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Kids' TV -
it's been entertaining and educating us for generations.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
But if you think it's just about cartoons,
competitions and...
Crackerjack!
..look again. Disgusting!
Kids' TV has been challenging.
It just went - boom!
And that's when all the questions started to be asked.
I don't like the unruly children. Hello?
Programme makers have taken risks...
In the event of a nuclear war, where will you be?
If something goes wrong, put a camera on it.
Madness, really, but kids love madness.
And the message has been, it's OK to be different.
A lot of people used to say to me, "When you came onto the screen,
"I suddenly knew there was another world out there."
Kids' telly is far from safe and cuddly.
It's brave and adventurous.
Kids' TV has always felt progressive and yet surprising from the start.
I want to... Get down, Val. ..not to do that.
Can I tell you a naughty story? Yeah, tell us.
This is the surprising story of Kids' TV.
When I was five, I came to Wimbledon Common with my mum,
and I remember thinking, "The Wombles live here."
Maybe if I looked hard enough, I'd catch a glimpse of Orinoco,
Uncle Bulgaria and Tomsk.
# Remember, remember
# Remember, remember... #
It's Tomsk, with a rather large piece of rubbish.
# Remember you're a Womble... #
I mean, I knew little about social responsibility,
but I got that these creatures cleared up litter.
And they were really ahead of their time
because they're into recycling and upcycling.
They're very eco-friendly.
We found this... this thing dumped in the bushes.
What is it, Tobermory?
Yes, this is a television set.
Ah, television.
That was one of my earliest memories of kids' TV,
until I was at primary school.
A BBC camera crew came to film some of the kids,
and I was on a programme called You And Me. Fi, fo, fum!
As a shy little Asian girl,
I was so excited to be picked,
even if they did change my name.
For Fatima.
Not content with being a photograph of Fatima,
some years later, in 1992,
I put myself forward to ask Neil Kinnock a question
on behalf of the Green Party
for the Newsround General Election Campaign.
How can you claim to be concerned about the environment
when you wish to keep nuclear weapons?
The Wombles' message about the environment had stayed with me.
That's the power that kids' TV has.
It might not have been obvious,
but if you look closer at the shows we grew up with,
there's way more going on.
Politics in The Clangers...
Now, you have heard the campaigns of the two political parties.
It is time to cast your votes.
Industrial unrest in Bagpuss.
Stop quarrelling at once.
Mice not work! Mice strike!
Oh, indeed!
Social change in Mary, Mungo & Midge.
They live with Mary's mother and father
in this tall block of flats.
They live right at the top.
The often trailblazing ways of kids' TV have been with us
throughout our childhood, from toddlers to teens.
You're all right, man, you're all right. I'm here.
As a two-year-old, I was transfixed by one awesome woman.
Sorry, Mum. It was Floella Benjamin.
# Underneath the spreading chestnut tree
# Where I held you on my knee... #
I definitely wasn't the only one.
# 'Neath the spreading chestnut tree. #
In 1976, when grown-ups were tuning into news
of violent scenes at the Notting Hill Carnival...
As the toll of injury and damage to property
was totted up, the great debate began about why it happened.
..and there were only four black players in the top flight
of English football...
Ready to play? What's the day?
..a new face broadcast to millions of children on BBC's Play School.
And this is Floella.
Hello.
She was the first presenter from a diverse background
I can remember seeing on TV.
Do you know what time of year it is
when the leaves start to change colour and fall from the trees?
It's autumn.
I started off my career in a bank
because I wanted to be the first
black woman bank manager.
Nice. Mission Impossible,
because back in those days, black people weren't allowed
to meet the customers.
You had to work behind the scenes.
Floella was one of thousands of Windrush immigrants
growing up in Britain in the 1960s
and later had dreams of making it as an actress.
Your opinion? Yeah, that's right.
No-one wants to know what you think.
Oh, don't you?
In fact, the first drama that I did, I played a 16-year-old shoplifter.
I'll break it off your stupid black head!
And I said to the producer, "Why do black people
"always have to play thieves or prostitutes or bus drivers?
"Why can't they be professionals like, you know,
"like lawyers and accountants?"
And he said to me, "Well, Floella, that's not realistic."
This chimes with memories of the TV I watched
with my family growing up.
My parents loved Mind Your Language, as it had Asian characters in.
Would you tell him I would like a word with him?
Well, certainly.
Which word would you like?
Even though immigrants like them were pretty often
the butt of the joke.
Foreigners!
I was told a lot of times,
"Shut up or you won't work again."
I realised I had to make a change... Yeah.
..and to get into a world where you showed people,
children especially, that you can succeed,
there is a future.
I was born in the West Indies, an island called Trinidad.
That's me.
And this song is about all the things I remember oh so well.
# Oh, island in the sun... #
I grew up watching you.
And I remember watching you because you had the braids
with the colourful beads.
And I just loved that.
It was like, you know, you were so magical.
In fact, the BBC at that time had to send out instructions
of how to plait your hair with beads
because the children all wanted to look like me.
The Floella - people'd be going to the hairdressers saying,
"Can I have a Floella?" "I want a Floella."
The children are playing in here with bricks and blocks. Oops!
Do you feel that children's TV was much more receptive and open
than the adult TV of the time?
Oh, very much so, because it accepted a lot of differences.
# Build it up, build it up
# Build it high
# Build it up, up, up into the sky
# Build it up, build it up, build it high... #
After more than 30 years of working in kids' TV,
a child who came as part of Windrush is now a baroness.
My Lords, it's an honour and a privilege
to address this House for the first time.
My family motto is, "Who would have thought?"
Because you never know where life's twists and turns will take you.
She now fights for children's rights in the House of Lords,
but to millions, she'll always be Auntie Flo.
I want your children not to be afraid of, but to accept.
A lot of people used to say to me, "When you came on to the screen,
"I suddenly knew there was another world out there."
Yeah, my parents, whenever there was, like, an Asian face
or an ethnic minority brown face on TV, they'd be calling us
to come round and see.
And, you know, it's so important.
Oh, very much so.
Through the...
..square window.
Thanks to Floella and her fellow Play School host, Derek Griffiths...
# I wish I could warble like my sister Kate. #
..and their predecessor, Paul Danquah, in the '60s...
Shall we look through our round window?
..millions of children started seeing themselves on screen
for the first time.
It makes you wonder, though,
how much does toddler TV actually influence us?
Well, to find out, what we need to do
is get inside the mind of a two-year-old.
Here at Birkbeck Baby Lab in London,
they're examining the role TV plays in those formative years.
It's a whole science in itself.
I'm just going to start the computer up.
Much of today's toddler TV is created with speech therapists
and psychologists.
Early examples of this were Teletubbies
and In The Night Garden.
One! Two. Two! Three. Three!
Hello. Hi. Nice to meet you. Welcome to the baby lab.
So the families come into here.
We have cameras which are tracking the children's gaze.
Claire Essex is using eye-tracking technology
to analyse Kya's understanding and concentration.
This is Kya's gaze as she's watching it.
Basically, by looking at the blocks,
you can tell how engaged they are.
Avi's mum has brought him to the lab to watch his favourite programme.
Teletubbies! Time for Teletubbies!
# Tinky Winky Tinky Winky! #
Teletubbies first broadcast in 1997
and it became an instant hit with toddlers.
Dipsy and Laa-Laa and Po.
But not with all parents and educators.
Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po
have taken the country by storm.
Four British stars had their debut on American television last night.
Their arrival is being compared to Beatlemania.
Oh, dear!
Despite being underpinned by science,
adults found it weird, creepy,
and thought their kids were being taught to speak gobbledygook.
Uh-oh!
Professor Tim Smith has studied the effects of Teletubbies.
There was that whole hoo-ha about Teletubbies saying, "Uh-oh."
Is that bad for children?
People may look at it and think it's just so weird.
It's so radically different to adult TV,
but they're being sensitive
to sound forms and they're kind of like the real origins of language.
And that's what was reflected in the show.
They were trying to get the kids to, in a non-language-based way,
get used to sounds and their associations
with certain characters.
Time for Tubby bye-bye.
Oh! No...
They have figured out what works,
what gets the right kind of attention from the kids.
So the power of TV on young minds has now been proved by science.
But the older the kids get, the tougher they are to please.
Jackanory and Play School, do you like them?
No. Why don't you like Play School? Because it's so babyish.
TV for schoolkids was born in the '40s and grew up in the '50s.
You might as well have a guess.
Sugar Plum Fairy. No!
Back then, it was on its best behaviour.
Hello, everyone.
I'm Jennifer Gay, one of the children's announcers.
There was just one channel.
But then the BBC came under fierce competition
from a new rival in 1955 - ITV.
Brash and confident, the impact was immediate.
Kids abandoned the BBC
for more entertaining telly
on the other side.
# Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen. #
ITV came up with instant hits like Robin Hood.
And later, Torchy.
Put your curlers in and you'll have frizzy hair
in the morning. Woof!
And the BBC had to take a long, hard look at itself.
Crackerjack!
In response, they created a wave of new programming
like Animal Magic.
See what I mean?
Gosh, I see what you mean.
Well, I do.
And a favourite that's still on to this very day.
Blue Peter is the longest-running kids' show in the UK.
It was also the show that gave me my break in the '90s.
Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you.
I'll just... I'll just...
Don't be offended by that. There you go.
I'm in!
First broadcast in 1958,
it now goes live at five on a Friday from Salford.
Let's have a little wander.
It's been updated since my day, but still remains pretty familiar.
The main components of the set are still the same as ever.
Sort of the chat area, the seat unit, the make area.
What are they making today?
Tie-dye, I think. Tie-dye T-shirts?
That is retro. I love that.
Oh. Do I get a hello hug?
Oh, of course. And you're wearing the gold badge!
I realised early on I was following in the footsteps
of a long line of adventurous Blue Peter women.
In fact, it's an electric exercise horse.
Check in. Check out. Up. Down. Out!
Valerie Singleton joined the programme in the early '60s.
I want to... Get down, Val.
Not to do that.
Her tenure spanned a decade of change
which would see women strike for equal pay...
How long are you prepared to stay out on strike?
A year! A year, a year.
..and protest against the Miss World contest.
For anyone watching, she was fearless and unflappable.
When the spray had settled,
all I could see was the remains of Val's boat. A terrifying crash.
And the boat just tipped over and I went in.
We were rescued, though, fortunately.
I'm very cold and rather wet.
I'm shaking a bit.
That's very nice. Thank you.
Yeah! Patissiere, don't you know?
Danish biscuits, too, my favourite. Ooh la la!
Personally, I never said, "Here's one I made earlier,"
so, you know... When Janet Ellis joined in the 1980s,
the stunts were just as adventurous.
The way the items were divvied up,
there was never a suggestion
that it was a girls' or a boys' item ever. Ever.
Well, they deliberately,
actually, when I was doing it,
gave the boys the sort of things that would have been a girls' item,
like Daniel the baby.
Yeah. Yeah.
There we are. This is Daniel.
He's the first baby we've ever had on Blue Peter.
We're going to give him a bottle.
Probably just a little bit hungry.
There we are. Come. Babies are pretty fragile.
They need to be handled very carefully indeed.
And then Johnny did the cooking.
I start to cut the onion up...
Of course, he made such a mess of it.
Dollop, dollop, doll... Oh, that's a big dollop.
And while women couldn't join the Marines until 2018,
the women of Blue Peter were giving the training a go
from decades earlier.
That's it. Stand up.
Three, two, one - go!
Although I was a bit rubbish.
Don't let go next time!
Good effort. Well done.
Excellent. Argh!
Quick. I can't believe that I've done it! Roll in the snow.
Oh. Aah!
Whatever the boys did, the girls matched it.
Janet's assignment with the RAF made her a record-breaker.
She became the first British woman
to achieve a 90-second free fall parachute jump...
..despite a few little setbacks.
Yeah. Oh, look, here I am, having broken my little pelvis in hospital.
That was on jump 23.
I went on and did the high altitude jump that John Noakes had done
for 25,000 feet.
And I finished on 35. Oh, my gosh,
you did an awful lot of damage to yourself. I did.
On air for 64 years and still going strong,
what Blue Peter believes is that you have to see it to be it.
Now you meet people and they say,
"I'm a hat designer because of Blue Peter
"or I'm an artist because of it, or a carpenter."
Yes, well, that's the thing. It's what we encouraged people to do.
And for me, that's the legacy of Blue Peter. Yeah.
The amount of people that come and say that
is still quite astounding. Yeah.
From its earliest days, kids' TV challenged convention,
even attempting stuff that grown-up telly hadn't tried yet,
like when it came to making programmes
for deaf and hard of hearing viewers.
Hello.
My name is Cyril Fry.
Earlier attempts like this series, which debuted in the 1950s,
didn't always hit the mark.
I'm going to tell you a story.
I can't imagine why.
But it blazed a trail for something ground-breaking.
One day, two student animators got a phone call from the BBC,
who were interested in using their work
in the long-running show Vision On.
We now know them as Aardman Animations,
famous for hits like Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run...
Chicken pies?!
Ladies, please.
..and a little creature made of modelling clay called Morph.
I've made him thousands of times, I think.
He is just made of plasticine.
It's just solid plasticine.
There's no special effects.
Morph was actually a breakthrough character.
But before the success of Morph, the boys learnt their craft
through Vision On.
And Vision On was this extraordinary programme.
It was designed for children who were deaf and hard of hearing.
It was a very interesting collection of people that they had assembled.
Tony Hart doing his drawings...
..and a couple of different mime artists.
There was... Sylvester McCoy did it for a while.
Sylvester!
And a guy called Wilf Lunn, who made machines.
And Pat Kissel, who was also an artist and did the signing.
And that's the theme for today's programme.
Sign language was a key part of Vision On from the outset.
Hello. The theme of today's programme is...
The deal was always that what we did would have to be silent.
That's how we got started.
A predecessor to Morph appeared in Vision On,
although with a slightly larger nose.
And I call this Morph because it's an amorphous lump of clay
and more fuss and bother than any other clay.
Morph himself debuted on Take Hart in 1977
and eventually went on to star in his own series.
It was pushing boundaries,
the discipline of it being silent and not using words.
I mean, for us personally, that was a great learning place.
Dave and I never were taught formally about animation at all.
We'd just learnt from good old Vision On.
One unexpected success of Vision On was the gallery.
Kids of all ages would submit their pieces of art
in the hope that they would be featured on screen.
Thank you for sending us your paintings.
This was an early instance of audience interaction,
which was becoming a major feature of kids' TV.
There is a prize for all those we show.
While Vision On asked for our art,
Blue Peter's audience interaction went one step further.
Collect this, bake this, make this... Marvellous news.
Our totaliser's flashing away
at the 400 medi-bike stage.
So there we have our launch site.
Next up - the island landscape.
Something like this.
This is the one I had in the airing cupboard for two days.
Tracey Island!
Oh, I remember it so well.
But in 1973, one series not only showed the audience
how to make stuff, but actually recruited them to do it on screen.
# Why don't you Why don't you... #
Why Don't You? gave kids a voice, and they took control.
We've been making up some disco gear from ideas that you've sent us.
There's this belt I made up from an idea sent in
by Paula Flatman and Samantha Figg in East London.
They made it out of sweetie papers.
Have you got the answer to the puzzle yet?
No. There it is.
Oh...
Long before YouTube and TikTok,
it was a different kind of user-generated content,
though arguably a bit more low-tech.
We've been absolutely flooded with letters. We won!
Yay!
The series broadcasts from different parts of the UK
with local presenters and diverse accents.
It's a recipe for sweet fried eggs.
And the funny thing is,
it's got nothing at all to do with eggs, right?
In 1981,
Why Don't You? broadcast from an area
that often resembled a war zone.
Alternative Ulster by Stiff Little Fingers
Belfast was in the midst of the Troubles,
with the Army on the street and frequent bomb threats,
when a group of fresh-faced youngsters were chosen
to front the show. I'm going to be showing you
how to make this really trendy jewellery.
This was a region typically seen on adult TV
through a lens of violence.
The Belfast gang returned over the years.
And I've come here to meet Jenny and Emma, two of the gang
from the mid-'80s who filmed in a disused railway station.
Just my luck, I always seem to fall off in this game.
So that's Emma there.
Oh, yeah!
That's me beside her in one of my outfits that my mother bought me.
You know, one of the... Very smart. Yeah, nice.
I would like to point out
that my mother would never have let me go out in that outfit
because it would have got wrecked.
It would have been covered in dirt. Yeah, it's so clean!
That's it today. I'm starving.
Sausage rolls. They're great. There's not many ingredients.
Have a pencil and paper ready to write them down.
Sausage rolls! I remember that.
Sausage rolls. I'd be like...
He used to make the most rubbish things.
It's a really great way to impress your friends.
And it's dead trendy.
But, like, I used to always make them at home before I got on to it.
I used to make them. Yeah.
Today we're going to make pink splodge.
You have six plastic cups all stuck together.
I know I look a right plonker,
but I'm actually trying to do something.
I remember thinking they've got such cool accents as well.
You know, that was the thing that stood out for me
about Northern Ireland.
Over to you, Emma. Ross, I haven't got everything I need yet,
so you go on ahead. There were no Northern Irish voices
on national television, really,
from a positive perspective. Any children could say,
"Oh, they seem really nice, they're having fun.
"Maybe Northern Ireland's not as scary a place
"as it's been made out."
How important do you think it was
that Why Don't You? came from Belfast?
Really, really important.
Belfast was always known
across the world for violence,
for conflict, for murder, for bombings.
People were terrified of what Northern Ireland represented.
Just to normalise young people in Belfast,
I would love to think that it helped change the mindset
of children everywhere.
Bye!
Anyone want a sausage roll?
Throughout the '70s,
kids' TV knew the power this interactivity could have,
but it was on Saturday morning TV where it was turbo-charged.
My Generation by The Who
# People try to put us down
# Talkin' 'bout my generation... #
By 1975, around half of all households had a landline phone.
This meant tween kids who were allowed to use it could now interact
on live TV.
In the mid '70s, the BBC and ITV went head-to-head
for the Saturday morning crown.
And much like the Blue Peter versus Magpie debate that preceded it,
when it came to Saturday morning TV,
there was only one question -
were you Tiswas or were you Swap Shop?
Hello, Anthony. Hello. Hi. What can I do...?
I can remember trying to call Swap Shop in the early '80s
and never being able to get through
because the line was constantly engaged.
Let's have a look at the board.
At number ten, Alison Scott.
But I really wanted to swap my Yahtzee for KerPlunk.
Hello, Noel. Hello? Who's this?
You could even take part
when the roadshow rocked up to your town.
Keith, where are you?
I'm in Cornwall.
In Pontypool.
I'm on the north-west coast of Britain.
This morning, I'm actually in London.
OK, Keith, could you just smile one moment?
Yes. Just give me a...
But on ITV, there was Tiswas...
We're on! We're on. Good morning.
..where you could be locked in a cage
or be flanned by the Phantom Flan Flinger.
Houdi Elbow, man of mystery, clairvoyant...
It hit screens in 1974 and was less scripted.
When I was young, I watched Tiswas.
I always thought Tiswas was much more anarchic.
We've just heard that a circus lorry with a cargo of tigers
has just crashed into the lions' den at Leicester Zoo.
Motorists are advised to avoid the snarl-up.
Madness, really.
But kids love madness.
I wasn't much of a Tiswas fan. Oh, really? No.
Because I'd watched the first ever Swap Shop with Noel... Right.
..and I thought, "Oh my God, that's what I want to do."
All we've got is this mop here.
If you sort of have a look around...
Both shows took kids behind the camera.
Strange, see, we've got Gary, who's hiding away over there.
They were incredibly popular and set a style
for Saturday morning kids' shows that followed.
Anybody got any more questions here?
Yeah. What's your question?
Hello. How many...? In how many...? Whoops.
How many countries have you released records in?
Oh, all over the world. All over the world.
Sarah Greene was drafted in from Blue Peter to the chaotic,
unpredictable world of Saturday Superstore.
OK, Eliot, what's your question?
I'd like to ask Five Star why they're so BLEEP. Cut the BLEEP.
Thanks very much, Eliot.
Oh, Konnie, I love what you've done with this room.
Do you like it? Yeah, and the wallpaper and everything.
Do you like my phone? And I like the...
Oh. Does it bring back memories?
It does a bit, yeah. If you'd like to pick up your phones.
They were props, but the child at home
got this immediate contact,
and there is some magic about that.
Who's on line four, please? James Mullen.
I give in. Why did the dinosaur cross the road?
Because there weren't chickens in those days.
Brillo!
Who's on line one? Yeah.
Hello?
The Vodafone subscriber you are calling is not available.
Please dial later.
Saturday morning telly could make household names
of those presenters who were able to cope with hours of mayhem.
It's getting faster!
Phillip Schofield joined Sarah as presenter of Going Live! in 1987.
Spin. You all right?
Going into Saturday mornings,
I mean, I was nervous.
I didn't sleep the night before.
OK. OK. All right. Run VT. Run VT.
Five, four... Right, so, a little bit of this. In three...
In 1996, a 25-year-old Zoe Ball took over the reins
of Saturday morning's three-hour marathon Live & Kicking.
Yes! Hello!
Good morning and hello. I'm Zoe Ball.
And I'm Jamie Theakston.
Is that William?
No, it's Katie.
Oh, hello, Katie. Sorry, is William there, please?
No, I was on last week.
Oh, we have got the wrong number. Fantastic!
What was it like having all that viewer interaction?
I loved it, because the kids watching feel connected... Yes.
..included, feel part of the fun,
feel listened to and are laughing with you
rather than sitting outside watching this kind of party go on.
Everyone wants to be invited to the party.
Yes! But kids are so unpredictable as well
and they'd just tell you how they really felt. Yeah.
And it's like you could get a million comedy writers
and you wouldn't get stuff... You'd never get gold like that.
Yeah. You'd never know where it would go.
What would be your most embarrassing moment that you would like to erase?
Wow.
Whoa.
Right, and then I... aargh!
No script. No script at all? No.
Follow us if you can. Come on.
This is live. This is unscripted.
Be careful.
It felt exciting because you could dip behind the scenes.
If something goes wrong,
put a camera on it. Yes.
Your cameramen are getting better at walking backwards, aren't they?
New ideas, freedom and adventure.
Hello, Anna. Send your question to the Prime Minister.
Hello? Hello, Alison.
Hello. In the event of a nuclear war,
where will you be?
Oh, my goodness me.
It seemed nothing was off limits.
Politicians were regularly grilled by kids.
I should be in London.
Oh, don't you have your own bunker or something?
But I mean, obviously, there are boundaries, but...
But as far as we were concerned,
we just wanted to make it open to anyone,
which is why we had, you know,
sort of Margaret Thatcher and Mo Mowlam
and, you know, all sorts of people would come on.
One MP who publicly suggested
kids' TV had a negative impact on its viewers agreed to take part
in the press conference segment on Going Live!
and face his fiercest critics.
How much children's television would you watch yourself?
I've started to watch a little of it.
I've never seen anyone so terrified in their lives.
Let's go to the phones.
There's things like Going Live! which give people a chance
to argue with people, well, with people like you on.
Well, that's what you're doing, very successfully. Yeah...
The live interaction on Saturday morning TV
could change lives,
demonstrated by Growing Pains.
You were talking about the subject of AIDS.
Now, we've had a few letters from people
who are still a bit confused about the whole thing.
Answering letters about very serious, very serious problems,
everything from eating disorders to abuse.
"My dad has been abusing me since I was seven and a half
"and it's got worse as time has gone on.
"I try so hard not to make him angry when he's in my room,
"but he wants to be angry and it makes things better for him."
And at times it became...
..heartbreakingly serious.
And those calls would have changed children's lives.
And we got a letter.
She's living with relatives.
"After writing the letter and hearing what you said,
"I could not stand it going on any more and I told my gran."
That was a real achievement, managing to do that. Yeah.
"So I'm living with my gran and grandad now
"and I'm happier than I have ever been in my whole life."
It's kind of amazing for, you know, Saturday morning TV, essentially.
Yeah, that was because of a group of people
who were prepared to take those risks.
Thank you very much for your letters, your phone calls,
your All About Mes, your ideas.
Broadcast bosses realised the power of this unscripted interaction
and it was soon seen in many adult telly shows
like The Big Breakfast.
..of the day is what... Ah!
Mate, all right, that's enough.
The mayhem of Saturday morning kids' TV
would continue for years to come,
kind of chaotically entertaining while educating.
And meanwhile, running parallel on a weekday
was a show doing much the same thing.
This show was grabbing kids' attention
and doing stuff that even your most favourite teacher
probably wouldn't attempt.
In the late '70s, only around 14% of school leavers
went on to higher education.
At the same time, kids' TV tried to make education more accessible
to everyone and help with tricky subjects like maths and science.
One entertainer found a way to teach the basics
that made everyone sit up and listen. Oh!
As long as the system took...
Oh!
Ah! Ah!
When I was a kid, everyone spoke like that.
You see, everyone at the BBC,
it was all terribly London, you know.
So did I ever think I'd be in television?
Not in a million years.
It was a different world.
They recruited me to get a northern accent.
Hello. Thank you and welcome to Think Of A Number.
Now... Before he started in TV,
Johnny Ball had been a stand-up comedian.
So, when I was doing the clubs,
"Hello, still doing that programme, John?"
I'd go, "Yeah. Still watching it? Right..."
So he had a unique way of selling his subject.
You have fun with it first and then you slowly turn the screw,
so by the end of the programme,
you're saying educationally sound things, you know.
Fire! Ha-ha!
We did a programme on fire, right?
We think again.
I am the devil and I'm coming out of a fiery hellfire.
Fire, the element of the devil! Fire, that all men fear the most!
Fire, with its licking flame
that can roast, or bake, or boil, or...
We were going to talk about a priest who was burnt at the stake
because of their religion...
The plastic on the back of my neck was burning,
because it was so, so hot.
Fire, that can burn you...
I came out...
..frazzle. Oh, help!
The tail was definitely on fire. Oh!
That is mad! With health and safety nowadays,
your programme wouldn't get made.
His series were runaway successes.
He was the maths and science teacher we all really wanted.
You didn't expect that, did you?
We started getting letters.
"I'm going to be a scientist because of you."
Because you will have changed people's life trajectories.
One day, somebody's going to come up to me and say,
"I became a scientist because of you."
And they're going to knee me in the groin
because I've sent them the wrong way!
While Johnny Ball tried to make difficult subject matter
accessible through entertainment,
some kids' TV drama producers
were trying to do much the same thing
in reflecting an ever-changing society.
There were still period classics like The Secret Garden
and fantasy dramas like The Box Of Delights.
But there was also something more raw and more real.
After the Divorce Act of 1969, families became much more complex
and kids' drama was swiftly on the case.
One feels so sorry for the child, though. Such a grubby little thing.
From Kizzy, where an orphan traveller child is threatened
with being taken into care...
Can I live with you?
They won't let you stay here either.
..to Break In The Sun, where a young girl runs away
from her violent stepfather.
I hate him, he's a swine.
Always hitting me - sometimes for nothing.
And The Cuckoo Sister, where a baby snatched from her pram
returns to her birth mother.
Oh, my dear.
Mum said to wait for an answer.
Here was a grittier world.
The kitchen stank of wet dog!
And I never want to see you ever again.
Then Tracy Beaker hit our screens in 2002.
I'm in Newcastle to meet actor Dani Harmer,
who's grown up playing Tracy,
a young girl who spent her childhood in a care home.
First ever series. I was 12 years old.
12 years old! Oh, my God.
Now I'm 33.
That was two decades ago. Yeah, let's have a nosey.
We're on the set of the 10th series of The Dumping Ground,
a spin-off based on the home Tracy used to live in.
The first house that we ever used was actually based
on a real care home that someone had gone to visit.
And each room, the kid decorated themselves.
So you could almost see their personality
as you walked into the room, which I love.
Back upstairs.
Not till I've given that Tracy Beaker a good slap!
Upstairs! Leave it, Justine!
Not everyone felt it was appropriate teatime viewing.
There was a lot of controversy actually, as well, wasn't there?
Because, you know, things like, "Bog off!" Bog off!
And I still get it now where parents come up to me and say, like,
"I banned my child from watching your programme."
I'm like, OK.
..truth telling. You think you know everything, don't you?
Why is everyone asking for the truth if they can't take it?
They kind of didn't want their kids copying her behaviour.
Most people saw her as just a naughty kid
rather than looking into why she was like that,
why she reacted that way.
Aren't you coming out? In a minute.
I don't see why she made a fuss.
He's nothing special.
I'd rather have a dad like that, that visited,
than none at all.
Are you crying?
Bog off,
Tracy Beaker never cries.
It's the Dumping Ground dust,
gets my hay fever.
During this time, there's less and less nuclear families.
Family structures can be complicated.
Lots of people have, you know, an absent parent or no parents.
How important do you think it is for kids to see themselves
reflected in what they watch?
I have met loads of care-experienced people that thank me
because they found that being in care
was the best situation for them,
and it took them out of a very horrible situation.
Feeling better?
The Beaker-verse has been on TV for over 20 years,
with a grown-up Tracy coming back onto our screens
in Tracy Beaker Returns.
They wanted Tracy to come back as a care worker.
See how she kind of manages in a position of authority,
which she absolutely hated when she was younger.
She would hate anyone telling her what to do.
Do you know my mum, Tracy Beaker?
Morning!
You'll know her, if you live on the Duke estate.
Dani then portrayed Tracy as a single parent.
This series didn't sugar-coat the problems of the world.
You can see that they are actually struggling, trying to pay bills,
trying to keep a roof over everyone's head.
And we don't back away from that.
It's not all shiny and happy.
Shows like these were tackling real-world issues,
issues that some felt were better left well alone.
And as the viewers got older, the issues got bigger.
And as the issues got bigger,
they got that bit much more controversial.
Teenage Kicks by The Undertones
From Children's Ward, that explored attitudes to HIV and AIDS
in the early '90s...
He's got HIV!
I'm not having you in here with that.
I want you home!
Dad, it's safe. The nurses are happy.
They know what they're doing. Darren...
..to Press Gang, that didn't shy away
from issues like suicide in young people.
Blaming yourself is stupid, Lynda, really stupid.
It's a fact of life. You can't confess to a suicide.
Creatives at the heart of these shows
went on to write ground-breaking dramas like Sherlock...
Sherlock!
..and It's A Sin.
Their radical edge was sharpened making teen TV,
but one show got into trouble with politicians and parents.
I think it's a load of rubbish, to be quite honest.
I don't like the unruly children.
It shocks people because the children are all, "Cor, blimey!"
And it's all comprehensive and everything.
The language is terrible in it,
the way that the children talk to the teachers
and they smack each other, the children.
This is the actual... This is the Holy Grail.
Yeah, that's the, that's the very one. Wow.
Phil Redmond was an ambitious young writer
who had an idea about a comprehensive school.
The first episode was just about first day at school,
and introducing the characters.
All present and correct, ready to start their new lives
at Grange Hill.
Let's hope it's a pleasant experience for them.
Oh, I'm sure it will be, Mrs Munroe, one big happy family...
"As he says this, Tricia leans over forward
"and belts Tucker over the head with her rule..."
Grange Hill burst onto our screens
on 8th February 1978,
firmly aimed at the teen market.
Two-faced little bitch!
It was all about doing things that you shouldn't really be doing -
smoking behind the bike sheds...
Things like student militancy, periods and bras...
And we're talking late '70s. It really was kind of ahead of its time
because I can't think of any other children's programmes
that did that back then.
Do you know what my dad says about this lot?
They should all be sent back to where they belong.
Yeah, in the jungle. Then your dad should go where he belongs -
a loony bin.
It just went boom with the controversy.
And that's when all the questions started to be asked
from teachers' unions through to politicians.
"Dear Sir, I am surprised and annoyed that the BBC continue
"to screen Grange Hill.
"To illustrate acts of thieving, bullying, smoking,
"and often stupidities for young minds, is to promote them."
I would strongly disagree with that view
because that's the classic letter that you have to be wary of,
because they're the guys who don't want you to tell the truth
about society, because policymakers do not want you
to actually tell the truth, you know.
They don't want to hear it because it outlines their failings.
And I remember this question in the House,
someone asking the Home Secretary,
"Is this really what the BBC Licence Fee should be funding?"
You know, that kind of thing.
Zammo, are you all right?
One of the most controversial storylines
was Zammo's descent into drug abuse.
This bravely put the issue of heroin addiction
at the centre of a popular children's drama.
One of the big issues in society
is that given the right social circumstances,
almost anybody can fall into that kind of abyss.
And so we had to try and explain how Zammo would get to that low ebb,
to try and find an escape route to go into that kind of thing.
Then we had the second series, which shows Zammo's rehabilitation,
You mustn't worry. I'm fine.
I like it here. I like the gardening.
The very people who were against, at the beginning, all the teaching,
the educationalists, the health experts,
were then coming this programme saying, actually,
"You're reaching the audience we can't reach."
And that's cemented in me the belief I've always had
that if you do dramas about social issues,
you have to offer a way out.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it was also something that reached out to teen audiences
because you had, like, the Just Say No single.
That was - it was huge.
# Just say no... #
Yeah. Go on.
# Just say no
# Just say no... #
What would you say is the role of kids' TV?
Kids' TV can be pure entertainment
or to actually help people navigate society.
And you're not alone.
You know, everything you're going through,
somebody else has been through and somebody else will go through.
And I think that is a very, really important role
that children's TV should do,
particularly on our public service broadcasters.
But it wasn't just at home that kids were watching TV.
BBC Television for schools was also creating dramas
that often provoked debate in class.
Back in 1987, homosexual acts between men under the age of 21
were still illegal.
A law was about to be passed
limiting the discussion of homosexuality in schools.
It was pretty much a case of "don't say gay".
Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values
are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.
There was a storm of protests.
And I do apologise if you're hearing quite a lot of noise
in the studio at the moment.
I'm afraid that we have rather been invaded.
Led away, the women repeated their protest.
We're protesting about rights for lesbian and gay people.
And thrust into the middle of this debate
were writer Leslie Stewart and director Roger Tonge.
We filmed here in '86.
Yeah.
Beware!
Dangerous deviants!
# Shall we dance?
# Shall we still be... #
Do you remember this one? Yeah, right. Yes, I do. I just love it.
Describing it as a sex film.
Come on.
Come on. Come on, then.
Two Of Us was one of the first British dramas
to put young gay lives in the spotlight
More than a decade before Queer As Folk in 1999.
Let's write a love story that happens to be between two boys.
Matthew!
If you were 16, it was illegal.
Quite so.
And that's why it was very dangerous making it.
And that's why it really got a lot of opposition to us making it.
The Government actually brought out new guidelines
and the newspapers said, "Gay Lessons Ban At Last."
Do you remember that? Yeah.
At a time of increased homophobia,
this kiss was cut from the original drama.
I love you.
"Disgusting".
But amidst the tabloid headlines, young people's lives were changed.
We had enormous number of letters from youngsters.
We spent, what was it, Ealing, in your office, reading letters
and then trying not to cry?
Yes.
Remember the letter from a boy?
"I'm 19 years old.
I've tried to commit suicide three times.
"Now I've seen your film, and I feel clean about myself
"for the first time."
Eventually, on February 2nd, 1990, Two Of Us was broadcast
with the kiss restored.
I love you.
We were highlighting the difficulties of being a young gay
when the law is so horribly oppressive
and when the law promotes homophobia
and makes life so terribly difficult.
Yes.
While Two Of Us was a standout film in the 1980s,
Kids' TV is still treading carefully
when it comes to representing the LGBTQ+ community.
Producers did venture into this territory in 2014,
with young trans boy Leo telling his story.
Gender, to me, is what you feel inside, not what you were born with.
The film won a BAFTA, amongst other awards, when it was broadcast.
However, this area, along with how and when it's presented
to young audiences, continues to be debated.
Today, online kids' content is more accessible than ever before,
24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It can normalise and even celebrate difference, or at least it tries to.
And sometimes that change can be driven by the kids themselves.
Hello. I'm just finishing off a picture.
Can you see what it is?
A young presenter named Cerrie Burnell was given her big break
as one of the faces of CBeebies in 2009.
I'm at the BBC studios in Salford to hear how she found herself
at the centre of a media storm.
Come on, meet friends and discover and do. Finding out things
that are magic and new.
Here on CBeebies, you can learn through play.
So come and have fun every day.
Let's have a look.
Oh, my God.
It's got that same really kind of homely feel.
The colours and the shapes are big and bold.
It's joyful as well.
Does it bring back memories of your time here?
Yeah.
I feel like I could just sit down and do some birthdays...!
Read some cards out, and a story and then maybe introduce the show.
Boing, boing.
This is a happy little kangaroo.
But somehow... Cerrie was a favourite with her young audience
and became an important public figure,
particularly for some living with a disability.
When you were growing up, did you feel represented?
No.
I never saw anyone who even vaguely looked like me.
When I was growing up,
I loved my little arm.
I was very comfortable with who I was.
And looking back, you know,
there was very little positive portrayal that was authentic.
And I think that was why
there was a really huge, shocked and a negative reaction
because people have never seen it before.
Some parents complained that a children's TV presenter
is scaring their kids because she has only one arm.
Viewers' complaints that the very sight of them
is frightening the kiddies.
The parents are worried that their children might be scared
when they watch her.
Cerrie's presence on screen provoked a reaction
from a small but vocal number of adult viewers.
But she was ready for the fight.
I think this just highlights the kind of discrimination
that disabled people face every day in every walk of life.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
Simply the fact that, you know, I'm on the telly
has kind of brought this out.
Can I just ask, did you have any conversations behind the scenes
in terms of the production teams or whatever,
about what to do about your arm?
Was there ever a conversation where someone said, you know,
"What to do about Cerrie's arm?" No. I mean, it sounds terrible...
Were you expecting that reaction?
If you grow up with a disability, you are aware
of how society perceives you.
This is people not being comfortable with disability, full stop,
because you've not put enough of it on telly.
So let's change that, shall we?
Do any of you know what you'd like to be when you grow up?
A footballer. A footballer?
Play lots of games.
That's what I get to do!
So maybe you could be a children's TV presenter.
Perhaps next time you're at the beach....
Being able to see yourself represented in a bright, sparkly,
safe and nurturing and fun environment is,
is just uplifting.
Blast-off!
Fast forward 12 years, and it's a different world.
We're going through a disco world.
OK, here we go.
George may be the first children's TV presenter with Down's syndrome,
but kids just love him for his dance moves.
..Through rock climbing.
Yes, George... Copy my moves!
OK, here we go.
When I started working at CBeebies,
no-one mentioned I had Down's syndrome.
which is really, really good, because they just see me as George,
and that's really, really important.
This space rocket... George is a role model for today's kids,
but he's also been shaped by what's gone before.
It's a play bus!
One small spider...
..with wriggly toes,
wriggled and danced up to my nose.
As part of pre-school favourite Playbus,
Dave Benson Phillips became the new face of a form of language
aimed at people who struggle to communicate through speech.
They said, "Right, you're going to learn Makaton."
So Makaton is a sort of form of sign language.
Yes. So this lady called Margaret Walker invented Makaton,
and she had this amazing bunch of people who were helping me
to learn signs for poems.
The wheels on the bus go round and round.
I didn't realise and I don't think they did either
how big this thing was going to become.
We had children with special needs who'd watched the show,
nurseries and playgroups, and they would all be looking for this bit,
this poem, this rhyme.
Pet animals...
Makaton would become a central part of communicating
for one of kids' TV's biggest stars, Mr Tumble.
What's that, Mr Tumble?
A tortoise.
Taught in nurseries
across the UK, there are now over 100,000 users
whose communication has been massively helped.
One of those Makaton users was George Webster.
I was inspired by Mr Tumble, he was my hero when I was growing up.
Soup!
I used Makaton before I spoke with words.
My favourite word was "more". "More, more, more food!"
It's really, really important for children to have role models.
And it's really important to have a role model who looks different.
Because different is good.
Kids' TV doesn't always get things right, but at its best,
it's holding our hand as we navigate our way through childhood.
Every day of my life,
I get a letter, or an email, saying,
"Dear Floella, you don't know what you mean to me.
"When I was little, I knew somebody loved me."
We always, when we ended the show, you don't just leave a child.
You don't just leave them - children wait.
You know, we say, "Well, it's time for us to go now,
"but we'll be back again."
But it's time for us to go now. Bye-bye till tomorrow.
Goodbye.
We'll see you on Thursday, bye-bye!
Bye-bye! Bye!
As the world has changed, kids' TV has changed with it.
But what has remained the same
is the need for kids to see themselves, hear themselves,
and feel they're not alone. And as a mum of two,
and someone that's pretty much worked with kids my whole career,
I definitely think that's something worth fighting for.
And full disclosure - at the very least, it gives some of us
the opportunity to go to the loo on our own.