Rainbow
By 1989 I was long past being a regular viewer of 'Rainbow', but having seen now two episodes from this highly inventive period of the show, clearly I didn't know what I was missing.
I stumbled across Zippy's encounter with Ernie Wise quite by accident, and was struck by how this worked just as well for an adult audience as for the official younger one.
We've done a fair bit of 'Pipkins' in the last twelve months, but its Thames counterpart clearly deserves a bit of attention, too.
Zippy's dream sequence where he appears on the show 'Who's A Lucky Person?' is one of those parodies of insincere gameshows that would also pop up on 'The Young Ones' and Geoffrey Hayes has a ball playing the smarmy host.
The set is far too glittery and Zippy's failure to make the audience laugh is quite uncomfortable to watch. The sight of George playing a trumpet and Bungle in ballet gear also sticks in the mind.
Thankfully, Little Ern is on hand to provide some advice and Zippy makes a triumphant return to the show, going down a storm.
But if you think this is an odd episode, wait till you see the adventures of Zipman and Bobbin, where the 'Rainbow' team trample all over the copyright of 'Batman'.
Geoffrey does an astonishing turn as The Joker, and the rubber spider on a string is the sort of thing I'm very familiar with after working on Paul Chandler's 'Sutton Park' series.
The Zipmobile, despite being made of cardboard, is quite a snazzy vehicle even though it can only be made to move by pushing the camera past it. I suppose it saves on fuel.
We did them late Friday night after coming home from the weekly Big Shopping and these two episodes were an excellent way to round off the day. Though we did worry that George doesn't seem to be provided with a pillow when everyone goes to bed...
Needless to say we've already ordered a 'Rainbow' DVD or two to add to our collection!
Our video on 'Rainbow' can be seen here.
(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)
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