Michael Cole

The stories & adventures of Fingermouse, Scampi, Gulliver, Flash and a whole host of other puppet creatures. Each episode told a story centred around a paper finger puppet animal and typically involved collecting various items to make up another object at the end.

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Fingermouse is a British children's television programme made by the BBC in 1985. It is a spin-off of the earlier series Fingerbobs. The first episode was broadcast on 4 November 1985 on BBC1. The eponymous star was a paper finger puppet in the form of a mouse, who would play various musical instruments with the help of Iain Lauchlan, called the Music Man. Fingermouse also went adventuring outside, interacting with other paper puppets. Each episode lasted fifteen minutes, and one series was made.

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Chock-A-Block was a BBC children's television programme, first shown in 1981 and repeated through to 1989 and shown as part of the children's programme cycle See-Saw. "Chock-A-Block" was an extremely large yellow computer, modelled to resemble a mainframe of the time; it filled the entire studio and provided the entire backdrop for the show. The presenter of the show supposedly played the part of a technician maintaining the computer; there were two presenters, Fred Harris and Carol Leader, but only one appeared in each episode. At the start of the show, the presenter would drive around the studio towards the machine in a small yellow electric car, before saying the catchphrase "Chock-A-Bloke, checking in!". The presenter would then use the machine to find out about a particular topic. The name "chock-a-block" was supposedly derived from the machine's ability to read data from "blocks" - which were just that, physical blocks painted different colours. A typical show would include dialogue from the presenter, a brief clip played on Chock-a-block's video screen, and the presenter recording a song on Chock-a-block's audio recorder.

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