It’s Friday, It’s Crackerjack
Pencils at the ready! The behind the scenes story of the iconic Children’s TV show is back in paperback!
Crackerjack (the TV show with the built-in echo) gave us two enduring icons of Children’s Television … one long and thin, one round and plump. No, not Leslie Crowther and Peter Glaze! The Crackerjack pencil and the Double or Drop cabbage.
If you were a child in the late ‘50s, the ‘60s, the ‘70s or early ‘80s you’ll have your own memory of TV’s longest-running teatime variety show. Eamonn Andrews piling prizes on the clever-clogs and cloth cabbages on the chumps … the pompous and perpetually heckled Glaze Lectures … those slapstick silent movies … historical finales with anachronistic pop songs … or Stu Francis splattered with garish gunge.
Then suddenly, in 2020, it was back. With Sam & Mark, jumbo-sized Crackerjack pencils, and contestants being dropped along with the cabbages!
“Everyone involved in the show wanted to keep close to the spirit of the show.” Author Alan Stafford continues “Just as it was in Show One in 1955, when anyone said ‘Crackerjack’ the audience shouted it back. Many of the games were cheap and cheerful – and the cabbage remained the booby prize element of Double or Drop. There were slapstick sketches and speciality acts, as there had always been. And plenty of gunge, in a nod to the Stu Francis era of the show. And the Crackerjack pencil was now jumbo-sized!”
In this updated paperback edition, Alan Stafford traces the hilarious history of Crackerjack recalling the best of the onscreen fun while revealing loads of backstage secrets.
“This edition brings the story up to date,” says Alan, “including many new interviews with cast and crew of the 2020 version of Crackerjack on CBBC. (Recently nominated for a Children’s BAFTA.) We tell the background story to the decision to bring back the show after a gap of more than 35 years – which elements of the show they decided to retain, and which were radically revamped. And then, as series two was about to be filmed, Covid struck – and suddenly cast and crew had a whole new lot of obstacles to deal with.”
This Crackerjack celebration is packed with anecdotes from cast and crew – including Michael Aspel, Pip Hinton, Jillian Comber, Christine Holmes, Rod McLennan, Little and Large, Jacqueline Clarke, Don Maclean, Jan Hunt, Bernie Clifton, The Krankies, Stu Francis, Sam Nixon, Mark Rhodes and many more.
This month the BBC turns 100, and Crackerjack played a significant part. “Crackerjack was the first children’s TV series to have a studio audience. It began just ahead of the launch of ITV, Britain’s second TV channel. Before its return, it ran between 1955 and 1984, and inspired many children’s audience shows that were to follow it. It launched the career of many TV performers who were just starting out when recruited as Crackerjack’s resident comedians – such as Jack Douglas, Ronnie Corbett, Leslie Crowther, Don Maclean, Bernie Clifton, Stu Francis and The Krankies. And whatever you think of Peter Glaze’s renditions of Bowie and Queen in the show’s finales – once seen they are impossible to erase!”
It wasn’t always on Fridays, it wasn’t always at five to five, but it was – and ever will be – Crackerjack. CRACKERJACK!!!
