Over dinner this evening I was asked about kids TV in the UK, it turned into an interesting discussion.

It seems every generation has their Saturday morning ritual. For dad it meant a weekly walk to the cinema to enjoy serials like Flash Gordon, westerns and so on to go along with his cartoons. This weekend ritual lasted into the 60’s and perhaps early 70’s in the UK, slightly before my time.

My generation had three hours of live, “interactive” (for the time, using the very pre-internet phone in definition) TV on BBC1 fronted by Noel Edmonds (better known then as a creative radio DJ) on the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. The show also had BBC stalwart John Craven and newcomers Keith Chegwin (height of his career) and Maggie Philbin (still with the BBC) involved.

Get up by 8.30, cornflakes in front of telly, sit and watch swap shop for 3 hours, remember no remote control to go channel hopping. Then go play footie on field all afternoon, then home for final score… That’s how I remember it anyway.

It was what would now be called a “magazine” style program aimed squarely at the kid audience. There were inevitably cartoons, but there was also something of an educational element designed to inform us about the world at the right level.

It was all done live, and I understand largely without a script beyond the morning running order. It became a program that had a huge cultural influence in the UK for people my age. One example of this influence was that Saturday afternoon was the time during the week that the most records were sold and went a significant way to dictating that weeks’ top 40. Getting a band onto Swap Shop on Saturday morning drove sales on Saturday afternoon.

It started at 9 and finished when Grandstand, the Saturday sports show, started at about midday. Grandstand then carried BBC1 until the final football results were in at about 5 in the evening (no live football then). Think about that for a moment, the BBC produced over 8 hours of live TV during the day every Saturday, that’s rather impressive.

The thing that separated Swap Shop from everything else was the promise of interactivity. The phone number was there across the front of the hosts’ desk, this was before premium rate phone lines and people were encouraged to call in and talk to Noel Edmonds or other guests live on TV. I don’t think that had ever been done before, certainly not in a kids format. Here is a live “interactive” interview with Adam Ant from 1981.

On the “other side” (there was only three channels at the time BBC1, BBC2 and ITV, with BBC1 and ITV being the two big ones) there was the Chris Tarrant led Tiswas. This introduced Spit the dog, Sally James and the Phantom Flan Flinger. It was very chaotic, more of a sketch show that the magazine format on the more conservative BBC1.

Swap Shop really defined the genre and the BBC used an almost identical format for the next 15 years in various guises. At its peek the Saturday morning kids show attracted up to six-million viewers, impressive numbers. Even the sitting Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, made an appearance that’s become rather infamous.

Last night was an interesting evening, being Halloween the freaks and drunks were out in force in Seattle. Lots of first class people watching. A group of us ended up at the Comet Tavern for some good live music, it’s the first time I’ve been there and it’s a perfect music/dive bar and hearing Bob Dylan played by a cover band dressed as Kiss is quite the way to spend the evening.

Before the club we went to dinner, conversation turned to where parts of our personality come from. I know exactly the two moments where my love of loud, metal and hard rock comes from. First was Status Quo Live at the NEC on the BBC (I’ve talked about this before, click here if you are interested). Second was school friend of mine, Angus (real name Keith, but lets face it not nearly as cool), lending me a cassette of Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast Album” in 1983. I listened to it, said “that’s fucking awesome”, Angus said “yes I know” and 27 years later a significant part of my taste in music is still rooted in that moment.

It’s quite a moment to look back on, that someone knows you well enough to sit you down, say “you are going to like this” and not only be right, but be an influence for decades to come.

The music I listen to, the art I buy for the wall, movies I love and so on, they are all rooted in a moment when someone shares something they were passionate about. Add all these moments together and you define a lot about whom we are, how we evolve as we grow up and whom we get on with, it was a fun evening.

I’m coming to get a couple of things about this final bit, the “who we get on with” part. How many of those first conversations when you meet someone new revolve around music, football teams, movies, museums or one of those pieces of culture that move us in some way?

You take the content of these brief discussions, sometimes it’s just a moment or two, put them together and decide whether you want to continue getting to know this person.

Last night over dinner there was a talk about favourite movies. Someone answered “Ghostbusters”… WTF… OK, it’s Halloween, but really Ghostbusters?

She could have said The Godfather, perhaps Star Wars, Fight Club, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, or even something like The Matrix or Forest Gump and it would still be acceptable. The conversation could carry on and perhaps we’d discover we both like the art of Lichtenstein, the guitar work of Gary Moore or maybe the way the Bloody Mary’s in T4 at Heathrow are mixed.

There are so many movies to choose from as a personal favourite, but Ghostbusters… Really, it’s a medium with a rich history and out of the thousands upon thousands of movies made that’s the one you like the most?