The Saturday Banana, 1978
From a time where everyone wanted a piece of Saturday morning TV and not a chef in sight.
The Saturday Banana was a Saturday morning Kids’ television show that ran for 2 series over 34 episodes. It was produced by Southern Television and presented by Bill Oddie of Goodies fame. He also wrote and sang the theme tune.
The series began in the summer of 1978, running through to December, with a Christmas Special. It returned the following year following a similar run.
The show was broadcast live from Television Centre, Southampton, with occasional film inserts. Saturday Banana took over from Our Show, another Saturday morning kids’ show, and Susan Tully (of Grange Hill fame at the time ), one of the young hosts, came with it.
In an interview with TV Times when the show was aired, Bill Oddie said it was to have been named The Saturday Bonanza, but was renamed due to poor handwriting being mis-read.
The Saturday Banana was not screened nationally but instead shown by several regional ITV stations including; Anglia, Border, HTV, LWT, STV, Southern, Westward and Yorkshire.
For it’s first series, the show was available to ITV companies at the same time as the hugely popular Tiswas. Therefore whether you saw Tiswas or The Saturday Banana was up to your regional ITV station. For the show’s second series in 1979, only Southern and Anglia broadcast the show while most other regions screened Tiswas.
Shows in series one typically ran for 160 minutes, whilst in series two shows were shortened to 90 min.
The robot Metal Mickey made his first appearance on The Saturday Banana before going on to star in his own sitcom.
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. 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.
Summary
The show comprised a whole host of well known ideas, including a weekly chart rundown, guest pop groups miming their latest hits (Top Of The Pops), then being interviewed after being forced to slide down half of the main interior set. Children could also write-in with their ‘dream activities’, which show researchers would attempt to grant (sound familiar. One such feature saw Bill Oddie wrestle a small child in a side-sealed square filled with a foot of mud-coloured ‘gunge’.
The Saturday Banana also featured a version of the popular children’s TV game show Runaround, forThe Saturday Banana‘s edition, one of the programme researchers, Bill Gamon doubled as a presenter and hosted the madcap quiz.
Clips
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Presented By
Bill Oddie
Details
Channel: ITV
Production Company Southern Television
Original transmission Dates: 8th July 1978 – 22nd December 1979