Hartbeat
| Hartbeat | |
|---|---|
| Starring | Tony Hart |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 10 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30mins (Special: 60mins) |
| Release | |
| Original network | Children's BBC |
| Original release | 14 September 1984 – 17 November 1993 |
Hartbeat was a Children's BBC television arts programme presented by Tony Hart. It was broadcast between 1984 and 1993. The series was a follow on from Take Hart and taught children how to design art features and use everyday items to make objects.
Like its predecessor Take Hart, Hartbeat featured Hart and the animated Plasticine character Morph and taught children how to design art features and use everyday items to make objects. The first episode was screened on 14 September 1984. Throughout its run it was shown during the afternoons with the first series on Fridays as a standalone programme. The second series onwards adopted the Children's BBC branding in 1985, when the service was launched, at which time it was moved to Wednesday afternoons where it remained until the series ended in 1993. Each episode was approximately half an hour in length.
Hartbeat continued the themes covered by Take Hart but was a deliberate attempt to update the image of its predecessor. A more modern set of opening titles using rudimentary CGI and a synthesised theme tune were introduced. The theme tune was composed by David Owen Smith.
Several young female co-presenters were added initially alternating between Margot Wilson, Joanna Kirk, Gabrielle Bradshaw, Alison Miller and Liza Brown. The studio backdrops were also changed to reflect the new direction of the series. In another attempt to move away from the format of Take Hart a "storyline" was also featured in each episode to keep casual viewers interested, generally revolving around a topic – e.g. a broken computer, Tony's birthday or something similar. Some fans of Take Hart felt that the inclusion of storylines was upstaging the premise of the show.
The "Gallery" segment, as featured in both Take Hart and its predecessor Vision On, in which viewers would send in their own artworks, also remained in the series and has continued to be used since 1994 in the BBC Children's programme SMart. In addition, with the advent of computers in schools at this time, Hart would often arrange for professional graphic designers to visit the studio so that they could demonstrate the use of computers in art and craft and show off the latest software made for this purpose.
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