Merry-Go-Round

📺BBC Schools TV

companyBBC

started15th Jan 1963

ended20th Jun 1983

last rpt22nd Jun 1983

21 school years

episodes373

duration20 mins

subject 🏫MiscellanyTopics & Miscellany

age rangeAge 7-9

languageenIn English

116 images from Merry-Go-Round

Merry-Go-Round is a BBC schools TV series from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, covering various topics for primary school pupils.

BBC schools television's general series for junior school children covered a wide range of topics including history, natural history, science, geography and books.

Most episodes were factual magazine programmes with a studio-based presenter or narrator, but dramatisation was used frequently to bring stories to life, including historical stories and with some memorable serialised dramas.

• 
  Living in the Past (1964) with Brian Cant, who later presented a unit
• 
  Castors Away! (1967)
• 
  The Broken Sword (1968)
• 
  Tom's Midnight Garden (1968)
• 
  The Viaduct (1972)
• 
  The Raven and the Cross (1971, remade 1974)
• 
  The Sleepers on the Hill (1975)

Merry-Go-Round was home to several innovations in schools broadcasting, including the BBC's controversial first sex education TV programmes for primary schools and the experiments in reading support which would evolve into the long-running series Look and Read. It repurposed nature films from the BBC's general output and edited them down for a schools audience.

• 
  Reading practice in Fishing for Fivers
• 
  Early sex education

Split episodes

In the early days it was common for episodes of Merry-Go-Round to cover two entirely separate topics in one programme: Greek myths then farming, or nature then folk tales. This was unusual for a period without video recording, where it would take considerable effort for teachers to organise their class to watch the school's television set, and it was discontinued after 1966.

Then a decade later it was tried again, as Merry-Go-Round episodes were split between a 5-minute sketch programme highlighting maths (Keep Up with the Times) or English (It's All Right) followed by a regular magazine-style programme in the last 15 minutes.

In the 1960s the split programmes were a single presentation, with different presenters in the same studio handing over to each other and saying a combined goodbye at the end, but in the 1970s the splits were two distinct episodes with their own introduction and end credits, and the individual segments sometimes repeated apart from each other - for this reason the episode lists on this site consider the 1960s split programmes to be single episodes of Merry-Go-Round, but consider each segment of the 1970s split programmes to be distinct episodes.

• 
  Keep Up with the Times
• 
  It's All Right with Tim Brooke-Taylor

Zig Zag

After two decades on the air Merry-Go-Round was re-branded in the early 1980s as Zig Zag, under which name it would continue into the 21st Century. Some time Merry-Go-Round presenter Sheelagh Gilbey carried over onto Zig Zag, and several Merry-Go-Round productions were re-edited for repeats as part of the new series including Zig Zag/The Odyssey, Zig Zag/Getting About and the drama serial The Raven and the Cross.

Titles & Theme Music

1964

In the early years of the series in the 1960s, the opening titles consisted of energetic footage of children riding the wooden horses of a real-life merry-go-round ride, accompanied by classical music from the Les Biches suite by Francis Poulenc.

Listen a clip on YouTube.

For a decade from the mid-60s to the mid-70s Merry-Go-Round had no opening titles and no theme tune, the programme title would simply be shown at the start of each episode. Often very simply in white text on a black background, but variations were used for different units with distinct visual themes.

• 
  1965 King Arthur
• 
  1967
• 
  1968
• 
  1975

Then in 1975 an original Merry-Go-Round theme tune was commissioned from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and composed by Peter Howell. This was used for the rest of the series' run at the start, and sometimes also the end, of episodes, and accompanied by different visual sequences - often just the series title in white writing but sometimes short animated sequences.

Listen a clip on YouTube.

• 
  1976
• 
  1976
• 
  1976
• 
  1977
• 
  1978
• 
  1979
• 
  1980
• 
  1983
• 
  1983

BBC Motion Graphics Archive From Keep Up with the Times (1976) - one of the first uses of the new theme.

Episode List

A full, sortable list of all 373 episodes will be available on a separate page.

Broadcasts

• 
• 

Year	Term	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Channel	Details
1962-63	Spring 1963		Tuesday, 11:35am		Thursday, 9:40am		BBC TV
1963-64	Spring 1964		Tuesday, 11:35am		Thursday, 9:40am		BBC1
1964-65	Autumn 1964, Spring & Summer 1965		Tuesday, 11:35am		Thursday, 9:38am		BBC1
1965-66	Autumn 1965, Spring & Summer 1966				Thursday, 9:35am	Friday, 2:05pm	BBC1
1966-67	Autumn 1966, Spring & Summer 1967	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:35am		BBC1
1967-68	Autumn 1967, Spring & Summer 1968	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:38am		BBC1
1968-69	Autumn 1968, Spring & Summer 1969	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:38am		BBC1
1969-70	Autumn 1969, Spring & Summer 1970	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:38am		BBC1
1970-71	Autumn 1970, Spring & Summer 1971	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:38am		BBC1
1971-72	Autumn 1971, Spring & Summer 1972	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:38am		BBC1
1972-73	Autumn 1972, Spring & Summer 1973	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 11:00am		BBC1
1973-74	Autumn 1973, Spring & Summer 1974	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 11:00am		BBC1
1974-75	Autumn 1974, Spring & Summer 1975	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:41am		BBC1
1975-76	Autumn 1975, Spring & Summer 1976	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:41am		BBC1
1976-77	Autumn 1976, Spring & Summer 1977	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:41am		BBC1
1977-78	Autumn 1977, Spring & Summer 1978	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:41am		BBC1
1978-79	Autumn 1978, Spring & Summer 1979	Monday, 10:00am			Thursday, 9:41am		BBC1
1979-80	Autumn 1979, Spring & Summer 1980	Monday, 11:00am			Thursday, 10:10am		BBC1
1980-81	Autumn 1980, Spring & Summer 1981	Monday, 11:00am			Thursday, 10:10am		BBC1
1981-82	Autumn 1981, Spring & Summer 1982	Monday, 11:00am		Wednesday, 2:40pm			BBC1
1982-83	Autumn 1982, Spring & Summer 1983	Monday, 11:00am		Wednesday, 2:40pm			BBC1

Credits

Regular presenters include

Tim Gudgin (1963-65) Tom Gibbs (1964-68) Kenneth Jameson (1965-68) Joan Bakewell (1966-67) John Hines (1967-68) Gabriel Woolf (1968-73) Richard Carpenter (1969-76) Michael Burrell (1971-74) Max Mason (1975-79) Cleo Sylvestre (1975-79) Wendy Padbury (1976-79) Pam Rhodes (1978-79) Jane Collins (1979-83) Sheelagh Gilbey (1980-83) Tom Karol (1980-83) Tony Aitken (1981-83) Shireen Shah (1981-82)

(Series) producers include

Michael Gill (1963-65) Claire Chovil (1964-76) Dorothea Brooking (1965-74, mostly dramatised episodes) Moragh Gee (1965-67) David Roseveare (1966-67) Sue Weeks (1967-74) John Chapple (1969-73) Moyra Gambleton (1969-70) Rosanna Hibbert (1972-82) Mike Harrison (1975-79) Bruce Jamson (1975-77) Elizabeth Bennett (1975-76) Edward Hayward (1978-83) Roger Fry (1980-81) Diane Morgan (1980-81) David Meldrum (1981-83)

• 
  Tom Gibbs
• 
  Richard Carpenter
• 
  Michael Burrell
• 
  Wendy Padbury
• 
  Cleo Sylvestre & Max Mason
• 
  Pam Rhodes & Max Mason
• 
  Jane Collins
• 
  Sheelagh Gilbey
• 
  Philip Rowlands & Shireen Shah

Resources

Teacher's Notes

Published every term, including as part of a combined TV Notes booklet with Look and Read and Music Time in the mid-70s.

• 
  1965
• 
  1966
• 
  1968
• 
  1969
• 
  1970
• 
  1971
• 
  1973
• 
  1974
• 
  1975
• 
  1977
• 
  1978
• 
  1979
• 
  1980
• 
  1980

Links

• Merry-Go-Round on the Internet Movie Database
• British Film Institute Collections for Merry-Go-Round

Merry-Go-Round (1963-1983)

Series Overview • Episode List

Dramas: Castors Away! (1967) • Fishing for Fivers (1965) • The Broken Sword (1968) • The Crocodile (1973) • The Raven and the Cross (1971) • The Raven and the Cross (1974) • The Sleepers on the Hill (1975) • The Viaduct (1972) • Tom, Pat and Friday (1966) • Tom's Midnight Garden (1968) • When Uncle Klaas Fell Over (1969)

Other noteworthy units: It's All Right (1977) • Keep Up with the Times (1976) • Sex Education (1970) • Sex Education (1976) • The Story of King Arthur (1965) • The Odyssey (1976) • Topical Programmes (1976-83)

Guide by year:

1960s: 1962-63 • 1963-64 • 1964-65 • 1965-66 • 1966-67 • 1967-68 • 1968-69 • 1969-70
1970s: 1970-71 • 1971-72 • 1972-73 • 1973-74 • 1974-75 • 1975-76 • 1976-77 • 1977-78 • 1978-79 • 1979-80
1980s: 1980-81 • 1981-82 • 1982-83

See Also: Look and Read • Zig Zag

Topics

School topics covered in this programme. Click to find other programmes covering the same topics, but bear in mind topics are a new addition to the site in 2023 and not many are set up yet.

Miscelleny

Topics

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Some features of this programme. Click to find other programmes with the same features, but bear in mind tags are also a new addition to the site in 2023 and not many are set up yet.

Documentary

Dramatised

Magazine programme

Presenter

Umbrella series

Miscellany series

Classical music theme tune

Radiophonic music theme tune

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