The best CBBC and CITV programmes from the 1980s

[Arran]

What do you think were the best two CBBC and two CITV programme from the 1980s? One of the programmes (for each channel) has to be a cartoon and the other not a cartoon.

[George 1978]

CBBC:

CARTOON: Tom and Jerry (if that counts as it was also shown outside CBBC at weekends)
NON-CARTOON: Grange Hill

CITV:

CARTOON: He Man (or She Ra)
NON-CARTOON: Do It (that Sheelagh Gilbey series from TVS)

For the cartoon, I was going to add Scooby Doo, but the series had crossed over from CBBC to CITV and back again over the years, so it makes it difficult as to which channel it would be listed on.

[80sChav]

CBBC/BBC Non Cartoon - Grange Hill

CBBC/BBC Cartoon type thing - Super Ted


ITV/CITV Non Cartoon Childrens Ward

Cartoon - Sooty or Rainbow, as though both are'nt Cartoons they are as near or failing that Birtha if she was on ITV!

[George 1978]

There were animated sections on Rainbow, and apart from the Friday (later Tuesday) repeat, although it wasn't a cartoon as such - because of that I didn't regard Rainbow as being a CITV programme (as in the 4.00 pm to 5.00 pm slot) as a first run programme.

[Arran]

Knightmare on CITV could technically fit into both categories. It's an animated gameshow.

[Richard1978]

My CITV cartoon would probably be Dangermouse.

[Arran]

Not all that many replies...

CBBC Cartoon: Ulysses 31 and The Mysterious Cities of Gold.
CBBC Non cartoon: I don't have very many of them but The Really Wild Show stands out as particularly impressive.

CITV Cartoon: He Man or She Ra. My collection and list of CITV cartoons is far from complete. Was Dungeons and Dragons shown on CITV or not?
CITV Non cartoon: Knightmare or for a non-animated programme Press Gang. I have even fewer CITV non cartoons than CBBC non cartoons. Other worthy programmes include Worldwise and Knights of God.

[George 1978]

One thing that CITV was better at doing in the 1980s was getting some of the stars from the programmes to actually be continuity announcers for a whole month - Rod Hull and Emu were probably the best ones to do that (they did it in December 1985). I am certain that there were points when they introduced their own programmes although I believe that they mostly did this when their own series were not on the air.

[Arran]

CITV started all the continuity. CBBC with the broom cupboard did not exist until a few years later in September 1985 although the BBC showed a block of children's programmes without the continuity before then. The first broadcast of Dogtanian by the BBC during 1985 means that it isn't strictly a CBBC programme although for the purpose of this discussion we can go back to 1980 and also cover Watch It! on ITV.

[Richard1978]

I remember BBC1 using a set of literally basic (!) computer animated characters (generated by a BBC Micro) to introduce programmes for a couple of years before the Broom Cupboard.