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Terry Nutkins

Presenter dies after leukaemia battle (September 2012)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
BU
buster
Ben posted:
Might that be this video?

I'd forgotten the gunge slide game came from the Really Wild Show, always remembered the game but not the show.


That's the one! And the later version of the titles that I remember from my childhood. "On The Spot" as I now see it's called always sat a bit oddly within the show but obviously being about 7 years old at the time was my favourite bit...
BU
buster
Here's Terry Nutkins in the predecessor of The Really Wild Show:


Terry still rocking a comb-over at that point I see.
You can kind of see how the children's department wanted to modernise it - seems amazing that's only five years prior to the RWS clip.
:-(
A former member
That is shocking for an Animal programme, why on earth is junior Songs of praise included?
DE
deejay
It's easy to get very misty eyed over clips of classic Animal Magic - Johnny Morris was a genius story teller when he voiced film footage of animals: the classic "Ooooh Helllooooooo there ...." sort of stuff over a giraffe. Gentle, humourous and entertaining, this was very much 'of an era'. By the early 80s the show hadn't really moved on very much and that clip, while unusual, really shows that. I liked the film inserts, but hated all that studio chat stuff and as for an orchestra and song ...

The early series of The Really Wild Show were a terrific breath of fresh air. Amazing watching that clip on DailyMotion how much knowledge they assumed the kids had, not bothering to explain terms like 'dorsal fin' for example, just using them and hoping that if the kid watching didn't know what it was, they might make an educated guess or go and look it up. Yet at the time I think there was a bit of a backlash that dear old gentle Johnny Morris had been consigned to the bin and replaced with this brash bunch of rookie TV presenters; who the hell were they to be telling us about animals? Maybe that's why Terry was kept on; to be a familiar face.

Can't remember how long the show stayed studio based, it became location only and in my mind far less interesting. I liked the whole audience-based, slightly chaotic treatment (still do!). The real death-knell for programmes like this came in 1991 when Bristol's Studio-A where all these programmes were made was closed. The last programme made in the studio was something called "Wild Bunch" I believe, but I actually don't recall that at all!
GS
Gavin Scott Founding member
Man that clip is excrutiating. Didn't they chop down all the good stuff from Animal Magic (like the films where he was at the Zoo in the Zoo keeper's uniform, voicing the thoughts of the animals) for use after the series finished?

I recall it being condensed into a series of shorts. Might be mis-remembering though.

I always found Chris Packham a bit spikey-haired and speech-impedimented in the Really Wild Show - which is not a terribly nice thing to say, but I was just a kid and you make hard judgements like that when you're young, don't you.

Think he's a bit of a fox these days. Difficult to comprehend he's 51 now - but we're none of us getting any younger.
MA
madmusician
Does anybody remember the more recent Animal Magic Show? Hosted by Dominic Wood with a puppet rabbit called, I think, Billy. That was my era - first broadcast in '98, I think, and repeated in 2000. I've got some old episodes recorded somewhere...
BU
buster
The Really Wild Roadshow was 1991 and 1992 - which would tie in with the studio closure as it was essentially the usual show but from a marquee on location somewhere, not dissimilar to the recent Blue Peter roadshows. So the Daily Motion clip would be from the final studio-based series. I think it was the 1993 series when the theme tune got funked up and it returned to just being the Really Wild Show when it became a series of linked reports and definitely lost something for me. That was also Terry's final series from what I can gather. He did do another series for CBBC in about 94/95 on Sunday mornings called "Growing Up Wild" - Tony Hart also had a series on Sunday mornings at that point, seemed to be the home for ageing children's presenters!

Wildbunch I remember too, it was pitched at a very young age group so kind of a "young" RWS, it ran about 1992/1993 so not sure if it came from a different studio towards the end. They repeated it on CBBC on Choice in 2001, hadn't dated well I remember.

And it's funny how history repeats itself, with Terry being kept on as the familiar face from Animal Magic into RWS - as one of the Really Wild Show's final presenters was Steve Backshall, who of course is the face of Deadly 60 now. In fact when he was on 12 Again recently he said it was growing up with the Really Wild Show that got him interested in wildlife and he was honoured to eventually present it.
Last edited by buster on 12 September 2012 1:30pm
SW
Steve Williams
Yet at the time I think there was a bit of a backlash that dear old gentle Johnny Morris had been consigned to the bin and replaced with this brash bunch of rookie TV presenters; who the hell were they to be telling us about animals? Maybe that's why Terry was kept on; to be a familiar face.


Well, the story always was that the Beeb got rid of Johnny Morris and Animal Magic because he was an enthusiastic amateur and the Beeb now demanded all their presenters were specialists, and also that anthropomorphism was bad. But as the Radio Times pointed out when someone wrote in to complain about the ending of Animal Magic (which was backed up by contemporay reports in The Times), Johnny was actually offered a new series when Animal Magic ended but turned it down. I think it would have been very much the case that this would have been aimed at much younger children, though, along the lines of Wild Bunch or Two By Two. Certainly it can't have been the case that it was dropped because anthropomorphism was completely outlawed because Two By Two reused Derek Griffiths' songs from Heads And Tails, which used loads of anthropomorphism.

The ending of Animal Magic came around the same time as Take Hart changed into Hartbeat, and you can see the parallels there as a long-running format with a veteran presenter was revamped. The difference there is that Tony was kept on but he was now accompanied by some new presenters and they livened it up a bit so Tony could move with the times. I suppose the feeling was that, while Tony was able to work within the new format, Johnny Morris was so associated with Animal Magic that it couldn't have been revamped with him still there. Of course ten years later Hartbeat became Smart and Tony did series like The Art Box Bunch on Sunday morning, aimed at younger children - which is presumably the same idea they wanted to do with Johnny a decade earlier.
JO
John
That is shocking for an Animal programme, why on earth is junior Songs of praise included?


It is easy to take the piss, but at the time Johnny Morris at times presented the BBC Schools Radio programme 'Singing Together' and the composer Douglas Coombes produced it.

Douglas is still educating:
www.musiciansgallery.com/start/composers/coombes/douglas.htm

Wildtrack, sort of replaced Animal Magic, it was never a complete swap from Animal Magic to the RWS.
RW
Robert Williams Founding member
John posted:
Wildtrack, sort of replaced Animal Magic, it was never a complete swap from Animal Magic to the RWS.

I don't think any of them were really proper replacements for any of the others. Animal Magic finished in 1983, while Wildtrack ran from 1978-85, and The Really Wild Show started in 1986. Animal Magic and Wildtrack were very different to each other - the former was based around the kind of animals you'd find in a zoo, whereas Wildtrack focused on things like toads, badgers and otters. I suppose RWS kind of combined the two.
SW
Steve Williams
I don't think any of them were really proper replacements for any of the others. Animal Magic finished in 1983, while Wildtrack ran from 1978-85, and The Really Wild Show started in 1986. Animal Magic and Wildtrack were very different to each other - the former was based around the kind of animals you'd find in a zoo, whereas Wildtrack focused on things like toads, badgers and otters. I suppose RWS kind of combined the two.


Yeah, The Really Wild Show was probably more a replacement for Wildtrack than Animal Magic. What is the case, though, is that you used to get two series of Animal Magic a year - a "proper" series in January and then another series in the summer, often the only new kids show in the entire week, which would be made up of compilations, re-edits and specials, like that episode when Johnny and Nutkins did that CSO 'safari'. When Animal Magic ended, the last official series was in January 1983, then there was a summer series which mostly starred Nutkins and then in January 1984, when you'd usually get Animal Magic, Wildtrack had been moved to January from its usual Spring slot to fill the hole (although there were a few more ooutings for Animal Magic, a compilation on Good Friday 1984 and then repeats in the Easter and Summer holidays).

Wildtrack had a slightly more journalistic approach, in Anna Home's book she talks about them running a feature early on involving a postcard which was supposed to illustrate the beauty of Scottish wildlife but some of the animals in it were blatantly stuffed. It was created and produced by Mike Beynon who also went on to produce the last few series of Animal Magic and I assume there was some sort of clash between his more journalistic and academic approach and Johnny's views. One reason why he didn't do the new series he was offered when Animal Magic ended, according to The Times, was because they wouldn't let him choose the producer. And I've got the 21st anniversary Animal Magic from 1983 where Nutkins does a joke about the producer ("this is such a special day even the producer can have a bit of this cake!") which Johnny finds terribly amusing.

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