The Adventures of Some Kids Who Happen to Live on the Same Street in Toronto

Degrassi is a long-running franchise which spans several different Canadian children's television series, all broadly linked by the adventures of children or teenagers living on the eponymous street in Toronto.

The first entry in this series was The Kids of Degrassi Street, which evolved out of a 1979 standalone short film entitled Ida Makes a Movie, based on the 1974 picture book of the same name. This was followed by three more specials, which were broadcast roughly once a year, after which it became an irregular series, with four more weekly episodes broadcast from December 1982 to January 1983, another one-off in September '83, an eleven-part series shown from November 1984 to February 1985, and a final six episodes from December 1985. You may wish to consult this page for a more thorough look at the show's history, but in short, the early films were absorbed into the full series and came to be known as a single 26-episode season which makes up the first incarnation of the franchise.

On 9 July 1984, the show reaches British shores when the BBC air Ida Makes a Movie as part of their children's programming block at 5.15pm:

First of seven programmes
The adventures of some kids who happen to live on the same street in Toronto - Degrassi Street.

1: Ida Makes a Movie
Boring! That's what Ida thinks of the school holidays, until she decides to make a film...

Hyde and Seek

The Children's BBC comedy Julia Jekyll and Harriet Hyde, which starred a young Olivia Hallinan as a schoolgirl who involuntarily transforms into a monster after her chemistry project goes wrong, but was otherwise very very loosely based on Robert Louis Stevenson's original novella, ran for three series between 1995 and 1998. It manages to get the word "booze" into its first episode, as part of an admirable commitment to pushing back the boundaries of what is acceptable at quarter past four in the afternoon, as well as some genuinely cutting commentary on the education system.

Unlike its contemporary, Out of Tune, a full set of episodes is available for JJaHH on YouTube. Like Out of Tune, though, the Radio Times seems to have been a bit confused about how many episodes were in its first series. See if you can spot the issue with the original listings:

1. TX 29/09/95: A 13-part comedy series in which a girl undergoes a change of identity.

2. TX 06/10/95: Second of a 13-part comedy series in which a girl undergoes a change of identity. Today, Julia's bossy Aunt Cassandra gets more than she bargained for.

3. TX 13/10/95: Third of a 24-part comedy series in which a girl undergoes a change of identity. It's school play time. Julia is to take the leading role in Beauty and the Beast. But what will Harriet Hyde play?

Stories of the Choir from Hell

Out of Tune was a Children's BBC sitcom about a village choir that ran for three series between 1996 and 1998. To be blunt, in spite of featuring a distinctive title sequence and theme tune, a regular role for Nick Maloney as the vicar, and the screen debut of James Corden, plus early appearances for the likes of Charlie Brooks and Jane Danson, it does not appear to have left a huge cultural footprint; its IMDb listings are clearly incomplete, little else about it can be found on the internet, and less than a third of its episodes -- nearly all from the first series -- are available on YouTube. A bit of a shame for a show with the ambition to end its first series with the visual of a car precariously balanced on a church steeple on a children's television budget.

What does survive in full, though, are the programme's original billings in the Radio Times, courtesy of BBC Genome. So let's have a look at the ones for the first series, shall we?

1. TX 14/02/96: First in a seven-part children's comedy about a village choir. A new arrival threatens to shatter the harmony of the Little Wickton Choir.

2. TX 21/02/96: Second in a seven-part children's comedy about a village choir. Problems arise when the piano disappears.

3. TX 28/02/96: Third in a seven-part children's comedy. Street is deperate to impress Chas.

4. TX 06/03/96: Fourth in a seven-part children's comedy. The choir decides to go on a 24-hour fast for charity.

5. TX 13/03/96: Fifth in the seven-part children's comedy about a group of young teenagers who join their village choir. Street is suffering from toothache.

6. TX 20/03/96: Sixth in the seven-part children's comedy series. The choir prepares for an important conker match.

7. TX 27/03/96: Children's comedy series. The parish magazine hires a mysterious new agony aunt. Written by Rory Clark and Robert Taylor. Next episode next Tuesday.

Uh. Haven't you been pretty clear this is a seven-part children's comedy series, Radio Times? Why are you billing another episode next week on the listing for episode seven?

8. TX 02/04/96: Continuing the comedy series. Chas's driving test is looming, but will the choir from hell help her?

Because there was indeed another episode the week after, on a different day (with Rugrats taking up the Wednesday slot). A minor mistake, perhaps... if they had only been wrong by one episode. But it appears they weren't. They were out by ten.

ZZZapped

The Children's ITV series ZZZap! notched up ten series and 140 episodes in just under nine years, airing between 1993 and 2001. The unusual concept of the series was that it was a comic you could watch (with Christmas editions being styled after annuals and Summer specials after, er, Summer Specials), but if you're not familiar with it, then going and looking up a few episodes on YouTube will probably be more helpful than attempting to describe such an outside-the-box show; primarily aimed at deaf children, it featured no intelligible dialogue and told stories through visuals and text where necessary, with several regular segments that were variously based around slapstick sketches, arts and crafts, puzzle pages, and a section oddly prescient of Taskmaster where children sourced from a local stage school had to attempt challenges ("Tricky Dicky's Mission Impossible" in Series 1, replaced with "Daisy Dares You" from the second series after the original character was deemed to be too frightening -- one of several tweaks apparently made after the mood was judged to have been a bit too surreal in places).

The first series also featured a unique opening sequence not used on the others, where a boy purchases an issue of ZZZap! in a shopping centre, and uses the attached "Free TV Zapper" to cause the comic to grow to 18 feet in size, to the mild shock of the other shoppers. This sequence was filmed in Chequers Shopping Centre in Maidstone (still open today but now known as The Mall Maidstone, and used for several other sequences in this and later series), and the prop comics have been placed alongside other, real comics the shop in question (there's nothing in the sequence to provide confirmation but it looks like it's probably a WHSmith) was selling that day:

The Borrowers on the BBC

A question literally nobody has ever asked: How many different adaptations of The Borrowers has the BBC broadcast over the years?

Me:

Scheduling Twists

Whilst looking through the BBC Genome for potential oddities I could get a post out of, I spotted something interesting about their original broadcasts of the deeply disturbing Australian childrens' series Round the Twist...

...And it turns out there's already a perfectly good article about that elsewhere on the Internet. But I can add a couple of things to said perfectly good article going by the Genome.

The Chronicles of the Chronicles of Narnia on the BBC

The very first adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was broadcast on the BBC Home Service in September 1959, as part of their Children's Hour strand. It lasted for 6 40-minute episodes, adapted by pioneering radio producer and writer Lance Sieveking, and as you might expect, nothing is known to survive of it today. (Sieveking's Wikipedia article states that the adaptation he did was of The Magician's Nephew, but this appears to be an error based on a 2005 Guardian article about the forthcoming film.)

Questioning Marmalade

Would you like some questions about the 1982 CITV sitcom Educating Marmalade (and its 1984 follow-up, Danger: Marmalade at Work), sorted by episode? No? Tough, that's what we're doing this week anyway.