h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>> what were all you Brits thinking? I mean why was he even popular at all? <<

Fair point. Well, I think he might actually have been a bit cool in the 60s (before my time so not really certain on that).

He then presented a Saturday teatime TV show (in the days when there were only 3 TV channels and *everybody* watched TV straight after the football results), and that show was about making kids' dreams come true.

He also did a massive amount of 'good works' for hospitals and charities, and ran lots of marathons and half marathons when the long-distance running trend was just starting. I mean, I couldn't stand him (he presented a programme on Radio 1 on Sundays, playing 'oldie' records - I liked the music but his links were downright annoying) - but I had a grudging respect for the charity work he did and I don't think I was alone in that.

And, possibly most of all, he was very, very easy to take the mick out of via mimicry. Most people can do a passable Jimmy Savile impression and he was a stock character for many impressionists. And that might have helped his popularity, in that weird, laugh-at-who-we-love British way.

Re The Tweenies: I remember that episode. My reaction if I'd seen it this weekend would have been 'Oops, somebody's going to be in trouble.' At the time it was made, it was just a nod to the parents watching, a reference to make them chuckle. It's perfectly possible to have an emotional response to a puppet. I *love* Max from The Tweenies and he taught me loads of toddler-managing techniques. They should make a new series - I bet Bella's a real pain in the butt now she's a teenager.

Mol

By all accounts he left a bad taste in the mouths of many young people.

What, Max off The Tweenies?!

Mol

Thanks Mol, I can see why folks gave him the benefit of the doubt - especially since he apparantly kept his nefarious activities well hidden.

Now that I think of it, during the 60s and especially the 70s, entertainment style in America tended towards that Laugh In style of institutionalized 'flower power' where hippiedom was interpreted and translated into some sort of bizarre brightly colored fashion and behaviour.
We hippies were pretty mellow and organic. Our colors were earthen or sun faded. We were unironed and softly dressed. We washed our bodies and hair but did not necessarily comb or 'groom' them. We were into the natural way of things.

Evidently there were some fun things going on on tv but most of us were not watching.
We were listening to our stereos and growing and cooking food, sewing and mending clothes
and going to mind blowing concerts and happenings. All pretty mellow. Oh, yes and we smoked some.

This was my crowd and I am sure in some cities and campuses things were different.
But the garish interpretations by style and entertainment were kind of off the mark.

Mol I'd like to see Judy and Max parenting skills now they are all teenagers

and Doodles and Izzles obviously they are very long lived

Hmmm, you've not got the guy Clare, nothing hippy about Jimmy Saville.

He was just weird. I think he is almost impossible to explain unless you grew up with him as many of us did over here. I wrote in to appear on Jim'll Fix It along with all the other kids when I was small.
I must confess that I never really liked *him* though - he was a very strange character and hard to like personally. But he did (rather obviously now) hoodwink us all.

I remember asking my Mother about him when I was young along the lines of - 'why to people like him- he's horrid?' and getting told that he was tremendous guy because of all the hospital portering he did. (This was before he started running Marathons)

Don't think he was any sort of comedian. He was not. He was a disc jockey who had a TV show that became *MASSIVE* When he died his obituaries talked of him being on the first DJ's in existence to used two record decks to mix records in to one another. He was a DJ right from the start of the trade - back into the 1950s and possibly earlier.

I think I said earlier but I saw Louis Theroux's programme with him in the Caravan* 5 years or so ago and as is now clear Louis Theroux knew of the rumours and quizzed him about his activities with ladies/girls right at the end of the show. I recall it being very disturbing even though Savile was denying anything (or more refusing to discuss it). It was very disturbing and I remember remarking to people that it confirmed to me that the guy was very very odd and that there was something wrong with him.
I didn't know quite how deep the rabbit hole went though obviously.

(*For anyone not familiar, he was also famous for just living in a caravan [trailer] with his mother - despite his wealth which he genuinely give almost all away to various charities)

He was an English eccentric, and therefore any obvious quirks or pecaddiloes (sp?) just fitted in with that persona.

I can't remember either distinctly liking or dilking him as a child - I did write to Jim'll Fix It hoping for a trip to try being weightless. And I now have to stop myself going "Now then now then guys'n'gals as it 'appens...." which is a bit of a verbal tick of mine.

What really concerns me, is that most child molesters aren't obviously wierd or strange, and are most often a member of the child's family. It's all too easy to say in retrospect "I always knew there was something not right about him", and ignore the amount of abuse that takes place by what would be regarded as perfectly unremarkable men and women.

Exactly.

I think there may be too threads of chat here - I wasn't trying to generalise about paedophiles being weird or different. Clare was clearly trying to 'get' the Jimmy Saville thing and (understandably) failing, as most people would who didn't grow up with the guy on the radio/telly would I think now.
I was talking about him and him alone.

Yes, I got that. But it seems to me that the "everybody knew" notion hangs on nothing more than that - that he was weird. Yes, I'm sure there were those around him who definitely *did* know - but if they did, they 'knew' because they were privy to facts that most people weren't privy to. All 'everybody knew' was that he was weird.

But Prince Charles, for instance, is certainly weird. He talks to trees and has been recorded saying he wished he was a box of tampons. It doesn't, however, mean he's a child molester.

oh I don't know about Jimmy Saville and people not knowing, from what I've read (and it's not much) there were complaints that were dismissed out of hand at the time. But anyway: being weird isn't illegal, or even that rare.

And I'm another one, I really wanted to go out on a horse with a mounted policewoman when I was a kid, so I wrote to Jim'll Fix It. There can't e many of us of the Jim'll generation who didn't write to the programme.

Well it's clear the BBC knew all about him. They forced him to wear all that jangly jewellery so kids could hear him coming, like putting a bell on a cat.

Oh, it's hard to imagine *nobody* knew, and I'm not suggesting that for an instant. But it's equally BS to claim that everybody knew.

I didn't write to Jim'll Fix It, but then I never wrote in to any programmes. All I remember of the programme was that someone wanted to be in the Wild West and so was sent to Blackgang Chine, a theme park on the Isle of Wight. And someone's parent was given a personalised numberplate that said something like 'mother' or 'mummy' - the first personalised number plate I saw. Oh, and a girl got to pretend to be a shop dummy. I've since seen the Dr Who one, 'In a Fix with Sontarans' as an extra on a DVD.
The idea of the programme was good, but always seemed to be done on a budget so they didn't quite do what they asked. Lots of people wanted to do things like go to Disneyworld for a week, but it always was the children who wanted to do something that didn't cost a lot, like look at trees, that ended up on the programme. I don't think that Jimmy Saville was the reason the show was popular, he was just the presenter bloke.

<BB<

oh absolutely, KB, I think the "everyone" knew is too much. But enough high-ups should have paid more attention to claims. But then - that's what it was like back then, it's hard enough to get people to listen to that kind of accusation nowadays.

I think he was popular because of the show - it sort of fed off each other, I think.

And rightly so the things weren't the expensive ones. A week in Disneyland? so what. The scouts eating their lunch on the rollercoaster, or the young lad playing the clarinet with Acker Bilk - those were the fix-its that made the show popular I think. The thinks that money couldn't buy and that only the generosity of the people taking part made it possible.

My dream when I was young enough to write in was to appear on stage with my then favourite band -wait for it- Shawaddywaddy
(I was seven! )
As I recall they actually did do that with one kid - but it was drawn out of a hat, or so they said, as thousands upon thousands would write in with that one.
Although they did pander to these more mundane requests, of course the whacky, weird and odd ones went in the show - made better telly didn't it. As to the budget - well this was the BBC...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/22/stuart-hall-bbc-rape-charge

"Stuart Hall charged with rape and indecent assault

Veteran BBC broadcaster also charged with 14 counts of indecent assault relating to alleged offences involving girls as young as nine"


Are you surprised?

This time last year I would have been amazed.

Right now I am rather less surprised (but I remain a little surprised).

PP.

I am Alfster, but not as surprised as I should be.

What PP said. But also quite upset about it. I always think of Stuart Hall roaring with laughter at the antics on It's a Knockout - a jolly chap - not somebody with unsavoury skeletons in his cupboard.



Mol