Look and Read

'Look and Read' was an educational programme shown in the 'Schools' time on BBC2. If you were one of the kids lucky enough to catch it, it meant that you were missing Maths or some other dull lesson just to watch TV. Which, when you're seven or so, is just about the best school can get! Wordy was the host of the show, a floating torso (early blue screen - no expense spared) painted orange and decorated with egg cartons (well, maybe some expense spared!), and he'd link educational snippets and cartoon sing-a-longs (good old Derek Griffiths!) with the featured episode of the drama serial. It's almost possible to tell a kid's school year from the particular serial they watched - whether it be about racing pigeons, peregrine falcons, fairgrounds or such like. At the end of the film, you'd get to read the highlights of the story on screen, and then Magic Pencil would show you how to write your letters. For anyone wondering, 'top to bottom, up and over' is how you'd write an h!

Constantly getting mixed up with Words and Pictures, Look and Read was for Junior school age (7- 11) children. The programmes consisted of an episodic drama, split by a section on English grammar. In 1976, the serial 'Cloudburst' by Richard Carpenter, introduced the character of Wordy, who came out of Richard Carpenter's golfball typewriter. Richard Carpenter appeared as presenter, who along with Wordy, would demonstrate how a word could change it's tense and meaning with simple changes, additions of a single or two letters. The second serial for 1976-77 was The King's Demons, again scripted by Richard Carpenter, this time the educational part was set in the editor's office of the newspaper featured in the serial and was hosted by the newspaper editor, played by Kenneth Watson, with Wordy appearing, coming out of the typewriter, while the editor was out of his office, then going back in before he could be seen. The most remembered serial was The Boy from Space, originally made in 1969, it's original broadcast was in black and white, although the serial was shot on colour film. The original 1969 series, which had it's own educational section, pre-Wordy, was unfortunately wiped during the film and tape purge of the 1970s. The serial was reused, in colour, with new educational sections recorded featuring Wordy on a space station. Other serials included Sky Hunter, Sky Hunter II and Geordie Racer.

Hello,

I lived in England for 9 years and we would watch this series from 3rd to 6th years. It was bloody brilliant, and is even better now. Wonderful to watch as both a stupid child and a semi-rational adult, this series will make you question if ¨The Room¨ is truly the best-worst thing to been invented. The horrible child acting, or come to think of it all the acting, was piled on top of terrible writing. However, it appears two wrongs can make a right-- as is evident by the existence of this show.

To summarize, this is like an Ace card-- it is both the highest and lowest card at the same time. Watch with friends, the more intelligent the better. But remember, learn something along the way. Or don't Its just funny

Praise be to Erik, Big Money Salvia, and IHE (who I hope would review these series). If ralphthemoviemaker or YMS covered this it would be great too.

If someone could get this to them, please do.