AKA Kid-Set; a children’s TV show hosted by Simon Bates and produced in Wellington, at WNTV-1, though one time they flew down to Christchurch to do some work with Rolf Harris in the CHTV-3 studio (plus later location film material beside the Avon).
This surviving film, shot in 1969 for the first series of "Kid Set", has warped, which appears as an occasional 'ballooning' effect.
The animated title text was the work of Tom Rowell, who worked at the WNTV1 scenic workshop but in his free time at home liked to make short films of model trains, animation, and suchlike.
Childrens' TV programmes followed a convention of focussing on a presenter in the studio, talking. Administrators liked that sort of basic radio-with-picture approach as it filled time very cheaply, but there can be a sort of sameness about it – and as for cheap, it's no accident that even now TV is flooded with format studio quiz shows and format studio panel discussions with minimal carbon copy production input. Cheap.
The first series of "Kid Set" (1969) also had a presenter, but with a different on-screen image.
Simon Bates was a young Englishman recently arrived in Wellington after a short stint working for radio stations in the US. By chance I heard him on commercial radio subtly taking the piss out of the poorly written promotional drivel he had to read, and although never having met him, immediately thought he'd be a good choice for the type of host I envisaged.
Rather than appearing to be in control of the programme, it seemed funnier and more lively to have him often bemused by the silly goings-on, and not at all in control. Kids like to see adults making fools of themselves, particularly if that pays off by having the kids then accomplish whatever the task was, but better. I expect this opening sequence continued in the studio with a sweaty and exhausted Simon being revived by the kids, who then took over the show. Again.
Similar 'kids take over' events occurred many times in long-lost videotape studio antics from 1969 (and the same idea was a theme of "Cereal" the next year).
Simon's air of polite English awkwardness suited that sort of thing, and he endured such indignities with good grace and a smile.
He relocated to Sydney in 1969 to work in radio, then returned to England in 1971 to join the BBC, and over many years became a household name via such long-running gigs as presenting the weekday mid-morning show on BBC Radio 1 (1977-1993) and hosting TV show "Top of the Pops" (1979-1988), plus many others.
Derek Morton
Other NZBC-TV produced programmes had a standard opening sequence and music theme, used for every episode, but "Kid Set" didn't. Opening sequences (and usually music) were different for each episode, usually relating to content.
This clip is one of several openings that took the mickey out of an NZBC-TV requirement that all programmes must begin with the standard caption, "NZBC presents".
As part of the bundle of paperwork for every episode, our production office had to repeatedly submit a form requesting an "NZBC Presents" caption card, despite there being one always being held ready at the Waring Taylor Street studio, plus a spare. This pointless weekly form became a trivial example of the stifling bureaucracy we had to battle to get a programme on air.
Making fun of it became irresistible, and I submitted the form, which instead of specifying the standard 9 x 12 inches caption, requested 9 x 12 feet (the graphics people were in on the gag, of course).
In the studio, Simon Bates burst through it (see another clip of Kid Set "end titles").
See, we can burst through petty bureaucracy! – it was the 1960s, after all.
This ongoing gag eventually reached the scale of a roadside billboard as seen in this clip, in which kids take over – the point, of course.
The kids are Nick Bollinger and his sister Thomasin.
At the end, this opening sequence dissolved to the studio (no trace remains, as the videotape was erased) where Simon Bates, live, replaced his painted image wearing a matching beret, cartoonish glasses, curly moustache and a stringy beard.
The predominance of trains, trucks and automobiles in the sequence related to the content of that episode, which had a transport theme. Kid reporters flew in a jet plane and sailed on a big ship and rode the Wellington cable car, etc. but I don't now recall which was included in that particular episode.
Very sharp-eyed viewers may notice that the second billboard content ("Kid Set") is mounted on the same billboard previously used for "NZBC Presents". We could only afford one.
Derek Morton
first series telecast dates (as listed in NZ Listener)
1969 1 Oct Kid Set [No.1]
1969 8 Oct Kid Set [No.2]
1969 15 Oct Kid Set [No.3]
1969 22 Oct Kid Set [No.4]
1969 29 Oct Kid Set [No.5]
1969 5 Nov Kid Set [No.6]
1969 12 Nov Kid Set [No.7]
1969 19 Nov Kid Set [No.8]
1969 26 Nov Kid Set [No.9]
Production stills
Derek Morton supplied some photographs from his time on the show...
Lyttleton (ferry terminal and offshore aboard TEV Maori)
From a film shoot in which a boy reporter looked into how the interisland ferry functioned, visiting the (long since demolished) ferry terminal ashore and the bridge, engine room, etc. at sea.
This was before Wellington–Picton became the standard interisland route, and overnight (or occasionally daylight) sailings between Wellington and Lyttleton, the port of Christchurch, were the norm.
Several similar items were shot, all with kid reporters, including the Wellington cable car, flying on a Boeing 737
Whakapapa, Mt Ruapehu, Happy Valley and Hut Flat
From a film shoot about skiing.
As with the interisland ferry, crew seen in photos include cameraman Peter Janes and sound recordist Valmai Gardiner.
Other crew members not pictured included production secretary Martha Anastasia Brookes and floor/location managers Phil Vincent or Gordon Barr. No photographer has been identified for any of the images, but Gordon Barr almost certainly shot some of those at Mt Ruapehu.
This end title sequence is from film, which is why it has survived. Hardly any content from the 4½ hours of the first series of "Kid Set" (telecast in 1969) does, because videotapes were erased for reuse.
It was shot on film because animated titles had to be done that way, and because the live action, though shot in the studio where everything normally went to videotape, used film as the only way to reverse action to allow Simon to walk through a self-repairing closing caption.
We had to work out what syllables Simon should say that would pass as lip sync for "See you next week" when run backwards.
Some expertise in this had been acquired on location from crew members naughtily adding a few extra calculated nonsensical words when reading a sync film slate. Later, when run backwards on an editing machine (during usual back and forth activity) this would offer a (usually crass) version of g'day to the lone editor sitting in the dark.
A similar large opening title was also used at the head of some episodes for Simon to burst through. For background on how these giant captions came about, see notes re the Kid Set opening sequence "billboards" clip.
Derek Morton
Second series telecast dates (as listed in NZ Listener)
1970 22 Jul Kid Set [series 2, No.1]
1970 29 Jul Kid Set [series 2, No.2]
1970 5 Aug Kid Set [series 2, No.3]
1970 12 Aug Kid Set [series 2, No.4]
1970 18 Aug Kid Set [series 2, No.5]
1970 26 Aug Kid Set [series 2, No.6]
1970 2 Sep Kid Set [series 2, No.7]
1970 9 Sep Kid Set [series 2, No.8]
1970 16 Sep Kid Set [series 2, No.9]
1970 23 Sep Kid Set [series 2, No.10] (final)
These slots were for WNTV-1 – AKTV-2, CHTV-3 and DNTV-2 may have been a day or so later (at that time transmission schedules were independent).
The second series of "Kid Set" (1970) didn't have a host – the format had become even looser by then – but did have an occasional introduction to items by Rolf Harris. We'd done some studio stuff with him in Christchurch (where the local studio crew, accustomed to a slower more procedural approach, was baffled by our method of just jumping in and winging it, the only way to fill a half hour weekly show with original content without falling back on a repetitive formula and prolonged studio presenter talking).
I got on well with him (this was long before his later much publicised troubles) and soon found that instead of the rather daggy character I'd assumed, he was a highly skilled and adaptable performer, so we spent the next day outdoors ad libbing links and bits – no formalities, no minder, no agent, no specific contracts, all just based on trust.
Derek Morton
- Many thanks to Mr Morton for the information, production stills and great videos.
Surprises in store
From the NZ Listener. circa 19 July 1970?
Television producer Derek Morton is not quite sure how to describe the second series of Kidset which begins screening next Wednesday evening from all channels. I suppose,
he says, you'd call it a... well it's really..... ummm, Essentially it’s a television show for children and anyone else who happens to be watching.
Derek goes on to say that it's difficult to explain the format because it hasn't got one. He decides, finally, that the show is really an extension of the first series — which won for him a Feltex TV Producers Award — except that this time it is more unabashedly Goony
.
The first series,
he explains, had a few embarrassing things in it, like how to make a toy aeroplane and how to keep a pet dog. and so on. It was a bit self-conscious and this time we're getting away from it and doing a few more ‘happening things’.
Some of these “happening” things include Rolf Harris popping up all over the place, and a send-up of adult current affairs programmes on television. In the latter, commentator Ian Johnstone and Gallery interviewer Brian Edwards surrounded themselves with important-looking maps and data and then started talking non-stop gobbledygook; no real words, just a meaningless jumble of syllables.
Brian kept talking about the harm we were doing to his image
recalls Derek. But of course he was just joking and I think that really he rather enjoyed the whole thing.
The programme is not quite as chaotic as Derek suggests, There will, for instance, be a children's adventure story which will screen in six episodes. Titled Cereal (Derek is the first to admit. it’s corny) the story is of a gang of children who see a robbery in a Wellington suburb and their efforts to aid the police in bringing the criminal to justice.
If the plot sounds a little familiar the production should be less so. For a start the children are not the paragons often seen in imported television programmes for children — one of the words Derek Morton used to describe them was "louts". They disobey their parents. break windows, and get into endless trouble. In fact, in many ways they seem to behave just like children do in real life.
Another difference is that more than three-quarters of the dialogue is improvised. Although the children have had very little acting experience — they appeared in the earlier series — Derek finds they give him few problems as actors. They soon get used to the camera,
he says, and it’s very hard for kids not to be natural when you put them in what is basically a natural situation. If they are interested they go along with it. And because we improvise much of the dialogue this means the kids don’t get bored. They have to concentrate on what they're doing.
The soundtrack for the serial was specially composed and is played by the Acme Sausage Company.
Kidset: Northern Television Wednesday July 23, 4:48 p.m. WNTV-1, 4:55 p.m. CHTV-3, 5:00 p.m. DNTV-2, 4:52 p.m.
"Cereal" was shot in late 1969 and early 1970, with the feature-film-length production telecast as six serial episodes in 1970.
This clip occurs about mid-way through the series (so the characters of the leading kids are already established) and begins as Robert, Nga, Jim and Tane emerge from school, having just learned in class about effervescing baking soda, then deciding to build a rocket (not in the clip).
The chemist shop where this rocket fuel is bought was a delightful historical throwback even then, and the woman who serves the kids was the actual shop attendant. The inner Wellington suburb of Newtown had a lot of character, and was just far enough away from the central city to get away with location shooting without requiring too many approvals, so every scene outside the studio was shot there.
The bank robber character, created with some humour in mind – he writes his demand for cash on a withdrawal slip, waits in the queue to hold up the teller, and when he gets banknotes, drops some of them every time we see him – was played by WNTV1 colleague Murray Reece.
At this time, casting included dragooning mates and colleagues. Later Keith Aberdein appears as a uniformed cop, Roger Hall (writer of many plays and TV scripts) as a detective with Bill Maughan, John Charles is a bank customer, production secretary Ingrid Dickie is the teller, our production secretary Anastasia Martha Brookes is in the street with HelBol (before she was HelBol, yet to meet AlBol) and later still Bill Kennedy, chief of the WNTV1 scenic workshop, plays Robert's father.
Of two professional actors (then a very rare species) Downstage stalwart Lewis Rowe plays the local cop. He only appears very briefly in this clip, near the end, but takes a larger part in earlier and later episodes.
Robert is played by Nick Bollinger, and his younger brother Tim appears as Ping near the end of the clip (the next day, Saturday, in the story). He's in bare feet, a habit he shared with his cousin AlBol, walking with the other kids along the Newtown footpath before hooking up with Nga (Takaitu Tajohn) who is selling the Evening Post, at the time a characteristic Wellington afternoon sight (and sound, "Aaaaeeeevning Peeeaooooahst"). I buy one.
In earlier episodes Tim's fresh face helped to con a building manager (and the cop) to enable one of the kids' nefarious schemes. In some ways his innocent-looking character is the dodgiest! Jim (John Hilton) is the only character inclined to be rule-abiding, always concerned about whether a planned activity is allowed, but going along with it in the end.
The free-spirited devious fictional adventures of the kids were oddly similar to what was required to shoot this production. Officially it couldn't be done / was way beyond resources / couldn't be supported, etc. etc. – so much was produced unofficially, with resources always stretched.
For example, we could only manage to dress one vehicle as a cop car, but (as a result of some tricky staging) two roar up to the bank.
Music arranged by John Charles
Derek Morton
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