Saturday Banana

The Saturday Banana was an ITV Saturday morning children's TV show, made by Southern Television at their Northam, Southampton studios. The show's presenter was "Goodies" star Bill Oddie, who also wrote and sang the theme tune.

Saturday Banana began on July 8th 1978, running through the summer and continuing up to December, with a Christmas Special.

Saturday Banana was shown by Anglia, Border, HTV, LWT, STV, Southern and Yorkshire. Saturday Banana did compete with the better known Tiswas. It was available to ITV companies at the same time as the popular Tiswas (but only for about a year) so whether the viewer saw Tiswas or Banana was entirely up to their regional ITV station.

Features

Saturday Banana also featured a version of the children's TV game show "Runaround", made famous by comedian host Mike Read, later to star in BBC's Eastenders. But for 'Bananana', one of the programme researchers who doubled as a presenter, Bill Gamon, hosted the madcap quiz.

The programme was broadcast live from Southern TV's Southampton studios, with occasional film inserts.

The show took over from "Our Show", another Saturday morning kids' programme, and Susan Tully, one of "Our Show"'s young hosts, came to Southampton and stayed with Banana.

For the programme, Southern Television built a giant yellow, peeled banana, which they placed in front of their studios, and which often featured in opening titles and in the background of any item where the cameras were taken outside the building.

Around six opening title sequences were pre-recorded, backed by Oddie's theme song, including a one-off Christmas Special sequence.

Items featured on the show included a weekly chart rundown, with guest pop groups miming their latest hits, then being interviewed after being forced to slide down half of the main interior set

The robot Metal Mickey first appeared on this show and went on to have his own sitcom on London Weekend Television from 1980 to 1983.

Presenters wore bright yellow T shirts with the Banana logo, and metal circular badges, firstly on yellow backdrops, then mass-produced on red backdrops, were issued to both guests and the child audience chosen from local schools.

Children could also write-in with their 'dream activities', which show resarchers would attempt to grant. One such feature saw Bill Oddie wrestle a small child in a side-sealed square filled with a foot of mud-coloured 'gunge'.

On one show, West Side Story star George Chakiris, then starring in 'Passion of Dracula' in a London production at the Queen's Theatre, opened the show by being driven, in a horse-drawn hearse, across Northam Bridge (by the studios), bringing startled drivers to a virtual halt.

George was then interviewed in studio. During the item, a caged fruit bat was brought in and talked about by teenage wildlife expert Chris Balcombe.

In another show, Chris bought in a grass snake and common toad, which all the presenters handled, including Susan Tully, and the toad was nearly lost after it crawled down into the wiring behind the desktop monitor. It disappeared again once off air and it is feared it was devoured by the grass snake.

Another local teen, David Ellery, made two guest appearances. In one, he gave a demonstration on radio-controlled models, making use of the area at the front of the Southern TV studios.

Following Banana, Bill Oddie returned to 'The Goodies'.

Southern TV policy at that time was (with the exception of news programming) to wipe any videotape recording of contemporary programming, especially those of children's shows as it was thought they would have little future value, combined with the high cost of videotape (a common practice within television at that time); Consequently little remains of Saturday Banana on broadcast quality master tape.

However the final episode before Christmas, 1979 remains in its' entirety along with a sequence from 1978 which features Bill talking to George Chakiris, the Fruit Bat discussion, the snake and toad sequences and presenter Bill Gamon briefly chatting to then chart toppers 'Sparks'. A 'chart rundown' is also shown, with clips of the top ten played while the camera pans over the young audience members.

Low quality VHS recordings of the opening titles also exist.

References

* [http://www.paulmorris.co.uk/satkids/banana.htm Saturday Banana] (The Wacky World of UK Saturday Morning Children's Television) Accessed March 2008