Michael Cole (writer)
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Michael Cole (writer)
Michael Cole (17 March 1933 – 4 August 2001) was a British writer. He created a number of children's programmes from the 1970s to the 1990s, including ''Alphabet Castle'', ''Heads and Tails (TV series), Heads and Tails'' and ''Ragtime (TV series), Ragtime'', for which he won a Society of Film and Television Award (later known as a British Academy of Film and Television Arts, BAFTA) for Best Children's Programme. Together with his wife Joanne Cole, he created ''Bod (TV series), Bod'', originally published as four books in 1965 and made into a TV show in the 1970s, as well as ''Fingerbobs'' and ''Gran (TV series), Gran''. Life and work Michael Cole was born in Willesden, London on 17 March 1933. During the war he and his family were evacuated to Cheltenham where after junior school he went to Cheltenham College. He trained as an intelligence officer during national service in the army and was sent to University of Cambridge, Cambridge University to learn Russian. In 1959, ...
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:Template:Infobox Writer/doc
Infobox writer may be used to summarize information about a person who is a writer/author (includes screenwriters). If the writer-specific fields here are not needed, consider using the more general ; other infoboxes there can be found in :People and person infobox templates. This template may also be used as a module (or sub-template) of ; see WikiProject Infoboxes/embed for guidance on such usage. Syntax The infobox may be added by pasting the template as shown below into an article. All fields are optional. Any unused parameter names can be left blank or omitted. Parameters Please remove any parameters from an article's infobox that are unlikely to be used. All parameters are optional. Unless otherwise specified, if a parameter has multiple values, they should be comma-separated using the template: : which produces: : , language= If any of the individual values contain commas already, add to use semi-colons as separators: : which produces: : , ps ...
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Rick Jones (television Presenter)
Frederick Joseph Jones (7 February 1937 – 7 October 2021) was a Canadian-born television presenter and folk musician, best known for his work in BBC children's television programmes '' Play School'' (1964–1973) and ''Fingerbobs'' in 1972. Life and career Jones was born on 7 February 1937, in London, Ontario, Canada. His father was Frederick Jones, who served in the Canadian Army, and his wife Agnes (née Hanson), who had both emigrated from Britain. He had an older sister, Shirlie, who died in 2020 from COVID-19. Their cousin Bud, whose parents had died, was also raised in the family. He moved to the UK at the age of 18 to study at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art. He began his television career as one of the original co-presenters of '' Play School'', a daily programme for pre-school-age children, in which he played guitar and sang. While Jones was appearing in ''Spoon River'' at the Royal Court Theatre in 1964, the programme's producer Joy Whitby inv ...
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Postman Pat
''Postman Pat'' is a British stop-motion animated television series first produced by Woodland Animations. The series follows the adventures of Pat Clifton, a postman who works for Royal Mail postal service in the fictional village of Greendale (inspired by the real valley of Longsleddale near Kendal). ''Postman Pat'' first 13-episode series was screened on BBC One in 1981. John Cunliffe wrote the original treatment and scripts for the series, which was directed by animator Ivor Wood, who also worked on ''The Magic Roundabout'', ''The Wombles'', ''Paddington'', and ''The Herbs''. Following the success of the first series, four TV specials and a second series of 13 episodes were produced during the 1990s. In this series, Pat had a family shown on screen for the first time (though his wife had been mentioned in a number of episodes). A new version of the series was produced by Cosgrove Hall Films from 2003 to 2008 and expanded on many aspects of the original series. The show e ...
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Ivor Wood
Ivor Sydney Wood (4 May 1932 – 13 October 2004) was a prolific Anglo-French' animator, director, producer and writer. He was known for his work on children's television series. Born in Leeds to an English father and a French mother, his family moved to the mountains near Lyon, France, after the Second World War, where he was educated. He studied fine art in Paris, and later worked in an advertising agency in Paris, where he met Serge Danot. Together they made the acclaimed French series ''Le Manège enchanté'' (known in English as ''The Magic Roundabout''), with Wood as the animator. Following the success of ''The Magic Roundabout'' in the UK, Wood partnered with the London-based animation company FilmFair. Wood became both animator and director for a number of FilmFair's animated children's programmes, starting with ''The Herbs'' in 1968. During the 1970s, he animated and directed ''Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings'', '' Hattytown Tales'', '' The Adventures of Parsley'', ...
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Pigeon Street
''Pigeon Street'' is a cutout animated children's television series, written by Michael Cole, originally shown on the BBC in 1981 as part of its 'See-Saw' strand for preschoolers. There were two series with eight and five episodes respectively, each programme lasting 15 minutes. The series was repeated a number of times until 1994. The animation was created by Alan Rogers and Peter Lang of the Cut-Out Animation Co., who later went on to do a nursery rhyme series with similar animation called '' Rub-A-Dub-Dub''. Voices were performed by George Layton, with additional voices by John Telfer. Music was by Benni Lees, and played by Soulyard. The shows featured the everyday adventures of a group of characters living on ''Pigeon Street'', an area of flats and terraced housing in a British city, also home to several pigeons which appeared in each show but only occasionally featured in the plot. Characters included Clara the long distance lorry driver, her husband Hugo the chef, Mr ...
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Carol Leader
Carol Leader (born 10 November 1950 in Colchester, Essex) is a former English theatrical and television actress, and senior psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She played Barbara Charlton in '' Young at Heart'' from 1980 to 1981, and Sadie Tomkins in ''Casualty'' from 1988 to 1989, and has also been in ''Flambards'', ''Sally Ann'', ''First and Last'' (1989), ''Peak Practice'' and 1992 TV series ''Kevin and Co''. She has also appeared in UK television series including ''Late Starter'', '' Tales of the Unexpected'', ''The Bill'' and ''The Knock''. She is perhaps best known, however, to those who were young children in the 1970s and 1980s as a presenter of long-running UK children's TV series '' Play School'', and children's TV show ''Chock-A-Block'', which she co-presented with fellow former ''Play School'' host Fred Harris. Leader's acting career began at the University of York where she studied History and feature in drama productions, including the role of Charlotte Corday in Y.U. ...
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Fred Harris (presenter)
Fred Harris is a British comedian and children's television presenter. Formerly a schoolteacher, he began his television career as a presenter of the BBC children's programme '' Play School'', on which he appeared regularly between 1973 and 1988. During this time he was also a presenter on ''Ragtime'' and '' Chock-A-Block''. During the rise of the microcomputer in the early 1980s he fronted several home computing BBC programmes, including '' Micro Live'' (which formed part of BBC's ongoing Computer Literacy Project). He also presented a number of educational and schools programmes on the subject of maths, including ATV's ''Figure it Out'' (memorable for having a set which included a giant pocket calculator), Central Television's ''Basic Maths'' and Channel 4's ''Make It Count''. In 1980 Harris appeared as a contestant on the first episode of ''The Adventure Game''. His career in comedy involved regular appearances in radio shows such as ''Huddwinks'', ''The Half-Open Universi ...
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Chockablock
''Chock-A-Block'' is a BBC children's television programme, created by Michael Cole and Nick Wilson. It was first shown in 1981 and repeated through to 1989 and shown as part of the children's programme cycle ''See-Saw'' (the "new" name for the cycle originally known as ''Watch with Mother''). "Chock-A-Block" was an extremely large yellow computer, modelled to resemble a mainframe of the time; it filled the entire studio and provided the entire backdrop for the show. The presenter of the show played the part of a technician maintaining the computer. There were two presenters, Fred Harris ("Chock-A-Bloke") and Carol Leader ("Chock-A-Girl"), but only one appeared in each episode. At the start of the show, the presenter would drive around the studio towards the machine in a small yellow electric car, the chock a truck, before saying the catchphrase "Chock-A-Bloke (or Girl), checking in!"). The presenter would then use the machine to find out about a particular topic. The name "choc ...
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Brian Cant
Brian Cant (12 July 1933 – 19 June 2017) was an English actor of stage, television and film, television presenter, voice artist and writer. He was best known for his work in BBC television programmes for children from 1964 onward, most notably '' Play School'' and in later years '' Dappledown Farm.'' Early life and education Cant was born on 12 July 1933 in Ipswich and educated at Northgate Grammar School for Boys, a state grammar school, since renamed Northgate High School. He trained with Ipswich Town F.C.'s youth team. He worked as a printer before starting to act in the late 1950s. Television and film Cant was performing in BBC Schools drama television programmes about the Romans for the corporation when he heard that auditions were being held for a new pre-school children's programme which was to be shown on the new BBC 2 channel. This was '' Play School''. At his audition he was asked by programme creator and the series' first producer Joy Whitby to get in a cardboard ...
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Bric-a-Brac (TV Series)
''Bric-a-Brac'' is a British children's television series devised by Michael Cole and Nick Wilson, and starring well known children's television presenter Brian Cant. It was produced by the BBC and originally ran from 1 October until 5 November 1980, with another series from 18 August to 29 September 1982. It was repeated frequently until 1989. The programme was set in a fictitious junk shop, with its shopkeeper played by Cant, who would deliver a monologue to camera. Each episode centred on a particular letter of the alphabet, with different items beginning with that letter found and discussed by the shopkeeper. Cant's script made heavy use of alliteration, and made use of tongue-twisters. At the end of each episode, he would wind up and set off a traditional clockwork toy, upon which the camera would focus whilst the credits rolled. Presenter The programme was presented by Brian Cant throughout its run. Theme Music The theme music is an edited version of the track "Keyston ...
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Pinwheel (TV Series)
Pinwheel may refer to: * Pinwheel (toy), a spinning children's toy * Pinwheel (cryptography), a device for producing a short pseudo-random sequence of bits * Pinwheel (shogi), an opening in the game shogi or Japanese chess * Pinwheel (TV channel), a channel which would later turn into Nickelodeon * ''Pinwheel'' (TV series), a children's show on Nickelodeon that ran from 1977 to 1984 * Pinwheel calculator (part of), a type of early mechanical arithmetic machine * ''Tabernaemontana divaricata'', also known as pinwheel flower * Pinwheel tilings, aperiodic tilings of the plane whose tiles appear in infinitely many orientations * Catherine wheel (firework), a form of pyrotechnic display device also known as a pinwheel * ''Coenocharopa elegans'', also known as the elegant pinwheel snail, a land snail found in Queensland, Australia * "Pinwheels", a poem by Patti Smith from her 1978 book ''Babel'' * Pinwheel USY, part of United Synagogue Youth covering the Pacific Northwest * Wartenberg wh ...
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Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Paramount Global#Kids & Family Entertainment, networks division's Kids and Family Group. Its programming is primarily aimed at children aged 2–17, along with a broader family audience through its block programming, program blocks. The channel began life as a test broadcast on December 1, 1977 as part of QUBE, an early cable television system broadcast locally in Columbus, Ohio. The channel, now named Nickelodeon, launched to a new countrywide audience on April 1, 1979, with ''Pinwheel'' as its inaugural program. The network was initially commercial-free and remained without advertising until 1984. Throughout history, Nickelodeon has introduced several sister channels and programming blocks. Nick Jr. (TV programming block), Nick Jr. is a pres ...
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