, but he would never have smoked it. In fact, you can't imagine old cheery life and soul of the party, the professional scarecrow ever doing ANYTHING in the slightest bit anything other than extremely wholesome.

Purves has since gone on to be a serious presenter, also fronting the Crufts Dog Show (what a combination), and for many years Val was a heavyweight reporter on BBC 2's The Money Programme, but Noakesie seems to have mysteriously vanished off the face of the planet. Perhaps he had a facelift and dyed his hair and came back as Jim Carrey, whatever, he's a relic in need of digging up just one more time.

Dear old Blue Peter, still going strong, stil
l existing on its diet of endless broadcasts of the team's Summer Holidays, Xmas decorations, sticky backed plastic, 'Here's one I made earlier' and guests, just like it always has done, but these days its a pretty anaemic, lifeless affair with faceless and characterless young things linking it all together in a fairly nondescript manner.

It's a distant relation of that famous black and white episode when the hapless keeper struggled manfully to control the elephant, but could only succeed in witnessing it going wee wee and poo poo all over John and then treading on his foot, manic crazy stuff with that rough as a bear's a**e voice cutting through the shocked silence of the set.

Now that was a show to remember and it's received many a gleeful rerun on things like It'll Be Alright On The Night, with that hideous old Mr Smug, Denis Norden. If truth be known the early days of BP, masterminded (or should that be mistressminded?) by the mysterious and quaintly names Biddy Baxter, were apart from that notable interlude, quite earnest and dull, although they were hugely popular and certainly struck a chord with their target audience, keeping the kids enthralled for literally minutes on end.

Well I remember the days of Bleep and Booster and the competition to paint a picture of the two of them (I entered but got nowhere) and win the legendary BP badge, what a prize! I even knew someone who won the prized talisman in the person of a girl called Tessa Shemza (I think) who painted one of the pictures that eventually got featured on a commemorative postage stamp - was BP involved in that? I'm sure it was but the old grey cells are starting to fade, my dears - now what are all you people doing in my living room?

The BP badge! What a treasure, what a wonder to behold! Almost as amazing as the Xmas decoration made out of a metal coat hanger which was religiously dragged out every Yule, as regularly as the
BP Appeal and that bloody weird Clapometer or Scoreometer or whatever the hell it was. One thing it wasn't was impressive...

Hang on a minute, I've just remembered something else that was almost as famous as the dreaded incontinent pachyderm, and that's the BP Garden, hush hush, whisper who dares, a sacred altar to our innocently sweet memories of childhood, but what's this? Some devious and murderous terrorists broke in one night and trashed the memories of a million kids. Apparently the Spurs centre forward Les Ferdinand was among the guilty suspects, I've always distrusted London players, their heads are too close to the ground and their weird squat bodies appear to have no centre of gravity, take Dennis Wise for instance, and I wish someone would take him. Dennis Wise was the sort of cheeky cock sparrer that got featured readily on BP, in between sets from mysteriously and steadfastly cheerful West Indian Steel Bands. Perhaps Noakesie decided to share a spliff with them after all.

Why is it that those bloody steel drums always looked so bloody battered and why did all the 'musicians' wear those godawful Hawaiian shirts and straw titfers? And why did none of them ever appear on any other TV show, what was the mysterious attraction and drive of Biddy's Brainchild?

You know, the more I write about BP, the more the memories come flooding back, of Mark Currie and the supremely conceited Lesley Judd, of the exceedingly naff Peter Duncan, of Jan Ellis, mother of Sophie Ellis Baxter, the bright new hope of British jazzy pop, of hours mysteriously creating a Golden Angel from an empty toilet roll holder and a creme egg wrapper. How on earth did they do that! BP is certainly an icon, a shining example of how to make excellent children's television, sustained for what seems a lifetime, rolling on consistently, amazingly always there, always reliable, always excellent.

Now where the hell do you
actually buy sticky backed plastic?

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