Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!) always used to shoehorn a musical number into their finale, and I’m sure everyone knows the Peter Glaze/Jan Hunt take on Bowie’s Golden Years – I remember that pre-YouTube going around on a Quicktime video for “LOLs”. This take on XTC’s ‘Making Plans for Nigel’ has been around a while but it’s a new one on me…I particularly like ‘Burt Hayes & His Orchestra’ on this – Friday 5 to 5 so they’d be several pints in and the Bass Player is having a good stab at the Dubby bassline
Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!) does XTC
Presume you’ve heard it’s coming back?
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47198357
I expect that the youth of today will expect a little more than a Crackerjack pen and pencil set.
They’ll also need a Government pesticides and herbicides check, Region of Origin credentials and DEFRA certification before they can even THINK of handling a real cabbage.
Have the see-saws been calibrated within the last year?
Children, check before you fall!
It wasn’t my thing when I was in their demographic, now….dear god no
I presume given the XTC reference in the OP, the “dear god no” statement was intentional. If so, well played that man……..
They were all on Grass in them days…
Travels in naff-ilon perhaps? Not the smartest monkeys? I’d probably not like that? Living through ano-ther craaa-ker-JACK.
Are they still going to be able to find the cubs & brownies for the audience?
Being the son of a steam engine loving father, my parents thought it fitting to name me after Sir Nigel Gresley.
When this record was released my friends played it regularly in our local and indeed, on many occasions, made plans for me.
Hate it.
For similar reasons, I am not enamoured of the Undertones’ My Perfect Cousin.
Did you ever cheat at Subbuteo?
Aaaargh!
Me too….people think it’s bloody hilarious.
I think of that era it was the Gordons that suffered the most.
It occurred to me that the reason Nigel Benn took up boxing, and that his initial style was so aggressive, was because he grew up a black kid in Ilford with that name. He must have got so much stick from the other kids as a nipper.
We’re heading into ‘A boy named Sue’ territory here.
And I remember tormenting a poor bastard Glaswegian called Gordon…
Apparently there were no Nigel’s registered last year at all, not one. It is funny how names come and go – I knew a few when I was young, although not particularly common. My parents were aspiring middle class and I think they thought it was a cut above the Williams and Geoffrey’s.
Is that actually true @nigelt ?
Astounding if it is.
I believe the name Gary has pretty much gone the same way.
Yes, I read it somewhere! Possibly the Farage effect. It is so out of fashion now, but thankfully some famous ones came along to ease my pain….Mansell, Benn, Clough.
Wikipedia says there were 1943 registered in my year of birth (1950), which actually seems quite low,and ‘numbers peaked in about 1963.In 1964 it was the 23rd most popular boys’ name. By 2016 the number of boys named Nigel had dropped below 3, the minimum number reported by the ONS.’
…but there is already a live programme on CBBC on Friday evenings with silly games, sketches and prizes hosted by the exact same presenters. My son loves Friday Night Wind Up with Sam and Mark. This strikes me as another case of ‘Verschlimmbesserung’ – a German expression for an attempted improvement that makes things worse (as coined recently by Simon Mayo).
…not that I’m unduly worried about the careers of the erstwhile X-Factor contestants turned kids’ TV presenters Sam and Mark, nor indeed what my 7 year-old is going to watch on a Friday evening. But it’s example of something that works being changed on a whim. Why? Because the mums and dads will remember Crackerjack apparently. I barely remember it – and I’m at the upper age range of the target audience’s parents.
Sam and Mark, who previous to this news were totally unknown to me (as I don’t watch X factor or kids’ TV) are to be the presenters of the rebooted Crackerjack. I still wouldn’t be able to pick them out of a two person identity parade. For all I know, they might be Sam Allardyce and Mark McGhee…
Some great kids shows can be found on Cartoon Network…ch704 on virgin.
I thought I never needed to see kids TV again but my grandson recently introduced me to the surreal delights of The Amazing World of Gumball and the simply batshit
Regular Show.
RS seems to have a real love for second division British hairmetal bands and the soundtracks are a widdle guitar joy.
Simon Mayo has many qualities but inventing words for the German language is not one of them (it already exists)
Silly me for saying ‘coined’ when I meant ‘quoted’ *slaps wrist*
I was talking to my kids about this – they like the Friday Night Wind-Up too, so the notion that Sam & Mark were going to be doing another crazy Friday evening show was fine with them. I pulled up some clips on YouTube of the old Crackerjack and found this gem. Stewpot’s first question here is a doozy and the whole this is so heavy. CBBC is so good these days.
Bloody hell, Stewpot really didn’t like kids, did he? Insert joke ending ‘apart from his future wife’
I can never hear that expression without thinking of this SNL sketch:
Oh man, that’s good. The first one would be the age Stewpot’s future wife was when he met her.
Didn’t they have a crack at Bohemian Rhapsody?
(or did I dream it)
A too much cheese dream, perhaps.
CRACKER BARREL!
The BBC stockpiled gunge not expecting the Stu Francis years to end.
The discovery of this during a routine Accounting Audit in 1990 led directly to the commissioning of Noels House Party
I recall them doing “I’ve got your number” by The Jags, which is either power pop or post punk – but in the hands of the Crackerjack team – utter, utter shit.
Still, it’s inspired some ribaldry from the site web-designers.
The cast in that Nigel clip seem to be having a whale of a time. That final part of Crackerjack was pure panto: popular song of the time squeezed into the plot as a kind of punch line.
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
Major Tom’s a cheeky monkey*
etc.
(*Actually a Bing Hitler joke but rings true)