Children's BBC in the past

Almost, the See-Saw programmes, which as you say were rebranded from Watch With Mother, were always on BBC1, usually at 1.45, when Pebble Mill at One was on, or 1.30 when it wasn't. They stayed there past the launch of Daytime on Two in 1983 and past the launch of daytime in 1986, where they were shown after Neighbours at 1.50. However they moved them to BBC2 full time in June 1987, officially because they had to shift them around on BBC1 too much to make way for sport and other events, and unofficially, no doubt, because it was uncompetitive for the new daytime schedules to stop for fifteen minutes of pre-school shows. Play School had of course moved in the opposite direction in 1983 - from BBC2 to BBC1 to make way for schools programmes - and then moved back in 1994 to allow BBC1 to compete better in the mornings.

On ITV, the lunchtime kids shows were, as mentioned at twelve o'clock, but in 1987 as part of the first morning line-up they moved them an hour earlier, dropping the ten minute show but keeping the twenty minute show at 11.10. Everyone complained though - and it must have been a bit of a pain to schedule - so it moved back to 12.10 shortly afterwards. The kids shows stayed there until September 1993 when they moved to 3.30.

I do remember that in the summer of 1996, when they were doing Fully Booked on Sunday mornings and Saturday mornings were CBBC links between other shows, one morning there was some sort of cock-up because the announcer had to do the links over the ident for a bit. I only remember that as it was during the Olynpics and the kids shows were interrupting the Open University on BBC2 for an hour or so. And going way, way back, I distinctly remember when Phil Schofield was doing it that one afternoon the first link was done by the announcer over the globe, for the reason that Phil was appearing on the (pre-recorded) Scragtag And His Tea Time Telly, the first kids show, and they didn't want to spoil the illusion it wasn't live. They really made the effort in those days.

That lunchtime kids slot finally disappeared at the start of 2003 didn't it? When Westminster Live became Daily Politics and moved to lunchtime to fit in with the new parliamentary hours. So it had less than a year as a brief bit of CBeebies before being canned.

Im sure PMQ I sure took place at noon well before 2003, with Westminster Live moving to midday aswell? I sure CBBC slot at lunchtimes was at 1pm or 1.30pm even during 2000:

ITV lunchtimes kids shows only got moved back a year later because "this morning" started, which needed the 100mins slot. Rainbow etc was still seen at 11.10 even during early part of 1988

A lot of what's said before is correct. See Saw was first used with the introduction of King Rollo and Bric A Brac ( I think ) and then became a brand name for all the programmes. Throughout the early eighties it was at 1.45pm after Pebble Mill at One. On a bank holiday the See Saw programme was sometimes moved to the morning. It was reduced to ten minutes with the advent of daytime tv in 1986, although restored back to fifteen minutes later on. They programmes moved to BBC Two in the early 90s from what I can remember ( 1.20pm ).

There used to be a Sunday morning programme at 9.00am on BBC One. This stopped in Holy Week 1985, when the BBC introduced See-Saw type programmes at 3.55pm in the afternoon to replace the afternoon Play School. From memory I think the original 3.55pm progs were Bertha, Lay on Five, Caterpillar Trail, Mop and Smiff and Whizz. When this happened a compilation of the week's Play Schools called " Hallo Again " was shown on a Sunday morning.

IIRC PMQs moved not long after Labour came into power.

I probably remember more from the lunchtime slots on both BBC2 and ITV than I do the afternoons. Pigeon Street, Bertha, Charlie Chalk, Postman Pat, Choc-a-block, Bric-a-brac, Rainbow, Greensleeves, Puddle Lane, Allsorts etc. etc. etc. They don't make them like that anymore!

BBC1 - and later BBC2 - of course had the earlier 10am slot too with Play School / Playbus / Playdays / Teletubbies, which I think ultimately got extended to include at least one shorter show as well - IIRC The Family Ness often accompanied them.

and was accompained by the reading out of the birthday cards slot as well

A question about that, was that always done in one of the larger studios even in the early days, due to the fact that they needed the downwards camera, which the broomcupboard wouldn't have?

It always seemed a bit odd when that pre-school slot was consumed by the holiday mornings, so they'd go from older kids to pre-school and birthday cards and then back to older kids.

I remember the 1.45 slot on BBC One in the mid to late 70s / early 80s - staple for that era were Camberwick Green, Chigley, Trumpton, Bod (guess which flavour milkshake...), Flumps, Mary Mungo & Midge, Mr Benn, etc

Think at that time it wasn't called Watch With Mother nor was it See Saw.

Yeh I think the use of Watch with Mother was phased out by the mid seventies. Would like to see clips somewhere ( if they still exist ) of How Do You Do? and Over the Moon. Surely it's time the BBC thought of putting some Play School clips on DVD?

Yes until Tony Blair became Prime Minster 1997 PMQs were on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, IIRC at 3:30pm. decided to combine the two 15 minute sessions into one 30 minute session

Bizarrely, I remember quite clearly watching the first episode of Teletubbies in March/April 1997 in the 10am slot (when I was just 5), and also asking my mother to watch the 10am birthday slot in June 1997 when they switched to Studio 9, so she could tell me what it looked like. (I was clearly really sad even at that young age!!)

I also can remember quite clearly that Joshua Jones was broadcast in addition to Teletubbies in 1998 whenever there was cricket, so that they got to the build up at 10:50 ready for play to begin at 11am.

Of course, Playdays carried on in the 3:30pm slot (or whatever time CBBC One started in the afternoon) for a couple of years or so after Teletubbies took over the morning slot, although I think these were all repeats? Tweenies took over that slot in 2000 - does anybody know if that was a direct replacement for Playdays or if something came between them?

Goodness - the things that you remember...!

Playdays finished in 1997, the kept on with repeats until 1998, there was a whole year filled with something and the Tweenies started in 1999:

Could ChuckleVision be a good guess?

Children's ITV had been in the late afternoon slot onwards long before 1993. The service was effectively "done properly" for want of a better description, with live links and what not from 1987 onwards, having previously been a cut-and-paste job for four years prior to that.

Anyway I'm almost certain that the 12:10 programme window on ITV was still going by 1992, because it disappeared at about the same time that Rainbow ended, which was just after the 1991 Franchise round, but had enough episodes to air on ITV until March 1992. I'd be surprised if the 12:10 children's slot was still around in 1993.