Rainbow, Pipkins and a bit of Mr Trimble
Children's television in the 1970s: A trip down memory lane
After my ‘Toys From a Bygone Era’ post, my thoughts turned to children’s television programmes which were broadcast in the 1970s. Gosh, so long ago now, where did the time go?
The first children’s programme that I can recall has probably scarred me for life. Truly, I’m not overstating that. It was called ‘Sara and Hoppity’ and was about a young girl - oh, the spell check has just changed the name to Sara and Happily, very misnamed - and her doll Hoppity, who had one leg shorter than the other, hence his name. I think it was stated that she found him in a ‘goblin ring’. (The mind boggles.)
This was a puppet programme; marionettes I believe. It was the freakiest, creepiest kids’ show that I ever watched. Who on earth thought it was appropriate for tiny tots? Were they mad?!
All I can say is if you manage to find an episode online, be sure to watch it through your fingers. It still scares me now!
Around the time I was being traumatised by Sara and Hoppity, I began to watch Paulus the Wood Gnome, which had a crone-like witch in it named Eucalyptus (or was she Eucalypta?), who swooped above the woods. I was overloaded with fear each time I saw her. It would probably carry a trigger warning now, lol.
Those of us of a certain age will likely all remember Rainbow. I went to check the character’s names before writing this and it said “Up above the streets and houses, Zippy, Bungle, George and Geoffrey entertain themselves.” How very informative…
It was a lively and engaging show for little ones, however, Zippy scared me slightly too. There’s a theme here, isn’t there? Either I was an exceptionally anxious child or TV programmers were somewhat sadistic back then. Maybe both.
A firm favourite back in the day was Pipkins. Yet another puppet show but without the underlying menace of Sara and Hoppity. Its main characters were Hartley Hare, Topov (a monkey), Octavia (an ostrich) and Pig. I think it was set in a workshop or a garage. They all had regional accents, which was quite unusual to be broadcast at that time.
Mr Trimble was about an elderly man who lived in an attic. He had a ‘magic’ telescope through which he would watch films. (Makes me think of the John Lewis Christmas advert of 2015 ‘Man on the Moon’, describing it like that). It was made by Yorkshire Television and was a mixture of live actors and puppets. They did like their puppets in the 1970s, didn’t they? I have asked several of my peers if they remember Mr Trimble, but no one does. I’m not making it up, it was a real show, promise!
When I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I used to enjoy watching Bill and Ben, The Flowerpot Men. I wonder why? They were deliberately created to be unintelligible!
Mr Ben was another programme that I frequently tuned into. It was animated and the eponymous main character wore a bowler hat and a suit. He used to visit a magical costume shop, get changed and then emerge into a different place and time dictated by whatever outfit he was wearing. Bit of a one-trick pony, was Mr Ben.
I’ve no idea what children watch on telly nowadays. I hope it’s less scary than some of the programmes I watched.