Does your choice of Saturday morning TV shape your future life? In Swap Shop or Tiswas? we look at how the BBC and ITV targeted their young audiences. Did you side with Noel Edmonds and Maggie Philbin or did you prefer Chris Tarrant and the lovely Sally James? And why did groups of office workers from Dudley volunteer to be locked in a cage to be “flanned” by the Phantom Flan Flinger and have buckets of water thrown over them by Chris Tarrant?
In this episode of My 70’s TV Childhood, we also look back to Magpie with those trendy long haired blokes Mick Robertson and Tommy Boyd, Susan Stranks and Jenny Handley. How did their cool, rock star chic compare to the more homely, down to earth Val, Lesley, John and Peter over on Blue Peter? Could you even watch both?
Classic Tommy Boyd story –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abxvlJHMIZ0
Oh dear – and I thought he was such a nice lad!
Hi, I was a solid TISWAS fan however my version was the 1974-6 version with Peter Tomlinson, John Asher and Chris Tarrant (no Sally James at this stage).
I grew up in Mansfield and our local tv station was Yorkshire however we were on the border so we could just about get a dodgy, rolling picture from ATV which must have been worth it to watch TISWAS…
My dad was a BBC fan so as soon as Swap Shop started in 1976, we mostly watched this but I did switch from this to ITV and back during the morning before my dad got up.
I can recall being very annoyed each year though when Swap Shop finished early for the Lord Mayor’s Show…
Hi Carolyn and thanks for sharing your Saturday morning memories. You were lucky to get the early Tiswas; we didn’t get it over in the North West until a few years later. Agree with you on the Lord Mayor’s Show!
I also spent the first few weeks of Swap Shop dialling and redialling trying to get on – I suppose I didn’t realise that there were probably half a million kids doing the same thing!