Andy Pandy

1 9 5 0 - 1 9 7 0 (UK)
26 x black & white episodes
13 x color episodes

Although Andy Pandy was actually produced in the late fifties, it was repeated often up to 1980 as the mainstay of the Watch With Mother series, and is one of my earliest memories of TV. Initially Andy Pandy was shown in the afternoon between 3:45pm and 4:00pm at the end of the women's program For Women.

But in the 1960s Watch With Mother was scheduled at lunch time. With his very visible strings, blue and white striped all-in-one romper suit, ruffle collar and hat, Andy actually also started life as a solo performer. 

Some months later he was joined by his trusty playmate Teddy (and later by Looby Loo, a rag doll). Looby (in a spotted skirt and with yellow plaits) led a lonely existence and only came to life when Andy and Teddy were not  around. When Looby was alone she would dance and play (and also sweep and dust Andy's house. Now there was a nice early sexist stereotype for young kiddies!).  She even had her own catchy song - Here we go Looby Loo.

The stories were very simple. Sometimes Andy Pandy would swing on his swing : " Children, you swing your arms backwards and forwards and pretend you're on a swing just like Andy!". Sometimes Andy and Teddy would play on the see-saw or on a trampoline. Sometimes they would pretend to be engine drivers on a train :

"All engines can go backwards, but I don't think the children watching ought to go backwards because they couldn't see where they were going and they might bump into things!".

The black and white prints of Andy Pandy eventually became so poor that 13 new episodes were filmed in color in 1970 at the famous Abbey Road studios.

Andy Pandy was created by Mary Adams, the Head of television Talks at the BBC. Maria Bird used to bring Andy out to play, opera singer Gladys Whitred sang the songs, and Audrey Atterbury and Molly Gibson pulled the strings.

Andy Pandy had no linear narrative structure. Instead it presented a series of tableaux with no apparent theme. For example, in one program Andy starts by playing on a swing, accompanied by Gladys Whitred singing Swinging High, Swinging Low. He is joined by Teddy and  the camera then focuses on Teddy who enacts the movements to the nursery rhyme Round & Round The Garden. 

Finally, after a scene with Andy and Teddy playing in their cart and a scene with Looby Loo singing her song, the two male characters return to their basket and wave good-bye and Gladys Whitred sings Time To Go Home. 

Time to go home, time to go home
Andy is waving goodbye, goodbye