OBSCURE SHOW for boys presented by JEREMY CARRAD and JOHN EARLE with a roving reporter called Norman Tozer. The sinister Carrad (a sort of Nazi-looking Simon Cadell) was mad about Formula One and tried to make the programme a junior TOMORROW’S WORLD. He failed. Final episode showed Jeremy Carrad being blindfolded for a magic trick. Carrad was placed into a free standing cubicle with black curtains. Moments later the curtains were drawn back and lo and behold, no Carrad. The credits then rolled. Also present: Prof Eric Braithewaite; Tom Tom badges; and scary Serendipity Dog, with hinged jaw and flashing eyes, asking questions.
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Simon Stephens
February 21, 2013 at 4:39 pm
John Earle was also in a programme around the same time called ‘Away to Adventure’. The theme-tune was ‘A walk in the Black forest’ by Horst Jankowski. John Earle and a bunch of scouts went camping somewhere rural. Made by BBC Bristol.Who can forget the great series of Robinson Crusoe?! The wondeful music is easy to find on the web.
I remember, too ‘Captain Zeppos’, mainly for the theme-tune by Bert Kaempfert. It was Dutch or South-African, dubbed. I don’t know what channel it was on. BBC, probably….
They threw away all their 405-line, black & white stuff in a fit of pique when the government refused them leave to raise the licence-fee. They said they couldn’t afford to pay for archive buildings. I am less inclined to believe they re-used tapes for transmission material.
Nowadays, the BBC will go to any lengths to make you think that they have carefully preserved vintage televison programmes but it’s not true. They threw them away. Anything you see will have come from anyone/anywhere but them & has been discretly acquired with money and vague threats over issues of copyright.
A mountain of archive telly programmes was repatriated a couple of years ago, having been found in the American National Library of Congress. Mostly ‘Historical’ costume dramas. We haven’t seen any of it yet…. I could go on. I won’t….
Barrie McDonagh
February 22, 2014 at 9:53 pm
You mean Prof Eric Laithwaite, Fellow of Imperial College and the “Father of Maglev”. He was one of the judges in a children’s science series where schoolchildren developed scientific experiments of their own, but I can’t recall the name of it now!
Matt
March 11, 2014 at 9:21 pm
It was Young Scientist Of The Year with judges including Laithwaite, Sir George Porter and various graduates of the Royal Society Christmas Lectures. Presented IIRC by Paddy Feeney.
chris carrad
December 27, 2014 at 1:02 am
Glad to see such a wonderful description of my dad. Shame the person who wrote it is nameless. Probably one of those keyboard warriors coward types.
robert lewis
June 4, 2015 at 10:11 am
As a youngster I was very fond of the programme……………….. the drums (ie tom toms) were played by whom? I have a feeling the musician was Ginger Baker of Cream. Am I correct or has memory played tricks?
Zokko
July 14, 2015 at 4:29 pm
Norman Tozer, John Earle and Jeremy Carrad did not ‘fail’ with this programme. ‘Tom Tom’ ran for five years. A respectable run for a children’s programme. The theme tune was by John Baker of the B.B.C. Radiophonic Workshop.
Stuart Briwn
July 24, 2015 at 7:30 am
@Chris Carrad, I remember the programme with some affection, so your father made his mark in what I hope he would have seen as the right way!
jenny
December 22, 2015 at 12:21 pm
I was among a group of schoolchildren who appeared on a prog called treasure house in the 60s which was presented by earl and carrad and had serendipity dog on. we had to look things up in encyclopaedias and give the results of our research at the end. does anyone remember this?
Simon Parton
April 6, 2016 at 9:00 am
I’ve just had one of those strange moments that us over 50s get every do often.
The ones where certain memories from our childhood come flooding back to us, things that we haven’t thought about for many years.
One such memory was of the programme ‘Tom Tom’ and although I remember the programme being on, I don’t remember too much about it.
The theme tune was indeed some Tom Toms being played, but I’m sure for the last series it was a piece of melodic electronic music.
Mel Thomas
July 20, 2016 at 7:32 pm
John Earle and the scouts went to Dartmoor IIRC.
Tim
August 10, 2016 at 10:19 pm
I remember Tom Tom and I bet Jeremy Carrad was far better company than the berk at the top of this thread who calls him “scary”. There was nothing scary about Jeremy Carrad: He was like a friendly science teacher and was a good presenter. Similarly John Earle was great as the outdoor action man.
Peter Wilton
November 20, 2018 at 11:05 am
Jeremy Carrad did not “fail”. I’m no scientist, but as a child I always looked forward to Tom Tom, but more especially its predecessor Treasure House because I found Serendipity, the mechanical dog, fascinating and not in the least frightening.
Norman Nailor
October 18, 2020 at 2:51 pm
As a child aged 7 in 1968 the TomTom tv crew came to our house in Devizes to film the family building a Tom Tom canoe.
I would of loved to see the footage again. For our trouble myself and my brother received a book token each.