Take Hart
Encyclopedia
Take Hart is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 children's television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 show about art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

, fronted by the late Tony Hart
Tony Hart
Norman Antony "Tony" Hart was an English artist and children's television presenter. He was famous for television shows such as Vision On, Playbox, Take Hart and Hartbeat.-Early life:...

. It took over from Vision On
Vision On
Vision On was a British children's television programme, shown on BBC1 from 1964 to 1976 and designed specifically for deaf children. It was conceived and developed by BBC producers Ursula Eason and Patrick Dowling to replace a monthly series For the Deaf, a programme paced slowly enough for...

, and ran from 1977 until 1983. The show featured Hart and the animated Plasticine
Plasticine
Plasticine, a brand of modelling clay, is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. The name is a registered trademark of Flair Leisure Products plc...

 character Morph
Morph (character)
Morph is an animated Plasticine stop-motion character that appeared with the late Tony Hart, beginning in 1977, on several of his UK TV programmes, notably Take Hart and Hartbeat.-Details:...

, and other characters created by David Sproxton like 'Smoulder the Moulder', which was a lump of mould which would create props by 'spraying' them out of a spray can. The only other human to appear on a regular basis was Mr Bennett, the caretaker, played by Colin Bennett
Colin Bennett (UK TV)
Colin Bennett is a RADA trained actor, perhaps most famous for his role as Mr Bennett, the accident prone caretaker and straightman for Tony Hart in the BBC children's programmes Take Hart and Hartbeat...

. The programme won a BAFTA award for Hart in 1984.

As well as demonstrating small-scale projects (the type that viewers might be able to do), Hart also created large-scale artworks on the TV studio floor, and even used beaches and other open spaces as 'canvases' (to be viewed from a camera-crane). This idea was later adopted by Art Attack
Art Attack
Art Attack is a British children's television series revolving around art. The original series was one of ITV's longest running programmes, running from 1990 to 2007, and was presented throughout by Neil Buchanan. The brand new series launched on Disney Junior on June 6 2011 and is presented by...

.

A regular feature of the show was 'The Gallery', which displayed artworks sent in by young viewers. The easy-listening vibraphone music accompanying this feature - "Left Bank Two
Left Bank Two
"Left Bank Two" is a piece of library music composed by Wayne Hill in 1963 and performed by the Noveltones, a group of session musicians from Holland...

", composed by Wayne Hill - has passed into British TV musical lore. In later series, "Left Bank Two" alternated with John Williams
John Williams (guitarist)
John Christopher Williams is an Australian classical guitarist, and a long-term resident of the United Kingdom. In 1973, he shared a Grammy Award win in the 'Best Chamber Music Performance' category with Julian Bream for Julian and John .-Biography:John Williams was born on 24 April 1941 in...

' recording of "Cavatina
Cavatina (song)
"Cavatina" is a classical guitar piece by Stanley Myers and the theme from The Deer Hunter.The piece had been recorded by classical guitarist John Williams, long before the film that made it famous. It had originally been written for piano but at Williams' invitation, Myers re-wrote it for guitar...

", which is also well-remembered by many viewers.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7837849.stm

By the end of the eighth series in December 1983, Hart felt that the format of the show, which essentially continued with much of the format of its predecessor Vision On, had become somewhat outdated and routine. Despite the award of a BAFTA in early 1984, viewing figures for Take Hart by 1983 had gradually fallen since the series' heyday in the late 1970s. In an attempt to update the image of the series, Take Hart was dropped in December 1983, and replaced by the relatively more popular series Hartbeat
Hartbeat
Hartbeat was a Children's BBC television arts programme presented by the late Tony Hart. It was broadcast between 1984 and 1993. The series was a follow on from Take Hart and taught children how to design art features and use everyday items to make objects.-History:Like its predecessor Take Hart,...

.

Some 2 inch Quadruplex videotape
2 inch Quadruplex videotape
2-inch quadruplex videotape was the first practical and commercially successful analog recording videotape format. It was developed and released for the broadcast television industry in 1956 by Ampex, an American company based in Redwood City, California...

 master copies of Take Hart episodes were irretrievably junked
Wiping
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...

 by Adam Lee of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 archives in 1993 on the assumption that they were 'no use' and that examples of some other episodes were sufficient. A few months later, access to the material was requested by the head of Children's BBC's light entertainment department for a documentary on Tony Hart http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/childrens/watchwithmother/part11.htm.

Series guide

  • Series 1: 13 editions first shown 15 February 1977 - 17 May 1977
  • Series 2: 6 editions first shown 14 March 1978 - 18 April 1978
  • Series 3: 13 editions first shown 3 January 1979 - 28 March 1979
  • Series 4: 13 editions first shown 2 January 1980 - 26 March 1980
  • Series 5: 15 editions first shown 14 January 1981 - 22 April 1981
  • Special: Take Hart on Holiday By the Sea, first shown 12 June 1981
  • Series 6: 15 editions first shown 6 January 1982 - 14 April 1982
  • Series 7 15 editions first shown 5 January 1983 - 13 April 1983
  • Series 8: 10 editions first shown 28 October 1983 - 30 December 1983
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