wowzer! Is he still on TV?

I was reading the back of a rice krispie pack this morning – checking out the latest competition – wondering if I could pass myself off as a twelve year old to win a digital camera for myself and some resources for my school. I would have to create a piece of art using nowt but a cereal box (if I remember rightly practically all the art we did in my primary school days involved little more than a cereal box so I feel I’m at an advantage) The art would be judged by none other than CITV Art Attack presenter Neil Buchanan.

‘Neil Buchanan?’ I thought to myself, ‘Is he still presenting that thing?’ Buchanan was presenting Art Attack (a kids art show for those who have never heard of it) when I was doing my A-levels. I remember this vividly because I carried out a bit of Lever Arch File customisation that had been featured on the programme and was mercilessly ridiculed in school for weeks… ok, months.

Now I know that when I said the name Neil Buchanan some of you recognised him slightly in a kind of ‘where do I know that name?’ way and some of you don’t have a clue who he is at all. However if I were to mention, say, Tony Hart the majority of you (presuming you’re british and over the age of 25) will smile a smile of affectionate recognition. In my mind that is the difference between the generation Xs and the generation Ys or whatever it is they call them. We had true characters – even in children’s TV.

Who doesn’t think of the gallery when they hear that particular piece of music even today? Who didn’t pick sides when Morph and Chas started fighting? Who didn’t make a complete mess of their kitchen trying to do something that Tony Hart made look easy?

When I was a child, right up until I had my own children, I was constantly amazed and entertained by this wonderful exponent of the art of communication. I still remember where I learned one or two of my all time favourite tricks from. Tony had that wonderful ability to make you believe you could do it as easily as counting up to 10.

But it wasn’t just Tony Hart that defined generation Xctv. Think ‘Jim’ll fix it’ (you’re humming the theme tune, aren’t you?) think ‘Danger Mouse’, think ‘Inspector Gadget’ (That’s the original – not the film version or ‘Gadget Boy’ or any other reincarnation)

Buchanan is a great presenter (His huge pieces of art will forever be ingrained in my memory) and I’m sure children’s TV is of a much higher production standard than it was in the 80s. Perhaps we even cringe sometimes when we see the kind of rubbish we watched back then, but will today’s young folks remember ‘Bel’s Boys’, ‘Skyland’ or ‘Curious George’ in the sentimental way we remember ‘The A-team’, ‘Teenage Mutant Turtles’, and of course Tony & Morph? Somehow I doubt it.

For some interesting (for not strictly true) stories about Mr Buchanan check out the page Monkeon have on him. If he’d actually done some of this stuff maybe we’d be saying ‘Tony who?’