What if TV was relevant?

LIKE many folk, I’m watching a lot more TV in these strange lockdown days.

This got me thinking back to kids’ TV when I was a nipper and I learned to enjoy it all over again when my boys came along.

From old favourites like Andy Pandy, Camberwick Green and Bagpuss through to Fireman Sam and In the Night Garden, generations of bairns have been enchanted by their magic.

Yet as my lockdown brain had more time to roam, I began to question things; certain issues about these classics began to nag at me.

One of my earliest concerns was about the characters my two lads worshipped; Bob the Builder and Postman Pat.

Both of them decent blokes, admittedly – but why the narrow focus on blue-collar jobs?

Now don’t get me wrong – I come from a solid working-class background – but like all such decent and hard-working folk, I want my kids to have more opportunities than I had.

So where were the upwardly mobile posh folk to act as role models to our children?

Where was Hedge Fund manager Hugh? Why didn’t we have the have a posh character called Brexit Boris who drawled to Hugh and the other privileged puppets ‘let’s get things done’ or ‘erm stay at home kids but don’t forget to go out too.’

Surely by exposing the bairns to such wider hierarchy of professions we might actually broaden their career horizons.

Surely by seeing Champagne Charles the conscience-free Crony selling ludicrously expensive PPE on a six-figure government commission might make a young ‘un fancy a bit of the high life? Maybe one episode that sees him employ Bob the Builder to renovate his barn conversion in the Cotswolds might persuade kids to ditch the toy hammer and hard hat and instead start ‘networking’ in the yard whilst badgering mam and dad to consider the benefits of a private education like Hugh or Boris.

However, if we can’t get such programmes made, then at least we should make the existing ones a bit more realistic for the dystopian post-Brexit mid-pandemic world.

How about Bob the Builder being made redundant or furloughed from his old job and now working for a private delivery company on a zero-hours contract to keep his family fed; episodes could be shown at totally inconvenient times, on the wrong channel or even not at all. How’s that for realism?

Old favourites could be followed up to see how they’ve adapted to modern life.

Catweazle would use his rejection of modern technology and bearded looks to become a hipster bistro owner who is still waiting for government intervention that’ll never come.

Ivor the Engine would have been rationalised, downsized and be doing a job share on the privatised Sodor Line with Percy from Thomas Tank.

Some shows would have to be retitled or face liquidation from the politically correct thought police; ‘Wait ‘til your father gets home’ would certainly end up as ‘Wait until your significant other carer from a non-traditional family unit gets back to the shared residence.’

Wacky races would be massacred! Bludgeoned into a dull road safety format where, in the interests of equality, nobody lost and all the characters looked identical so as not to offend anybody or promote stereotypes.

Finally, In the Night Garden’s cleaning obsessed character Makka Pakka would be the subject of a reality TV show on the perils of OCD and would then be romantically linked to one of the cast of Geordie Shore.

Jackanory, however, would be kept, replacing the less believable storytellers we see every week on the government’s nightly updates.

Stay safe pets.

How about Bob the Builder being made redundant or furloughed from his old job?