I agree with you w_y. I never felt particularly comfortable with Andy Pandy. The Flowerpot Men was my type of programme.
Never had a tv back then, but my grandparents did - and I can categorically state that Wednesday, every second one at least, was Tales of the Riverbank starring Hammy Hamster.
Andy Pandy WAS creepy - the way he and Looby Loo got into that box - almost as bad as Morecambe and Wise sharing a bed
Looby Loo was sacked from Andy Pandy after she became pregnant. There was never any proof but we all know who did it, don't we children?
Andy Pandy didn't start until 1950 I think and we didn't have TV then. My memories go back to Children's Hour on steam radio and the one thing that sticks in my mind is Toytown with Larry the Lamb, Ernest the policeman, Mr. Growser the shopkeeper and Mr. Mayor. I still remember sitting by the fire on a cold winters evening listening to the radio and toasting crumpets in front of the embers. Also around Christmas time we would have some chestnuts that were sat along the fender and eaten hot, so hot that you would burn your hands. Happy days, but the smog was dreadful.
Spot on BB - I loved Tales of the Riverbank with Hammy & pals.. I also remember a programme called Space Patrol with a creature called a Gabblerdictum - and the Capt. always seemed to be saying "boost the messan power Slim"...I remember being able to see the wires and even then thinking the "effects" were ****e.
Ahhhh...steam radio....Sunday evening I think...Journey into Space....absolutely terrifying, more so because you could hear weird noises etc but couldn't see what was making them.
I seem to remember it being on midweek - I had to go straight to bed after it finished at 7:00pm & usually spent the next half hour wide awake, reliving the episode, sometimes too scared to peek out from under the blanket. Captain Jet Morgan, Doc, Lemmy and Mitch if my memory serves me well - the crew of Discovery who saved humankind. The show drew larger audiences than TV - not hard in those days though.
Reading some of the posts about radio reminded me of my friend Ivor who lived across the road from me in Bushey. I think it was in the 1930s that people in our road were given the chance to have electricity installed in the houses for about £35. My father did subscribe to it but not everyone did. In our house the gas lighting was never taken out and when there was a cut in the electricity supply we could still see if we could find a mantle. Anyway Ivor did not have electricity in his house and one of his jobs was to go to the shop in the High Street and exchange their accumulator for one that had been charged up. He would be missing the outcome of adventures that appealed to boys because the accumulator had run out at the crucial moment.
Andy Pandy was weird! Tales from the Riverbank was boring, it was way too real lol..i know, talking animals isn't real, but they were real animals, i hated it! lol Loved the Woodentops, and the Flowerpot men...and trumpton and camberwick green. Pugh Pugh Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub! My next door neighbour was one of the first people we knew with a colour telly! On a Monday and a thursday she'd let me and my brother go next door to watch Blue Peter in colour, and she'd get yummy chocolates to put out while we were there...i loved my next door neighbour!
I never could and still cannot watch Andy Pandy, I used to love watching fireman sam and postman pat. I also watched old copies of trumpton and camberwick green with mum. I also remember reading the Redwall books and watching the tv series. They were all about talking animals and there were good animals; mice, rabbits, otters and bad ones; foxes, rats. They usually ended up in a massive battle for control of either Redwall Abbey or one of the other good guys homes.
Coal fires for heating! I remember playing a board game with a friend when all the soot from our chimney suddenly descended into the living room. Everything was covered in soot, but we carried on playing our game. Which reminds me. Andy Rankin got injured carrying in the coal, from his coal bunker in the garden, to the fire place.
Tales from the Riverbank is an interloper here - it was not part of the "Watch with Mother" round - that was Rag Tag and Bobtail who were much better - mischievous little things they were too Still if we are moving into the 60s I used to love Lost in Space - it was about a family who were - lost in space (space family Robinson I think - but what made the show was the evil creepy Zach Smith
Someone on TV just mentioned Victory Vs...looked like bits of dried clay but very very hot and with a quite indescribable flavour...