Colm O'Regan: RTÉ and the glory days of wraparound programming blocks
Anything Goes when decorating Easter Eggs as Aonghus McAnally gets an egg on the head from ‘How Do You Do’ presenter Mary Fitzgerald.
Who says nostalgia isn’t what it used to be? I’m finding new ways to be nostalgic every day. And today it’s… well, I don’t actually know the right term for it. Let’s call it the Wraparound Programme.
The programme that tied all the other programmes together. A presenter, possibly surrounded by puppets, telling us what’s coming up next and promising a chance to win a bicycle. I miss their certainty. The presenters were our guides.
The best and longest-running was . When it briefly reappeared during the pandemic, such was the clamour to bring it back that I’m surprised, it hasn’t been raised in the Dáil.
But it wasn’t just – there were the Saturday morning programmes. Where the shiny young things from RTÉ met the great unwashed on a Saturday morning Young People’s programme.
The first I remember was , with its signature tune and VT of tight polyester dancing trousers and moustachioed men on rollerskates, making it look and feel a little like an Elton John video. It was the first home of Mary Fitzgerald's
RTÉ Player had an episode up years ago for 50 years of RTÉ TV (TV50). Mary was making a Table Football game from a cardboard box, toilet roll and some egg cartons.
Mary had elected not to have “one I made earlier” so with five children staring at her in the studio, it wasn’t easy going.
“It’s not turning out very well, is it, boys and girls? I think this egg-box head is a bit stubborn, he doesn’t want to be stuck on a footballer.”
But no one cared. In the drizzly landscape of the early 80s, Mary F was a beacon of fair-haired, woolly-jumpered sunlight.
Sometimes introduced cartoons, and sometimes it just went to the Community Games in Mosney. These were slices of Irish life that won’t appear on Reeling in The Years.
You could run the 600 metres or do Art. It was like the early Olympics. The running gear was Adidas or Puma if it wasn’t Dunnes' Strider. In fact, a lot of runners had no runners, and went barefoot around the usually sodden course.
I should have heeded their warning. I missed out on qualification for the Cork City Sports because I was running in the same pair of shoes I went to Mass in.
If we fast forward ten years, Saturday morning television had evolved, as can be seen from . By this stage, we were in the realm of ‘zany’.
This meant a lot of leaping about, cameras zooming in, gunge and general wackiness. There was a Guess The Mystery Guest competition where a famous person hid in a cardboard box covered in curtain. Cathal in Athlone going straight in with “Are you Marian Finucane?”
The guest might be country music singer Sandy Kelly. You wouldn’t think a country music singer would be recognised by 10-year-olds, but in fact, she guessed quite quickly.
It just goes to show that 30 years ago, if you were on RTÉ on a Sunday night, then EVERYONE knew your name.
But it wasn’t just all silly play. Sports Stadium raised the stakes.
Now often, there was very little sport on so we had to make do with badminton and handball. But in the hyperactive world of 15 camera angles and 34 replays, I think we could all do with watching the late Duxie Walsh clinch an umpteenth national title.
I know RTÉ will want to go forward. But have they considered going back? Encourage children to have a disciplined afterschool cartoon timetable. Giving us minority sports on a Saturday afternoon.
Embrace us all in the warm hug of the wraparound?
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