BUM da dum dum dum DUM da da DA bum bum... HEYYYYYYY
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"You kids aren't allowed out there! Come back right now!"
"No way, Mister - the open seas are nature's gift to everyone, and that includes CANOE SQUAD!"
Thus began each episode of one of the most famous "lost" children's programmes, rediscovered and championed by AMIGA POWER's resident master in his world of media, sinister ingenuity's Dave Green, in association with diligent AP readers Colin Sutcliffe and Dan O'Brien and (through them) Ron Dillow, who worked on the programme. The adventures of Australian paddle-people Jerry "Sub" Donovan, Brandon "Brick" Bradshaw, Harriet "Harry" Dingle and Lizzy Young (with their chums Chegsy and Doughnut, not forgetting the ever-testy Grumpy Old Man) thrilled their youthful audience through three eventful crook-packed seasons, despite production problems that included alcoholism, firings, heart attacks and a "copycat" drowning. |
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Harry |
Sub |
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| Even the unmatchably comprehensive AP baulked at the amount of information Dave had compiled on the programme. Expecting a poorly-photocopied TV Times schedule and a list of subsequent star sightings In The Style Of... Dave's favourite scary fanzine, the one about Janet Ellis that includes stopwatch timings of her every promotional appearance, we received instead a thrombosisly fat folder containing comments from the producers, an ultra-rare postcard set of the cast, newspaper stories on the show (including the scandal over the tragedy drowning), a poorly-photocopied TV Times schedule and a photo of Dave shaking hands with "Sub Donovan" (actor and musician Al Mitchard) in a market in Camden in 1986. |
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Brick |
Lizzy |
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Resultingly, AP60's pull-out supplement on the show resembled in spirit a Golden Age Review, straining to burst with overkill explanatory text (down to the nicked-from-an-ad truth about the theme tune and a still from the practically unseen British spin-off pilot, for heaven's sake) and interviews with the creators (though thankfully no photographs of large hairy writers). Ironically, especially as Dave was involved, it was the very thoroughness of the research that brought it into question. Hurt and upset by unpleasant reader comments that nothing that detailed could possibly be real, Dave never again wrote for AMIGA POWER. |
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Canoe Squad |
Dave meets Sub, 1986 |
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| Viewers of Adam and Joe's Fourmative Years, the funny 15th-anniversary examination of Channel 4's most horrible programmes, will probably have noticed that in one of the blipvert-style montages, there was a shot from Canoe Squad - specifically, the bit from the end of the kidnapped dog episode where they all laugh until the police arrive, except the dog's unnoticedly just looking into camera. The programme was never on Channel 4, and when AP2 asked Dave if his involvement with late-night TV extended to, say, suggesting a cracking clip for his showbiz chums, he chuckled and denied everything. Readers may draw their own conclusions. |
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