Slightly Bonkers

fozzle

You know, the girl who was in the flying trickshop with Fortycoats!

Does anyone know where I can find a picture of her? Or indeed any pictures from the show at all?

trotter_inc

This site has some old stuff on it - has a whole section with pics from Wanderly Wagon, not too sure about Slightly Bonkers though.

http://welcome.to/irishtv

trotter_inc

Anyway - according to some site I was looking at her real name is Virginia Cole is she is in fact married to the Director/Producer of Riverdance.

doh.ie

IIRC, Slightly Bonkers was played by two people, cos I remember her changing actresses at one point, and also the fact that one of them could sing and one couldn't.

There was a Fortycoats 'live' event in Dublin at some stage; I remember them arriving in present-day Dublin at one point at a place like the RDS, and there were a bunch of kids in the audience.

Would be great to see this again, if only for nostalgia... I'm sure today's Pokemon/Digimon/Othermon's kids are too savvy to think it very good.

Wanderly Wagon was another gem. That dog, Judge, cracked me up. Got a Safe Cross Code badge with his face on it when I was 5 too. Treasured that like it was gold.

Considering Wanderly Wagon was able to travel around the country, it begs the question, how did RTE afford lavish location-filmed programmes in the late 1970s/80s when they can barely afford to make Carrigstown on Fair City look real today...?!

T.G Catter

i think rte should show programmes like bosco , forty coats late at night.
be mad.

fozzle

Thanks trotter_inc, i'd seen that site alright.

Judge's Safe Cross Code was great allright, wasn't it? My parents knew the Lamberts so when they'd do shows in the theatre in Waterford, we always got to say hi to Judge!

Amnesiac_ie

Ah the memories!

Children's Tv ain't a patch on how it used to be!

climaxer

T.G Catter wrote:

i think rte should show programmes like bosco , forty coats late at night.
be mad.

Me too - imagine coming in from a night club and watching Bosco with a few drinks in you and trying to say the tongue twisters!

I wrote an email to RTE asking them would they release Bosco and similar programmes on video and dvd. I also asked them would they condider doing an RTE Gold channel and show all the old tv prorgrammes! Never got a reply

BTW if anyone do get any pics please share the link - would like to see a pic of slightly bonkers myself

Amnesiac_ie

Imagine getting stoned and watching the five Bosco "Pirates" specials... madness...

Fave RTE programmes of yesteryear:

Scratch Saturday
The Rimin Riddle
Bosco
The Works
Pajo and the Salty Frog
Fortycoats
Wanderly Wagon
Dempsey's Den
Buntús Cainte
The Podge and Zag Show
Jo Maxi

doh.ie

Also, don't forget that time a weird graphically-superimposed ball appeared on Bosco
and no one but Bosco could see it.

Can't remember if it turned out to be an alien or a blob of ketchup on the camera, but it was definitely sentient.

And they all sang that tidy-up song and made peace with it.

Bit similar to how Zig and Zag turned up - Ian Dempsey couldn't see them at all, but "kids from all over the country" were supposedly ringing in.

Would love to see Bosco again. Any screenshots of the show out there, or better yet, a video file of the opening titles? Same for Fortycoats.

jor el

T.G Catter wrote:

i think rte should show programmes like bosco , forty coats late at night.
be mad.

They should replace Stew and The Dinner Party with them, they'd be a damn sight more entertaining anyway and probably funnier too.

doh.ie wrote:

Also, don't forget that time a weird graphically-superimposed ball appeared on Bosco
and no one but Bosco could see it.

Was that a big green dot? If so, I think I remember it. If not it could just be the big green dot that waits in the bushes outside my house :eek:

doh.ie

jor el wrote:

Was that a big green dot? If so, I think I remember it. If not it could just be the big green dot that waits in the bushes outside my house :eek:

`

For some reason I thought it was red, but it may have come in two flavours.

Amnesiac_ie

Remember those "magic jigsaws"???

sceptre

doh.ie wrote:

For some reason I thought it was red, but it may have come in two flavours.

The one I remember was red also but as you say, there may have been two.

Raoul Duke

T.G Catter wrote:

i think rte should show programmes like bosco , forty coats late at night.
be mad.

I wonder if they even still have the tapes of Forty Coats. I remember hearing that RTE used to tape over alot of their old programmes especially childrens stuff. I thought Wanderly Wagon was lost this way but it turned up over xmas a few years ago with RTE showing them at 2 am or something.

fozzle

I think they still ahve a certain amount of episodes of Wanderly Wagon, but no-where near to all of them. Didn't realise they were playing them again or I'd of recorded them! Bah! Don't know about Fortycoats though, it was later, so you'd imagine the'd still have some copies, but it doesn't appear so.

doh.ie

fozzle wrote:

I think they still ahve a certain amount of episodes of Wanderly Wagon, but no-where near to all of them. Didn't realise they were playing them again or I'd of recorded them! Bah! Don't know about Fortycoats though, it was later, so you'd imagine the'd still have some copies, but it doesn't appear so.

It does strike me as odd that they don't replay stuff like Fortycoats, Bosco and Wanderly Wagon even in the early hours of The Den (6am-7am) - seems
children's programming is so cheap nowadays, they don't need to. I don't think The Morbegs - Bosco's successor - is on anymore either.

Fozzle, where did you come across your Wanderly Wagon episodes? I don't remember that being on when we first got a video recorder (1986-ish), or I would have kept a few for posterity. Or did you record them recently?

penguinbloke

Amnesiac_ie wrote:

Imagine getting stoned and watching the five Bosco "Pirates" specials... madness...

Fave RTE programmes of yesteryear:

Scratch Saturday
The Rimini Riddle
...
The Podge and Zag Show

The Rimini Riddle that was one of the strangest programs that I have ever seen. That Otto thing freaked the crap out of me, shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

Did anyone notice the complete absence of any Zag reference in the panel on monday, and all the plotting against Santa forgotten.

Amnesiac_ie

penguinbloke wrote:

The Rimini Riddle that was one of the strangest programs that I have ever seen. That Otto thing freaked the crap out of me, shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

Did anyone notice the complete absence of any Zag reference in the panel on monday, and all the plotting against Santa forgotten.

nicola from fair city played a painting in the rimini riddle as i recall.

wasn't kids tv in ireland very "black" or twisted or something in the past? makes you wonder what all the montrose pinkos were on!

loyatemu

i saw an interview with Lambert somewhere and he was giving out about RTE losing/destroying most of the wanderly wagon tapes. He apparently went into their archives and they claimed they still had 80 or so eps on tape but he thinks its actually far less than that.

Raoul Duke

RTE never gave any thought for future nostalgia (probably other tv stations were the same). I remember Gerry Ryan saying that the Wagon itself was left to rot on the grounds of RTE.

Maybe in the future when RTE will be struggling to fill all it's digital channels we'll get to see what they have in their vaults. I still have a Wanderly Wagon annual from way back when.

fozzle

doh.ie wrote:

Fozzle, where did you come across your Wanderly Wagon episodes? I don't remember that being on when we first got a video recorder (1986-ish), or I would have kept a few for posterity. Or did you record them recently?

I don't have any we didn't get a vcr until 1999 :rolleyes: , but Raol Duke says they were on around Christmas a few years back, so they may emerge again.

Raoul Duke

fozzle wrote:

I don't have any we didn't get a vcr until 1999 :rolleyes: , but Raol Duke says they were on around Christmas a few years back, so they may emerge again.

Have to say that I didn't see them myself (can't remember why not). I saw them in the xmas RTE Guide and some friends said they watched them.

holly2004

Hi
its so lovely to hear you all talking about the wonderful days of Bosco, Wanderly Wagon and FortyCoats, which i was a huge fan of all, has anyone ever had a fortycoats book? I did as a child but dont know what happened to it
does anyone have one for sale? would love to buy it
Holly

Mr E

Please don't dig up 8 (!) year old threads. Cheers!