RC 380: PSYCH SCHOOL – Play School Breaks, Psych & Funk

Hello welcome to Radio Clash, it’s 380, it’s a birthday podcast, and also a theme podcast, yay!
It’s Psych School, Play School Breaks and Kids Funk.
Hello welcome to Radio Clash, this is 380, and it’s Psych School, Play School, breaks and kids funk.
It’s a theme podcast, yeah, don’t run away, and it’s also, I’m nearly 50, so it seemed totally
appropriate to look back to my youth, and before then as well, to various kids themes that are
psychedelic, Pop Sike, as they call it, as the kids call it, honestly they’re not really kids,
and funk and breaks, and even a few themes that have been sampled as well, so there’s a couple of
that, there’s an amazing, people can spot the two, there’s at least two in here that have been sampled
quite famously, and yes as I say, it’s my, I’m creating my birthday thinking about the past,
and I know this podcast isn’t really going to hit it with the people who are just into mashups and
things like that, but it’s, it makes me happy, this podcast makes me happy, and it’s my podcast,
so anyway, and you hear in the background the instrumental version I made of the
Murgatroyd band, otherwise known as the Spencer Davis Group, and their theme to Magpie, which I
was a bit too young for Magpie, stopped in 1980, although the television was there, television
wasn’t really available to me until we moved down south in 79, so it was kind of on in the
background, but I don’t remember Magpie, but I remember Blue Peter, and it was a kind of a
Blue Peter, kind of a clone or a, a response to Blue Peter, and that comes from 1972, and at the
start we had, we just heard a play away, the party is about to begin, that’s from 1973, I loved
play away, I never understood the difference between Play School and play away, Play School came
earlier, I think Play School was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, it might even be the first
on BBC, when BBC 2 started in 68, it was one of the first, well not the first kids show, but even
one of the first UK kids shows that was specifically aimed at that sort of younger age group, and then
play away came in the 70s, it was a bit more cool and hip, less of a set, I don’t remember, and then
before that we had a little bit of the hat band, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome from Lidsville, that’s
I think a direct rip from the audio, and I don’t know if I should play that, because obviously I’m
covering not just UK and British kids program, but around the world as an American, that’s from the
Sid and Marty Krofft show Lidsville, which is, I mean it’s H.R. Pufnstuf, and Lidsville, and all
those things, it’s really psychedelic in the world of kids television, those are definitely
psychedelic, very pop, psychedelic, very bubblegum, the music, but there’s certainly something very
trippy about the stuff, and then right at the start, the granddaddy of a lot of fascination with
rural folk, pastoral things, that’s Music Box, Freddie Phillips with Brian Cant, although Brian Cant
isn’t on that track, that’s from 1975, and that’s from Camberwick Green, so we’re gonna buy the track
which started this whole mix, I mean this actually started 2016 is when I planned this podcast,
initially then, because I wasn’t running the podcast, it was supposed to be a mix, and it’s
taken me seven years to get around to it, partly because it was a bit like, how am I gonna sell
this, is anyone gonna be interested, but I do think there is a real interesting time in the
late 60s, early 70s, and later on we’ve got some stuff in the 80s, 90s, 90s and 10s, but mostly
that sort of 70s period where there was a crossover between the psychedelic music of the time, which
was getting quite obsessed with Juvenilia and Alice in Wonderland and very trippy kids things,
there was a crossover because obviously that was in the charts, and then those people started
to be employed to work on kids shows, and the next band is one of those, a band called Telltale,
who a lot of people do know Telltale’s music intimately, but they probably don’t know that,
because they wrote the theme to Rainbow, which was again ITV’s response, I think really to play
school, and so it was very hard to find this, there was an album called Songs from Rainbow,
from 1973, and I have to say the whole rare groove, rare record thing, it pales infinitesimally,
when you’re actually looking for kids records, because those things aren’t preserved, and that’s
why I’m trying to say here is a lot of really interesting stuff was done in an arena where
nobody was watching over the age of about 10, so it’s an interestingly fertile area that people
haven’t really covered that much, a bit, this is deep dive, this is a very deep dive, and so this
is Telltale and Walk in the Country, and this is the track that inspired this whole podcast mix idea.
So, that was Iwo ZaLuski, and The Children from Park Lane Primary School, Wembley, in 1974.
Now, a lot of people have heard about the Langley Schools Music Project, which was a Canadian thing
where a music teacher got the children to sing pop hits of the day. Now, several years before that,
we had Iwo Zaluski doing a similar thing except with original pieces or semi-original pieces,
a mix of things that he wrote and things that were hits around that time or other things, so
it’s called the first and second days, it’s like a semi-biblical, very trippy idea about the
documenting the music of the early days of the world in that sort of biblical fashion.
So, it’s first and second days, an odd spack-fitty, or space-fitty, comma aurora borealis,
now referring to space oddity, but actually, borrowing tubular bells. That’s part of tubular
bells by Mike Oldfield. So, it’s a mix of original, not original, and it was released in
1994 on a private press record. So, it was a pretty lonely music project by several years,
but not known about until fairly recently, the last couple of years, I knew about it a while ago
for a trunk record and Johnny Trunk. It’s a mad record, I could play several of them,
they’ve gone for quite a long, but it is like this children’s music psych epic, it’s insane.
That gets reprised right at the end with Morning is Broken. So, it’s like Mike Oldfield
Cat Stevens mash-up going on. That’s crazy. Then before that, we had, oh, we had to have some
Rod Jane and Roger, although, and most people don’t know them as Rod Jane and Freddy, but originally,
it was Rod Jane and Matt, as in Matthew Corbett, as in Sutty, but when his father died, he took
over Sutty until fairly recently. Matthew Corbett’s still doing it, I can’t really still lie,
will not be. So, he left, and then Roger Walker came along and stood in until 1980, and then he
left, and then when Jane and Freddy existed, and most people already know them, not Rod Jane and
Freddy, they were the in-house singing troupe on Rainbow, and that’s What’s Behind the Moon,
and I don’t know what date it is, but I’m thinking it’s 1980. It has to be between 1976 and 1980,
so somewhere between that. And then before that, we had The Roches. They did an album in 1994
called Will You Be My Friend for Kids, and that’s Postcard. There’s quite a few legit people have
done kids’ albums. I mean, I wanted to include some Harry Nilsson, but I’m not so into it,
but there is a film called The Point, an album, and things you could have had, as well as the
Spencer Davis Group, something from The Bugaloos. The Bugaloos were a Sid and Marty Krofft, very
psychedelic thing about some singing bugs. One of those 70 shows where everyone sings songs,
it’s a bit like The Monkees, except more pop psych, but I might use one of those as a backing
layer. It’s annoying because it seems like the Marty Krofft stuff is mostly UMG, and there’s
a few other things they’ve had to pop. This podcast has been shrinking as they go through
everything. No, not that one, not that one, not that one. It’s very irritating. And then before
The Roches, we had Susan and the Kids from Sesame Street. That’s Someday Little Children.
That’s quite forward-thinking about Someday Little Children on the Moon or other planets.
And that’s from 1971. That’s from the second Sesame Street album, actually. And then before that,
we had Rick Jones, Bang on the Drum. That’s from either Play Away or Play School. And it’s from
1973 on an album called Bang on the Drum. And you probably know Rick Jones as Yoffy from Finger
Mouse. And I’ve forgotten he used to be part of early on Play School or Play Away, one or two.
But he then branched out into being Yoffy. There’s probably, well, I can’t really moonlight if
you’re in front of the camera, but yeah, I’m not sure why he calls himself Yoffy.
Then before that, we had Matt Berry with his cover of Rainbow from 2018’s Television Themes.
I’ve always been a bit annoyed about Matt Berry. I love him, and well, not anymore,
because of a certain person who wrote it. I loved IT Crowd. And then obviously,
Graham Linehan had to destroy it with his transphobia. But I love when he plays characters
and Garth Marengi and that kind of thing. I’m not too sure about his music. I don’t know whether
he’s been ironic or I assume after so many albums, he must be genuine, but I never totally sure. But
I like the TV Themes album television theme. And if you think, oh, well, he made it more psych,
he made it much more trippy. No, he did not. The telltale track is exactly including that
really weird colour of the rainbow. It goes all really tripped out. That is the original. That’s
the middle part of it, which they didn’t play on the TV show. They played them at the start and
the end, I think. So it does have this really strange, unused middle bit. And then we had an
introduction. It says Rod Matt and Jane. Yeah, I’m going to go for mentioning Matt Corbett,
introducing the characters of Rainbow. I think that’s the YouTube bit. Some of these are YouTube
have to have to be YouTube rips because that, for instance, like the Rod Jane and Roger track was
never released. And it’s also a bit of a fudge, because if I take it from the actual TV shows
recordings, it’s a different set of rights to if it was released on a record. So, you know,
it doesn’t count if it’s the same thing. But, you know, yeah, that’s the kind of fudge I’m going
for the Lidsville, because Lidsville was never released on a record. So I’m hoping it has no
relationship with UMG, even though other Sid and my crossings were released on Decca, I think,
one of the UMG or Interscope was in re-release and Interscope. So yeah, irritating. Then we heard
Walk in the Country by Telltale, which has our Bonzos and Bonzos are another one that were on
kids TV well before they were in the charts. And I could put any bonzos in here, but I’ve played
bonzos so much on the podcast that I don’t think there’s much left to play. So I just mentally
bought them in a bit like The Bugaloos, put them mentally in here, they should be here.
And it’s the same with the background Doctor Who. I’ve played so many versions of the Doctor Who
theme. We won’t go for the obvious things. This isn’t supposed to be a nostalgia podcast,
this is supposed to be a podcast that has nostalgic things in it, certain people,
but a bit like the Iwo Zaluski. Most people don’t know that shit. And that’s the point.
Semi nostalgic, but also a trip into a literal trip into things you probably won’t know. And I
took a lot of deep diving to find. So we can’t do a podcast without having the next June. In fact,
I’ve actually got two versions of this song in here because I’ve done I’ve mashups with this song,
I’ve done videos with this song. It’s one of my favorite Sesame Street songs of all time.
And it’s also DJ Nono’s favorite as well. So this is Pinball Number Count by Fred Leslie’s Missing
Link.
That was Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point Fourth Grade Class. That’s the long story.
Rita Abrams used to be in bands and write for bands, moved to Mill Valley, California,
and became an elementary teacher with a third grade class. And then they recorded a demo,
Mauro’s live performance. So she wrote a song called Mill Valley about Mill Valley with these
kids. And it became a big hit, a massive hit when it was released by the record label who heard it,
when this is genius, obviously seeing lots of dollar signs on their eyes. So then an album
called Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point Fourth Grade Class, we went up to fourth grade,
but the album happened. And that’s from 1972. And I describe it really, it’s sort of very,
I would say pop, bubblegum, pop psychedelic. But yeah, you can hear it see it in stars and stuff.
It’s not the usual pop stuff. It is, there is an element of almost like a rural hippie thing.
And that’s what seemed to be happening. A lot of you are moving out into the sticks,
moving away from cities into a Victorian and we’ll get into the Victorian stuff later.
It’s Victorian back to basics, rural life. And there seem to be a lot of women and girls
in Victorian dresses on television in the mid seventies. And of course, Bagpuss being one of
those. And Bagpuss should be here. I’m surprised it isn’t. But yeah, you know, we’re not doing
a nostalgia thing. Bagpuss is definitely trippy. Then before that, we had the Postmarks with
Pinball Number Count. That’s from 2008, buying the numbers. I love that. It’s very sort of
slow dive indie version of that track. Not what you expect. And I use both,
Andre, DJ Nona use both of those in a recent matchup, the various versions of pinball count.
Then before that, from a musical called Really Rosie, that’s Carole King with Bon West Johnny.
That’s from 1975. Really Rosie was a musical with Maurice Sendak where the wild things are.
And it was originally a book and Carole King to the music for the musical, which then became a
animated special. And I was just looking up the fact that they had to omit one of the tracks
of the re-release DVD collection, Maurice Sendak stories, because one of the songs was the risk
of imitating the characters with self-strangulation. It was a wild time in the 70s.
The original Sesame Street episode, the first one, I’ve got this on DVD, has children playing
in a construction site. And not as a warning, they just play in a construction site.
Hmm, that’s not so great. Then before that, we had Diana Ross. Probably Diana Ross, as you’ve never
heard her before. That’s when we grow up from a brilliant album called Free to Be, You and Me,
from 1972. And that was an album that was wasn’t really connected to anything. I think there was
an animated, there was only a live action, because there’s a live action version, which came a few
years later actually features Michael Jackson as well, this single duet, which is strange. But
it’s very much about the 70s preoccupation about child psychology and people being themselves.
This thing’s about gender. I don’t know if I’ve played Williams Doll on the podcast, but Williams
Doll, narrated by Mel Brooks. There’s one where there’s Marla Thomas and Mel Brooks discuss whether
they’re male or female. There’s a track I’ll play later by Rosey Grier about it’s Alright to cry.
And there’s the whole thing about housework, which should be shared as a brilliant album,
but it’s very radical for its time, I think. And part of the album was the previous song was the
Billy DeWolf with don’t dress your cat in an apron about being yourself. Then before that,
we had Ray Ellis and Norm Prescott under assumed name for the actual thing. You’ll see different
names, but it’s actually them. That’s The Secrets of ISIS theme. And yeah, ISIS means many else
nowadays. But back in the 70s, it was a comic strip character, I think related to Shazam. So
maybe iWillBattle will know about Isis. I’ve watched little bits of it sort of live action mixed
with animation. Typical superheroes stuff a bit like Wonder Woman, but interestingly Egyptian
themed, it makes it a bit more trippy. Then before that, we had Lionel Morton with come to the
shops. That’s I think from Play School, but could be play away. It’s one of the albums where it’s
both of them. And then before that, we had Joe Beard. It’s okay to say no. And that is a strange,
strange album. The album is called it’s okay to say no. It’s a Kid’s Stuff album from 1985.
You get a lot of these moral panic or these educational kids records and kids stuff pretty
much specialized in those and also TV and film times, cheap ones. And I don’t know if it is Joe
Beard. I mean, this is from the 365 Days Project is from WFMU the blog. They did a whole thing
called Strictly Kids, which is a lot of these are strange, demented or interesting kids music,
sort of forgotten stuff. A long album all about stranger danger. It’s very different from the
innocence of the 70s. It’s got more into not everyone is a good person. And we’ll come back
to that in a bit. And then before that, we had Pinball Number Count by Fred Leslie’s Missing Link.
So in the 70s, Sesame Street wasn’t just the only PBS educational product or educational TV show in
the United States. One of them was a very strange one called Vegetable Soup. And there seem to be
a lot of these things where we’re talking about, you know, sort of social things, maybe for older
children, social things, had songs and animation, you know, they were sort of copying this Sesame
Street idea of magazine program of animations. But also quite often Sesame Street did cover
quite hard stuff, but it was always a bit more gentle, whereas some of the stuff was a bit more
direct. And this is one of them. I think it was funded by New York actually, the New York Council.
And this is from the first episode of 1975. This is Being Alone Minority.
And that was The Devil’s Children by Paddy Kingsland. And that’s from the series, The Changes,
from 1955. I love Peter Dickinson books. And I’ve played various bits from the Paddy Kingsland
soundtrack a few years ago when it was re-released. And you can hear in the background as well.
I love it. It’s a mix of sitar and electronic and medieval and, you know, because there’s
seat characters and then there’s a medieval thing and it’s a real hodgepodge. But the whole thing
about Britain going mad and smashing technologies, weirdly timely. Then before that, we had Bruce
Haack. We had to have some Bruce Haack in here because if there’s anyone that’s probably done the most
psychedelic, strange, weirdest children’s records, it’s Bruce Haack with Miss Elizabeth
and occasionally with Ted Pandell. And that was Mudra with Miss Elizabeth and her children
from The Way Out Record for Children, 1968. Bruce Haack built his own synthesizers. I’m wondering
when I was hearing that was there was actually, there seemed to be some sitar in there, be Santa
Veracoded. And I wouldn’t butt past Bruce Haack to build his own Veracoder either. But you too can
be a butterfly. Then before that, we had Larry Santos. Enjoy the year you’re living. That’s from
a show called Hot Fudge, which was mid to late 70s. And Larry Santos wrote Candy Girl by the
Four Seasons. So he was a songwriter, but he was on the show with a puppet called Seymour.
I think I’ve seen footage of that. I mean, a lot of these things are on YouTube. So you can check
them out on YouTube. I know definitely Vegetable Soup is on YouTube because they are in the film
archive, the National Film Archive, the American one, their version of the BFI. And I think they’re
actually legally on YouTube because they’re public money. It’s public accessible. Then before that,
we had Fiona Fullerton with Curiouser and Curiouser. I mentioned Alice in Wonderland. That’s from
the film, Alice in Wonderland from 1972, the live action film. I’ve never seen that. But the music
was by John Barry. And I think I’ve played that either on this podcast or maybe on the podcast
I did on the library, 100. I know I’d played one of the John Barry, Alice in Wonderland tracks on
that podcast. Then before that, we had Brian Cant and Carole Ward with All The Fish in the Sea. That’s
from 1972 Play School and you might recognise it from somewhere. Then before that, we had Bruce
Haack again with Soul Transportation. How trippy is that? You might become all one child. This
is that was 1972. And that’s from Dance to the Music. But they did an album called the Atronic
Record for Children. And the Way Out Record for Children is obviously a reference to the Way
Out record by Perrey and Kingsley. The Way Out sound or sound from the Way Out way. I forget the
name at the moment. The one that Beastie Boy has ripped off for their cover. But yeah, there was a
lot of The Way Out records, which is all about sort of the early electronic sounds. And they
did one for kids. And I say there for kids, they actually were released as tapes. But under her
record label, they released tens of records. I mean, there was at least 10 records from Bruce
Haack and probably more. Yeah, Miss Nelson. Why say Miss Nelson? I mean, Miss Nelson. Was it
Elizabeth Nelson? Esther Nelson. Oh, I got that wrong. So it was Esther Nelson. Why did you say
Miss Elizabeth? But yes, it was Esther Nelson. Yeah, very, very trippy. The soul ship. And in
a similar vein, you had Bert Nerny talking about imagination. That is an older song very early.
I mean, I think back to the early Sesame Street 72-73. Originally. But that was a bigger cast
version from 1996 with, you know, Big Bird and various other people talking about it. And that
one actually, although the original imagination is about, obviously, Bert can’t get to sleep. And
then Nerny sings it in the original. And then Bert sings the end of it. But it’s about using your
imagination and not being scared of the dark and using your imagination to get to sleep.
That version is a little bit more trippy talking about the little shapes you see when you close
your eyes and that kind of thing. And that almost like meditation. That’s interesting. And then
in the start of the section, we had Vegetable Soup being a lone minority, which I don’t
know if that’s the name of it, but yes. So probably one of the people that is very predominant in the
sort of psych, pop, psych world and the crossover to children’s music is Mike Battt. Mike Battt of
the Wombles did all the Wombles songs. I’m not playing a Wombles song, hardly because they’re
not really that psychedelic. They’re more pop. They’re more glam pop, glam rock pop. But he does
come from a pop psych psychedelic background. Fading yellow is one of his, I think you will
find Mike Battt’s work on those very obscure bubblegum pop psych pop compilations that you will
find out there. And I didn’t know I had to look it up. But one of the things I found was a film fair
animated series of nice before called Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings. It is very trippy.
Every way that Simon gets out of something, he draws a character and it comes to life. It’s
pretty insane. So this is Mike Battt, Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings. There’s not him singing.
And that was unreleased at the time. I wonder why. That was Sad Night by Miss Abrams and the
Strawberry Point Fourth Grade Class. We’ll hear more of them in a bit. But yeah, that was unreleased
at the time. It’s kind of quite a heavy song. I’ve talked about death in a kids song. Not many
kids songs do that. And then before that, we had Rod Jane and Roger with Happy Sad. I mentally
sing that one when my friends are happy or sad. I do. And then before that, we had Little Marcey
just to haunt your dreams. That’s be careful what you do. We’ve had Little Marcey on the podcast
before and Little Marcey was a Christian doll nightmare fuel. And that’s from 1966. And the
Sad Night is from 1972. And I don’t really know when the Happy Sad is from. It’s up to 1976,
1980, some point in those times. Yeah, a bit like Little Markie. It’s just like, oh my dear.
Some good songs though. But yeah, Christian, heavily Christian. Yeah, let’s scare kids with
an omnipotent being spying on them at all points. That’s going to go well. And then before that,
we had Joe Beard again with what does a bad person look like, which is kind of weird. It’s kind of
like Jaunty Jao’s song about strangers and people being evil, even if you don’t know they’re evil,
that goes into us Toccata in Fugue thing. You can see why the WFMU was all over that stuff.
And that’s from 1985. Okay, to say no, I must for every parent and child are never talked to
strangers. 46 page colouring book and full length recording. Yes. Yeah, we had a bit of a dark
section at that point, because I mean, I can’t do a thing about psych and children things are
going into the more outside of strange stuff. And also the fact that there was some pretty
scary stuff on television in the 70s and 80s and 60s. And there was some really demented
stuff for children, which now we might go, maybe that wasn’t a good idea. I don’t know. I mean,
I think things are a bit too sanitized now when it comes to kids stuff. I mean, you look at Sesame
Street dealing with the death of the old man that was a friend of Big Bird’s. I’m not sure television
shows would do that now. But yes, it’s not necessarily good for children this bit. And then
before that, we had a vapor wave remix of Kazoo kid, which is the kid that was on the you and
Kazoo, which if you look on YouTube, you’ll find millions of YouTube poop tube shitposts stuff
using it. It was from 1989. And it was a video, I think you bought with a kazoo with this kid
at the end, he sang the song weirdly without Kazoo called Special Friends. And that’s the
Rodion Drozdov Vaporwave remix. So I can’t find it on Rodion still has a channel. And I can’t
find that on there at all. So I don’t know what happened to the original version. Maybe it got
copyright. Then before that, we had Bill Bailey talking about magic around about out of something
about magic around about the annoyingly, the original recording doesn’t exist. It seems like
the version you find on compilations is sounds like it’s been taken straight off an old TV tape.
It’s not a very good copy of the theme. But it was a quite a weird theme in a way. And it was a very
psychedelic program. Then before that, we had Sydney Sager or Sydney Sager or Sydney Sager
and the embroidery of singers with narrowing circle from the scariest children’s television
series of all time, Children of the Stones. And I don’t say this lightly. I’ve watched a lot of
dark weird strange children stuff as you do back in the day and recently. And it still holds up as
the scariest thing ever. People were scared about the Picture Box theme, which was earlier in that
section. But Children of the Stone was actually genuinely scary stuff. It’s from 1975. Trunk
released a album of it. The album seems to have been taken from the dub copy, which when they
produce a TV series or whatever, they have an instrumental version for which people dub over.
Well, in a way, I’ve just taken the bits in between the voices. But quite often there is a
version that survives, even if the original master tapes are lost. But they still got foley noises,
you know, the sounds of people talking or whatever, which actually makes it weirdly a bit like the
wicker man, which is not for kids children, the wicker man soundtracks where people have created
versions with extender stuff, which isn’t in the original soundtrack. But there’s bits of the
foley recording, people moving and stuff. It actually sounds weirdly spookier because it was
weird random sounds over the top because you’ve got no image of it. So yeah, but that’s a narrowing
circle. And yeah, I’ve been watching a lot of these as you do because I’ve been looking through
for various versions. One of them is Ghost in the Water by Roger Limb. Well, the theme is by Roger
Limb from release in 1983, but actually the, I think it was a bit earlier in the 80s. But that’s
BBC TV. TV for schools, I think it was. I think it was a one trial thing that might have been
serialised. A historical ghost story about a modern day girl and person she, her friend says
she’s in love with and she’s not. Investigating a Victorian tragedy. Back to Victorians again.
And yeah, that’s pretty spooky stuff. And even worse is Come Back Lucy. I’m pretty sure that
whoever did the whole spoilt Victorian child blog probably named themselves after the character in
Come Back Lucy, you know, called Alice. Of course, of course the, the character is called Alice,
but the, the character of Alice is really, really scary and dangerous. Worse than Ghost
and it is demented stuff. And it just seemed to be the 70s. The filter came off with that kind of
stuff. I mean, we’re diverging into folk horror stuff here, but yeah, there was some stuff which
was genuinely scary. There was just TV for schools or, you know, Dark Towers is another one from you
and me. And interestingly, I came across a very early version of Baldrick. Tony Robinson. I must
be very young at Tony Robinson on me and you in like 71 or 72. I think it was 71 playing a detective.
I didn’t realise that you and me was the strand in BBC TV for schools, which was about reading and
he quite often had either dramatic things interwoven, but like little short little stories, one of those
being Dark Towers, which is a ghost story. And he would like take the words, the letter from the
thing and spell it out. And quite famously, there’d be the little animation or even a character was
going up and down across, you know, doing all the letter forming stuff. So it was kind of like
for younger children. And some of the stories were like, okay, that’s a bit weird. And everyone
remembers Cosmo and Dibbs. Partly because Cosmo and Dibbs are really annoying with Gary Willmott,
usually. But I was more The Crow. There was a Crow and I think a Mouse, which is before that.
But I didn’t realise before that we had the era of, I think Dark Towers. And then you had
a few things before that you had Tony Robinson playing Sam a detective.
Yeah, I talked about the Picture Box. There was a BBC TV TV schools series called Picture Box,
which was a kind of a strand of like, you know, you go to various things and you know,
show a factory or whatever, I don’t know, that kind of maybe like investigate thing would just be,
there wouldn’t be a presenter, it just be pictures and maybe a narration. And it had a very weird
thing of a crystal box moving to Manège by Jacques Lasry. And that was a thing done on a glass
instrument called a Baschet and a Baschet or Baschet, Baschet, I think it is, Baschet Brothers worked with
Jacques Lasry. But that was a piece heated on their instruments, which is glass rods. Hence why that
really weird thing and the Structures Sonores, which is the group, the group or the label was
called structures sonores was terrible, terrible organization was the inspiration for the radio
funny workshop. They were inspired by the stuff done by Structures Sonores and want to do something
similar. Interestingly, it wasn’t electronic, it was glass rods and special instruments. But
yeah, that was some scary stuff. That is a very haunting theme. Then before that, we had the
Blasting Company from Over the Garden Wall, that’s into the unknown. That’s a modern theme.
And whereas the Manages from 1967, that’s from 2017, more than 50, 60 years between those two.
But I’m not sure if Over the Garden Wall was for children. I don’t really know. It’s a spooky,
spooky cartoon. It’s about children, but I’m not sure it’s for children. And then before that,
we had Touch by Bruce Haack from Together from 1971, which is more demented stuff,
but it is based around I think that’s programming. It was for the music is actually
based around something he did for Electric Lucifer, I think, not a good friend. He did that
sometimes he took stuff like blowjob and made it snow job for bytes, which is mid 80s. So he
quite often took the things I did a version of programming and that as well, but sort of more
computer. Yes. Then the start section, we had Mike Batt with Simon and the Land of Chalk
Drawings in 1974. And again, that’s directly from a recording. I’m hoping UMG won’t come to me
because they own the film fair catalog. But I can’t remember who owns that. I mean,
there’s a difference between records and the recordings on the television.
So it gets very hard to work out who owns what and some of these things.
So now I play a track by Rosey Grier, which is another track from Free to Be You and Me.
And this is called It’s Alright to Cry.
It’s Alright to Cry.
That was the Chigley theme by Frank Phillips and Brian Cant.
Again, just Freddie Phillips there from 1969. Ah, Chigley. Chigley was a precursor of
Camberwick Green and Trumpton. We played Trumpton as a background. Do we play as a background?
Really? I can’t remember. Anyway, I think we did. And I’ve got to say at the last section,
I played Brady Bunch, Drummer Man in the background, but it’s one of the ones I can’t play because of
UMG, the Big Bad. And in the background is the Bugalooz. This is an instrumental I’ve created
of Senses of the World. Brilliant song, again, in UMG. Then before that, we had Miss Abrams,
read on her own, really. I mean, it’s still credited as, and the Strawberry Point 4th grade
class, but they didn’t have gone out that day. It’s quite a heavy song, but it wasn’t the album.
I never asked. I mean, unlike The Sad Night, which was on release, that was part of the album,
and it seems to be about the death of relationships, which, I mean, you know, as I say,
you know, you could learn these things. And then before that, we had Telltale from 1973.
The Autumn’s Really Here. That’s a beautiful song. Yeah, very evocative of those two. That’s why I
put them together at endings. It’s my birthday. It’s always about endings and beginnings. As you
get older, birthdays are less exciting, less about happy things, more about, oh, another year gone,
and it’s, yeah, it’s all, it all gets a bit more existential as you get older. That’s what you’ll
find out, children. This is not a children’s podcast, as you might have guessed. There is an
explicit tag on it for a reason. I might take out, I might make sure there’s no swearing, but yes,
these are kids songs from the past eras, which not necessarily means that they’re good for
children today. Then before that, we had Roosevelt Franklin talking about things which got changed
because they weren’t right later on. That’s Skin I’m In from 971. Roosevelt Franklin was a muppet,
which is incredibly popular in the early parts of Sesame Street, created by Matt Robinson,
who played Gordon. I think he was the first Gordon, though that’s been three,
Gordons it gets really confusing. And I’m pretty sure that’s Matt Robinson singing on
the previous song as well with Susan Picture A World. You can hear that there’s a political thing
with Sesame Street and the thing about civil rights, and it was intended as a unified street of
different people. The thing about Roosevelt Franklin, which pissed off, seemed to be everybody
who pissed him off, was that a very smart, used to take over the lessons and teach other children,
which seemed to be like a bad influence, so it’s like disruptive, but also spoke in,
but then it would have called Jive. Now it’s called AAVE, African American Vernacular,
I don’t know what the E ends for, but you know, code switching. And they spoke very much in
that sort of thing. And that pissed off, obviously, the more right-wing traditional people that
pissed them off. And then, yeah, it seemed like, is this a bad influence to children? So it got
cancelled. But even though Roosevelt Franklin was an incredibly popular character and had some
really big albums, several albums, very funky, very cool, and still very pertinent, the skin I’m in
is about black pride. And there are people nowadays that want to hide any critical race theory and
hide anything that shows racism in the history books. And yeah, it’s amazing. If there was
something like Roosevelt Franklin, it even Fox news would have a heart attack. And then before
that, in between the two Sesame Street, we had Rick Jones with Splodges from Play School.
And yeah, there might be a subtext in that as well about being not square. You’ve got to remember
that Johnny Ball. And I think Rick Jones, who’s Canadian, I think, used to smoke dope on the set
of Play School. And I would definitely, Johnny Ball’s one of them. But yeah, they used to get
all kinds of things. Yes, things you don’t know as a child. And then before that, I had the Susan
and Gordon with Picture World, which is an amazing song and also an amazing sentiment. And yeah,
I’d like to picture a world where everyone loves each other. I mean, that was the thing about
Sesame Street is trying to push the idea of everyone getting on. It’s not a bad idea. And then
before that, we had the Free Design again, the Scarlet Tree from Sing For Very Important People,
bonus track, but it’s, again, quite a pagan track. Very folk, yes. And then the start of the section
we had John Barry, The Me I Never Knew, and then Rosey Grier. It’s Alright to Cry and both from
Sesame Street 2. And yeah, Alice in Wonderland again, which is, Alice in Wonderland is such a
trippy thing. I mean, it’s not just White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. So, we reached the end
of the podcast. I hope you enjoyed this experiment and this foray into kids’ music
and music for kids or music even made by the kids. That is the more psychedelic, funky,
breakbeat side of probably what not what you were thinking and also dredging up some really
forgotten stuff. I mean, I’m very happy I made it, but there’s only one track I could buy. And
hello to me. Well, there’s two. It was either going to be Rainbow Connection or the other one,
which is I’m going to go back there someday. And this is a brilliant cover by Lotte Kestner,
who is from Trespasser’s William have played on the podcast and originally and has drenched out
at Lotte Kestner. And everyone’s now, we talked about in the last podcast, how everyone was talking
about her because a cover of true faith or a version of her cover of true faith was used in
the last of us. And then the actual her version was used in later on in an episode as well.
So this is I’m going to go back there someday. And then after it, we’re going to have Lionel
Morton with Fearless Fred’s amazing annual band of all the ways to end a Play School album in
1972 is pretty epic. And the Lotte Kestner is from 2015. And then right at the end,
we’ve got some more of the Hat Band from Lidsville from 1971. So anyway, I’ll speak to you soon.