CiTV Presentation

There was technically the generic ITV branded Children's ITV ident that they used from 1989 until around 1992 (was certainly continuing to be used for a while after the Stonewall era ended), though I think they only really used it because they had to, and even then only the first link of the day- using different logos for other junctions.

The main corporate CITV ident: was used from 4th September 1989 until 30th January 1993. It was used mainly for start and end of CITV.

Here's a little curio for you, Good Friday 1988 and no regular Children's ITV. Instead Gary Terzza and Debbie Shore preview the Easter weekend's kid-friendly fare.

I doubt this went out in Scotland: ( if it did it would have caused alot of confused viewers. )

* On Friday, Knightrider never went out at 7pm because Price is right got that slot instead displaced from 6pm since Grampian and STV had news etc.
* On sunday Again 5pm in Scotland was Scotsport. There did show the selling of Noddy at 15.30

While were at it those pair dont know when the programmes were going out:
* Rock school went out at 09.55 she got her times wrong there,
* Herbie goes Bananas started at 4.15, with the news at 5pm and Part 2 at 5.15...

It was a complete an utter mess...

Yeah, Malcolm Jeffries was the presenter, who was also presenting Scratchy and Co at the time. Wonder what happened to him. As you say, they had that from Monday to Thursday filling the entire CITV slot, with a few special programmes within it, and then had the awards on the Friday. I also remember it was an LWT production which was quite unusual because of course before that they'd never produced any CITV programmes (though presumably it meant they could choose what to feature impartially) and it was in the very early days of LWT programmes in the week and Carlton at the weekend.

I also remember Sam Brady reviewing it on Teletext and saying "Sweet Ma Goggle was the prostitute murdered in this week's Cracker." Funny the things, eh?

Mentioning Scratchy & Co, I always find it funny when people remember it, the only version they seem to remember was the Max Headroom-esque version with Mark Speight's fiberglass wig. Yet of the 4 series the show ran for, only the first was in that style- the other 3 were studio based, Mark Speight no longer wearing a wig, with "Reg" looking through a window frame and all the other Series 1 characters were gone.

I also remember during the first series it began with the idea that Scratchy was computer-generated, yet part way through the first series that scrapped that and began with a short "biography" that he was "just an ordinary boy- until he discovered Saturday Mornings!".

I also remember one episode where Scratchy had Mark Speight as a guest (via split-screen, obviously) with Scratchy being mean to Mark, leading to him running out crying.

Edit: in fact, just done a bit of YouTube digging and found these two examples- the launch trailer, showing part of the CGI idea, and the titles from later in the series (4:07 in the video). IIRC the titles originally began with him forming out of pixels (or something similar), but that was dropped and replaced with the begginning you see here once they decided to make him a real person.

I never understood why they split off any magazine-type features into another show half way through their time on the mid 90's CITV Saturday Morning shows- I just didn't really see the point in it.

One of the only good ones from around this point on CITV was WOW!, which is a shame- about halfway through their run they were starting to get almost half and half with L&K in the ratings, and it's quite easy to see why:

Alas, it only lasted for one series, and what makes it even worse is the fact that the same time next year, it was replaced by Tricky- one of the most terrible TV shows I've ever seen!

[quote="Steve Williams" pid="980591"]

Yes, I remember it vividly. I even have the jingle in my head. Shame there's not much Simply The Best stuff on the internet. If I recall correctly, Laura Sadler (Belfry Witches, Holby City) played the teenage daughter Goggle who had a massive crush on Malcom Jeffries. The Goggles got their own series not long after but the teenage girl character was played by a different actress and I don't think Malcom Jeffries appeared at all. I don't remember liking it didn't last all that long.

Goodness, that was two decades ago now. Scary!

I remember reading the reason WOW was axed was because ITV had spent a fortune getting the Formula 1 rights, so they cut the Saturday morning budget to pay for it- so we got cheap to make stuff like Scratchy & Co, Tricky and Mashed for the next 2 years before SM:TV began.



Tricky was actually made by the same people behind The Chart Show, so I guess you had the situation of the main show and the music show being made by the same people before SM:TV and CD:UK did it. Tricky did re-emerge years later on the channel POP (ran, again, by the people who made The Chart Show) with the exact same animation, though with a different voice and called Roary.

The fibreglass wig was a particularly memorable part of the show, to be fair. It reminded me of that band: The Cartoonies, which were out around the same time. That said, I do remember the change to normal hair Mark Speight. There were promos leading up the second serious featuring Speight with his head bandaged up. When the new series was night, they undid the bandages to reveal the new look Scratchy.

I didn't much care for Scratchy & Co. It had that sort of humour which would give me a headache. Kind of like listening to the Cartoonies.

I presume you mean The Cartoons, who made Witch Doctor. Though that song didn't come out until 1999- a year after Scratchy & Co ended, and 3 1/2 years after we'd last seen Scratchy in that wig!

Here's an early episode of Finders Keepers, from most probably 1991 in the original TVS era, sadly never to be seen again for reasons discussed many times before, and a small snippet of the original opening titles compared to the later one:


Notice not only a very youthful Neil Buchanan, but the entire operation, execution and concept was pretty much a direct lift of the original Nickelodeon show (an episode is also on YouTube). This is quite pedestrian actually in lieu of what happened in later series - the show became far more manic, far more chaotic and generated more of a mess through mechanics than any kid could ever do in half a minute. Also spot the very modern control panel for the countdown timer graphic burnt in by accident

Neil Buchanan was a very prominent figure on Children's ITV throughout the 1990s, with Art Attack, Zzzap, Finders Keepers and Motormouth but after the turn of the century I think he was only seen on Art Attack. Wikipedia says he appears on BBC Alba on occasion.