Button Moon

This was on of the oddest kids programmes from the early 80's. Mr Spoon (a wooden spoon with a big nose) and his wife and child lived under the gaze of Button Moon (a large yellow button) which they went up to in the space ship that our hero Mr Spoon had made. Basically it was hand held wooden spoons over a black velvet backdrop being moved about with a narration , and i know that i was too old to be watching it when i did but it was hypnotic. A very strange one indeed that has to be seen to be believed.

What a fantastic show this was... I was such a fan as a toddler! I loved that theme tune and thought "I want to go to Button Moon!" Where lives the most annoying sounding doll! and a teddy bear that sounds like a west country cider drinker... POETRY in MOTION!!!

My memories are hazy (apart from the great theme tune of course), but I seem to recall Mr Spoon would take a telescope with him on his sojourns and use it to spy on people back on "Earth".

I'm sure one such person was Mrs Spoon. Clearly Mr Spoon was a control freak or there was a fundamental lack of trust in their relationship.

And clearly Button Moon wasn't actually button-shaped or Mr Spoon would have fallen through the holes. And why was the moon named after him anyway?

Usually shown in the midday slot along with Rainbow or Let's Pretend.

Yet another programme from my wasted youth, 'Button Moon' maintains a weird power all these years later. As with all the best kids' shows, 'Button Moon' was dedicated to helping its young audience's imaginations sprout from the normalities of everyday life. All the world was a potential playground. Thus, kitchen utensils become the restless Mr Spoon and his family, baked bean tins become spaceships, cardboard boxes become houses. All good staples of a healthy child's imaginative development.

However, this same approach helped give the show a very weird, very trippy atmosphere, ensuring it cult TV status years later. It looks as if it were literally filmed in a dustbin. Bananas fly through the sky with green bean wings; party dresses suffer from depression; umbrellas play golf. In one particularly inspired sequence, Mr Spoon, trapped on top of a squealing Royal Jelly, is rescued by a small army of gingerbread men wielding a ladder constructed from chocolate finger biscuits.

Ineffably English - check out the thinly disguised Heinz logo on the baked-bean tin spaceship, for instance, or the cockney troll in the 'Little Goats Gruff' episode - it features terrific narration by Robin Parkinson, and a theme tune that will haunt you till your dying day. 'Button Moon' is surely the pinnacle of early 1980s English children's psychedelic sci-fi puppetry weirdness.

i love button moon i have all the videos. there was not a better tv show than that. Captin Pugwash came close. but i love button moon. although the guy behind the black sheet might as just gave a big smile and waved we could see him moving around. but i dont care I LOVE BUTTON MOON.