Button Moon

I watched this a couple of days ago for the 1st time in like 30 years ! I only vaguely remember it as a child - I was born in 1982 - I guess the theme tune was the most memorable part !

I forgot how aggressively D.I.Y this was ! The main characters have a combination of dishes for heads, spoons for arms and bottles for torsos, while the other characters are less humanoid and more bizarre; literally just bottles/containers, clothes, even vacuum cleaners, possibly with eyes glued on ! Background props consist of brooms for trees, a funnel on top of a 'Heinz' can for a spaceship, and most essentially a button for a moon. Kind of the same degree of randomness, eccentricity and full-on D.I.Y as the props in The Young Ones !

The stories are simple, naive and charming; appropriate for younger viewers yet cute and funny for all ages. The theme tune - sung by Sandra Dickinson of 2Point4 children fame - is cute and 'magical'. The overall aesthetic is obviously ultra-kitsch, but in a charming, vibrant and idiosyncratic kind of way; you always recognize a Button Moon set !

Overall, a wholesome '80s classic that appealed to all ages, and probably still does; I was reintroduced to this through DVD !

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.

A firm favourite of mine during my nursery school years, 'Button Moon' had a large following of fans in those who were tots in the early Eighties. It was a very low-budget show with the characters were put together using wooden spoons and tin cans but it worked when complimented with simple story-telling and a solid musical score.

There was something very surreal about 'Button Moon' that I loved as a child (although I could see why people now link it to a drugs' trip!) but it was a show that proves you don't need high-quality CGI to keep small children (and adults!) entertained. Upon viewing it recently, after a friend bought the DVD, it certainly brought back memories and would no doubt be equally as popular with today's toddlers as it was with kids in the Eighties.

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.

The catchy theme tune ('We've been to Button Moon, we've followed Mr Spoon') was the work of Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson. It set the scene, and wrapped up each 11 minute episode, of the tales of the Spoon Family and their journeys to the mysterious planet which looked, well, suspiciously like a button, where lived irritating characters such as the West Country voiced teddy.

Aimed at pre-schoolers it quickly gained a cult following amongst teenagers and students (as did many other series of the 1980s). It seems there were fewer episodes than I remember - rather like the legendary Mr Benn ...