Finders Keepers [23/03/93]

Finders Keepers [23/03/93]

Raid the room!

Inviting children to turn rooms upside down looking for hidden objects, Finders Keepers is a noisy, action-packed game show for children. Beginning with an impressive near life-size house set, each room’s temptingly neat presentation is short-lived as two teams of two players called the Green Meanies and the Yellow Terrors compete to make a mess and win prizes.

Competitors go through a round of silly general knowledge questions to win the chance to ‘raid’ a room in the house, getting points for objects found. A blue on-screen arrow indicates to viewers where items are hidden. Joyously chaotic scenes follow with competitors relishing the chance to ransack the pristine set. Adding to the mix is confetti, streamers, smoke, sirens and moving furniture. Competitors are egged on with lots of shouting and cheering from the lively school-age studio audience. The final ‘super search’ round gives competitors three minutes to find objects in every room to win a trip to a French theme park.

Energetic 90s kid’s TV favourite Neil Buchanan hosts, following the teams’ every move and shouting clues over the chaos to help the contestants find the objects. He zips up and down the set, narrowly avoiding tripping over upended furniture and getting tangled up in streamers.

The show ends with smiles to the camera and a reminder to viewers to keep their bedrooms tidy. A perhaps flimsy gesture warning against any potential recreations in viewers’ homes.

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From the collection

Kid's TV

Our relationship with the small screen starts early in life, opening our square eyes to a heady mix of drama and comedy; fantasy and fact.

Dedicated children’s programming has been part of the television mix from its earliest years, growing from short intervals “For The Children” after WWII, to a plethora of standalone channels today. The start of the BBC’s long-running “Watch With Mother” series in 1953 set much of the template for pre-school television, blending puppets, song and animation, with the implicit expectation that mum - assumed to be a housewife - would supervise. Catering for older children, meanwhile, sought to balance the kinds of programmes children want to watch with those their parents want them to see. Eventually a fuller menu of drama, comedy, factual and magazine programmes for children - in other words, versions of 'grown-up' programmes for 'small people' - came to fill the schedules of weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Sadly, the segregation of children’s television to its own satellite, cable and digital channels has made its much less likely for adults to experience the frequent delights of kids’ TV. But our collection welcomes all ages! (Though please note that some programmes maybe flagged as unsuitable for young children.)

47 videos in this collection

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The Story of the Caveman

  • 1971
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Diane's Panda Party [28/09/72]

  • 1972
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Animal Kwackers [09/10/75]

  • 1975
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Witches' Brew [28/12/72]

  • 1972
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Origami [09/04/70]

  • 1970
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Mr. Trimble [21/02/73]

  • 1973
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Gathercole Bunch

  • 1973
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The Distant Voice

  • 1973
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The Challenge

  • 1973
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Play It Again, Stewpot [25/07/74]

  • 1974
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Play It Again, Stewpot [05/09/74]

  • 1974
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A Handful of Songs [27/05/77]

  • 1977
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Saturday Scene Road Show [11/05/75]

  • 1975
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Big and Bigger

  • 1975
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Mickey the Demon Barber

  • 1981
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Kevin Goes to the Library

  • 1978
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Ragdolly Anna and the Bacon

  • 1982
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Britain in the Year 2000

  • 1977
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Delilah

  • 1981
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Zzzap! [19/02/93]

  • 1993
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Granny's Kitchen [26/05/77]

  • 1977
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Heavens Above [23/02/81]

  • 1981
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Moving In

  • 1976
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Nature Trail [16/05/83]

  • 1983
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Our Show [29/10/77]

  • 1977
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Peter Ustinov Tells Stories from Hans Andersen

  • 1976
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Quest of Eagles Episode 1 Sailor

  • 1979
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Sunny Side Up [28/04/82]

  • 1982
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The Children's Royal Variety Performance

  • 1981
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There's Nobody There

  • 1976
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Think Tank [18/08/81]

  • 1981
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Two Good Turns

  • 1978
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William Clears the Slums

  • 1977
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Gus Hunnybun

  • Plymouth
  • 1988
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One Day in the Life of Television

  • Plymouth
  • 1988
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Gus Honeybun Animation

  • Plymouth
  • 1991
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Gus Honeybun around Plymouth

  • Plymouth
  • 1980
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Modern Music

  • Leeds
  • 1976
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Calendar Kids

  • Leeds
  • 1977
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Sus

  • Belfast
  • 1993
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Tots TV [19/03/93]

  • 1993
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The Raggy Dolls [10/11/92]

  • 1992
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Skoosh Summer Special [14/07/98]

  • 1998
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Zig Zag (Prog 11)

  • 1975
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Stookie [15/09/85]

  • 1985
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Brushes

  • 1978
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Finders Keepers [23/03/93]

  • 1993
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