Watch With Mother
| Watch with Mother | |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 15 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 |
| Original release | 1953 – 1975 |
Watch with Mother is a cycle of children's programmes created by Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird. Broadcast by BBC Television from 1953 until 1975, it was the first BBC television series aimed specifically at pre-school children, a development of BBC radio's equivalent Listen with Mother, which had begun two years earlier. In accordance with its intended target audience of pre-school children viewing with their mothers, Watch with Mother was initially broadcast between 3:45 pm and 4:00 pm, post-afternoon nap and before the older children came home from school.
The choice of Watch with Mother for the title of the series was intended "to deflect fears that television might become a nursemaid to children and encourage 'bad mothering'".
Although Andy Pandy had been regularly broadcast every Tuesday since mid-1950, joined by the Flower Pot Men in December 1952, the name Watch with Mother was not adopted until 1953, when the programming was expanded to three afternoons a week with the addition of Rag, Tag and Bobtail. The "classic" cycle of shows was in place by September 1955, with the first showing of The Woodentops. Broadcast at 1:30 pm each day, it comprised:
The original programmes had a loyal following and there was concern when it was learned that they would be replaced by new programmes, as in 1965 when it was thought that Camberwick Green would replace Andy Pandy and Flower Pot Men. Eventually the new programmes were added, including: Tales of the Riverbank, Pogles' Wood, The Herbs, Joe, the Trumptonshire trilogy, Barnaby, Mr Benn, Bagpuss, Fingerbobs, Bod and Bizzy Lizzy.
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