Playdays – The Extended Edition

During the 1990’s children all over the UK were enthralled and entertained by ‘Playdays’, a pre-school television programme by the BBC. I was an addict and I would happily sit and watch as many and as much of it as I could. It was before the days of binge watching, or box set binging. You could say that I was, once again, way ahead of my time. It was short and it had lots of colours and silly people in it. I’m sure there was some sort of lesson or hidden educational agenda tucked away between Dave Benson Phillips and a series of puppets; for me though it just wasn’t getting through.

There was a particular stop for each day, so on Mondays you were treated to the Why Bird Stop, which had a multi-coloured Scouser bird who erm flapped about a bit. On Tuesdays it was the Playground Stop, possibly involving a playground. And so on. The BBC had to keep everything light and fluffy.

Recently a document has been uncovered which reveals another five days worth of stops which were considered but never used during the scheduled programming. Here, in atypical and popular list Beans format, are those alternative stops:

The Ice Cube Stop – rapper Ice Cube lives in a igloo made of ice. He encounters problems as he struggles to cope in a harsh, desolate environment. Sometimes he has to fight a polar bear. Sometimes his food rationing makes him pale and illegible. He raps to pass the time, teaching children about why living so far from human civilisation is such as bad idea.

The Cushion Fortress Stop – Emily built a cushion fortress in the middle of her parent’s house and refuses to take it down. The fortress has stood for 167 days straight, blocking her parents’ view of the television, getting in the way of her brothers trying to study for their GCSEs. Her wacky friend Rodross, a mop with a banana for a nose, sings to her and they learn about wildlife in the back garden, where the fortress is beginning to infringe upon.

The Tiny Shop Stop – Tina and Lloyd run a shop in Cheam, but it’s no ordinary shop. It’s a shop where they only sell really small items such as paper clips, washers and single strands of cous cous. If someone comes in asking for anything bigger than a pen lid they blow the magic horn and Dunlop, a flying burglar, flattens them with a series of heavy rocks.

The Undisclosed Medicine Stop – Woofers, a dog puppet, is the most helpful animal you’ll ever meet. Sometimes he comes across unusual plastic containers on the floor, leftover prescriptions that have been lost by people during their busy lives. Woofers takes the medicine to see what it is, and the children watching get to observe what certain drugs will do to you without any proper intervention.

The Ravi Shankar Stop – it’s a collection of relaxed people sat on futons listening to a full hour of Indian music. People are encouraged to meditate, gaze thoughtfully at the sunrise or just talk quietly in the background. Instruments are scattered around for anyone wanting to join in.

It would have been interesting to see how this week would have panned out. All we are left with is the idea of what could have been. If only the BBC hadn’t cancelled ‘Playdays’ in 1997. Ah Poppy Cat, where are you now?

Eleven today

Let’s take a moment to remember that it was eleven years ago today that Kev made the first ever post to the Beans.

Much has happened since then. Because of his very busy lifestyle it was also, sadly, Kev’s last post to the site, but in the decade that’s passed since then I have posted quite a lot and Ian has reliably turned out his own personal brand of things without a break, so between us we’ve more or less kept the flag flying.

The transformation

On Sunday I turned 33 years old. I was expecting the grey hair, the wrinkles and the sudden loss of control over my bladder, of course. Incontinence comes with the territory.

What I wasn’t expecting on turning 33 was a rather sudden transformation into a dinosaur. Green scales, yellow spikes down my back, the works.

I’m not sure what all this means for my career or my personal life, but I’m certainly enjoying getting to grips with my new-found skills in roaring, stomping on things and basking on warm rocks.

Smidge-tastic Advert Break – MK 2

I feel as though I may be out of the loop again.

There I was, walking around the streets of Carlisle in the rain like Sadsack from ‘Raggydolls’, when I came across this advertisement in the window of a pharmacy:

We are all aware of the Finnish authentic / fake advert for Coco Loco posted last year, which illegally used Smidge Manly’s likeness to sell coconut oil, yet this is news to me.

Not only does the image look nothing like him but the paparrazi seem to have caught Smidge on a particularly bad day. It is the kind of picture you would see being pushed through the newspaper tabloids under some abusive headline like, “Smidge Piles on the Pounds on the beach,” or, “Sensational Smidge Photos will shock your senses!”

I would suggest some sort of lawsuit immediately because this level of misunderstanding at worst and sensationalism at best should not be tolerated. I am calling my solicitor, Mr James Titan, once I have finished writing this.

Beans Flashback

There have been no posts to the Beans since the start of April, and it’s the 20th now. What does that tell us? Well, clearly, it indicates that there is nothing of any interest happening this month.

Instead, let us take this opportunity to look back at early 2007 and ask ourselves what was happening on this day in Beans History.

It was in April 2007 that Chris Industries International Ltd. was sold to Richard Branson and became Virgin Petcare. There was controversy over the choice of kestrel as word of the week. And the Saint King thrust himself upon a world that did not yet know his taste for underhanded deceit.

But April 2007 was rather a quiet month on the Beans, and that was because we were all still reeling from the release of a video that I thought I’d lost completely. It turns out I do still have one shoddy, over-compressed version that I am going to post here. Ladies and gentlemen, celebrating its tenth anniversary, I present Seeing Not Doing.

Oxford English Dictionary Updates

The English language is quite simply amazing. It fluctuates and changes like the tides of the ocean, or how I feel towards the career of the actor Tom Hardy.

The other day I mentioned to a colleague that they had my name correct and that they should not wear it out and they looked at me as though I had spat in their mum’s face and stolen her purse. It is quite clear to everyone that I do not have my finger on the fashions. In fact none of protruding limbs are anywhere near the fashions.

It is so very difficult to keep on top of things. As a (questionable) adult, I have given up on trying to keep up with trends. Everything has fallen by the wayside: clothing and fashion, music, films and television, literature etc. I am an analog man in a digital age.

Luckily I have three nieces under the age of ten who like to keep me in the loop of THINGS and other matters. Only yesterday they were telling me of the following updates to the Oxford English Dictionary:

~~Monster Munch~~ – now Gobble Monsters – a baked corn snack in the shape of feet and coming in several different flavours.

~~Odd Socks~~ – now Muddle Socks – when you can’t find two of the same pair and end up matching one with another that is completely dissimilar.

“Tee Lau” – the origin and explanation of this phrase is still unknown and will possibly remain that way because none of them will disclose what it is.

I trust this information will assist all of you, as in the two or three of you reading this, in your daily lives.

Newsboost – The Unexpected Return of Perry Chuffin

The world is reeling from the shocking and unexpected return of one of the most successful crooners of the 1980’s.

Award-winning one man laundromat Perry Chuffin is rumoured to not only be touring across the world in 2017 but also that not one but three new albums are expected by this time next year. The details are sketchy, and mainly come from a tall woman in a very quiet room about three miles away. Most importantly though if this is correct then it will mean an end to the self-imposed exile that Chuffin brought upon himself just after the turn of the century.

Chuffing retired in 2003 after almost three decades in the business, citing exhaustion and a general lack of distrust for the general public. He has rarely been seen outside of his multi-million dollar mansion, located on the cusp of Morley, West Yorkshire, except on occasional trips to the local Spar for lightbulbs and sandwich bags.

Chuffin’s manager, Drippy Peptide, has refused to comment at present although a full statement is expected to be issued by his management team after the Christmas period. Even though he has missed the lucrative festive market, the demand for a follow-up record to his quadruple platinum selling album ‘Hold Your Horses’ released in 2002 is so high that fans have pre-ordered this before it has even gone on the open market.

More news will follow as we hear it.

Ghostman Pat

Following on from the success of the BBC New Sitcom of the Year 2016 Awards, in which none of the entries won and the BBC decided just to plough a serious amount of bread into yet another series of ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’, I have been commissioned to come up with some new ideas for that difficult 11-15 age gap that bridges the vast chasm between tiny children in uniforms to unkempt teenagers who can’t get into 18 certificate films at the cinema.

What kind of programming would these sweaty, nautical organisms like to watch on an evening? What would really get their bantwagons pushed up to the high twenties? We need something that is right on the fashions and I believe I have a good starting point. A (bad pun alert) spiritual successor to hugely-loved eighties children’s television programme monster ‘Postman Pat’.

Ghostman Pat

Pat has grown to become not only the nicest person in the history of Greendale but also the most respected due to his dedication to his job and in helping the other residents in their daily lives. He has an idyllic life with his wife and child, and not forgetting dutiful companion Jess the Cat.

Except one traffic accident later leaves Pat dead. Shuffled off this mortal coil.

The village engages in a month-long saga of grieving. His wife Sarah, inconsolable, is unable to move on with her life. One evening however, not long after the tragic accident, she is ironing some tea towels when she is visited by an apparition. The apparition of her recently deceased husband. It seems as though Pat is not quite done yet.

Fate has decided that his years of service are not enough. In punishment for the, quite frankly, dreadful Lionsgate film released a couple of years ago Pat must now deliver a total of 1000 parcels before he is able to leave and ascend to heaven, in a story that borrows heavily from Hiroaki Samura’s seminal samurai manga work ‘Blade of the Immortal’.

But how can Pat deliver any parcels when he has no physical presence and only his wife and son, Julian, can see him? It is up to them to help him finish his task and finally leave this world behind.

Along the way they must deal with fruit-polishing vampires, blancmange-toting merengue infidels and, of course, numerous cameos by everyone’s favourite all-round entertainer Gary Wilmot.

Can they succeed? Seven seasons and a TV movie, I think, should answer that question.

Pouring
Beans

Category: Ageing