Sound & Vision: July 1985

Tucker’s Back

A new series of Tucker’s Luck is back on BBC TV in the autumn. A novel by Jan Needle based on the Phil Redmond scripts will be published in September by Magnet. Tucker in Control shows Tucker facing up to family responsibilities when Dad runs out on Mum, coping with bureaucracy as he tries to get a place at college and keep his job on the black economy. Maturity is changing Tucker but he hasn’t lost his gift of the gab or his eye for the girls.

Rainbow Spin-offs

Thames Magnet have a new Science is Fun series for Infants written by Charles Warren, producer of the popular Thames TV series, Rainbow. George, Zippy and Bungle explore basic scientific concepts in everyday surroundings. Full colour.

Titles so far:

Bouncing 0 423 01230 4
Floating 0 423 01240 1
Shadows 0 423 01250 9 £1.50 each.

Weston Woods Videos

Weston Woods films (animated, iconographic and live action) of children’s books are now available on video cassette (VHS and Betamax), and the first titles include several of those recently shown on the Thames TV programme Flicks.

Most sell at £20 (plus VAT) regardless of length – six minutes of Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day or fourteen minutes of Teeny Tiny and the Witch Woman. Best value of all is 26 minutes of Briggs’ The Snowman for £25 (plus VAT) now released for ‘educational use’ to schools, libraries and colleges. Eight titles are currently available, with eight more coming this autumn including Changes, Changes, The Three Robbers and Sendak’s Really Rosie (£25 for 26 minutes).

For catalogue and details of sale or rental: Weston Woods, 14 Friday Street, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AH, or telephone (0491) 577033.

Adrian Mole on TV

The Mole bandwagon rolls on. Stage musical, records – now you can look forward to the spotty youth in a TV series for Thames. He’s also breaking into computer software in an ‘interactive fiction programme’ in which the player is Adrian writing his diary and trying to become popular. Mosaic Publishing which specialises in book-related software has already had a lot of success with an Erik the Viking game based on the Jones/Foreman saga and expects Mole to do as well if not better.