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Rainbow, but not rainbow

🌈 (February 2020)

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NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
I forgot this existed, my main memory of Rainbow post 1992 was the woeful Rainbow Days which Geoffrey was not part of. I believe this was made by Tetra Films that was formed after Thames lost their franchise, which I believe was set up by the former controller of children’s programmes at Thames.

However the regular Thames show that carried on as normal that I can think of was Mike And Angelo. Rainbow disappeared and Sooty went to Granada via Sooty Films. But certainly Tetra Films did produce a number of shows in the 1990’s.


Mike & Angelo after 1993 was done by Tetra Films but it carried a Carlton endcap in the form of "A Carlton Programme for ITV". Tetra also did the 90s revival of The Tomorrow People, but seemed to stop trading when Mike & Angelo was dropped in 2000.
BC
Blake Connolly Founding member
I forgot this existed, my main memory of Rainbow post 1992 was the woeful Rainbow Days which Geoffrey was not part of. I believe this was made by Tetra Films that was formed after Thames lost their franchise, which I believe was set up by the former controller of children’s programmes at Thames.


In which Geoffrey was replaced by a puppet named Cleo.

"What's next, are they gonna say Zippy's replaced by a puppet? Or George?"
RU
russty_russ
With regards to Rainbow post Thames, there was a series (or 2) entitled Rainbow in 1994. It was set in a shop that Zippy, George and Bungle would run. The only customer they had was a blue female rabbit called Cleo.

In 1996, the series morphed into Rainbow Days. Cleo went in favour of a human presenter called Dale and I believe it only lasted 1 series.

I recommend a book by Ronnie Le Drew (Zippy's puppeteer) entitled Zippy and Me which includes a chapter on this new era post Thames.
RU
russty_russ
I forgot this existed, my main memory of Rainbow post 1992 was the woeful Rainbow Days which Geoffrey was not part of. I believe this was made by Tetra Films that was formed after Thames lost their franchise, which I believe was set up by the former controller of children’s programmes at Thames.

However the regular Thames show that carried on as normal that I can think of was Mike And Angelo. Rainbow disappeared and Sooty went to Granada via Sooty Films. But certainly Tetra Films did produce a number of shows in the 1990’s.


Mike & Angelo after 1993 was done by Tetra Films but it carried a Carlton endcap in the form of "A Carlton Programme for ITV". Tetra also did the 90s revival of The Tomorrow People, but seemed to stop trading when Mike & Angelo was dropped in 2000.


I know Rainbow's programmes under Tetra had a HTV endcap. I don't know if Mike & Angelo under Tetra had this to begin with or if it was always under Carlton.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
I forgot this existed, my main memory of Rainbow post 1992 was the woeful Rainbow Days which Geoffrey was not part of. I believe this was made by Tetra Films that was formed after Thames lost their franchise, which I believe was set up by the former controller of children’s programmes at Thames.

However the regular Thames show that carried on as normal that I can think of was Mike And Angelo. Rainbow disappeared and Sooty went to Granada via Sooty Films. But certainly Tetra Films did produce a number of shows in the 1990’s.


Mike & Angelo after 1993 was done by Tetra Films but it carried a Carlton endcap in the form of "A Carlton Programme for ITV". Tetra also did the 90s revival of The Tomorrow People, but seemed to stop trading when Mike & Angelo was dropped in 2000.


I know Rainbow's programmes under Tetra had a HTV endcap. I don't know if Mike & Angelo under Tetra had this to begin with or if it was always under Carlton.


There are examples on YouTube of the various Mike & Angelo Carlton endcaps. When Series 5 started in 1993 (the start of the "American Mike" years), the two endcaps used were:

*

*

(both from this video:


By 2000 the copyright year had been tacked onto the end credits and they looked like this:

*

*

*

(above from this video:


Of course the Thames version just used normal Thames endcaps as they were Thames productions up until the end of Series 4.
JA
james-2001
That Carlton endcap's very strange for something made in 1999/2000. The "X Programme for ITV" endcaps stopped after the ITV rebrand in 1998, but that still has the old ITV logo on it! There shouldn't even have been a Carlton endcap by this point, with or without an ITV logo.

Suprised how young and short the American Mike is in that 1993 episode, he really shot up in a short space of time. He was as tall as Angelo a couple of series later.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
That Carlton endcap's very strange for something made in 1999/2000. The "X Programme for ITV" endcaps stopped after the ITV rebrand in 1998, but that still has the old ITV logo on it! There shouldn't even have been a Carlton endcap by this point, with or without an ITV logo.


In fairness CITV playout at the time would have cut it off so it wouldn't have been seen anyway. The VideoFTW clips are obviously not off-air recordings from that era.
JA
james-2001
That Carlton endcap's very strange for something made in 1999/2000. The "X Programme for ITV" endcaps stopped after the ITV rebrand in 1998, but that still has the old ITV logo on it! There shouldn't even have been a Carlton endcap by this point, with or without an ITV logo.


In fairness CITV playout at the time would have cut it off so it wouldn't have been seen anyway. The VideoFTW clips are obviously not off-air recordings from that era.


Still seems unusual it was put on the show anyway at that point. Unless it had been made in 1998 but had been sitting on the shelf for 18 months-2 years.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
That Carlton endcap's very strange for something made in 1999/2000. The "X Programme for ITV" endcaps stopped after the ITV rebrand in 1998, but that still has the old ITV logo on it! There shouldn't even have been a Carlton endcap by this point, with or without an ITV logo.


In fairness CITV playout at the time would have cut it off so it wouldn't have been seen anyway. The VideoFTW clips are obviously not off-air recordings from that era.


Still seems unusual it was put on the show anyway at that point. Unless it had been made in 1998 but had been sitting on the shelf for 18 months-2 years.


Series 12 went out from January 2000 so that would have been filmed probably the previous summer, just about predating Carlton's shiny new 1999 package. In fact most series after Series 4 went out in January (Series 4 went out from October 1991, Series 5 from January 1993, Series 6 from February 1994).

But then of course CITV presentation always was the odd one out in ITV terms. Never adopted the 2001 credit look for its programmes, half-adopted the 2002/3/4 credit adaptions for a while and then decided sod this for a game of soldiers...

21 days later

MA
markjuk
Interesting find!

This was a GMTV show which had a slot (in this example) on Saturday mornings at 0610 after the news
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?635110-Retro-Yorkshire-North-East-England-Sat-Oct-18-1997&s=88506d72fb2f91fbf9c88be13b8e92e3
Quite clearly a Rainbow rip off but I doubt Thames would have been bothered to do anything about it, given they were no longer a franchise holder, and Rainbow will have had limited sales appeal to anyone else by then etc.
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/tvhome/childrens-tv-43822/page-8


I'm pretty sure that Rainbow was shown on UK GOLD in it's very early years - that is when it was one quality channel showing a wide variety of programmes.

Long before it became the multi-channel UKTV network showing the same old, same old, over and over.
Last edited by markjuk on 5 March 2020 10:55am
NL
Ne1L C
Interesting find!

This was a GMTV show which had a slot (in this example) on Saturday mornings at 0610 after the news
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?635110-Retro-Yorkshire-North-East-England-Sat-Oct-18-1997&s=88506d72fb2f91fbf9c88be13b8e92e3
Quite clearly a Rainbow rip off but I doubt Thames would have been bothered to do anything about it, given they were no longer a franchise holder, and Rainbow will have had limited sales appeal to anyone else by then etc.
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/tvhome/childrens-tv-43822/page-8


I'm pretty sure that Rainbow was shown on UK GOLD in it's very early years - that is when it was one quality channel showing a wide variety of programmes.

Long before it became the multi-channel UKTV network showing the same old, same old, over and over.



On a side note. In its early days UK Gold always started late. Does anyone know why?
MA
markjuk
Interesting find!

This was a GMTV show which had a slot (in this example) on Saturday mornings at 0610 after the news
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?635110-Retro-Yorkshire-North-East-England-Sat-Oct-18-1997&s=88506d72fb2f91fbf9c88be13b8e92e3
Quite clearly a Rainbow rip off but I doubt Thames would have been bothered to do anything about it, given they were no longer a franchise holder, and Rainbow will have had limited sales appeal to anyone else by then etc.
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/tvhome/childrens-tv-43822/page-8


I'm pretty sure that Rainbow was shown on UK GOLD in it's very early years - that is when it was one quality channel showing a wide variety of programmes.

Long before it became the multi-channel UKTV network showing the same old, same old, over and over.



On a side note. In its early days UK Gold always started late. Does anyone know why?


It was probably cheaper to buy channel space in those days for x hours to x hours than for 24 hours a day.

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