TV Cream

100 Greatest TV Moments

78) “Jaunt me in, Tim, jaunt me in!”

Kenny jumps off a bridge in The Tomorrow People, 30th April 1973

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The Tomorrow People was, of course, one of the handful of shows that originally inspired the webpage that eventually became TV Cream, so it’s only right that it should find its way into the rundown. Kenny was originally essayed as the star of the show – streetwise, wisecracking and with full inclusivity credentials at a time when you didn’t really get diversity in children’s TV – but this was a plan that was doomed to fail the second that the production team opted for the wayward acting genius of Stephen Salmon. Kenny’s introductory scene saw him perched atop Tower Bridge, to the perplexed ire of a comedy copper who barks at him to come down at once. “Annyfink you say, officah!” announces the thespianically-challenged youngster, before taking a platform soled-jump off the top of the bridge and disappearing into a blur of ‘jau nt’-depicting CSO, to overplayed Old Bill hat-removing disbelievement. Within episodes, Kenny had been strapped to a chair and fitted with a ‘limiter’ headband to prevent him speaking, and rounded out the series by being telekinetically dunked in a duck pond. By series two he was gone. This all too brief glimpse of his approach to his art is something we should treasure.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. THX 1139

    August 2, 2013 at 1:34 pm

    Was this stunt broadcast before or after the legendary Psychomania hit the nation’s cinemas? Because there’s a joke in that where a copper demands a youth get down from a high position (a block of flats) and he says “OK, officer!” and jumps off. Doesn’t jaunt though, he is resurrected from the dead with the rest of his incongruously hippy Hell’s Angels chums. It would be nice to think the movie had been influential. A bit.

  2. Richardpd

    January 8, 2022 at 5:26 pm

    The main problem with Stephen Salmon’s acting ability was that he was discovered doing some amateur dramatics & hadn’t acted on TV before being cast. Often he was left behind at the base to keep his screen time to a minimum.

    It seems his time on the tomorrow People was enough to put him of acting again, & became an electrical engineer or something like that. Fans & documentary makers have found him hard to track down.

  3. Glenn Aylett

    January 8, 2022 at 8:31 pm

    The Tomorrow People also featured a young black woman in some early episodes and later ones had a Japanese character. Quite advanced for its time, but Star Trek had a multi racial cast six years earlier.

  4. Richardpd

    January 8, 2022 at 9:59 pm

    Elizabeth Adare played Elizabeth M’Bondo from the second series to the end of the original, though in one of the late series she didn’t appear so often as she was on maternity leave at the time.

    Hsui Tai was played by Misako Koba, who struggled as her English & acting skills were limited.

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