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Moondial

Moondial is a British television serial made for children by the BBC and transmitted in 1988, with a repeat in 1990. It was written by Helen Cresswell, who also wrote the novel on which the series was based. The story deals with a young girl, Minty, staying with her aunt after her mother is injured in a car accident. Minty spends much of her time wandering around the grounds of a nearby mansion, and is drawn to a moondial that enables her to travel back in time, where she becomes involved with two children, Tom, who lives in the Victorian era, and Sarah, who seems to live in "the previous century" to that, and must save them from their own unhappy lives. Regarded as a nostalgic favourite by followers of 1980s BBC children's drama, Moondial employs extensive location filming and fantastical, dreamlike imagery. The series was produced by Paul Stone and directed by Colin Cant. Other cast members include Valerie Lush as Minty's aunt Mary, Arthur Hewlett as the elderly, mysterious Mr. World and Jacqueline Pearce in the dual role of the vicious Miss Vole and the present-day ghost hunter Miss Raven.

Moondial

6.4 N/A
Geordie Racer

Geordie Racer was an educational BBC Look and Read production, which was first aired on BBC Two in 1988 and has been shown regularly ever since. The story was set in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the surrounding area, and featured pigeon racers and runners competing in the Great North Run. The main character is Spuggy Hilton, who isn't a runner like the rest of his family, but is a keen pigeon fancier and owns 'Blue Flash' - one of the best birds in Newcastle. He and his friend Janie observe some suspicious activity, and link a spate of local art robberies with obscure messages they find on some of the pigeons, but find they have even more problems when they go to spy on the crooks. Geordie Racer was praised for attempting to bring a grittier edge to educational programmes shown in primary schools. The series also featured Geordie actor Kevin Whately as Spuggy's father. Whately, who went on to star in Inspector Morse, was joined on screen by his real-life wife, Madelaine Newton, who played his on-screen wife. This was not an intentional decision, but merely an accidental coincidence. It also featured the classic tune, 'Build yourself a wall with -ed'.

Geordie Racer

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The Secret Life of Machines

The Secret Life of Machines is an educational television series presented by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, in which the two explain the inner workings and history of common household and office machinery. According to Hunkin, the show's creator, the programme was developed from his comic strip The Rudiments of Wisdom, which he researched and drew for the Observer newspaper over a period of 14 years. Three separate groupings of the broadcast were produced and originally shown between 1988 and 1993 on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, with the production subsequently airing on The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel.

The Secret Life of Machines

8.1 N/A
Noel's Saturday Roadshow

Noel's Saturday Roadshow is a BBC television light entertainment show which was broadcast live on Saturday evenings from 3 September 1988 to 15 December 1990. It was presented by Noel Edmonds, his first major TV project since the demise of The Late, Late Breakfast Show in 1986. The programme contained several elements which had been found in its predecessor, such as phone-in quizzes, celebrity interviews and bands performing in the studio. The premise for the new show was that unlike The Late Late Breakfast Show, which had been broadcast from the BBC's studios each week, the Roadshow would come from a new, different and exotic location each week. These 'locations' were in fact elaborate studio sets dressed to resemble each week's location, such as the North Pole, a space station, Hollywood, or Niagara Falls. The irony of this was not lost on Edmonds, whose self-deprecating presentation style frequently made light of the low budget production values. The programme was a slow-burning success, and following the third series in 1990, Edmonds' popularity and reputation were sufficiently re-established with the public for Edmonds to pitch Noel's House Party to the BBC. The show also introduced regular features such as the Gunge Tank, the "Gotcha Oscars" and "Wait 'Till I Get You Home", which would all be carried across and subsequently developed in Noel's House Party. Another item was "Clown Court", where a guest actor from a TV series would be on trial for all the bloopers made during the shooting of that show, such as Sylvester McCoy in the title role of Doctor Who, and Tony Robinson as his character of Baldrick in Blackadder the Third.

Noel's Saturday Roadshow

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On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront was a BBC Saturday morning children's programme, filmed at Brunswick Dock, Liverpool. It was hosted by Andrew O'Connor, Kate Copstick, Bernadette Nolan and Terry Randall. The programme ran for two seasons in 1988 and 1989, and consisted of comedy sketches interspersed with cartoons, competitions and music. The writer Russell T Davies, later a BAFTA Award-winner for his work on programmes such as Queer as Folk and Doctor Who, worked on the series, writing the script for a comedy dubbed version of the children's drama series The Flashing Blade.

On the Waterfront

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News at Twelve

News at Twelve is a 1988 British television comedy for children. The series followed 12-year-old Kevin Doyle and his nightly "news bulletins" about the events in his life. The name of the TV series came from Kevin's age rather than the time the show itself aired, or of Kevin's news updates, which commonly featured his comical basset hound Baxter. News at Twelve featured Patrick Malahide, Sheila Fearn, Julia Foster, Liz May Brice and Mark Billingham. This series was aired on ITV and made by Central TV. A US pilot version was made in 1991 by NBC starring, amongst others, Danny Gerard and Sarah Melici, but it was never screened.

News at Twelve

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The Ratties

The Ratties is a British cartoon series that ran in 1987 with 26 episodes. It is about a family of rats that live in a country house. The rats try to emulate the human owners of their house. The show was created by Mike Wallis and Laura Milligan, and is narrated by Spike Milligan. F Productions and UK Finance3 funded the show, while it was animated by cel animation. The series attracted a cult following in the UK, although no further episodes were made after 1987; however, the series was repeated in 1993 and 1994.

The Ratties

7.0 N/A