New Look Busker & Barney's Birthday Greetings

Today saw a new look to UTV's 'Busker & Barney's Birthday Greetings' which has now been renamed 'Buska + Barney'. We've now gone from plasticine figures to live action with a dodgy Northern Ireland accent! Stangely, the two editions shown today haven't actually had any birthday greetings in them!

Watch it below...

http://www.utvtoday.co.uk/videos/busker_barney.flv

The wee one with the cap on is very sweet.

I had no idea UTV did a birthday greetings slot... It doesn't really compare to the legend that is Oscar Puffin, though!

When is this usually shown, as it seems there's very little space in the schedule these days thanks to ITV plc wanting to pump out their own crap.

Puffin's Pla(i)ce was shifted around recently with the changing times of CITV programmes, and now it looks as though CITV's been dropped from ITV1, Puffin's Pla(i)ce is now sandwiched between Everything Must Go and Inspector Morse!

Interestingly there didn't seem to be a Puffin's Pla(i)ce today, whether it was because there were no birthdays so they didn't bother or network ITV programmes overran so they didn't have time I don't know...

I though that was still show during the ITV lunchtime news - puffinplace

Told you it was coming

The pictures are dropped into a black and green computery screen, well when they decide to add them. The one with the baby lost in the ship is cute!

Nope... they lost the lunchtime slot when they moved the Lunchtime news and shortened it. Since then, as I said, they've been on just before CITV and now they're on just before Inspector Morse.

Personally I'm not sure how much longer the show will last if they keep having to change their time slots, there won't be much of a show left thanks to ITV plc, which would be a shame for a programme that's been going over 40 years.

Come to think of it, I wonder what would happen if they got Oscar to run ITV plc? that would be interesting!

At the minute it's shown during the news break in This Morning, after the regional news at about 11:20am. It's also shown at 3:30pm which used to be just before CITV (but is now before Inspector Morse).

A longer version also used to be shown at 5pm whenever UTV didn't take the network programme but at the minute Morse is running until 5:30pm so it's only being shown twice.

I take it then UTV not showing Everything Must Go!

Nope, Morse starts at 3:30pm and runs until 5:30pm (just before UTV Live)

I take it there are a few different versions then? Any idea why they didn't have any photographs today?

Definitely an improvement on those irritating claymations which bordered on the ridiculous and almost unsuitable for kids (the Barry White one).

Why is Barney naked? And why does he have an English accent? And why did he drop the E... in his name?

And were these filmed in Havelock House?

Nice to UTV spending a bit of money on B&B though. I hope when the birthday pictures return they stop using Arial and it will definitely be an improvement

Made by the same people who made that On The Air show with Gerry Anderson.