Muskahounds are always ready

The overtimely death of Jimmy Savile came as shock to anyone beyond the age of thirty-five this week. Shocked not so much by the actual death, but by the fact that he hadn’t died ages ago, and then wearily slipped out of our collective consciousness and onto the graying mists of forgetfulness, in much the same way as Jill Dando, the dead one from Westlife*, and Jesus.

Jimmy Savile is famous, of course, for selflessly bringing the dreams of literally tens of children true, providing those dreams meant meeting a celebrity generous or desperate enough to appear on Big Jim’s seminal show Jim’ll Fix It. And by seminal, I do, of course, mean it was big bag of funky smelling semen. Metaphorically speaking, of course. The kids were generally anodyne but grateful, and the celebs were dull, dull, dull.

It did also help if said kid had some ailment or disability.  It was, essentially, a Sunday Tea Time Freak Show, masquerading as Clean Family Fun.

It was, like many programmes from my childhood, dreadful shite which was watchable in the same way that you watch those TV screens in larger Post Offices telling you about the wonders of Post Office Insurance, and Post Office Doggy Treats, and Postland, Postland Uber Alles. You watch it, because you’re there, and it’s on.  You watched Uncle Jim with the kiddies on his knees because it was raining outside, The Love Boat had finished on ITV, and there were no other channels. Except BBC2, which was never a viable option for a child. There be’d monsters.

I suspect the same principle of Its This Or Nothing Except Maybe Your Homework Or Talking To Your Family which was behind the televisual success of other much-feted but ultimately really quite duff stalwarts of the small screen such as Blue Peter, John Craven’s Newsround and Jackanory**.  Why Don’t You was really pretty shit too, once the theme music was over, and Playschool was always ruined by the midway visit to a milk-bottling factory, in which a grumpy little man with a tache and bushy eyebrows would be filmed watching milk getting bottled and looking nervous, as if he knew that as soon as the cameras stopped rolling, he would be ritually and violently sacrificed to appease the gods of the BBC.  

And Tiswas. God, I hated Tiswas.

I know this is controversial, but I don’t care who thinks Tiswas was good. It wasn’t. It was hot shit on a stick. It was like spending Saturday morning with the ADHD kid who was ruining your education during the week by dicking around at school like an underfed whirling dervish on Crystal Meth. If Tiswas was a child, it would be snotty, skinny and mercilessly beaten at playtime twice weekly. Tiswas: a bullied child in TV form.

 

I preferred Swap Shop, although admitting this  has always been social suicide, especially at those parties in your late teens when you realise your childhood is over and everyone starts reminiscing about the TV We Watched When We Were Kids***.

Admitting to preferring Swap Shop to Tiswas was tantamount to proudly admitting to being a Young Conserative and wearing your hair in a side-parting. It was very much not cool. But sometimes, the truth is not cool. Sometimes one must sacrifice being accepted by the herd in exchange for personal integrity.

 Having said that, Swap Shop was also shit. Just not as shit as Tiswas.

And don’t even get me started on No.73. 

I’m off to watch episodes of Dogtanian on Youtube and remind myself, that lurking in every black sky of cloudy evil there is a slither of a silver lining. It might be the shiny glint of a pointy knife in the back of childhood memories, but it’s there.

I hope it’s as good as a I remember.

P.S  Dear Mr ‘Fix-It’. I asked to meet Adam Ant. You never replied. You fucker.

*Or was it Boyzone?

**Except the one with Rik Mayall.

***This would invariably involve discussing The Magic Roundabout characters as drug types, sexual innuendo in Rainbow, and lies about Captain Pugwash.