I am a boy. I love stupid boy projects. Since living on my own, I seem to embark on more stupid boy projects. And when one gets in my head, it is pretty difficult to get it out of my head. This is the reason I now own guinea pigs. More on that another time.
I’m not sure how or why the idea got in my head. I think I realised that this blog has largely become about television – see my Take Me Out rant, my anger at a throwaway comment on Question Time or my media studies essay on the stereotypes in shows such as The Only Way Is Essex.
Which is quite odd really, as I don’t actually watch much TV.
So, for some reason, I got it into my head to watch one episode of every childrens’ TV show on BBC iPlayer.
I could try to tell myself that it’s so that I can make sure the shows these days are not corrupting my 6 month old niece, or that I’m actually trying to fill in all the bits of my general knowledge that have fallen out and been replaced with information about superheroes but it’s more likely just because I actually have the mentality of a 5 year old.
The task was a much bigger undertaking than I thought it would be at the point when I started. If I’d have counted the number of shows there were, I would probably have given up before I started. All in all, it took about 3 weeks of my spare time to get through them.
On the plus side, if and when I find a woman silly enough to procreate with me, I will know which ones are the ones to avoid already.
That makes it sound worse than it is. Some of the shows were, predictably, rather rubbish. Some of them were outstanding though. I found I developed the ability to tell within about 30 seconds which it was going to be.
Some of the shows I used to watch were horrendous, if you watch them back nowadays. Nostaligia does tend to rose-tint your opinions of things. Some of them make very little sense except to children’s minds and the same is true for some shows these days. Perhaps all that changes is the drugs that TV producers are on when they come up with the ideas.
In a way, it does seems as if they have some sort of random idea generator, as there are a limited number of shows. I would narrow it down to seven main types of shows. Not everything will fit these seven but I’m not going to spend even more time coming up with the equivalent of Propp’s 31 functions of fairytales.
The seven types of show are:
1. Children doing grown up things
2. Creatures/aliens/puppets living with humans
3. Animals that talk
4. Purely educational
5. Bizarre creatures making nonsensical noises
6. Things that can’t usually speak are able to speak
7. Wacky stuff happens
Into the last category, I would place some of the game shows they have, such as Copycats. On the topic of game shows, lots of contestants seem to be from Liverpool for some reason. I couldn’t work out why it is other than perhaps assuming that they have some studios near there.
Copycats, is hosted by a duo called Sam and Mark. They are effectively the next Ant and Dec, although they’re probably not as good at rapping. Is it wrong to have a favourite out of Sam and Mark? Because I do. It’s Mark, as Sam reminds me of Michael McIntyre who just annoys me.
They seem to have used up a large number of ideas for TV shows, as very few of them are completely original. Below I have given a short summary and my views on every show I watched, and – if you were to read them all – you will probably get bored by the number of times other shows are referenced. Aside from the shows that are still going such as Blue Peter or the obvious re-makes such as Postman Pat, lots of shows seem to borrow heavily from others.
Pet Squad is a re-make of Powerpuff Girls but with pets, right down to the visual style. In The Night Garden is Teletubbies with a different type of character. And those are just two of the really obvious ones.
I guess this is understandable. There are only going to be a limited number of ways to put a TV show together, in the same way that there are only a limited number of ways to put chords together to make music, which is why you get similarities between songs and which inspired the Pachelbel Rant.
Anyway, if you can’t be bothered to read through all my summaries below, here are the shows that your children should be watching:
Infants: Alphablocks, In The Night Garden
Young children: Shaun The Sheep, Walk on the Wildside, Sarah and Duck, Newsround, I Can Cook
Teenagers: Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom, Horrible Histories, All Over The Place, How to be Epic at Everything, My Life
You’re welcome.
Show: 4 O’Clock Club
Episode: Season 2 Episode 1
Premise: 2 brothers – one is teacher of the year and one is troublesome student at Elmsbury school. The gimmick is that they frequently break into rap songs. At times it seems a bit like a music video and the budget seems quite high because of this. The show is actually pretty good on it’s own rights and the gimmick is probably not needed. However, I did disapprove of part of the show where they were picking on a girl because she was different but no real comeback for the bully.
A bit like: Grange Hill with rap.
Rating: 7/10
Show: 64 Zoo Lane
Episode: Season 3 Unknown
Premise: A cartoon where Lucy lives with a load of zoo animals. Definitely aimed at younger audiences. This episode features a story to help children accept things in the world. Lucy didn’t get exactly what she wanted but it was better because other peoples input helped improve it.
A bit like: an urbanised jungle book.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Abadas
Episode: 2
Premise: A kid name Ben has a book which contains a hippo, bat and fox who come to life and the cartoons jump out of the book into his room. Brightly coloured and trippy. In Welsh, so I’m guessing I didn’t pick up on absolutely everything that was going on, although the moral that I took from this episode is that it’s okay to draw over yourself with pens that you find on the beach.
A bit like: Being captured by a cult and force fed LSD.
Rating: 2/10
Note: From this point on, I avoided anything else that was in Welsh.
Show: Absolute Genius With Dick and Dom
Episode: 1 – Archimedes
Premise: Dick and Dom pick a genius and tell you all about their inventions and how they work with practical examples and applications with their cute scientist friend Fran. I love science but I don’t understand it very well and this explains it in a very simple to understand manner. All kids should know this sort of stuff.
A bit like: Brian cox’s year 6 school project.
Rating: 10/10.
Show: The adventures of Abney and Teal
Episode: Season 1 Episode 13
Premise: Two children live in a woods and are friends with a sort of sea creature, an accordion playing dog, some things called Pokpoks and a character called Neep who can only say “neep”. Incessantly. It’s worse when his friends turn up as well.
A bit like: Being hungover in a room full of screaming babies.
Rating: 2/10
Show: All over The Place.
Episode: Season 1 Episode 5
Premise: Four young excitable presenters travel across America visiting the weirdest tourist attractions, singing and entering competitions.
A bit like: Bill Bryson on Red Bull.
Rating: 9/10
Show: Alphablocks
Episode: Season 2 Episode 6
Premise: Some really cute creatures who all have a letter on their head spell out words and hold hands and then that thing appears or happens. They usually say words only beginning with that letter.
A bit like: Penny Crayon decides to teach spelling.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Andy’s wild adventures
Episode: Season 1 Episode 12
Premise: Andy works in a zoo. He and his pet puppet cat Kit travel the world in a crazy flying machine and using strange gadgets to educate us about different types of animals.
A bit like: Attenborough goes sci-fi.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Arthur
Episode: Season 10 Episode 5
Premise: Some animals of indeterminate species live human-like lives although title character seemed to disappear. There was a song which seemed to celebrate everyone’s differences and this episode is about appreciating the opera.
A bit like: Some sort of warped version of Toy Story.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Baby Jake
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: A family with ten children live in a windmill. Baby Jake likes to go on adventures narrated by his brother Isaac who is the only one who can speak baby-ese. Jake’s disembodied head is put on a cartoon body and he joins dancing hamsters in space.
A bit like: Round the Twist combined with your wildest nightmares.
Rating: 1/10
Show: Bear Behaving Badly
Episode: Season 3 Episode 7
Premise: A guy lives with a couple of sock puppets who get into mischief. Heavily reliant on dramatic irony.
A bit like: A cooler version of Bodger and Badger.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Blue Peter
Episode: Flying with the Red arrows and Eating bugs
Premise: A magazine show which has been running for approximately a million years and has features on creativity, culture and conservation among other subjects. Always seems to leave you with an appetite for life and a “I can do that!” attitude
A bit like: Blue Peter
Rating: 8/10
Show: Bob the Builder
Episode: Unknown
Premise: Bob and his anthropomorphised vehicles build and fix things around their town. If you haven’t seen it before then you must have been living on a different planet.
A bit like: Thomas The Tank engine for The DIY generation.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Cbeebies Bedtime Stories
Episode: 12. Whinnies flying carpet
Premise: “Celebrities” read bedtime stories in an armchair with pictures from the book
A bit like: Jackanory.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Cbeebies Birthday Cards
Episode: 21st February 2013
Premise: Seems to be a compilation of all the bits of the show where presenters pull out birthday cards for viewers and wish them a happy birthday. Quite impressed that they still make people post them rather than email them. They put a CBBC character over the top of one of them who had a jumper for a non CBBC character or logo. I’m a bit dubious about the kids being able to recognise themselves on TV though as they might not have that much self-awareness. It seems to happens 4 times a day.
A bit like: A modern version of when they used to pull out pictures of kids faces on the front of Thomas The Tank Engine.
Rating: 4/10
Show: Charlie And Lola
Episode: Season 3 Episode 27
Premise: A cartoon with a boy called Charlie and his little sister Lola who he has to look after. They hang around with their friends and train dogs. I very much approve of Charlie coordinating his shoes with his top.
A bit like: Watching a little boy take care of his little sister.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Chuggington: Badge Quest
Epsiode: 41
Premise: A train is on a quest to get badges and has to complete certain tasks to obtain them. In this episode, Wilson cleans leaves from The track using water which in reality would have just got wet and stayed there. They must have been the right kind of leaves.
A bit like: Thomas The Tank Engine joins The scouts.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Cloud Babies
Episode: 37
Premise: The cloud babies are some brightly coloured seemingly human creatures called Bobos who ride strange horse creature things who take care of all the things in the sky, including the moons polish to keep it shining. It explains who the universe works with stories such as Bobo Pink fluffs the clouds. Obviously they are actually teaching children lies.
A bit like: My Little Ponies and the Wombles mated.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Copycats
Episode: Season 2 Episode 39
Premise: Two kids get a team (seemingly mainly to consist of their relations) and battle it out against each other for a trophy. Sam and Mark lead the teams through a series of games where they have to copy what their team mates or a TV screen shows them.
A bit like: Ant and Dec bastardised Family Fortunes and turned it into chinese whipsers.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Dani’s Castle
Episode: 1
Premise: A girl/woman named Dani inherits an odd castle in the middle of nowhere in Ireland. It turns out that she actually only inherited half with a cousin owning another half. It is haunted and the ghosts try to make friends with the humans. With canned laughter.
A bit like: An Irish version of Rentaghost.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Dani’s House
Episode: Season 1 Episode 12
Premise: Dani lives in a house with her brother who she doesn’t get along with. Watched by aliens. With canned laughter.
A bit like: Dani’s Castle but worse.
Rating: 4/10
Show: The Daredevil
Episode: 3
Premise: The Daredevil presents a team of competitors with a lot dares for them to complete to get lives to take forward to the final challenges. Presented by a guy who wants to be Richard O’Brien but has a lot worse puns and comes across as fake.
A bit like: The Crystal Maze has mated with I’m A Celebrity.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Deadly Mission Madagascar
Episode: 2
Premise: A group of school kids visit Madagascar to see how they can help to conserve the wildlife in the area.
A bit like: Greenpeace commandeered a TV show.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Dennis and Gnasher
Episode: 26
Premise: Dennis the Menace and his dog Gnasher get up to mischief. If you don’t know more than that, then you’re either too young or not cool enough to have read The Beano. I was frankly a bit disappointed there’s no Roger the Dodger cartoon as he was clearly the best Beano character.
A bit like: Your childhood has come alive and been voiced incorrectly. You’re not sure if you like it or not.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Diddly Movies
Episode: Season 1 Episode 3
Premise: Dick and Dom’s heads are on diddly bodies as they parody various movies with really high helium voices.
A bit like: A more annoying and less funny South Park episode meets the Chuckle Brothers.
Rating: 3/10
Show: Dipdap
Episode: 9
Premise: A little creature walks along a line which creates challenges for him
A bit like: A cartoon version of Morph.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Driver Dan’s Story Train
Episode: Season 1 Episode 44
Premise: A sort of lion/flower creature called Dan drives the story train randomly around to find someone to tell a story to/with. The train has no tracks and can go wherever it wants so probably doesn’t count as a train in the strictest definition.
A bit like: The Magic Roundabout does story time.
Rating: 7/10
Show: The Dumping Ground
Episode: Season 1 Episode 3
Premise: A lot of kids in care going through the problems of growing up and all of that sort of stuff. It features disabled characters in a positive light.
A bit like: Byker Grove meets Eastenders.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Everything’s Rosie
Episode: Season 1 Episode 25
Premise: A girl with rainbow coloured dreads and a selection of human and animal friends live in a playhouse with talking trees and get up to normal children stuff
A bit like: Watching children play if some of them were of indeterminate species.
Rating: 4/10
Show: Fierce Earth
Episode: 1
Premise: a team of thrill seekers investigate the worst kinds of weather suffered on earth and explain the science behind it. The show is a bit American/Anglo centric classifying the three worst hurricanes as Ike, Sandy and Katrina although they are not in the top three according to this list. And is based on the cost of repairing the damage not the death toll.
A bit like: If Brian Cox sky dived.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Fit
Episode: 9
Premise: A sketch show vaguely based around sports, health and fitness. I’m aware I’m not the target audience and I probably have a more sophisticated sense of humour but I didn’t lol once.
A bit like: The slow show.
Rating: 2/10
Show: Get Squiggling! Letters
Episode: 1
Premise: A giant monster thing called squiggler has a squigglepad and a squigglestick (known to you and me as a crayon) and encourages children to practice writing letters. The letter then turns up and squeaks to squiggler before a story is told involving lots of things beginning with that letter
A bit like: Snufflepaugus from The Muppets was given a show to educate children.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Get Well Soon
Episode: 27 The Raspberry Surprise
Premise: A singing doctor treats a bunch of hypochondriac puppets to explain illnesses and how to treat them.
A bit like: Embarrassing Bodies: The PG edition.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Grandpa In My Pocket
Episode: Season 2 Episode 9
Premise: Grandpa has a shrinking cap which he can put on to cause mischief/bully bullies
A bit like: Honey I Shrunk The Grandparents.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Help! My Supply Teacher Is Still Magic
Episode: 1
Premise: A number of magicians take supply classes at schools and instead of teaching them, they do magic tricks. Interspersed with magicians doing street magic.
A bit like: Penn and Teller meets Grange Hill.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Hero Squad
Epsiode: 6
Premise: 6 kids are trained up to be lifesavers. They go through training and a series of challenges to compete to be squad leader.
A bit like: The extreme Young Apprentice.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Horrible Histories
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: A show presented by a rat featuring actors in period costumes acting out periods of history with true facts and slightly exaggerated stories for comedic effect.
A bit like: An educational Life of Brian.
Rating: 9/10
Show: How To Be Epic At Everything
Episode: 1
Premise: A 15 minute show with about 10 different skills for you to learn, such as the splits, how to flick a card… You had me at how to survive the zombie apocalypse
A bit like: A little bit of everything for dummies.
Rating: 9/10
Show: I Can Cook
Episode: 16
Premise: A group of children join the host who helps to teach them to make simple recipes whilst singing and making it fun for children. This show is actually brilliant. I didn’t learn to cook until I actually left home and it’s something very enjoyable and that I think kids should learn earlier
A bit like: Nigella without all the fancy recipes and innuendo.
Rating: 10/10
Show: Iconicles
Episode: 7
Premise: An inventor called Nat lives in a futuristic looking apartment with a CGI hedgehog called skitter interspersed with cartoons and life lessons.
A bit like: A futuristic Rainbow.
Rating: 6/10
Show: In The Night Garden
Epsiode: Season 1 Episode 1
Premise: People in costumes dance around and sing nonsense rhymes and speak nonsense words. In a garden. In the Dayime.
A bit like: The Teletubbies. Give or take a few details, it is identical. I know a lot of people get annoyed at this show but I think it’s actually pretty good and is no worse than shows from a few years ago.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Johnny and Inel show
Episode: 1
Premise: Johnny and Inel present a sketch show in front of a live audience
A bit like: A more street version of those sketch shows Ant and Dec used to do.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Junior Vets
Episode: 1
Premise: A group of kids join the vets at Edinburgh university
A bit like: X-Factor mated with country file.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Just Kidding.
Epiosde: 11
Premise: A bunch of kids play a load of practical jokes on grown ups whose laughter makes it look like they were already in on the joke
A bit like: Beadle’s About with kids
Rating: 1/10
Show: Justin’s House
Episode: Season 2 Episode 20
Premise: A slightly camp man in a waistcoat with a robot in his house sings songs and entertains large groups of children in his house which is aridiculously bright and quirky set. Potential paedophile
A bit like: A pantomime with no real direction
Rating: 1/10
Show: The League of Super Evil
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: A team of super villains go about their every day business of doing things like winning chilli cook offs.
A bit like: An Invader Zim/Pinky and the Brain hybrid.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Let’s Play
Episode: 20
Premise: Two grown ups sing a song hoping that they’re going to be the one who gets to dress up with the random fancy dress generator and be the one to get to play today. Features humans living in a cartoon world.
A bit like: Mr Benn with living people.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Little Howard’s Big Question
Episode: Season 3 Episode 7
Premise: A cartoon character named Howard lives with a human called Howard and a computer called mother and if this episode is anything to go by, learns some pop psychology in every episode.
A bit like: A Freudian Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Rating: 7/10
Show: Me and My Monsters
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: 3 monster puppets live with the Carson family and generally get in the way and make nuisances of themselves.
A bit like: Monster Muppets at home.
Rating: 7/10
Show: MI High
Episode: Season 1 Episode 3
Premise: A number of school kids are actually undercover spies.
A bit like: Spooks meets Spy Kids.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Mike the Knight
Episode: 11
Premise: A knight called mike has lots of knightly adventures with dragons and the like
A bit like: A CGI knights tale.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Mr Maker Comes To Town
Episode: Seaosn 2 Episode 9
Premise: Mr Maker drives around in a brightly coloured vehicle when kids call him to get him to help them make brightly coloured things. He also has the same bright blue converse as me.
A bit like: Art Attack mated with Playdays.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Mr Bloom’s Nursery
Episode: 3
Premise: Mr bloom has a greenhouse with lots of talking vegetables which resemble those from the Muppets’ Christmas Carol. He finds little children and teaches them about gardening.
A bit like: Titschmarsh simplified.
Rating: 7/10
Show: My Life
Episode: Season 4 Episode 1
Premise: Children tells of their life, hopes and struggles
A bit like: An inspiring show proving that you can do it.
Rating: 9/10
Show: My Story
Episode: 10
Premise: People tell their family history through shared experiences, such as
A bit like: A less inspirational version of my life.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Naomi’s Nightmares of Nature
Episode: 1
Premise: Naomi comes face to face with nightmares of nature. And uses the phrase “nightmare of nature” at every conceivable opportunity. And is a big wussy girl.
A bit like: Watching Ray Mears sleep.
Rating: 2/10
Show: Newsround
Episode: 14/3/13
Premise: All the top modern stories presented by explaining in full so that children will understand
A bit like: Newsround.
Episode: 9/10
Show: Nina and The Neurons: Go Engineering
Episode: 16
Premise: A Scottish scientist and CGI representations of each of our senses answer science questions asked by children.
A bit like: The New Scientists’ Last Word column.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Numberjacks
Episode: Season 2 Episode 3
Premise: A group of numbers are secret agents living on some sort of spaceship who enter the real world to solve number based problems
A bit like: If Star Trek had a mathematical premise.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Numtums
Episode: 12
Premise: A bunch of squirrel like creatures with numbers on their tums (hence numtums) live in a very colourful and noisy world (at least for 7am which is when I watched it). They send a number to have adventures with real life children.
A bit like: Thunderbirds. Even though it was nothing like it, for some reason I couldn’t get the comparison out of my head.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Nuzzle and Scratch: Frock and Roll
Episode: 21
Premise: Two alpacas live with a guy called the captain who dresses posh, like. The alpacas get confused about what is going on and go out and adventure in the real world.
A bit like: if Gonzo and Animal were the Chuckle Brothers. But were actually alpacas.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Octonauts
Episode: Season 1 Episode 16
Premise: Some cgi animals live in a submarine. From their accents, They appear to have come from all over the world. They came up against some evil anemones.
A bit like: A sci-fi set in the sea. A sea-fi.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Officially Amazing
Episode: 4
Premise: A show showcasing world record attempts and other amazing things.
A bit like: A modern day Record Breakers but without the theme tune.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Uncle Jack’s Boat
Epsiode: 16
Premise: Seafaring uncle jack tells of his mystical stories from the high seas
A bit like: A less grumpy Father Jack making up stories.
Rating: 4/10
Show: Pet Squad
Episode: 25
Premise: Three crime fighting animals with super powers save the city from dastardly villains.
A bit like: The Powerpuff Pets. Right down to the visual style.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service
Episode: Season 1 Episode 1
Premise: Postman Pat has been upgraded to work of the special delivery service in the same stop motion style of the original and with only a slightly amended theme song.
A bit like: Your childhood has been lovingly and respectfully upgraded unlike the blasemphemous remake of Thomas the Tank Engine.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Rastamouse
Episode: 16
Premise: A stop motion reggae playing mouse fights crime with stereotypical Jamaican accents
A bit like: A slightly racist Fingermouse.
Rating: 2/10
Show: Rocket’s Island.
Episode: 2
Premise: A kid called rocket lives on a secluded island where he has a Cave that makes wishes come true. Only someone has vandalised it and he wants to know who!
A bit like: Round the Twist set on the Isle of Man.
Rating: 4/10
Show: Sadie J
Episode: Season 3 Episode 1
Premise: A teenage girl and her friends complete with stereotypical gay friend live their lives with lots of coincidences and canned laughter.
A bit like: A worse version of Clarissa Explains It All.
Rating: 3/10
Show: Sam and Mark’s Big Friday Windup
Episode: 1
Premise: An audience of children and their parents are embarrassed by Sam and mark of copycats fame who get their relatives to do embarrassing things or to do Noel’s house party style windups with famous people scaring children.
A bit like: Saturday night TV from the 80s.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Same Smile
Episode: Season 2 Episode 6
Premise: Misha visits children and finds out what they’ve been up to.
A bit like: Taking a child to the park.
Rating: 3/10
Show: Sarah and Duck
Episode: 6
Premise: Sarah has a duck that lives in her bath. She feeds it bread on a plate
A bit like: A ludicrously cute cartoon.
Rating: 9/10
Show: Sarah Jane Adventures
Episode: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith Part 1
Premise: A Doctor Who spin off with his former companion and her son
A bit like: Doctor Who Lite. Without the doctor.
Rating: 6/10
Show: School of Silence
Episode: Season 2 Episode 10
Premise: A game show where children are subjected to things that are likely to make them scream where they will win prizes if they don’t.
A bit like: A load of gunge tanks
Rating: 5/10
Show: Shaun the Sheep
Episode: Season 3 Episode 6
Premise: Shaun is a sheep. He has sheeply adventures.
A bit like: 7 minute fixes of Aardman.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Something Special
Episode: Season 7 Episode 5
Premise: Justin from Justin’s house is a clown called Mr Tumble. He uses a lot of sign language whilst talking to an off screen child who is asking him what he is doing.
A bit like: A signing clown.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Splatalot
Epsiode: Season 2 Episode 1
Premise: Dick and Dom present a show where the defenders of the castle try to stop children reaching the castle whilst taunting them at the same time.
A bit like: Those Japanese shows where the contestants have to try to get across obstacle courses.
Rating: 6/10
Show: The Story of Tracey Beaker
Episode: Season 5 Episode 12
Premise: A group of children in care suffer from loneliness
A bit like: The Dumping Ground: The Younger Years.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Superhuman Challenge
Episode: 1
Premise: Sara Cox narrates as we investigate superhuman people.
A bit like: If X-Men were filmed as freaks of nature rather than going to Professor X’s School for the Gifted.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Tilly and Friends
Epsiode: 47
Premise: Tilly lives with a bunch of talking animals and has fun doing human things with them.
A bit like: A really simple show that is made a little more exciting as the characters are animals not humans.
Rating: 4/10
Show: Timmy Time
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: A bunch of CGI non speaking animals hang about with each other.
A bit like: A 10 minute hit of aardman.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Totally Rubbish
Episode: 9
Premise: A couple of excitable people show you how to make stuff out of your rubbish.
A bit like: Art Attack for the credit crunch generation.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Trapped
Episode: Season 3 Episode 1
Premise: A game show where everyone works together but there is one saboteur. They then vote on who they think was the saboteur and the votes person is trapped in the room they were in. Doesn’t seem to be a reward for being an undetected saboteur though.
A bit like: Crystal Maze crossed with The Weakest Link
Rating: 7/10
Show: Tree-Fu Tom
Episode: 21
Premise: In a CGI fantasy world, a guy named Tom does a lot of dance moves and calls it tree-fu to fight off talking mushrooms
A bit like: If that song that goes “one step one time…. Criss cross” actually had magical powers.
Rating: 1/10
Show: VIP People
Episode: 8
Premise: Going behind the scenes of important people to find out who helps them do what they do.
A bit like: Careers advice in how to do a job around a famous person.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Walk on the Wildside
Epsiode: Season 1 Episode 5
Premise: Comedy voice overs to nature videos
A bit like: Fit. But for animals. And actually funny.
Rating: 8/10
Show: Waybuloo
Episode: Season 2 Episode 24
Premise: CGI animals with human faces talk in poorly constructed sentences using nonsense speak. And do yoga. And speak to human children. And something about a sundial.
A bit like: An even weirder version of In The Night Garden.
Rating: 3/10
Show: What’s the Big Idea?
Episode: 1
Premise: Animated show where a thing called Hugo who looks naked investigates the idea behind things, such as perspective and why we go to school.
A bit like: 5 minutes of philosophy for children.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Who Let the Dogs Out and About
Episode: Season 2 Episode 6
Premise: Children take their dogs along to the roadshow and compete to see who can teach them a set trick the best. With cartoons as well.
A bit like: One Man and His Dog in town.
Rating: 5/10
Show: Winging It
Episode: Season 2 Episode 5
Premise: A high school student named Carl has a friend who is an angel who makes his life better by performing magic
A bit like: Al from Quantum Leap is transplanted into Saved By The Bell.
Rating: 6/10
Show: Wolfblood
Epsiode: 11
Premise: A bunch of werewolves try and live in the real world and argue about the use of use some sort of stimulant called eolas. With a Celtic theme tune but seemingly set in Newcastle.
A bit like: Twilight doing Grange Hill’s Just Say No.
Rating: 4/10
Show: Woolley and Tig
Episode: Season 2 Episode 16
Premise: A girl named Tig and her toy spider Woolley go on adventures and she learn life lessons from the toy spider
A bit like: Incy wincy teacher.
Rating: 7/10
Show: Young Dracula
Episode: Season 4 Episode 8
Premise: I’m not entirely sure. There are definitely vampires although they use the term ‘dracula’ to describe them. Which I disapprove of as it’s a proper noun. There is a family feud when the main chapter finds out that the boy who has been living with him is actually his brother and there is some issue with The Council
A bit like: Dracula: The Soap Opera.
Rating: 3/10
Show: Zingzillas
Episode: Season 2 Episode 1
Premise: A band of People sized animal things in colourful colours perform songs on a tropical island.
A bit like: Pugwall’s Summer meets The Muppet Show.
Rating: 7/10