Tony Hart and kids today...

Now this might not mean anything to several posters here, but to those of you who grew up in Britain or the North, or watched the BBC here if you got reception, you'll know who Tony Hart was. He has died aged 83 after being ill recently, being unable to paint for the last while was, he said, the biggest cross he had to bear. It got me thinking about how different is the environment kids are growing up in now compared to even when I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. I used to love watching Take Hart, along with Morph, being slightly too young to remember Vision On. I was also obsessed with Warner Brothers Cartoons from the 40s and such-like. Kids today seem to be MTV'd to within an inch of their lives, and seem, to me at least, to be deprived of the innocence of childhood that we had. Am I being a grumpy old sod, or have things completely changed (and degenerated)?

First, some Hart:



BBC News - Tony Hart dead

toxic avenger wrote:

Now this might not mean anything to several posters here, but to those of you who grew up in Britain or the North, or watched the BBC here if you got reception, you'll know who Tony Hart was. He has died aged 83 after being ill recently, being unable to paint for the last while was, he said, the biggest cross he had to bear. It got me thinking about how different is the environment kids are growing up in now compared to even when I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. I used to love watching Take Hart, along with Morph, being slightly too young to remember Vision On. I was also obsessed with Warner Brothers Cartoons from the 40s and such-like. Kids today seem to be MTV'd to within an inch of their lives, and seem, to me at least, to be deprived of the innocence of childhood that we had. Am I being a grumpy old sod, or have things completely changed (and degenerated)?

Well that was a lovely presentation now. When young here in the 70s and 80s we had Sesame Street as children then Anything Goes of a Saturday morning and Bosco every day after school with make and do. There was a lot of make and do back then, everyone made do I suppose. You could make an incredible amount of things out of a packet of plasticene. I had a bucket of Lego® and made all my own toys out of it until the ZX Spectrum came in and I threw away the childish things - 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles, record domino-rallies etc.

We spent ages outside in the Spring and Summers making our own stuff even when we had computers. Skateboards, buggies, BMX bikes, ramps for you to speed up and jump over your friends on your buggy/BMX/skateboard even. We had homemade stilts, high-jumps, rafts, treehouses, tree-top walks, pulleys, swings, hideouts and feck knows what else - yo yos I suppose.

The ZX Spectrum and puberty killed all that though.

Nostalgia's not what it once was, eh? Do you remember "the gallery", while they played the tune from the deerhuner, TA?

Audi, your remeniscence takes me back, But to Bagpuss! And the Flumps! Couldn't stand Bosco, I'm afraid, and Wanderly Wagon gave me the creeps. Crow was as camp as knickers but O'Brien was just...wrong, somehow.

No spectrum in our house - when computers came along we had to make do and mend with a VIC20

I had my brother's Atari console and two games - Space Invaders and Combat - nothing else. Played football all day and half the night. Didn't have the pleasure, growing up in London, of Wanderley Wagon or Bosco, I'm afraid, though I did see Bosco on holiday here in the summers.. did have Chorlton and the Wheelies, Batfink, Dangermouse etc., though not a big nostalgia man myself. I was thinking more of the impact of today's television on kids in terms of their precocious sexualisation and loss of innocence to a degree, plus the creation of a culture of what I perceive as vulgarity and degeneracy. Though more pronounced in Britain, it exists here also. Am I being an old windbag doing the typical 'when I were a lad...' whinging, or am I correct that there is indeed something tangibly different and uncivilising in the influences on kids today?....

Wanderly Wagon was weird alright. There was also The Electric Company and Rolf Harris... then Don Conroy

Did you not Make Stuff yehbut ?

Do you have or know some children toxic ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

Do you have or know some children toxic ?

I have two dogs and a rabbit, plus a girlfriend who can act like a child on rare occasions... I have a nine year old niece in England, and let's just say that when she was over staying with me she was not allowed to watch programs or read magazines that she would normally be let do. I never thought of myself as a strict old git, but even I was taken aback by what is considered normal for kids nowadays. I refused point blank to let her... Now I'm only 32, my childhood is not ancient history yet, I'm not particularly moralistic about stuff, and yet I was amazed...

What kind of stuff are they watching now that you're outraged at ? The Fimbles are pretty psychadelic I know ..

I used to teach children in Dublin - 4 and 5 year olds. Some knew way too much ...

I think you know what I'm gong to say...

Auditor #9 wrote:

What kind of stuff are they watching now that you're outraged at ? The Fimbles are pretty psychadelic I know ..

I used to teach children in Dublin - 4 and 5 year olds. Some knew way too much ...

Well, call me a prude, but magazines with advice about french kissing, topless 'six-pack of the week' pictures, etc., or music videos featuring sexual imagery, suggestive dancing and lyrics etc., are beyond the pale for a 9 year old. Perhaps I'm succumbing to some kind of false moral panic, but I refused to let her read or watch that stuff while she was with me.

ibis wrote:

I think you know what I'm gong to say...

'Lisbon will prevent this kind of moral decay'?

ibis, you'll never get away from the magazines even if you've no telly ... how do you deal with the stuff Toxic is referring to and I'm not sure I don't find it outright disturbing too a bit. Is someone not trying to sexualised children too early for anyone's own good ...

Remember the Der Spiegel artikel which youngdan referred to once ? Teaching children about touching themselves and all that I think it was. It was shocking anyway - sexuality way too early.

Is it good or bad though ? It looks like some of us have stopped procreating the human race anyway ... maybe we need to teach ourselves how ?

Very sad to hear that, I have very fond memories of watching Tony Hart and of my Tony Hart art book. I used to use it alot during summers spent in Co Wexford.

toxic avenger wrote:

ibis wrote:

I think you know what I'm gong to say...

'Lisbon will prevent this kind of moral decay'?

More like "Lisbon will not cause this kind of moral decay".

Auditor#9 wrote:

ibis, you'll never get away from the magazines even if you've no telly ... how do you deal with the stuff Toxic is referring to and I'm not sure I don't find it outright disturbing too a bit. Is someone not trying to sexualised children too early for anyone's own good ...

Remember the Der Spiegel artikel which youngdan referred to once ? Teaching children about touching themselves and all that I think it was. It was shocking anyway - sexuality way too early.

Is it good or bad though ? It looks like some of us have stopped procreating the human race anyway ... maybe we need to teach ourselves how ?

Funnily enough, one of my elder brother's college girlfriends did her thesis on the inappropriate sexualisation of children in advertising - that would be maybe 23 years ago now?

I agree that it's pretty poor stuff. It's not really the sexualisation that bothers me particularly, more the commercialisation - the turning of children into consumers, and sucking them into a very shallow materialism full of manufactured dissatisfaction and meaningless one-upmanship. Sexualisation sort of goes with that (Bratz is a good example) but is fundamentally a way of selling things to them and their parents. You can be exposed to sex very young (I don't mean abuse) and still find a satisfactory and meaningful path through life - hyper-materialism, on the other hand, is a spiritual killer. Being an atheist, the alternative offered by the churches doesn't appeal.

Keeping the TV out really makes a huge difference, though. Magazines...well, I can simply not buy those kids magazines that promote things like Bratz, and I don't have any problems having a knock-down drag-out supermarket fight with my daughter over such choices (the advantage of which is that you don't then have to have them). If absolutely necessary, I can surgically remove offensive bits of the magazine. Even at their worst, magazines require attention - she has to actually sit down and read the magazine (and ask umpteen questions about what's happening). TV intrudes - the eye (and ear) is relentlessly drawn to what's happening on it, and it does not allow time for reflection, for interpretation. The difference in impact is so large as to be qualitative.

Coming back to toxic's crack above - here's an extremely good argument against Lisbon which is also relevant to the thread!

Certain people, when you're growing up, you imagine will be around for ever. It's still a shock of a sort, even as an adult. Like when I found out that the bloke who played Timothy Claypole in Rentaghost (and sang the theme tune) died of Aids 20-odd years ago...

toxic avenger wrote:

Certain people, when you're growing up, you imagine will be around for ever. It's still a shock of a sort, even as an adult. Like when I found out that the bloke who played Timothy Claypole in Rentaghost (and sang the theme tune) died of Aids 20-odd years ago...

Patrick Moore (may he live for ever).

ibis wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Certain people, when you're growing up, you imagine will be around for ever. It's still a shock of a sort, even as an adult. Like when I found out that the bloke who played Timothy Claypole in Rentaghost (and sang the theme tune) died of Aids 20-odd years ago...

Patrick Moore (may he live for ever).

Yes indeed, and The Sky at Night still going strong after 50 years plus, life would be weird without it of a monthly Sunday night. Telly's great...