While celebrating birthdays posthumously can become a ceremonial technicality due to the subject not being there to appreciate it, those with ties to said subject can still commemorate the occasion with plenty of attachment.
In this instance, it would be BBC2 marking 50 years of the long-defunct children’s show Play School, which holds a special place in their history as the first-ever show to air on the public broadcaster’s new channel, which naturally also marks a half-century this year (following on from a range of other anniversaries).
Play School, one of the best-known children’s programmes for people in the UK of a certain age range, made its debut on screens on 21 April 1964 as the first-ever item on BBC Two’s regular schedule, a day after the launch of the channel itself, which to this day holds the status as one of the world’s best-known ‘secondary’ stations.
The variety show would come to a close in 1988 (stopping just short of its 25th birthday), but in the time inbetween was notable for setting a number of further landmarks, including being the first BBC children’s programme to employ a black presenter in 1965 through Paul Danquah, and becoming the first BBC2 children’s programme to be broadcast in colour as of 1968.
After the demise of Play School, some of its former employees went on to enjoy notable children’s TV success in their own right with the broadcaster, as Brian Jameson created early 2000′s CBeebies hit Balamory, and fellow ex-presenter Iain Lauchlan conceived slightly earlier series The Tweenies.
In commemoration of the 50 years since Play School’s launch, the programme will feature in a special children’s BBC exhibition named ‘Here’s One We Made Earlier’, opening in July at The Lowry gallery complex in Manchester (England). In addition, the Children’s Media Foundation will be supporting a ‘special reunion’ to which all living former employees of the show will be invited.
Anna Home, the aptly-named former leader of the BBC’s ‘Children’s and Play School Research Department’, stated: “Play School was absolutely ahead of its time in terms of its content, production techniques and presenting style. You only have to look at today’s children’s programming to see how it has inspired generations of presenters and programme-makers way beyond its 24 years on screen.”
On a day which also sees the marking of 25 years since the release of the innovative GameBoy from Nintendo (first released in Japan on 21 April 1989), a double (or rather, quadruple) dose of nostalgia can be seen below:
