Flux post_id=12959 time=1621254876 user_id=766 Wrote:Honestly, despite watching the show as a child and seeing references to Playdays and Playbus separately online, until this thread I didn’t realise they’d actually changed the name of the show during its run! I always thought the Playbus was just the name of the bus in Playdays.

Mind blown.

Whataday post_id=12960 time=1621255127 user_id=1029 Wrote:

Flux post_id=12959 time=1621254876 user_id=766 Wrote:Honestly, despite watching the show as a child and seeing references to Playdays and Playbus separately online, until this thread I didn’t realise they’d actually changed the name of the show during its run! I always thought the Playbus was just the name of the bus in Playdays.

Mind blown.

It had to change its name quite early on after the National Playbus Association complained.

ToasterMan post_id=12481 time=1620990816 user_id=1182 Wrote:A lot of people born between the mid-to-late 80's and early 2000's have fond memories of Playdays, however, when it arrived as Playbus in 1988, it was lauded by the press as the series that replaced it's long-running spiritual predecessor, Play School.

The decision was undertaken by the Head of BBC Children's programming, Anna Home, and former Play School executive producer, Cynthia Felgate, who went on to create Playdays under her independent company, Felgate Productions, (more can be read in Anna Home's 1993 book, Into the Box of Delights: A History of Children's Television).

I think Play School was in an awkward position before it's cancellation, it was too old fashioned in comparison to other children's programming at the time, but had also been modernised to the point where much of the crew felt alienated and left after many years.

Despite being born in 2000, I don't remember Playdays as fondly as it's spiritual successors, Teletubbies and Tweenies, (many of the crew on Playdays went to work on Tweenies after ironically being cancelled itself in 1997.)

zenon post_id=13026 time=1621273627 user_id=1503 Wrote:

Whataday post_id=12960 time=1621255127 user_id=1029 Wrote:

Flux post_id=12959 time=1621254876 user_id=766 Wrote:Honestly, despite watching the show as a child and seeing references to Playdays and Playbus separately online, until this thread I didn’t realise they’d actually changed the name of the show during its run! I always thought the Playbus was just the name of the bus in Playdays.

Mind blown.

It had to change its name quite early on after the National Playbus Association complained.

But oddly, they were still allowed to keep the opening lyrics 'It's the Playbus' in the theme song.

NorthTonight post_id=13029 time=1621274324 user_id=1660 Wrote:I think the only people who felt really alienated where some of the pre 1983 revamp presenters who were told that they were too old at the time. Having just recently read Paul R Jackson’s excellent two volumes of “ Here’s A House “, it seems that giving the daily preschool slot to an independent company was fulfilling a quota for X amount of hours of children’s production to go outside the BBC. Despite the cancellation being announced in early 1988, it seems when Anna Home took over as controller of Children’s BBC in 1986 the writing was on the wall, which is why from that point there is an increasing number of repeats ( 133 new programmes that year and 127 repeats ). I don’t think Play School was old fashioned - it still runs in Australia and is still well received. A bit like other long running series, it just needed to continue to move with the times. I’m surprised it hasn’t been revived by the BBC.

madmusician post_id=12941 time=1621243304 user_id=947 Wrote:Somebody mentioned upthread the fact that a number of the Playdays production staff (notably Iain Lauchlan) came back with the Tweenies in the late-90s, following Playdays giving way to the Teletubbies in 1997. It's also worth pointing out that the 'through line' of children's TV production very much goes from Playdays, via the Fun Song Factory, to Tweenies.

The Fun Song Factory started off as direct-to-video specials, and it was almost a Playdays spin-off, with Lauchlan appearing in-vision as the main presenter, but other familiar Playdays 'faces' popped up as well - Sarah Davies and Dave Benson Philips. The first couple were quite basic, with the presenters and a cast of children singing songs in a theatre, which was filmed multi-camera and released on video, but the production grew and grew, various puppets were introduced (notably Ozzie Octave who became one of the main hosts) and there was a switch to studio production for the later videos.

GMTV commissioned a whole made-for-TV series of them in 1998, and this is where the Playdays-esque nature of the production really shines through, with a re-coloured version of the Poppy the Cat puppet from Playdays being used, now called Sally. Dave Benson Philips was the main presenter, and Karl Woolley (who was one of the main presenters of the Poppy Stop on Playdays) was also part of the cast.

Then, in 1999 came the Tweenies. And the reason that I see the link, is that a number of the 'original' songs that were used in the Song Time section of Tweenies (Lauchlan-penned songs, such as 'How do you feel today' and 'You know you have a friend') in fact originated from the Fun Song Factory, or even as far back as Playdays. And the song 'Come on everybody, let's dance to the music' which was featured in Playdays appeared in the Fun Song Factory, too.

So I think there's a real 'through line' in terms of production team, on-screen talent and use of certain material from Playdays through Fun Song Factory through to the Tweenies.

ToasterMan post_id=13070 time=1621282245 user_id=1182 Wrote:Also making his children's TV debut in the GMTV series, was Mr. Tumble himself

ToasterMan post_id=13070 time=1621282245 user_id=1182 Wrote:

madmusician post_id=12941 time=1621243304 user_id=947 Wrote:Somebody mentioned upthread the fact that a number of the Playdays production staff (notably Iain Lauchlan) came back with the Tweenies in the late-90s, following Playdays giving way to the Teletubbies in 1997. It's also worth pointing out that the 'through line' of children's TV production very much goes from Playdays, via the Fun Song Factory, to Tweenies.

The Fun Song Factory started off as direct-to-video specials, and it was almost a Playdays spin-off, with Lauchlan appearing in-vision as the main presenter, but other familiar Playdays 'faces' popped up as well - Sarah Davies and Dave Benson Philips. The first couple were quite basic, with the presenters and a cast of children singing songs in a theatre, which was filmed multi-camera and released on video, but the production grew and grew, various puppets were introduced (notably Ozzie Octave who became one of the main hosts) and there was a switch to studio production for the later videos.

GMTV commissioned a whole made-for-TV series of them in 1998, and this is where the Playdays-esque nature of the production really shines through, with a re-coloured version of the Poppy the Cat puppet from Playdays being used, now called Sally. Dave Benson Philips was the main presenter, and Karl Woolley (who was one of the main presenters of the Poppy Stop on Playdays) was also part of the cast.

Then, in 1999 came the Tweenies. And the reason that I see the link, is that a number of the 'original' songs that were used in the Song Time section of Tweenies (Lauchlan-penned songs, such as 'How do you feel today' and 'You know you have a friend') in fact originated from the Fun Song Factory, or even as far back as Playdays. And the song 'Come on everybody, let's dance to the music' which was featured in Playdays appeared in the Fun Song Factory, too.

So I think there's a real 'through line' in terms of production team, on-screen talent and use of certain material from Playdays through Fun Song Factory through to the Tweenies.

Sally the Cat was named after her puppeteer, Sally Preisig, very much like how Lizzie from Playdays was named after her voice actress, Elizabeth Watts-Legg, Sally would later go on to voice Bella in Tweenies.

The later Fun Song Factory videos were interesting, you can tell the puppets and costumes were made on a shoestring, with weird things like Ozzy having orange hands and Fred Q. Tixer, (who I believe first appeared on Playdays), having fangs and googly eyes emerging from his head. The GMTV series smoothed out these rough edges, as Ozzy was given a brand new costume with hands that matched his yellow skin and gained an eyelid mechanism for greater expression through animatronics, (which would be utilised much more in Tweenies a year later), helps that they were produced by the same company, Tell-Tale Productions.

Also making his children's TV debut in the GMTV series, was Mr Tumble himself, Justin Fletcher, who later voiced Jake and Doodles in Tweenies and even voiced Ozzy in the CITV series of Fun Song Factory in 2004.

Brekkie post_id=13161 time=1621331345 user_id=976 Wrote:Didn't realise Zoe Ball started out on Playdays as well.

Whataday post_id=13031 time=1621274524 user_id=1029 Wrote:I think the concept of a play bus is fairly generic but they objected about using the brand "Playbus".

NorthTonight post_id=13029 time=1621274324 user_id=1660 Wrote:Despite the cancellation being announced in early 1988, it seems when Anna Home took over as controller of Children’s BBC in 1986 the writing was on the wall, which is why from that point there is an increasing number of repeats ( 133 new programmes that year and 127 repeats ). I don’t think Play School was old fashioned - it still runs in Australia and is still well received

Steve in Pudsey post_id=13185 time=1621340026 user_id=942 Wrote:Was Play School previously always a new episode or was it always a mix of repeats and new episodes? My childhood memory is the former but that does seem pretty expensive