This is my response to this week’s Flashback Track Friday prompt, where we were asked:
what theme song do you remember fondly?
I don’t have any strong memories. It’s got to be a kids programme, because I watch such little tv now.
And it’s got to be from my childhood, because everything from my daughter’s childhood (2000s) just grated. In fact I remember one of NNP’s tracks – try listening to that over again, trapped in a car with a toddler!
How about this? Looking at the date mentioned in the clip – 1974 – that would put me about six. Add maybe a year for this to cross the Atlantic? Maybe seven, eight? I guess so.
It’s kinda scary that I used to rail at my daughter for watching cartoon crap on tv rather than real people, at least, yet that’s what *I* was fed on.
Mister Bump 
And I thought I was crotchety.
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You are š
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That, good man, got an out-loud chuckle. Nice chatting widja. Catch you later. Take care of that “Bumper” guy.
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Meh. Just couldn’t think of any soundtracks, s’all. Something like Doctor Who? Really distinctive theme from my youth.
Still can’t, much. But it’s all kids cartoon stuff. Remember The Hair Bear Bunch? Animated three stooges.
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Recall neither Hair Bear or cartoon Stooges. Road Runner, Bugs Bunny more my speed.
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They used to show cartoons just as fillers between programmes. Dad loved them and got me into them. Bugs, Tom’n’Jerry etc. I’m surprised there was so much animated stuff.
Top Cat was another. Thinly disguised animated Sergeant Bilko. It’s kinda scary how unimaginitive this animated stuff was, just cartoon copies of real things, but then as a kid I never knew.
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Tons of adult humor. Some of it timeless. Sexist, vulgar, violent, but hey! We survived. Didn’t we? Hmm, unh, didn’t we?
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Some of the sexist/racist programmes I must admit I can’t watch because it just offends too much (I remember one 70s show where the token black guy was the butt of all the jokes and regularly called a nig-nog). But mostly I can look at it and shrug. Different era. If anything it gives a poointer to what was considered funny back then.
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I so remember this, it was so awful š
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It made me think though, all the ones I remember were from around that age.
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Grape Ape and Beagly Beagly?
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Nope never saw either. Got this, Top Cat, Hair Bear Bunch. Scrooby Doo of course. A few British ones too. But all from that age. Doctor Who, I guess, a little bit older.
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Iāve never heard of this š¤
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It was American in the first instance, but would you have been in DE back then? I bet they had better tv. Europeans place more emphasis on arts and culture than Britain or America.
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We lived in Germany until 1979 then moved to Washington DC until 1983
Not sure š¤
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The date on that clip is ’74.
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Ahh ok š
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I was once trapped in a car with my daughter-in-law, and my year-old granddaughter whose mother was trying to make Emma (the baby) bi-lingual by osmosis … various CDs in foreign languages, French, Spanish, Korean, playing for hours on end as we crept along at rush hour on the San Diego freeway.
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Similar experience. My daughter will fondly(?) tell you about the year we stayed at Nelly’s Gite. Rignt down on the Basssin de Thau, on the south coast of France. We drove down from the Channel. It was hard going.
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They can certainly make a journey memorable!
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Really like it. Itās catchy. But Iāve never seen it beforeā¦. Didnāt Hanna Barbara make Flintstones too? If I recall correctly, they also made that cartoon which I loved
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Oh gawd, now you’re asking. Tell me, where did you get programmes from in SA? Were you still mostly US?
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Yes English ones were mostly from the US in the 80s. Some of the favourites are programmes that were dubbed to Afrikaans – those were from all overā¦ Japan (Heidi of the Alps) and Sweden (Nils Holgerson)
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I remember seeing a version of Heidi as a child. That too was dubbed. Germnan I guess. Definitely looked filmed in the Alps.
Is there much Afrikaans in SA now? I remember debating with a guy once – something as innocuous as a language shouldn’t have connotations but Africaans does for me. Must be a whole lot worse down there.
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Pete I am always so impressed and honoured, that you know so much about South Africa. ššš
Yes Afrikaans is still quite prominent especially in the Western Cape region where I stay. Itās rather curious because I know that many South Africans have referred to it as the language of the oppressors yet in the Western Cape, itās actually the home language of the majority of the local coloured people.
Now the whole development of ācoloured peopleā in South Africa is another weird product of segregation and South African history but the reality is thatās there a whole ātribeā as such of coloured people – descendants of former slaves imported from the Far East and Europeans/British and local black people. Coloureds are a minority group in SA but the majority group in the Western Cape.
My partner is not South African, and as we got to know each other I had to try to explain the construction of ācoloured peopleā to him. The best term that I thought could most accurately describes us is a tribe. There are certain norms and traditions, food, language etc so this region of the country has its own distinct culture. I would suggest itās quite different to the rest of the country? Afrikaans is a local language here.
But true indeed – Afrikaans is however no longer so prominent up in the north (because as you aptly pointed out – it is perceived as innocuous) so officially and unofficially, other local languages are being favoured over Afrikaans.
Interestingly, only about 8% of South Africans speak English as a first language -scattered all over the country. 12% speak Afrikaans (mostly in Western Cape), 25% speak Zulu (mostly on North Eastern region) and 16% speak isiXhosa (mostly in the Eastern Cape but also Western Cape).
We are quite a diverse country. Lots of homogeneous pods in an extremely heterogeneous population!
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yeah I know there are several languages there. Didn’t I read once that Nkosi Sikelela is in about 7?
Interesting to see your use of the word “coloured”. I guess it’s common parlance there? It’s pretty much verboten here, at the very least it is unwise, smacks of The Empire. Among my Jamaican friends, the only acceptable description is “black” (i.e. tell it like it is), although in the UK as a whole you can imagine there has been immigration from all over esp India/Pak/Bang. Official stuff tends to use the acronym BAME (Black, Asian, Middle Eastern). There’s probably fewer Middle Eastern people here right now but I used to have a Lebanese buddy in London.
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Lol. So interesting Pete. BAMEā¦. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand I think itās very clever but on the other hand it promotes a binary way of looking at race? And should it be binary? (Thatās completely rhetoricalā¦. Donāt believe thereās an answer to that).
Generally, I prefer avoid using labels because labels are tied to our egos and egos can become pretty nasty things. People have the tendency to identify with something and then everything else that is not that label is then foreign ā¦.God forbid even wrong. š¤¦š¾āāļø
But be that as it may, that exactly is a curious thing in South Africa because of apartheid. āThe labeling of people according to race or rather ethnicityā
Humbly, I donāt think race and ethnicity is the same thing. People can be the same race but from different ethnic backgrounds. And it that the same race then? In other countries yes, but in SA I donāt think it is?
And in South Africa there are so many differences between ethnic groups. I like to use the word ātribeā to refer to different ethnic groups. The old South African government used racial labels to refer to ethnic groups. And that has stuck. It is impossible to go back to a binary system of just black or white because a racial group is not a good description of who you are, or what you identify as in South Africa. I guess then one could ask is identifying with a group really so important?
As an example, the Black South African culture is so completely different to the Coloured South African culture. The language, the staple food, the customs and norms. Just like a black person will not identify as Asian (which I think is accepted as a race in most parts of the globe?), in any place across the world, a coloured person in SA doesnāt identify as Black or Asian or White.
Truthfully, my race or ethnic group is not as important to me as what being a good person is, but in South Africa certainly, I am coloured. I would feel misrepresented if one refers to me as Black because in South Africa that refers to a completely different ethnic group.
I think itās frightfully interesting but a complicated topicā¦..hmmmmm
Well the most important thing is I hope you know that really maybe one day, somehow there is an opportunity and I would be delighted to host you and your family and share some of our SA culture with you first hand!
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Yes, fascinating.
I’d say that here, the biggest differentiating factor is wealth rather than race or ethnicity.
Do you know SA was never a place I even thought about visiting, even when I travelled the world. I have no idea why. Distance I guess. But never say never. I haven’t stepped on a plane for ten years š
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