Skippy documentary BBC FOUR (merged)

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  • gkmaccagkmacca Posts: 9,386
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    grimtales1 wrote: »
    I'll watch when its repeated, it did remind me some of the best parts of Goodness Gracious Gracious Me were with Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo :D;)

    Blimey, that's sounds grim. That and the Mighty Boosh clips struck me as painfully weak and unneccessary.
  • FroodFrood Posts: 13,180
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    BBTweets wrote: »
    Just set it to record as it's on again at midnight so thanks for letting us know OP :)

    Skippy, Skippy,
    Skippy the bush kangaroo!!!!!

    "Skippy........ Skippy
    Skippy got made into glue......!"

    As was sung at school.
    Verence wrote: »
    Does anyone else remember the Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo sketch on Goodness Gracious Me??

    The first time I saw Skipinder I fell off my chair.

    Literally ROTFLMAO.

    Marvellous idea.
  • captainmccoycaptainmccoy Posts: 1,546
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    I'll be expecting a similar BBC 4 Documentary on other absolute crap kid's TV shows from the 1960/70s.

    Daktari
    White Horses
    The Singing Ringing Tree
    The Double Deckers
    Shazam

    Daktari was not a worldwide success like Skippy.

    The English version of White Horses is lost.

    Singing Ringing Tree is out on dvd

    The Double Deckers had its own mini look back a few years ago as part of the "After They Were Famous" series.

    I'm assuming you are referring to Hanna Barbera's Shazzan show which was an excellent forerunner to The Arabian Knights.

    Episodes of Shazzan are available on R1 dvd
  • captainmccoycaptainmccoy Posts: 1,546
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    The documentary is out on an official dvd release in Australia with lots of extras .

    Get it for about £16 delivered
  • SystemSystem Posts: 2,096,970
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    I watched this last night and thought it was pretty good. I remember watching Skippy a lot when I was kid. It must have been repeated throught the 70's during the school holidays.

    They just wouldn't be able to make this sort of show any more. Anything using live animals in that fashion would probably be banned. Shame really. Even my 7 year old son enjoyed it and said that they don't make good shows like they used to.
  • Doghouse RileyDoghouse Riley Posts: 32,491
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    We complain about the rubbish we get on TV now, when this was utter rubbish and I thought so at the time.
    Even the crew thought it was rubbish.
    But it was enjoyable rubbish.

    Good documentary.
  • tortoisepersontortoiseperson Posts: 3,403
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    Thanks for posting about this shanders, I caught it on iplayer and rather enjoyed it.

    The animated "now" Skippy reminded me a bit too much of Jimmy Savile for comfort though!
  • shandersshanders Posts: 5,907
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    Thanks for posting about this shanders, I caught it on iplayer and rather enjoyed it.

    The animated "now" Skippy reminded me a bit too much of Jimmy Savile for comfort though!

    you're welcome!! It was good wasn't it - great that they managed to get interviews with all the cast and the behind the scenes b/w footage of the filming was fantastic. I notice the guy who created it - was it John McCullum - only died at the beginning of February aged 91. What a legacy he left though - there must be millions of people of a certain age who remember Skippy with affection.
  • grimtales1grimtales1 Posts: 46,684
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    Omah wrote: »

    :D

    That was usually what the Goodness Gracious Me sketch took the piss out of :p By giving Skippy his own voice :D
    ETA: I meant to quote the "exchange" there, sorry.
  • TarotTarot Posts: 11,983
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    grimtales1 wrote: »
    I'll watch when its repeated, it did remind me some of the best parts of Goodness Gracious Gracious Me were with Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo :D;)

    "Skipinder, Skipinder
    Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo
    Skipinder, Skipinder
    Dumdeedumdeedumdum...Kangaroo"

    :D
  • TokyoTokyo Posts: 8,472
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    This doc was better than the actual programmes of the time - though I do have fond memories of it...

    Had to laugh at the clip dubbed in Japanese - can't believe Liza G was mobbed when she came here - what has she been up to the last two decades? Still looks pretty decent!
  • OmahOmah Posts: 23,115
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    grimtales1 wrote: »
    :D

    That was usually what the Goodness Gracious Me sketch took the piss out of :p By giving Skippy his own voice :D
    ETA: I meant to quote the "exchange" there, sorry.

    I prefer the original :
    Jerry: What’s wrong, Skip? What’s happened?
    Skippy: Tchk tchk tchk.
    Jerry: (picking up distributor) What is it?
    Skippy: Tchk tchk tchk.
    Jerry: Where did you get it?
    Skippy: Tchk tchk tchk.
    Jerry: It’s not Matt’s. Then why the urgency?
    Skippy: Tchk tchk tchk.
    Jerry: Jim?
    Skippy: Tchk tchk tchk.
    Jerry: It’s from Jim!
    Skippy: Tchk tchk tchk.
    Jerry: He’s in trouble, his car’s broken down, he can’t get to the show! Is that it, Skip?
    Skippy: Tchk tchk tchk.
    Jerry: Come on, Skip, we haven’t much time.

    From ep. 61, ‘Axeman’, where Skippy brings a broken car distributor to Jerry (after operating the radio and summoning Jerry back by saying “Tchk tchk tchk”):

    http://www.classicaustraliantv.com/Skippy.htm
  • grimtales1grimtales1 Posts: 46,684
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    :D That made me laugh.
  • Glenn AGlenn A Posts: 23,758
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    Classic Skippy intro from 40 years ago
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCHY6n907OE
    Wonder if any of the cast made it into Neighbours:D
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 2,584
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    Sorry wrote: »
    I watched this last night and thought it was pretty good. I remember watching Skippy a lot when I was kid. It must have been repeated throught the 70's during the school holidays.

    They just wouldn't be able to make this sort of show any more. Anything using live animals in that fashion would probably be banned. Shame really. Even my 7 year old son enjoyed it and said that they don't make good shows like they used to.

    Didn't one of the the US channels have a series in the late sixties about a talking horse, Mr. ED, I think it was called. I wonder which was out first.
  • iaindbiaindb Posts: 13,278
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    Didn't one of the the US channels have a series in the late sixties about a talking horse, Mr. ED, I think it was called. I wonder which was out first.

    Mister Ed (so written - I couldn't find it in my reference book when I looked up Mr Ed) ran on US TV between 1961 and 1966. In this country ITV screened 26 of the 144 episodes in 1964 & 1965 whilst C4 screened 78 episodes between 1987 & 1989.

    Did you see the Harry Enfield version? Mister Ed the talking horse becomes Mister Dead, the talking corpse.:D


    As for the Skippy documentary - very entertaining. The montage of clips illustrating Skippy's manual dexterity were hiliarious.
  • pussyfootpussyfoot Posts: 740
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    About the same time as Skippy, i remember a programme that featured a little jungle boy riding an elephant, shouting something like 'aaooooohhhh Changoooo'. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the programme, Think it may have been Daktari, but not too sure......
  • TouristaTourista Posts: 14,338
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    Loved the documentary.

    Brought back memories it did......

    As an aside to the thread, has anyone ever done a doc on the making of Flipper?.......
  • OmahOmah Posts: 23,115
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    Verence wrote: »
    This thread may end getting merged the the Classic Kids Tv thread

    Not if posters stay on-topic ..... ;)
  • grimtales1grimtales1 Posts: 46,684
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    I thought Skippy was more a rip-off of Flipper (well not rip off, but similar idea), I remember Flipper repeats on Channel 4 :D
  • captainmccoycaptainmccoy Posts: 1,546
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    pussyfoot wrote: »
    About the same time as Skippy, i remember a programme that featured a little jungle boy riding an elephant, shouting something like 'aaooooohhhh Changoooo'. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the programme, Think it may have been Daktari, but not too sure......

    Could it be "Elephant Boy" which was a co-production between Scottish tv and Channels in Australia and Germany involving James Gatward who then went onto do a similar deal to make Star Maidens
  • Glenn AGlenn A Posts: 23,758
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    Nothing wrong with Skippy as it was a highly entertaining show for children in its day.
  • Mr MertonMr Merton Posts: 477
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    grimtales1 wrote: »
    I thought Skippy was more a rip-off of Flipper (well not rip off, but similar idea), I remember Flipper repeats on Channel 4 :D
    Flipper was mentioned in the documentary as perhaps being the main inspiration for making Skippy, but animals were a fairly common feature in drama series during this period anyway, plus another programme that was also an influence is mentioned on that Skippy-related website.

    Overall it's an excellent documentary and well worth watching even if you weren't that keen on Skippy or never saw it in the first place.
  • grimtales1grimtales1 Posts: 46,684
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    Thanks! :) I'll Freesat it on Friday as you're right, I havent seen Skippy in the 1st place really.
    Speaking of animals, maybe Lassie was an inspiration as well, I guess animals have always been popular :D
  • duncannduncann Posts: 11,969
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    Mr Merton wrote: »
    Flipper was mentioned in the documentary as perhaps being the main inspiration for making Skippy, but animals were a fairly common feature in drama series during this period anyway, plus another programme that was also an influence is mentioned on that Skippy-related website.

    Overall it's an excellent documentary and well worth watching even if you weren't that keen on Skippy or never saw it in the first place.

    I watched Skippy when it very first aired in the UK and loved it, I would have been 7 or 8. I laughed at the interviewees in the doc from European countries never having heard of Australia and thinking Skippy must live in America or Africa - it reminded me that I assumed Flipper and Skippy - shown on the same channel, ITV, at roughly the same time - lived in the same warm sunny place which for me was Australia. I don't know how I could have failed to see that Flipper was American, but I didn't.

    I grew up in a house at the time - typical of a certain type of parenting - where we were only allowed to watch TV if it was quality programming and of some educational value - Blue Peter and not cartoons etc. - and downmarket, entertainment-driven ITV was almost always out of bounds, but Skippy was one of the ITV series we were allowed to watch.

    I'm surprised they don't remake it - in a more sophisticated way obviously, it would have great appeal, I think, in today's eco/animal conscious times.
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