Ragtime

[Kiop]

Anybody remember the show called Ragtime? They used to dress up wooden spoons and draw faces on them and dance them about to a song that went "it's ragtime'. I think they also had a cartoon in the show about a frog that conducted an orchestra.

Any know where I can get any info on it as I have looked on google and drawn a blank.

Cheers

[glam_racket]

Re: Ragtime

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragtime_(TV_series)

It had all the hallmarks of quality 70s TV, Fred Harris presenting, music by Peter Gosling.

I hazily remember the theme tune - 'It's Ragtime, do do do da, It's Ragtime, do do do da, It's Ragtime, do do do da, etc etc'

However, the frog that conducted the orchestra was a segment in Bod, if I'm not mistaken, Alberto Frog and his Amazing Animal Band, he always drank a milkshake at the end of every performance, the children's task - to guess which flavour milkshake Alberto - the titular amphibian - was going to consume before he sucked the giveaway coloured, lactose laden treat through a straw.

The choices were more often than not Vanilla (cream coloured), Strawberry (pink coloured) or Chocolate (brown coloured)

[Kiop]

Re: Ragtime

Thanks for this, why didn't I think of looking on the good old 'reliable' Wikipedia?

It says on there that there are now only 8 episodes in existence and the rest were wiped. This makes me so angry. How dare they take away part of our childhood? It's the same with Doctor Who (I'm a Doctor Who anorak by the way) - surely the BBC aren't pressed for space in their archives?

Great memories all the same.

Fred Harris, lol I remember him well.

[Richard1978]

Re: Ragtime

There's a few reasons for the BBC getting rid of so much material, I won't go into every reason but one issue was to do with copyright.

Some shows were wiped because the BBC would have to work out new deal with various parties to rescreen the shows again, which would be expensive, as was the storage costs for programmes with little repeat or export potential.

Another issue was the change of tape formats, in the 1980s the BBC switch from 2 inch tape to 1 inch.

While much 2" tapes were kept a job lot of 2" tapes were wiped & sold to other broadcasters who had stuck with the original format.

I've heard that a lot of reels containing editions of Multi Coloured Swap Shop were erased & sold to one of the Australian stations. Note sure how true that is.

[tulip]

Re: Ragtime

I remember Ragtime.Think I quite liked it.
And,yes,Alberto was with Bod,he was my favourite part of show.
tulip