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- For the Canadian 1980s New Wave band of the same name, see Blue Peter (band).
Blue Peter is a popular, long-running BBC television programme for children. It is named after the blue-and-white flag hoisted by ships in port when they are ready to sail. The reasoning behind the choice of title is that the programme is intended to be a voyage of adventure and discovery for the viewers, constantly covering new topics.
The signature tune, in recognition of the origin of the title, is a sea shanty called "Barnacle Bill", and the programme's motif is a stylised sailing ship designed by Tony Hart. Hart's original design was never successfully used in a totally uniform fashion, with several different reproductions used in studio, on badges, the Blue Peter books and on-screen graphics. This was until the show's redesign in 1999, when the ship's rigging and hull detail was removed and in 2000 the flags were subtly reshaped. This version is still in use today and now appears across all media (although the revised badges retain the old-style flags). On Thursday 16th October 2008, Blue Peter will celebrate its 50th birthday.
History
The programme, devised by John Hunter Blair and edited for many years by Biddy Baxter, was first shown on October 16, 1958 with presenters Christopher Trace and Leila Williams. The initial format was mainly the two presenters demonstrating dolls and model railways, with the male presenter concentrating on traditional boys toys such as model aeroplanes, and the female restricting herself to domestic tasks, such as cookery.
Over the years the programme changed to reflect the times. Originally it was a 15-minute weekly programme; now it is 25 minutes and is shown three times a week on BBC One, with one more programmes (mainly comprising previously-broadcast material) each week on the CBBC Channel. The 4000th edition was broadcast on 14 March 2005. Most episodes are still broadcast live.
Almost every episode from 1964 onwards still exists in the BBC archives. This is extremely unusual for programmes of that era, and stands as testament to Baxter's foresight and initiative, as she personally ensured that telerecordings and, from 1970, video copies were kept of the episodes. Among the benefits of this policy is that one 1973 episode contains the only known broadcast quality footage of the lost final episode of the Doctor Who serial "The Tenth Planet", which depicts the Doctor's first regeneration.
Blue Peter has had a longstanding relationship with Doctor Who, often running features on the show with appearances by actors and behind-the-scenes personnel. One notable contest in 1967 had viewers design a monster in the style of those featured on Doctor Who. A similar competition was held in 2005 to help design a new monster for one of the episodes, which became Love & Monsters.
In addition, longtime host Peter Purves was himself a former co-star on the series. One programme asked viewers to help recover the lost footage of Doctor Who.
The show has seen redesigns during its long history, often accompanied by new arrangements of the programme's signature tune. The original, and probably most famous, was the arrangement by the British light music composer Sidney Torch, which accompanied the memorable 'seasaw' opening. This remained until 1979, when another notable version was produced by the British composer and instrumentalist Mike Oldfield. His was originally released as a 7" single on November 30. According to the cover of the single, 'part of the proceeds of the sale' of that record were 'donated to the Blue Peter Cambodia Appeal'. The opening drum roll was performed by presenter Simon Groom. It was then used on the programme itself for several years. The version of the theme available on single and numerous Mike Oldfield compilation albums is actually a re-recording (in stereo, as opposed to the mono TV mix) and does not contain the opening drum roll; the as-used-on-TV version of the Oldfield theme has never been commercially released.
Between 1989 and 1994, the signature tune was re-recorded twice, both times by Simon Brint and coinciding with a major revamp of the studio set. In 1994 the show featured the group Stomp, who produced music using instruments fashioned from recyclables and other household waste. The show's producers were impressed with their work that they commissioned them to do a cover of the traditional Blue Peter theme music. Their rendition was aired until 1999 when the show got a 'millennium' makeover, with a newly designed 'bubble ship' variant of the show's logo (used alongside the original Blue Peter ship - minus its rigging) and another reworking of the signature tune, this time a full orchestral variant also featuring aspects from other cultures, such as the steel drum and tabla drum. The then-presenter Konnie Huq played the final cymbal crash. The new 'bubble ship' lasted until the end of the series in June 2004 and the new September 2004 series used as its sole emblem the traditional ship, still without the rigging detail which did not lend itself to neat digital or online use. Coinciding with it was a new arrangement of "Barnacle Bill" by Nail Brown and a revised studio set, making much use of the sail shapes of the ship logo, decking and a two tone blue seating unit. The seating unit was replaced a year later by bean bags as the series wanted to be less formal. In 2006 the signature tune is to be re-arranged again, this time by Doctor Who composer Murray Gold. 40 viewers are to be selected through a competition to play alongside the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra on the new recording. The new version of the theme by Gold, does not include the drum role, the opening bars and the closing theme.
Many items from Blue Peter's history have passed into television legend, especially moments when things have gone wrong, such as the much-repeated clip of Lulu the elephant (from a 1969 edition) who defecated on the studio floor and then proceeded to attempt an exit, dragging her keeper along the ground behind her. Other well-remembered and much-repeated items include the Girl Guides' bonfire that got out of hand on the 1970 Christmas edition, John Noakes' report on the cleaning of Nelson's Column , and Simon Groom referring to a previous item on door-knockers with the words 'What a beautiful pair of knockers' , which has usually been explained as an accidental turn of phrase, but which Groom later admitted was a deliberate joke. Additionally, Groom is remembered for inappropriately reciting, while wearing a suit of armour, 'Once a king always a king, but once a (k)night is enough', while Peter Duncan's cookery instructions to 'finely chop one raw egg' will also go into the annals.
There have also been times when the show has broadcast breaking news in the days before 24-hour news channels. Possibly the most famous is showing the first colour images on British TV of the sinking of the RMS Queen Elizabeth in 1972 .
Features
Blue Peter
Enduring features of the programme include the annual charity appeal, which involves young viewers by asking them to collect items that can be recycled or sold to raise money for the chosen cause. This is always a charity project in the UK in odd-numbered years, and abroad in even-numbered. The appeal is usually launched in late November and runs through to February or March of the following year.
The Blue Peter Summer Expedition is another long-running tradition. These visits focus on a single country and are filmed while the programme is off the air from June to September.
The team of presenters keep pets and bring them onto the show. The original idea of this was to show viewers lucky enough to own animals how to care for them, and for the creatures to act as surrogate pets for children without them. The first pet was a dog named Petra. Other canines have included Patch, Shep the Border Collie and golden retrievers Goldie and her daughter Bonnie. There also have been tortoises, including Freda (originally misidentified as a male and called Fred), Maggie, Jim and George, and cats, such as Jason, Jack and Jill, Willow, Kari and Oke and the late Smudge. The current animal line-up comprises: dogs Meg, Lucy and Mabel; Socks the cat; Shelley the tortoise, and the rarely seen Blue Peter Riding for the Disabled horse, Jet, who replaced Rags.
The presenters also maintain the infamous Blue Peter Garden, adjacent to Television Centre, which was designed by Percy Thrower. Its features include an Italian sunken garden with a pond, which contains goldfish, a vegetable patch, greenhouse and viewing platform. The 2000 Blue Peter time capsule, which is due to be dug up in 2029, is buried there. George the Tortoise was interred in the garden following his death in 2004, and there are also a bust of Petra, sculptures of Mabel and the Blue Peter ship, and a plaque in honour of Percy Thrower. The garden is also available to other programmes for outside broadcasts, and is often used for the links between children's programmes during the summer months and for BBC One's Breakfast weather broadcasts. In 1984, the garden was vandalised, leading to an on-air appeal for viewers to come forward with information — which now often appears on clip shows.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the programme sometimes included a cartoon series as 'light relief' from some of the more informative articles. One such was Bleep and Booster, which started in 1963 and continued in the Blue Peter books until 1977.
The programme also marks annual events, including Chinese New Year, Shrove Tuesday, Mothering Sunday, Guy Fawkes Night and Christmas.
The programme maintains its long-standing practice of avoiding using commercial names on air. Most famously, this policy led to the invention of the phrase 'sticky-backed plastic' (marketed under the trade name Fablon) back in the 1970s. An extreme example occurred in February 2005, when the show ran a feature on how Smarties are made, without once mentioning the name of the product.
Many of these long-standing traditions were started during the 1960s and 1970s by the show's editor, Biddy Baxter, along with producers Edward Barnes and Rosemary Gill, and most of them still feature on the programme.
The Blue Peter badge
Children (and occasionally adults) who appear on the show or achieve something notable may be awarded the coveted Blue Peter badge. The Blue Peter badge allows holders free entry into a number of visitor attractions across the UK. In March 2006 this privilege was temporarily suspended after a number of badges were discovered for sale on the auction site eBay by a number of people. This suspension was lifted in June 2006, when a new 'Blue Peter Badge Card' was introduced to combat the problem. Each badge winner is now issued with an ID card to prove that they are the rightful owners . The original badge was slightly smaller in size than the current version, but still featured a blue coloured ship logo printed on a white plastic shield. This remained unchanged until the 1990s when a revised badge featuring a raised moulding of the ship design by Tony Hart was introduced (more detailed and neat than the previous printed reproduction). This version disappeared in 1997 when the old-style badge returned. It was not until 2004, coinciding with the show's September revamp, that a new badge was introduced. Slightly larger in dimension and with a much bolder printing of the new-style ship without its rigging detail (though the pre-2000 style flags remain). In October 2003, to celebrate the 45th birthday of the programme, a new, limited edition, badge was introduced, to last only a year. This moulding was made of rubber and larger than the traditional badge. It consisted of a white shield with a raised 'bubble ship' applique.
The presenters almost always wear their badge; the only exception being when their apparel is incompatible (for example, a life jacket), in which case a sticker with the ship emblem is normally used instead. In addition, magnetic logos are often attached to vehicles driven by the presenters during filming assignments. Other badges exist, and are awarded for various achievements:
- Silver badges (a blue shield with silver ship print) are given to viewers or participants who have already won a blue badge
- Green badges (green shield with white ship print) and a Blue Peter pedometer are awarded for any correspondence from viewers with a conservation, nature or environmental theme (in addition, the presenters often wear this badge when their reports deal with such issues, or when in the garden)
- Gold badges (a gold-plated ship-shaped pin brooch) are very rarely awarded and are usually given only to people who have performed acts of extreme bravery, represented their country in a major event and so on.
- The Competition badge was previously a round metal disc in white, with the blue ship, printed with the words "Blue Peter Competition Winner". However, it has recently been redesigned to look similar to the other badges, and is now an orange shield with a white ship. These badges are awarded to all winners and runners-up of Blue Peter competitions - with new look badges being introduced in September.
- The new Team Player's badge (a purple shield with white ship print), which will be introduced in September, will be given to 12 children a month who have ideas for the show. These children will also win the chance to spend a day working with the Blue Peter team. This is the first new badge introduced since 1988.
Tributes and honours
In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, Blue Peter was placed 6th.
Asteroid 16197 Bluepeter is named in its honour. The asteroid was discovered on 7 January 2000, the day that the Blue Peter time capsules from 1971 and 1984 were unearthed.
Blue Peter presenters
For many years, Anita West was not officially recognised as a Blue Peter presenter, having stood in for several months between Leila Williams leaving the show and a full-time replacement being found. West was finally added to the official list of presenters at the time of the show's 40th anniversary celebrations in 1998.
Of the 32 presenters who have fronted the programme during its lifetime, one or two have failed to live up to the 'squeaky-clean' image required of them. The most infamous scandal involving a presenter occurred in 1998, when Richard Bacon had his contract terminated, after publicly confessing to having taken cocaine; the BBC's Head of Children's Programming, Lorraine Heggessey, addressed viewers on-air before the first edition of the programme following his sacking to explain to the audience why he had been asked to leave and to apologise for his actions. Ironically, Bacon became a successful broadcaster because of the scandal, rather than despite it.
The programme maintains friendly links with most of its former presenters, many of whom have made further appearances on the show after leaving, particularly in the show's Christmas specials.
Other people who have played roles on the show include the zoologist George Cansdale, who was the programme's first on-screen vet, and Percy Thrower who was the show's resident gardening expert from the 1960s until shortly before his death in 1988. He was followed briefly by Chris Crowder, and then Clare Bradley, who was replaced by the current incumbent, Chris Collins.
Another contributor, though rarely seen on screen, was Margaret Parnell, who created almost all of the show's 'makes' from the early 1960s until her retirement in 2001. Her role is now filled by Gillian Shearing, though Parnell's name still appears in the credits from time to time when a classic 'make' is re-used.
Blue Peter Music Makers
Blue Peter Music Makers was a nation-wide competition run by the children's television programme Blue Peter. The competition aimed to find 40 young and talented musicians to take part in re-recording the infamous Blue Peter Theme Tune.
Auditions, which were held at the Odyssey Belfast, and 5 other locations across England, received over 26,000 applicants, making it the biggest Blue Peter Competition ever. The lucky 40 were then whisked away to Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, where they met the presenters, and met the tune's arranger, Murray Gold. After three days of hard practice, they recorded their themetune in the BBC Manchester Recording Studio with the BBC Philarmonic.
The Music Makers are next scheduled to appear in the BBC Blue Peter Proms in the Royal Albert Hall.
Trivia
- The programme is shown live. Former editor, Biddy Baxter, hated presenters' ad-libs and Simon Groom would infuriate her and test his fellow presenters by making ad-libbed double-entrendres, with a straight face.
- The two most famous phrases associated with Blue Peter - 'And now for something completely different' (later made synonymous with Monty Python) and 'Here's one I made earlier' - were both coined by its very first presenter, Christopher Trace.
- Tony Hart originally asked for his design fee for the Blue Peter badges to be paid as a royalty of 1d for each badge made, but was offered a flat fee of £100 (equivalent to around £1,600 at 2006 rates).
- Petra, the first Blue Peter pet, was a mongrel dog introduced in 1962. She gave birth to eight puppies in 1965, one of which - Patch - became John Noakes' pet when he began presenting in 1965. Petra died in 1977.
- Petra, was not actually who she seemed. The first pet, Petra, died after the first show, and was replaced by Petra II, who is commonly known as Petra.
The signature tune
The following is a list of all the musicians who have recorded a version of the Blue Peter signature tune:
- Ashworth/Hope: October 1958 to January 1979 — Blue Peter Theme Tune from 1958
- Mike Oldfield: January 1979 to June 1989 — Blue Peter Theme from 1979
- Simon Brint: July 1989 to August 1994 — Blue Peter Theme from 1990 Blue Peter Theme from 1993
- The Yes/No People: September 1994 to August 1999 — Blue Peter Theme from 1996
- David Arnold and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: September 1999 to June 2004 — Blue Peter Theme from 2002
- Nial Brown: September 2004 to present — Blue Peter Theme from 2005
A new version of the signature tune was arranged by Murray Gold and recorded in 2006, to be used when the series returns from its summer break in September 2006.*
External links
- Blue Peter official site
- I Love Blue Peter
- Blue Peter Special Assignment From TV Cream
- Encyclopedia of Television
- British Film Institute Screen Online
- Profile of Biddy Baxter
- The National Deaf Children's Society 'Blue Peter Loan Service'
- BBC News Online: "TV novice becomes Blue Peter host"
Footnotes
- Edition broadcast 5 November 1973. *
- Edition broadcast 3 July 1969. * Contrary to popular belief, the episode was not live, but recorded to allow the presenters to catch a flight to Ceylon for a filming trip.
- Edition broadcast 30 May 1977. *
- Edition broadcast 14 January 1980. *
- Edition broadcast 10 January 1972. *
- Edition broadcast 18 February 2005. *
- The statement was broadcast before the programme on 19 October 1998. That day's episode (a filmed special about gorilla conservation, in which Bacon did not appear) was then broadcast as scheduled.
- Edition broadcast 19 June 2006.
"Blue Peter"