BLUE PETER'S RED FACE

17-03-2007

Shocking revelations that viewers of one of the nation's best loved kids' telly shows were conned in a competition have supposedly scandalised the nation. But as Pete Millington recalls, Blue Peter is anything but whiter than than white.

This week's that the long-time pure and flawless image of the children's television institution that is Blue Peter has been shamefully sullied by revelations of phone line cheating has served to set both the cat amongst the cockatiels and the tortoise amongst the Labrador pups.

The national media has had a field day the likes of which has not been known since vandals got into the Blue Peter garden and John Noakes dropped his pants to show off the bruising from his bob-sleigh accident.

“Blue Peter Bodge” chuckled the Mirror.

“Blue Cheater” cried the Star.

“Biddy Baxter appalled” sniffed the Guardian.

For those of you who have been out of the country for the past 72 hours, the long and short of it is roughly along these lines:

Blue Peter were apparently running a phone-in competition, I don't know, possibly along the lines of “which one of Ant and Dec plays the alien boy in the big screen version of Bleep and Booster?” when suddenly the sticky backed plastic peeled away from the tin-cans-on- the-end-of-a-piece-of-string studio telecommunication system…

…leaving some 14,000 premium rate paying would-be Gold badge winners shouting “Ant!” and “Dec” fruitlessly into the ether

So, quick thinking producers (certainly not the presenters I might add) pounced on a small bear with a marmalade sandwich under his hat, who just happened to be visiting the studio to pick up a signed photograph of Valerie Singleton he had won in 1967 but forgotten to take home, and pressed an empty baked bean can with a piece of string through it over one of his fluffy ears with the instructions:

“Oi bear, when you hear the blonde piece with the Northern Irish accent start speaking to you, just say “Dec's Bleep and Ant's Booster”

I may have got my facts slightly wrong, but you get the general idea of how this scandal transpired.

And thus it was that 14,000 small children in knitted pullovers and long grey shorts (well that's what my mom made us wear to watch Blue Peter… up until we rebelled… last year) got turned over in the Great Blue Peter Ring and Cry Swindle

However, as much as Madame Baxter (the Mrs Thatcher of triangular shelving) might want us to believe that this is the first time that the squeaky clean image of Blue Peter has ever been tarnished, we have only to look back through the annals (or annuals even) of the BP archive to discover 10 previous moments of shame and embarrassment in the programme's history.

So, without further ado, here's a list I made earlier of the top ten gaffes and glitches in Blue Peter history:

1) The dead dog fraud - two days before Chris and Valerie were to unwrap the show's first ever puppy on the Christmas 1962 special, Biddy Baxter received a phone call to say the pup had keeled over from distemper. Following a frantic search of pet shops around Shepherds Bush, Biddy and co-producer Edward Barnes found a mongrel runt shivering in a dingy shop window, drove it back to the studio and boxed it up for the show. The scrawny replacement mongrel subsequently blossomed into Petra, the nation's, nay, the world's favourite dog…ever.

2) The Chauvinist presenter - in 1968 Biddy Baxter asked male presenters John Noakes and Peter Purves to play the leading on-screen role in caring for the Blue Peter baby Daniel. Whilst Noakes took the role with his customary enthusiasm and sense of comedy, Purves on the other hand resented being made to feed, bath, dress and change a baby, moaning to Baxter that this was women's work and that pushing a pram threw a question mark over his masculinity.

3) The smashed presenter - Richard Bacon, presenter between 1997 and 1998, left the show after allegations that he had been seen snorting cocaine at celebrity parties. Apparently, closely following the scandal the BP ‘powers-that-be' recalled all the Blue Peter annuals that were about to go on sale that year, with only a few thousand escaping the shredder - making them a valuable item on E:Bay

4) The pregnant presenter - Controversy stills rages over whether eighties presenter Janet Ellis was fired from the programme for becoming pregnant outside of wedlock. At the time, tabloid newspapers claimed that Miss Ellis was sacked by prim and proper Ms Baxter who didn't think it was the right image for BP lady presenters. It's a claim that both Baxter and Ellis continue to deny. Incidentally, the sprog wasn't Sophie.

5) The naked presenter - one of the show's most popular presenters was scruffy action man, Peter Duncan, famous for giving the instruction “finely chop one raw egg” during a cookery make. Shortly after joining BP in 1980, tabloid newspapers revealed that Super Peter had once appeared nude in a film called The Lifetaker in 1975. On this occasion BP bosses were forgiving as it had happened a long time before he joined the programme (definitely a case of “well, that was one he made earlier”). Duncan is now Chief Scout. No comment.

6) The accused presenter - John Leslie. I might need to consult my legal team before going down this particular avenue. Just to say the charges were dropped and he left the court a free man with an untarnished character… just the odd bit of continuing scandal and allegation every now and again

7) “Get down Shep… I mean Skip” - When John Noakes left the programme in 1978 he was told that he could keep his beloved dog Shep as a gift from Blue Peter on condition he didn't use the animal in commercials. However, Noakes had already signed a contract with Pedigree Chum and an almighty row thus broke out between the ex-presenter and his former producers. Blue Peter refused to hand over the dog, Noakes brought a look-alike border collie named Skip which appeared on the Pedigree Chum adverts and took his final revenge with a stinging attack on Barnes and Baxter in the Daily Mirror

8) A fine pair of knockers - Presenter Simon Groom would often wind-up Biddy Baxter by slipping smutty double-entendres and ad-lib innuendos into his straight-faced appearances. Co-presenters would try to stifle their giggles as Groom came out with such classics as “that's a fine pair of knockers” whilst inspecting the front door of Durham Cathedral and “once a king always a king…but once a knight is enough” whilst wearing a suit of armour. Perhaps his greatest moment though was the night he was arrested whilst filming in Japan whilst running down a busy road holding an inflatable life-sized waiter he had just stolen from a hotel. Amazingly the story never reached the British tabloids though was featured in the Japanese version of Playboy

9) Lulu the incontinent elephant - just to finish off we'll have two embarrassing moments from the actual show. Firstly the 1969 show that has passed into television legend when Lulu the baby elephant defecated all over the studio floor, trod on Noakes' foot and then proceeded to drag his own keeper along the ground and presumably through the… well the rest is television history as they say

10) And finally, the Girl Guide campfire disaster - you have to hand it to Baxter and Barnes, as stuffy and conservative as they may have been painted, they were always willing to take risks - especially with the lives of their presenters, as John Noakes and Peter Duncan will no doubt testify. Likewise, Blue Peter was never really known for it's attention to health and safety issues back in the halcyon days of the 60s and 70s. Like the fondly-remembered Girl Guides' bonfire that got out of control on the 1970 Christmas edition. In fairness to the team of presenters and the said Girl Guides, they just kept on singing those Christmas carols as the inferno raged.

So the next time you read about a dark scandal about to blow our beloved Blue Peter out of the water …chill out, it'll take more than a dodgy phone-in competition to sink this ship.

(Check out Pete's excellent magazine about life around and about the West Midlands, Spaghetti Gazetti. Just click the pic.)