Kick Start
Contents |
Host
Dave Lee Travis (original host)
Co-host
John Lambkin (commentary - he had also been a winner in at least one of the adult series)
Jack Stites (commentary)
Broadcast
White Rabbit Productions/BBC Midlands for BBC1
Kick Start, 6 August 1979 to 1 June 1988
Junior Kick Start 1980 to 17 August 1992
Synopsis
Young kids churning up the South Downs on motorbikes during the half-term holidays. It could only be Kick Start, the programme that must have been the precursor to other shows like You've Been Framed in using human suffering for entertainment.
Jimmy, aged 12, from Coventry would drive his mini Yamaha 50cc lurve cycle around an intricate obstacle course of slalom poles, see-saws, ramps, bunny hops and trouser-fillingly steep hills.
While everyone remembers Junior Kick Start, there was just Kick Start too - the main adult version. In fact, there were 13 series in all! Does the BBC own shares in Peter Purves or something?
Originally presented by Dave Lee Travis as a summer replacement while Nationwide was off our screens. It was also broadcast as a partial filler programme in 1984 when "Nationwide's" unsuccessful replacement, "Sixty Minutes", was axed.
Key moments
The oft-repeated clip of first an attendant, then the St. John Ambulance man falling down a slope into a pit to rescue a hurt competitor - namely Mark Schofield. Peter Purves's main comment was, "One shouldn't laugh - the poor lad took a nasty knock there - but this is like something out of the Keystone Cops!"
Theme tune
Its infinitely hummable showdy-de-dow theme tune was called Be My Boogie Woogie Baby by Mr. Walkie-Talkie, composed by Renate Vaplus.
