"Eight's a wish, Nine's a kiss, Ten is a bird you must not miss."

[caddyman]

One of the original presenters of Magpie, Tony Bastable has died.


The funky dude on the right was the man

Of course, I liked the programme because of Sue Stranks and later, Jenny Hanley.

I liked it better than Blue Peter and find that that is just about all I have to say on the matter...

Not sure why I mentioned it, really.

Comments

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

I liked the way they did their charity fundraising progress indicator. Blue Peter would just have a "thermometer" stylee thing but Magpie would have a line that started in the studio and then head out into the Teddington Lock building and outside.

Cool program for cool kids while BP seemed more like a Tv version of Scouts/Brownies - a bit too institutional goody-goody.

[queenortart.livejournal.com]

We weren't really allowed to watch Magpie, so I only got to see it at other people's houses. Ditto Tiswas which my mother considered the work of the devil frankly

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

Blimey! Jenny Hanley was the female lead [alongside Dennis Waterman] in the 1970 Hammer film "Scars of Dracula"!

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Magpie was hip, whereas Blue Peter was more buttoned-up. In fact the theme song had some tasty Hammond organ on it, like it was done by the Brian Auger Trinity or something, rather than some potty old sailor's hornpipe excavated from the BBC archive of cracked old Roy Hudd '78s.

One of the later Magpie presenters was a tall guy named (I think) Mick Robertson who looked like he ought to be playing guitar with Queen, even had his own flop album out at one point and once cautioned us not to try what he was doing, "or your parents will freak." Lordy trousers, heaven forbid that Valerie Singleton would ever use such a phrase on the Beeb.