“I don’t think anybody in RTÉ really cares about children or what children want,” Bosco tells Donal O’Keeffe.
One of my earliest memories is of being five and in a very bad mood. My mother, trying to cheer me up, told me “That programme you like is coming back. You know, the one with the talking animals.”
Being a sweet-natured child, I told her I had never in all my years heard anything so ridiculous, and stormed off.
In truth, though, my very bad mood quickly evaporated and I ended up counting the days to see this show where animals could talk and lived in a magic caravan.
Wanderly Wagon launched in 1968, a beautiful, multi-coloured flying machine with a stone chimney at the back and a rain barrel attached to the side. It was also quite obviously far bigger on the inside, but unlike some, we Irish would never make a fuss about embarrassing dimensional disparities.
The best thing about Wanderly Wagon, though, was its crew. Originally, its driver and star was Rory (Bill Goulding) in a cravat and a suede jacket.
Rory left early, to live on the moon, leaving his eejity friend O’Brien in charge. O’Brien, the wonderful Eugene Lambert in a boxy brown suit, was always the heart and soul of the show. Then there was Godmother, played by Nora O’Mahony as a stern, no-nonsense matriarch, but O’Mahony had an unmistakeable twinkle of kindness.
Of course, the humans were only there to introduce us to the show’s real stars and that’s where Eugene Lambert’s real genius came in. He was a master puppeteer and he and his family created the show’s beloved ‘talking animals’.
To me, the hero was always Judge, a dog usually found on O’Brien’s arm and very clearly the brains of the outfit. Every child in the country loved Judge as the star of the Safe Cross Code advertisements.
There was Foxy too, a Chicago gangster-accented fox who lived in the rain-barrel. Foxy left, too soon, for the moon with Rory.
Mister Crow lived in the cuckoo clock, telling the time in an excitable Dublin accent. Two squirrels lived in the attic and an infestation of mice lived in the walls.
I remember little of the adventures, just bits and pieces, but they travelled through Irish mythology and into outer space. I remember Fortycoats, and Frank Kelly chewing the scenery as Doctor Astro and his appalling sidekick Sssneaky Sssnake.
Mostly I just remember the joy of being in the company of beloved friends.
I can remember watching the last moon landing when I was very small. I remember it in black and white, and shades of grey. We didn’t get a colour TV for many years later, but to my five year old eyes, Wanderly Wagon was always in colour.
Because it was magic.
Wanderly Wagon was cancelled in 1982 when RTÉ management – cash-strapped in the wake of three rapid-fire general elections – decided children’s TV was their softest target. A heartbroken Eugene Lambert read about it in the newspapers.
Five years later, RTÉ’s beancounters decided to cancel the hugely popular Bosco. Eugene’s daughter – and Bosco’s great friend – Paula Lambert heard the bad news when Ray D’Arcy phoned her.
Last week, I interviewed Bosco. The announcement that RTÉ plans on outsourcing all production of children’s programming has left Bosco uafásach ar fad that history is repeating itself, as management once again decides the best way to cut costs is to cut kids’ TV.
“I don’t think anybody in RTÉ really cares about children or what children want,” says a visibly cross Bosco. “I mean, nobody even bothered to ask children what they want!”
There are more than one million children in Ireland, Bosco points out, more than a fifth of the population. Children’s TV costs less than 4% of RTÉ’s budget but kids make up 30% of RTÉ’s audience.
“There’s only one Children’s department in RTÉ but there’s loads of adult departments,” says Bosco. “Why don’t they make one of the adult departments their guinea pig? Why do they always have to pick on kids?
“I actually tweeted Enda Kenny, Mr Boss, and I asked him to talk to RTÉ and to talk sense into them but you know he never even tweeted me back! But then I tweeted the Rubberbandits and they tweeted me back and they said they’d help us save children’s telly.”
RTÉ’s charter commits to “recognise the special needs of children as part of the audience” but one wonders where its public service remit lies if the State broadcaster can outsource everything to the independent sector. There are greater issues too, of the value of uniquely Irish programming and hearing local accents on TV.
Bosco worries that an exclusive diet of US TV will leave Irish kids greeting each other “Hey you guys” but losing traditional Irish words like “deadly” and “unreal” and “uafásach”.
Of RTÉ management, Bosco says: “I’d give them all the sack. I think we should ask everybody what they think because doesn’t everybody pay to have children’s television when they pay their television licence.”
(RTÉ management be warned: you mess with Bosco at your peril.)
Forty years after my mother told me about Wanderly Wagon, my niece, five then, and her brothers, seven and eleven, delighted at my descriptions, asked if it was possible to watch Wanderly Wagon. I told them RTÉ had wiped most of the tapes but that there are still a few clips on YouTube.
Three 21st century children watched all that remains of ‘the most unusual wagon’ and were enchanted.
So here’s my mad idea to save RTÉ: bring back Wanderly Wagon.
Seriously. In 2005, the BBC revived a beloved children’s programme, re-inventing it as prime-time family entertainment. My friend Helen O’Rahilly was part of Doctor Who‘s regeneration and she reckons the Doctor’s return has netted the BBC multiple millions of pounds.
Obviously, Wanderly Wagon wouldn’t make that, but get the Lambert family on board – don’t dream of proceeding without them – and recast sensitively. Take the Wagon on the road and let Irish kids meet heroes of their own. I reckon you’ll have a hit on your hands.
Leave the puppets exactly as they are. Kids are as cool now as we were half a century ago and they deserve to have Wanderly Wagon as part of the dreamscape of their childhood.
There you go, RTÉ – free of charge – an idea which might save not only children’s TV but maybe RTÉ itself.
Okay, I’m exaggerating. Possibly.
Maybe I just want to see my beloved childhood friends back on TV.
But imagine what RTÉ might achieve with a concept like Wanderly Wagon and a bit of imagination and love.
I know. A mad idea.
(PS: #BoscoForTaoiseach.)
