The Encyclopaedia of Cult Children's TV

Richard Lewis has called the book the 'encyclopaedia of cult children's tv' which I would particularly take issue with. Firstly it is not an encyclopaedia by any stretch of the imagination. If you read many of the other reviews of the book on this site even those that reviewed it positively take issue with the referencing element of the book. Primarily the encycopedic element is used to make comical links, ie 'Blue Peter's Richard Bacon - See Noseybonk' etc. Not exactly informative and on the whole not very funny.

The idea that this is some kind of account of cult children's tv has to be pretty much dismissed as well. Nowhere is 'cult' defined, one could suggest primarily because the author doesn't know what it means. I get the distict impression from the content that the book started as one thing and over time just kind of morphed into the published article, either from pressure from the publisher or general lack of focus. The book is very much cartoon focused, with little information on the wealth of children's drama and factual programmes that existed in the roughly 30 years it attempts to cover. Even the un-animated programmes it does mention, like Grange Hill which really couldn't be ommitted, are really reviewed in a way which suggests the author just missed the point somewhere along the line. Grange Hill is summerised in six paragraphs, two of which are about Roland Browning. Why exactly? The mind boggles.

Despite the cartoon emphasis those covered are hardly cult classics, with an distinct over emphasis on Hanna-Barbara stuff. Yes we all enjoyed Hong Kong Phooey, but I fail to see how you could even attempt to cover cult kids cartoons without so much a mention of He-Man, Mask or Transformers. The whole of the book is riddled with holes, where you go to look up a old memory, such as Jossy's Giants or Cities of Gold or whatever you loved when you were a kid and find it conspicuously missing.

Overal this book is just poor grade nostalgia cash-in fluff. If you're looking for a book that meanders on about how great bagpuss was and lists all the firemen in Trumpton then maybe you'd enjoy this. However if you're looking for something with any substance, structure, factrual basis or indeed something vaguely funny then really, honestly, give this a miss. You'll be very disapointed with it.


The definitive children's TV book   November 3, 2003
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book is superb. Alright so some of the names are spelt wrongly, but I've finally found someone who shares my view on Dogtanian and the Three Muskahounds (I was young at the time and loved it)


Dashed off in a bit of a hurry!   January 5, 2003
 13 out of 17 found this review helpful

Reading this, you can almost hear the publisher phoning the author, hassling him to have it ready to hit the shelves in time for Christmas...clearly no-one even had time to proof-read it, nor did the writer even take the trouble to organise his information in a useful manner - for instance, numerous entries for various Hanna-Barbera cartoon series tell us that so-and-so's voice was provided by Daws Butler, but there is no entry on 'Daws Butler' to give us a complete listing of the voices he supplied - on the other hand, entries for individual characters appear seperately, and invariably duplicate information in the entries for the series in which they appeared - but then this is a frivolous book and it would be missing the point to complain about stuff like that- as if to emphasise that, the author thoughtfully provides an entry for the term 'pishdy-cuf', and cross-references it to the entry for 'Ivor the Engine'.
The book never gets more serious than its tongue-in-cheek analysis of social heirarchies in Chigley, but there are loads of little facts in here to make you think 'I never knew THAT!' or 'Oh yeah - I'd completely forgotten'... for instance, who was the presenter in the FIRST series of 'Rainbow-?' And why IS 'Jackanory' called that-?
My only real gripe is that, frivolous though it is, it really is a bit too slapdash... a good many names are spelt incorrectly - not typing errors - he simply gets them wrong... Hong Kong Phooey's voice was Scatman Crothers, not Crowther; Catweazle was played by Geoffrey Bayldon, not Blaydon - I could go on - it's not hard to get these things right... and if you can't find 'Hector's House' straight away, don't despair - it's listed AFTER 'Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch!' - that's right - this is an encyclopedia that can't even get its alphabet right!
However I'm being really picky here. Its technical faults are more than made up for by its astute speculations on Mr Benn's offscreen life, and whether or not Moominpappa was having an affair with the Snork Maiden (I'm convinced). This is the most fun book I've read in ages - I relished each and every page. Buy the thing, then hassle the publisher for a revised edition.