Hakuna Matata: Ryan Tubridy gives a glimpse inside tonight’s Late Late Toy Show
Ryan Tubridy and a tribe of young performers and toy testers get ready to go wild for the biggest night on the TV calendar. Pictures: Andres Poveda
Ryan Tubridy bursts backstage on a mini moped, peddling like mad and weaving chaotically through a socially-distanced group, who jump out of his way.
He dismounts and with a broad smile says: “Welcome everybody. Are you ready for messing?”
Tubridy is almost fizzing with excitement as he shows a group of journalists around the set for tonight’s Late Late Toy Show.
The theme for the evening has been revealed as a homage to all things , and Tubridy himself is full of pride for the show they have put together this year.
The audience returns, with a 50-person capacity, a drop from the usual 220 but a marked improvement on last year’s crowd-free show.
The Toy Show Appeal returns too after raining €6.6m for children’s charities last year.
Tubridy describes it as “the difference between some children in Ireland having a meal in their belly for breakfast before school that they wouldn’t have if Irish people hadn’t donated.
“I’m still flabbergasted by it,” he says, noting it was the moment the Toy Show “stopped being just a TV show, it became a lifeblood for a lot of charities and children around the country.”
He says this year’s theme is an opportunity for children to run wild, though their plans were curtailed slightly by the pandemic.
“It's their turn to run wild and run free in the Serengeti (or St Anne’s Park). The point is, freedom is yours,” Tubridy says.
“We might have got a little ahead of ourselves because Micheál Martin came down the steps two weeks ago and we thought ‘here we go again’.
"But we only took one or two steps back, we didn’t take 100 steps back.”
Giddy among the giraffes, Tubridy grabs a Nerf gun and gleefully shoots its foam ammunition into the audience.
He hums ‘Hakuna Matata’ often and quotes from the song regularly when journalists ask him questions about the theme.
“Why the ?” he says.
“It’s fun, it’s silly, it’s goofy, and it’s a problem-free philosophy. And that’s good enough for me. Less problems, more philosophy.”
Of course, there’s no escaping the quirks of live television as Tubridy learned last year following 'Fanta-gate' — when he uncharacteristically said the F-word after a bottle exploded all over him.
“I’m surprised Micheál Martin didn’t bring it up in the Dáil,” Tubridy says.
However, the reaction from the public was surprising: people simply saw it as human.
“It was a classic, honest-to-god gut reaction on live TV in front of many, many children. It was just a moment. We are one of the last live television programmes in Europe and that’s probably why.”
Tubridy remains tight-lipped on the subject of special guests and surprises, even when quizzed about a certain Stetson-wearing figure who is surely looking to celebrate selling out Croke Park five times over but he has one message for shoppers this year: support local.
“Yes it’s convenient and yes sometimes it’s a little cheaper to buy online but if you can, to keep the shops and family businesses that have been there for decades and decades going, I would urge people to get their toys, books and whatever they can from there.
"They need it in a way Jeff Bezos doesn’t.”
- The Late Late Toy Show airs tonight 9.35pm on RTÉ One & RTÉ Player.
