Popular Nostalgia

A picture of the Broom Cupbaord on CBBC, back when it was just called Children's BBC.

Who remembers when children’s TV wasn’t a gateway drug for the next wannabe tv presenter? Who else, along with me, remembers those halcyon days when characters like Phil Schofield or Andi Peters would sit in The Broomcupboard with little for company other than a stuffed puppet?

The Broomcupboard is yet another children’s television memory which will only resonate with you if you were alive in the 1980s or early 1990s and watching television in the UK.

But, for those of us that were – who remembers “The Butler” who didn’t speak, but was just a pair of white gloves and a dinner jacketed arm which reached on with odd bits and pieces before Ed the Duck came to town to join Andi Peters in the Broomcupboard?

The Broomcupboard was basically the idea that children’s television was an afterthought on the BBC, so the presenters would do the in-between program bits from some corner of television centre. I think the idea was that most children are against heavy TV licence fees, so would only be placated if they thought that their programming was presented by some sort of whipping boy, on a budget of mere pennies. Or something like that.

In any case, the broomcupboard was yet another example of simple being best – or at least fine – for children’s TV. Maybe it was even better than the grinning buffoons the children of 2010 have to put up with?