Saturday morning TV memories

I'll never forget MoM, I remember watching it downstairs in the living room whilst my sisters were watching Dick and Dom on the Beeb upstairs!

Don't forget the animation that was used for Tricky turned up on Pop, and they used it for years.

Someone was uploading full episodes of Ministry of Mayhem on YouTube but the uploads have completely stopped. They got to May 2004.

They also destroyed the Ministry of Mayhem theme tune right from episode 1.

Probably due to YouTube's terrible copyright laws. But that's a totally different story for another day.

Remember the later years of going live and then L&K also did a L&K Friday for a bit too. Summer replacements on BBC One was Parallel 9 and Fully Booked which became FBI after a bit, I was getting older at the time but I did enjoy MOM (1,2,3 Mr Lee, Ram Ray Cakey Skate) but Saturday Showdown was very poor after MOM.

What? The "you can't upload things you don't have the rights to upload" law? That's not really a YouTube problem, more a people blatantly disregarding the law issue. Don't get me wrong, it winds me up when Google block videos of people's kids because there a snippet of a pop song playing on the next door neighbours radio, but uploading compete episodes of TV programmes is a pretty blatant violation of UK (and US) copyright law.

Fair enough.

Anyways, back to topic I was team ITV back in the day, even got to the point where my parents tried to ban me from MoM! (don't remember why)

I don't remember watching Saturday Showdown, probably because my parents convinced me that MoM was gone forever.

I feel extremely old as I remember BBC One starting up with the likes of Bagpuss, Chigley and Scooby Doo before Multi-Coloured Swap Shop.

Over on ITV, animated adventures with Kum Kum or Vicki the Viking (who was a boy, by the way) preceded the likes of TISWAS at 10.30 sharp.

I’ll get me Zimmer frame and hobble out of here!

Gimme 5, What’s up doc, motormouth, live and kicking, going live, ghost train, summer mornings on citv in the early 90s that’s when I encountered ox tales, vicki the Viking didn’t realise it was on before, happy days.

Tiswas. It couldn't be anything else growing up in Birmingham.
From when it started as the bits between cartoons and Tarzan films with Peter Tomlinson, John Asher, Chris Tarrant and Trevor East, to slowly evolving into a really fast paced and unpredictable riot of fun for a few hours up to World of Sport, there was nothing like it,

You could see they enjoyed doing it, and were playing with the TV facilities - Trevor East in his Derby County T shirt trying to read the Sport as they gradually put a circle on the vision mixer where his face was, then he would spot it on a monitor and try to move to avoid it is just one small example. (I think he became head of sport at Sky years later?)
The kids were really a part of it all, with the Underates and Overates competitions (for kid either side of the age of eight) the winners from last week being pulled up by their ears from under the desk - don't think that would be allowed now.

One of my mates at school got on the show and in the cage - being showered with buckets of water, and flanned by the Phantom Flan Flinger - I was so jealous.

When it went off for a summer break, it didn't always match the Swap Shop break, and I would get to see a couple of those programmes. It always looked a little dull compared to Tiswas - and it was more likely I'd give up and go and play outside.

On Youtube there is an early opening of the show from August 1975 - and once again I am 8 years old.
I need to turn the chroma down on my laptop to make it as I saw it back then!
https://youtu.be/SAr2Wp3xLCw

....and Hampshire !

In 1975 we got a new rental telly, and it had 6 push buttons ! We lived on top of a hill on the Hants/Berks border, so just about everybody in the area had London and Southern aerials, and as most tellies had typically
four buttons, it would be BBC 1, 2, ITV Southern, ITV London. However, the signal from Oxford and therefore ATV was also healthy, so my father stuck up an aerial for that too when we got our new telly. No one else at school had ATV, I remember telling them about Tiswas before LWT and Southern took the show, they didn't believe me !

6 push buttons!
You'd never need that many.....