Multi-Coloured Swap Shop
| Multi-Coloured Swap Shop | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Children's entertainment |
| Starring |
Noel Edmonds Keith Chegwin John Craven Maggie Philbin (series 3–6) |
| Theme music composer |
Mike Batt (series 1–5) BA Robertson (series 6) |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 146 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 150–180 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 |
| Picture format | 4:3 |
| Original release | 2 October 1976 – 27 March 1982 |
Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, more commonly known simply as Swap Shop, was a British children's entertainment programme that was broadcast every Saturday morning on BBC1 for 146 episodes in six series between 1976 and 1982. It was ground-breaking in many ways: by being live, sometimes up to three hours in length, and using the phone-in format extensively for the first time on TV.
The show rivalled the growing success of rival broadcaster ITV's Tiswas—although at the time the latter was only broadcast in the ATV region in the Midlands and had yet to be taken up by other ITV franchises around the country.
The show was hosted by Noel Edmonds and his associates from the beginning were Keith Chegwin, John Craven and later, in 1978, Maggie Philbin. The show's presenters formed a pop group called Brown Sauce in December 1981 and released a single called "I Wanna be a Winner". The song peaked at number 15 in the UK Singles Chart and stayed in the Top 40 for a total of nine weeks.
Also featured was Posh Paws, a stuffed toy dinosaur. Edmonds once explained that his name was actually spelled "Pohs Paws", because that is "Swap Shop" backwards as suggested in the phone in by 5 year old Duncan Beck. Another person named was 'Eric' (Ilett), the often-referred to but never seen technician whose job was to lower a plastic globe containing postcards sent in by viewers as answers to competitions. Eric Ilett performed a similar task on the BBC's Ask The Family when technical assistance was required as part of the programme.
The content of the programme included music, visits from celebrities, competitions, and cartoons. There was also coverage of news and issues relevant to children, presented by John Craven, building on his profile as the presenter of John Craven's Newsround.
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