I have in my rose-tinted memory of television past, not only the circus and a star-studded pantomime on Christmas Day afternoon, but also a BBC special on Bank Holiday Monday called Disney Time. Presented by a different star of the day every episode, it was a compilation of cartoons and film clips. Because of broadcast rights the BBC couldn’t play everything they wanted to due to ITV having it on their roster, but children of the 1980s didn’t really worry about such matters. I remember Tony Robinson once explaining on Stay Tooned why he couldn’t show certain viewer requests because the BBC weren’t allowed to, and I seem to recall a difference in the repertoire when the BBC programmes Cartoon Time turned into ITV’s Rolf’s Cartoon Club. The less said about that the better I suppose at the moment, although we can’t undo the fact that we watched it.

Disney Time today would have been a far different animal to the show my generation all looked forward to. There would perhaps be too much emphasis on the likes of High School Musical and the like, although on the other hand they do own the rights to The Muppets now so it wouldn’t be all bad.

When thinking about the quality of guest presenter, the standards wouldn’t be as high in these times of dumbed down TV. It would be a pity to bring back an institution like Disney Time but allow the likes of Paddy McGuinness to present it.

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