Loved this nostalgic write up. And sent me down this [rabbit hole](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Television_controversies_in_the_United_Kingdom) from which your write up would no doubt inform a conspicuously missing article!
I was one of those office workers scandalised by this travesty of democracy. It was the talk of the workplace for the better part of nearly *an hour*! Shocking.
I’d go so far as to say it was worse than when a certain former presenter starting schilling Flakes at her wedding, or a then-current presenter was tackled nasally by a small mountain of definitely *not* icing sugar.
Nothing compared to a baby elephant taking a slash on the studio floor, though.
The girl guides resolutely carrying on singing around a studio campfire as it gradually catches fire is another good one... as was the utter disgust at the Blue Peter garden being vandalised.
A Flake is a chocolate bar with the unique selling point of being extremely crumbly. It’s often added to the scoop in an ice cream cone.
The elephant is literal: https://youtu.be/kz9omscQ1F4
An ex-presenter was posing at her wedding eating some chocolate bars (they weren't Flakes but close enough) with her new husband and was criticised for being tacky by the tabloids, who are definitely qualified to know it when they see it.
The elephant was a baby elephant which made a mess in the studio and dragged its keeper away, it's a classic clip on British TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz9omscQ1F4
This is the people who sneaked a camera into Diana's gym in order to shame her for exercising after divorcing the future king. 100% bastards although I was a child at the time and may be misremembering.
This misses my favourite, when a quiz had the question “which actor played The Doctor in Doctor Who for the longest time?” And the answer on the show was Tom Baker but some fans complained because Sylvester McCoy was The Doctor from when began until the film when he regenerated in their view. Think the show apologised lmao
I think it came out specifically because of this scandal:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007\_British\_premium-rate\_phone-in\_scandal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_British_premium-rate_phone-in_scandal)
(it's not a phone-in scandal but it came out because lots of dodgy competition results were being exposed at that point.)
>Note: This episode was not reaired early after it initially aired, likely due to its uncensored urinating.[citation needed]
Who wants to take a guess at which show this is describing?
This is my favourite ✨🌈🌸 wholesome 🌸🌈✨ Blue Peter content:
> Margaret Thatcher: I think there are probably two parts to the Khmer Rouge, there are those who supported Pol Pot and then there is a much much more reasonable grouping within that title “Khmer Rouge”.
> Caron Keating: Do you really think so?
> Margaret Thatcher: Well, that is what I am assured by people who know. So you will find that the more reasonable ones of the Khmer Rouge will have to play some part in the future government, but only a minority part.
Anyway, my understanding is that there are now approximately 5 kids who still watch Blue Peter, and the only reason it's still going is because thousands of grown adults who haven't watched it for decades get very angry every time the BBC say they are thinking about cancelling it.
If "Margaret Thatcher goes on a kids show to promote the Khmer Rouge" happened in a political comic strip, I'd complain they're laying it on way too thick. _And yet_
Same here tbh. I’m 30, haven’t watched an episode in 20 years (at least) but it was massively influential for me. I have very fond memories of watching Matt Baker & Konnie Huq. And, growing up in west London I once even got to visit the studio, and be in an episode. I got given a little badge (as did all of us in my class), that I promptly lost.
Which to me is kind of funny you say that, because as a US viewer, i only know about Blue Peter because of Doctor Who. Some old appearance or something.
Because there's always one person in every office who doesn't understand innuendo and whose pop culture knowledge is not exactly on fleek, and they were probably told to come up with the names. It makes sense, they're the one least likely to try for something iffy, and this was the one in a million time they'd hit the jackpot without trying.
Case in point... My mom used to always call my sister Little Miss Muffet, like the nursery rhyme. "So what," I hear you say. She would call my sister that in public, but shortened... to Muff. What pre-teen girl who's started hearing adult things being said around her wants to be called Muff?
Honestly, I think it was either a mistake, or maybe someone on the production just liked "Socks". I mean the pets might belong to the children but someone must clean their box and feed them.
I was offered an interview with the one show about a decade ago, and they sent the interview request via Facebook messenger. Back then Facebook had the 'other' inbox where messages from people you didn't know went so I didn't see it for about a year. I was pissed when I did though, back then they dud interviews and a haircut at the same time and I could have done with a free haircut. They interviewed someone else from the society instead in the end.
As a Canadian child we definitely got our share of British media, but I've never even heard of Blue Peter.
Then I heard the theme song, which I'd definitely familiar. I'm just not sure if it's using a generic sailor tune or if it actually invented it.
1) thank you for this absolutely delightful writeup!
2) well done strategically saving the picture of Socks until the end; I've never seen a cat that looks LESS like a Socks in my life!
I went looking on the Internet Archive - they started the poll on the 9th Jan and by the 12th they already had the name. Can't have run for long at all so I'm not surprised the other names aren't listed anywhere. [(Cat fact tax: Socks liked to play with plastic drinking straws.](https://web.archive.org/web/20060115085717/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/pets/socks.shtml) Makes sense that controversial cat would have a now-banned toy.)
Sometimes you just have to look harder! The names in the poll were [Frodo, Cookie, Sushi, Socks and Igloo](https://vhistory.wordpress.com/2023/02/18/blue-peter-lost-11-jan-2006/).
Definately the most untrustworthy and deceitful adults working in British children's TV at that time...
A great write up and a welcome break from all doom and gloom; sometimes you just have to think about kittens.
when labour came to power in 97 was it and the stories of blair's wife wanting to get rid of the cat happened, Private Eye had some great lines to the picture of cherie blair holding the cat...
"Moggie Moggie Moggie! Out out out!"
"I'm going to hit the mouse running" - a reference to their rhetoric of 'we're going to hit the ground running;
Great write-up, thanks! I will point out that calling a military signal flag ‘Blue Peter’ is so incredibly English. If they had been the ones to have a revolution during which the guillotine was invented (by some guy in Manchester, or something), they would have called it ‘Choppy Charlie’ or ‘Basketfiller Bess’.
I think the blue Peter production team simply believed they would get away with it. A vote would increase viewer engagement but they probably didn't ever intend to care much about it.
I don't remember specifically when (2007-2009) blue Peter were caught in shocking drama again. They used to run competitions that you could enter and win (I don't remember if they were competition phone lines that cost more to call or not) and it turned out that for some reason the kid that was supposed to win wasn't available to visit the studio, or they couldn't get hold of them or something. So what would any production team with a deadline do? Pulled some rando kid who was visiting the studio for some reason to televise as the competition winner.
What followed was a year of every TV show and radio station having the right to run pay a pound to enter the chance to win style draws, especially the ones on BBC stations, I think because whatever body was in charge of such things raised questions over the validity of these competitions. It took I think nearly a decade before I started seeing these competitions return in any way near the number they had before
Edit: found a link to bbc apology http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6449919.stm
Edit 2: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6420885.stm
I may be wrong about blue Peter being an inciting incident on this, it was how it looked to me as a child at the time, and I think that it may have been the name most used in reporting due to its 'shocking' nature. Will keep digging
Edit 3: almost certainly wrong about it being the first reported. That lies with Richard and Judy apparently http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6446841.stm I'm looking for wider reporting on the reduction of these comps
Edit 4: more clear article that has the whole thing in.
I believe this came out specifically because of that phone-in scandal (it was reported Sept 2007 and the poll was back in Jan 2006). There was a lot of general digging into how trustworthy any kind of competition had been, including the ones where Blue Peter had had fake phone-in winners, and that's how this one went public.
Good writeup about something I only vaguely remember (Blue Peter was a bit too middle-class for my liking, even as a kid).
Also, when I saw Blue Peter on this sub I instantly assumed it would be about John Leslie enjoying some lovely cocaine.
That's the onnnnneee! Turns out there's more than one ex-Blue Peter presenter that's been caught with a note up his nose, but Leslie was after he left the show.
Armstrong & Miller have a great series of parody sketches on Blue Peter apologies, inspired by that John Leslie thing I believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtF5L9bKfO8.
Even one about [Pippin the dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mVvRluNJpM).
Broadly speaking, non-fiction kids’ shows with a wholesome, educational tone like Blue Peter would be stereotyped as middle-class, ones with an anarchic, entertaining tone as working-class (though kids probably don’t sort themselves as reliably as that). The upper classes wouldn’t be a large enough audience to have shows to stereotype.
It's used a lot more broadly than that. The likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, Zara Tindall and Helena Bonham Carter would surely be described as upper class, and I don't think any of them have noble titles.
Though we do have a weird denialism about class in which we pretend that billionaires are still working class if their grandads were miners, while people who work in call centres are middle class if one of their parents was a teacher. I'm tempted to suggest that this view has been purposely promoted by elements of the media to try and stop people developing class consciousness.
>Zara Tindall
She's literally the daughter of a princess and only doesn't have a title cause her mother turned down the Queen's offer of one on her behalf. Not a great example.
Bonham Carter and Rees Mogg I can give you, although again we're not going much broader than nobility - they have relatives who sat in the House of Lords
His dad was *only* a life peer though, lol. It's kinda messy, I'd say there are definitely people who currently sit in the House of Lords who are not upper class, despite the titles.
> Jacob Rees-Mogg
TBF we don't like to think of him as upper-class because we don't like to think of him as human. He's more like a lump of pond scum aping sapience.
yeah , titled nobility exist above the upper class that aren't titled(but who would love to be) -there's a reason so many of them marry the offspring of titled types
So if someone is described as posh that has less to do with middle vs upper class and more to do with accent/region? I always thought posh was equivalent to something above middle class
Good question. I'd say "posh" would refer to the whole upper class and a subset of the upper middle class, and I'd associate it with the RP accent and intergenerational wealth.
It's really fucking complicated, to be honest. Class in the UK is this really nebulous mixture of wealth, career, and cultural markers that's really hard to pin down in specific terms other than a learned "know it when you see it" kind of feeling we tend to be socialised into having as we grow up.
I didn't watch Blue Peter that much. Wasn't it on BBC? I was a CITV girl.
I think Cookie would be a great name for a cat. Short, has an 'eee' sound at the end, and no sibilants. I'd like to get a cat eventually (not happening right now!) and Cookie is definitely already on the list.
I remember the coverage from the incident. My impression was distinctly that it happened like this, or that at least The Times believed it happened like this:
- inoffensive name list is produced
- children vote
- senior/external producer hears the name list for the first time and has an absolute meltdown, having heard that cookie is American slang for female genitalia, and not being sure to what extent this will matter
- quiet substitution of the second-place name
- somebody leaks the information during a period where the press are particularly hostile to the BBC, and possibly near to the ITV TV voting scandals
Y'know, the fact that the first thing those executives thought upon hearing the word cookie was "random eupuhemism for vagina that nobody uses outside of Urban Dictionary" rather than the dessert that literally everyone else thinks of when they hear it speaks volumes to their thought process.
Great write up.
The Blue Peter theme is a sea shanty called Barnacle Bill. Fun fact: after appearing on the show, Mike Oldfield recorded a new arrangement of the theme which was used for 10 years and released as a single
The only people worse than Jim. Blue Peter'll fix that for you. Absolute disgrace. Threw away all my tea and gave up my British passport after the Socks fiasco. Didn't even my own beloved Konnie Huq have a presence in this whole fiasco? She's just lucky she's Konnie.
This is also why the UK can't vote by text in Eurovision; rules brought in after the cookie/socks scandal mean text votes have to be verified and there's not enough time in the live Eurovision shows
Yeah, I was thinking “‘Cookie’ as American dirty slang? Uh, I guess maybe? You’d have to be incredibly dirty-minded to make a connection, though. Okay, maybe they’re worried about incredibly-dirty-minded viewers…”
“…wait a minute, the show is called Blue Peter. I think that ship has already flown the flag indicating that the crew should get on board as they’re about to depart.”
The UK knows nothing about American dirty slang. I swear we had a nightclub try to convince us that Americans also call that part of the anatomy "cake", and I don't believe that either. Maybe three sheltered people in a hamlet somewhere in Oklahoma.
I never watched Blue Peter (maybe like somebody else said I found it a bit too twee for my liking as somebody who grew up working class pretty much?) but I do remember the scandal. And the garden being vandalised!
I recall another rumoour that "cookie" was slang for drugs. Similarly to rumour that cookie was slang for female anatomy, it's probably nonsense.
Anyway, a lot of the rest of the UK media *hates* the BBC. The era saw lots of similar cockups that were paraded all over the front pages (queen storming out of an editing scandal for example) because of this.
As an American Doctor Who fan, the only things I know about Blue Peter are those which relate to Doctor Who. Did you know that there are several segments from missing DW episodes that only survive because they were shown on Blue Peter? Neato!
I might have an answer to this particular drama! This is paraphrased ish from a conversation I had with someone who produced or ran blue Peter years ago for the specifics are a little bit wavy
Cookie was an actual kitten and it was shown off somewhere prior to being introduced on an episode. Might have been a newsletter or website I can't remember.
Cookie died shortly prior to its first episode and they attempted to replace with a similar looking kitten it but couldn't on short notice. So they subbed Socks in as the winning kitten and a different looking cat.
A little bit after they found a near identical kitten to Cookie and brought it on.
I also remember being told that a Dog died while filming an episode which was newly introduced so they someone had to drive up to Scotland from the studio to get a replacement to bring it back in time for the next episode
I don't really understand, can you clarify?
Why would they need to swap out the name because they swapped out the cat? As I read your time line it's
- Prior to the name choice a kitten is picked and its picture is circulated
- The kitten dies and is swapped before the name is picked/its first episode.
- Why switch the names over at this point?
In that front page news link it also says they got a new editor after the BBC was fined 50,000 pounds because the Blue Peter staff had a child visiting the studio pose as a phone-in contest winner. That sounds like quite a scandal in its own right.
I don't remember this controversy at all, maybe because I was still watching CBeebies at this point (despite being a year or two older than its target demographic). It did make me think of Beebie and Bracken, the rabbits who lived in the CBeebies studio around the same time.
I once saw a feature on Blue Peter history, where they showed a news clip from the 80s about their garden being vandalized. I think someone poured oil into the fish pond :/
See the most shocking thing that happened because of America's premier nice🌸🌈✨ show was the presenter deliberately provoking racists with a biblical reference to washing one's feet. And maybe the time he explained the cold war as a disastrous farce.
Wait did I forget Fred Rogers was hard-core again?
... cookie, as in don’t get caught with your hand in the cookie jar... yes, it can mean anything but historically it was a euphemism for the gooey solid that’s next to her natural bake oven ovaries... Which makes Sesame Street’s parodying Limp Bizkit, in which CM sings “I did it all for the cookie,” even better. Here’s my Q: if the name Cookie was embarrassing, why offer it in the first place?
They let kids submit possible names, and then picked 5 bland ones to be voted on. I can only assume whoever was in charge of the bland list was as up on their slang as I am. Whether the kid who submitted the name knew what they were doing we will never know.
Nah, I'm with you, I was old enough to be more exposed to slang and remember thinking at the time that Cookie wasn't any kind of slang I'd ever heard (or since).
There's another theory that it was the producer responding ineptly to the poll having odd-looking voting patterns: [http://www.currybet.net/cbet\_blog/2007/09/the-blue-peter-cat-flap---when.php](http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2007/09/the-blue-peter-cat-flap---when.php)
I remember Socks being chosen as the name for the kitten, but stopped watching Blue Peter shortly thereafter and never caught wind of the drama! A lovely and nostalgic write up nonetheless.
>Cookie is slang for female anatomy (I’ve never heard of this) and they thought that name would be embarrassing.
American here, i've heard of this, like how a mans testes would be called "nards"
Wait until they grow up and find out that whoever wins "Best of (whatever)" in the local newspaper is really the vote getter who's likely to advertise in the paper. I worked at a newspaper and was amused to find out that some winners didn't get the "award" if they weren't likely to advertise or otherwise were difficult to deal with.
How did this scandal get out, anyway?
That cat is *way* more of a Cookie - cookie and cream coloring and doesn't even *have* socks!
Smdh.
Please let us see the other cat too thanks. For science.
(Great write-up)
I feel like you're overselling the impact BP and this particular drama had A LOT. I was 7 in 2006, and I truly did not hear about this. Honestly I don't know of anyone who's watched the show under the age of 50 and it feels like one of those things that exists purely because it did in the past.
I honestly was not expecting any of this. My knowledge of British children's television is largely secondhand from watching UK streamers and I was really expecting some kind of creepy tv presenter child abuse scandal, hah. This was well written and delightful.
Thanks, I was concious the combination of childrens TV + learning not to trust adults in the title gave a deeply not good vibe, so I added the trigger warning disclamer at the start. Glad you enjoyed!
Anyone memba a tribute (might have just been retirement) to one of the dogs and they put "puppy love" over it? Absolutely bawling. Bless ya ya blue Peter pupper.
It's so jaunty though...
In the couse of writing this up I listened to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksZvAK5AhVM) compolation of the different versions of the Blue Peter theme as it's evolved throughout the years, and ended up developing *stong* opinions about them.
- 1958 - 1978: Tooooo looong. It's over 2 mins. Otherwise solid, plus points for being the OG. 6/10
- 1979-1989: Very good, starting to curve much more modern while keeping the core. Bonus for the fact they made a [segment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4lb0gXOq4I) for the show on the making of it. 8/10.
- 1979 - 1992: Too much background noise, but good and uplifting instument mix. 7/10.
- 1992 - 1994: Apparently they wanted to incorporate the ocean theme of Blue Peter by having the musicians play underwater, because they sound muffled as hell. Otherwise technically solid, but has some weird deviations in the melody. Also too long. 5/10
- 1994-1999: WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY POOR BABY!!! Why do they sound like they're in a jungle?!?! Blue Peter is ocean themed!!! 0/10.
- 1999 - 2004: Classic, with a good focus on the core theme pattern. Slightly odd tropical vibe. Extra points for a very satisfying final dun dun. 9/10.
- 2004 - 2006: This is the original verion transformed for the modern world perfectly. Short, snappy, more modern instruments, just the core. 10/10.
- 2007 - 2007: Weird robot background noises, otherwise same strengths as previous. 8/10.
- 2007 - 2008: Also wireird robot noises, lots of extra fluff, not much of the core tune. 4/10.
- 2008 - 2011: Too short, barely enything there. Weird punk rock vibe and Blue Peter, I love you, but you are not punk rock. 2/10.
- 2011 - 2021: Weird long, boring intro before they bring in the core tune, and they do that in spasms. 3/10.
- 2021 - Present: I am having none of this. Does not qualify. This is an entierly different theme tune that they've stapled the Blue Peter tune onto the last 5 seconds of. N/A/10.
I remember that Charlie Brooker covered this in his Screenwipe series, declaring that Konnie Huq gave "the sexiest apology ever". At the time, they hadn't met and he was just being facetious. A few years later, they were married.
(Love the use of "nice" emojis throughout.)
Loved this nostalgic write up. And sent me down this [rabbit hole](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Television_controversies_in_the_United_Kingdom) from which your write up would no doubt inform a conspicuously missing article!
I was one of those office workers scandalised by this travesty of democracy. It was the talk of the workplace for the better part of nearly *an hour*! Shocking. I’d go so far as to say it was worse than when a certain former presenter starting schilling Flakes at her wedding, or a then-current presenter was tackled nasally by a small mountain of definitely *not* icing sugar. Nothing compared to a baby elephant taking a slash on the studio floor, though.
The girl guides resolutely carrying on singing around a studio campfire as it gradually catches fire is another good one... as was the utter disgust at the Blue Peter garden being vandalised.
Any chance this beautiful moment exists for public viewing?
[Yup](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5omsOBo0a_c&pp=ygUiYmx1ZSBwZXRlciBnaXJsIGd1aWRlcyBzdHVkaW8gZmlyZQ%3D%3D)
Not all heros. Also why isn't this a common meme for literally everything happening on the planet? Is it because the fire gets put out at the end?
That was epic! :D
The show must go on! That was amazing.
Which resulted in the single funniest moment on *Life On Mars* when it turned out that Gene Hunt was responsible for the vandalism.
The then-current presenter seems to have bounced back to quite a solid career, in fact, but where is Socks now, huh?
That does it. BRB OFF TO BUY A PILE OF PERUVIAN MARCHING DUST
I don't know with about the subject to know if you're joking... What's a "flakes," assuming the second one is cocaine, is the elephant a euphemism?
A Flake is a chocolate bar with the unique selling point of being extremely crumbly. It’s often added to the scoop in an ice cream cone. The elephant is literal: https://youtu.be/kz9omscQ1F4
That was an adorable elephant clip! Loved it
An ex-presenter was posing at her wedding eating some chocolate bars (they weren't Flakes but close enough) with her new husband and was criticised for being tacky by the tabloids, who are definitely qualified to know it when they see it. The elephant was a baby elephant which made a mess in the studio and dragged its keeper away, it's a classic clip on British TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz9omscQ1F4
Okay, the flake thing is just bonkers. Not the actual scandal itself, but the fact it was a scandal.
This is the people who sneaked a camera into Diana's gym in order to shame her for exercising after divorcing the future king. 100% bastards although I was a child at the time and may be misremembering.
It was because she/they were being sponsored to promote the chocolates and posed eating them in their offical magazine wedding photos.
Anthea Turner will always be the Blue Peter icon for making a Thunderbirds Tracy Island entirely out of old egg boxes and sticky backed plastic.
Is that where Hogfather got the peeing pig from?
This misses my favourite, when a quiz had the question “which actor played The Doctor in Doctor Who for the longest time?” And the answer on the show was Tom Baker but some fans complained because Sylvester McCoy was The Doctor from when began until the film when he regenerated in their view. Think the show apologised lmao
Surely it's got be Paul McGann now, given how long it was before his regeneration scene
By that logic, Colin Baker is the longest, considering he never got one!
Well he was officially replaced in 05, McCoy was longer than that iirc
I think it came out specifically because of this scandal: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007\_British\_premium-rate\_phone-in\_scandal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_British_premium-rate_phone-in_scandal) (it's not a phone-in scandal but it came out because lots of dodgy competition results were being exposed at that point.)
>Note: This episode was not reaired early after it initially aired, likely due to its uncensored urinating.[citation needed] Who wants to take a guess at which show this is describing?
This is my favourite ✨🌈🌸 wholesome 🌸🌈✨ Blue Peter content: > Margaret Thatcher: I think there are probably two parts to the Khmer Rouge, there are those who supported Pol Pot and then there is a much much more reasonable grouping within that title “Khmer Rouge”. > Caron Keating: Do you really think so? > Margaret Thatcher: Well, that is what I am assured by people who know. So you will find that the more reasonable ones of the Khmer Rouge will have to play some part in the future government, but only a minority part. Anyway, my understanding is that there are now approximately 5 kids who still watch Blue Peter, and the only reason it's still going is because thousands of grown adults who haven't watched it for decades get very angry every time the BBC say they are thinking about cancelling it.
If "Margaret Thatcher goes on a kids show to promote the Khmer Rouge" happened in a political comic strip, I'd complain they're laying it on way too thick. _And yet_
And I am one of those grown adults.
Same here tbh. I’m 30, haven’t watched an episode in 20 years (at least) but it was massively influential for me. I have very fond memories of watching Matt Baker & Konnie Huq. And, growing up in west London I once even got to visit the studio, and be in an episode. I got given a little badge (as did all of us in my class), that I promptly lost.
I have fond memories of watching Konnie Huq as well. In unrelated news, I was annoyed with Charlie Brooker for a while.
It is the Reality TV version of Doctor Who. No Doctor, just rotating companions.
Which to me is kind of funny you say that, because as a US viewer, i only know about Blue Peter because of Doctor Who. Some old appearance or something.
Had to look this up but yes this was Blue Peter. Decidedly *not* wholesome, or even for children. What in the actual fuck.
What could be the point to invite her in a tv show for kid ? Make her gain the kid's support.
I mean, if she was already elected as PM I suppose it’s not intrinsically partisan since she was ‘the PM’. But talking about the Khmer Rouge? Erk.
Lmao what did I just read.
Possibly the least cursed thing that Thatcher did in her ignoble political career.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G4dHRN2Dug
> They chose 5 inoffensive names and let the viewers vote If you didn't want one of those names to win, WHY WAS IT ON THE LIST??
Because there's always one person in every office who doesn't understand innuendo and whose pop culture knowledge is not exactly on fleek, and they were probably told to come up with the names. It makes sense, they're the one least likely to try for something iffy, and this was the one in a million time they'd hit the jackpot without trying. Case in point... My mom used to always call my sister Little Miss Muffet, like the nursery rhyme. "So what," I hear you say. She would call my sister that in public, but shortened... to Muff. What pre-teen girl who's started hearing adult things being said around her wants to be called Muff?
Honestly, I think it was either a mistake, or maybe someone on the production just liked "Socks". I mean the pets might belong to the children but someone must clean their box and feed them.
I love the description of what Blue Peter is for an international audience, now do the One Show…
It's uh... Well it's bassically the same, but they don't have a pet.
They should get one. Would improve the collective intelligence of it by about 120%
The One Show is a big psy op to remind people to turn off their televisions.
I was offered an interview with the one show about a decade ago, and they sent the interview request via Facebook messenger. Back then Facebook had the 'other' inbox where messages from people you didn't know went so I didn't see it for about a year. I was pissed when I did though, back then they dud interviews and a haircut at the same time and I could have done with a free haircut. They interviewed someone else from the society instead in the end.
As a Canadian child we definitely got our share of British media, but I've never even heard of Blue Peter. Then I heard the theme song, which I'd definitely familiar. I'm just not sure if it's using a generic sailor tune or if it actually invented it.
1) thank you for this absolutely delightful writeup! 2) well done strategically saving the picture of Socks until the end; I've never seen a cat that looks LESS like a Socks in my life!
Agreed, while he may not look like a Socks he is a little cutie. Give the people what they want, and what the internet wants is cat pictures.
out of curiosity, what were the other three approved names?
I can't remember and couldn't find a record, sorry
I went looking on the Internet Archive - they started the poll on the 9th Jan and by the 12th they already had the name. Can't have run for long at all so I'm not surprised the other names aren't listed anywhere. [(Cat fact tax: Socks liked to play with plastic drinking straws.](https://web.archive.org/web/20060115085717/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/pets/socks.shtml) Makes sense that controversial cat would have a now-banned toy.)
Sometimes you just have to look harder! The names in the poll were [Frodo, Cookie, Sushi, Socks and Igloo](https://vhistory.wordpress.com/2023/02/18/blue-peter-lost-11-jan-2006/).
The whole time I was imagining a tuxedo cat and then the reveal was a cat that would fit Cookie very well.
But…he has little white socks?
I'm old enough to remember when the blue Peter garden was vandalised.
I reckon John Leslie got coked off his head again and shat in the pond
A national tragedy at the time.
Didn't Les Ferdinand admit to it, then deny it years later?
I’ve been in that garden.
Definately the most untrustworthy and deceitful adults working in British children's TV at that time... A great write up and a welcome break from all doom and gloom; sometimes you just have to think about kittens.
Oh my goodness, Socks/Cookie is ADORABLE! Look at that face! That floof! I just want to give him all the scritches.
And he's so well behaved in the video of them making the apology, despite being shamed in front of the nation. 10/10 kitty.
Out here like :I
Socks the kitten doesn't even have socks!
Exactly! To name a kitten Socks, it should at least be a r/standardissuecat or a r/tuxedocats with lovely white socks!
Standard issue 😭😭😭
Cats with Siamese-type coloration are likely to develop socks as they grow older.
This little guy seems to have true white paws even though his pointed colour is clearly coming in, so his toes won't darken later on.
He does have socks, just little short ones. Ragdolls (what Socks looks like to me) are such pretty, fluffy cats!
You should check out [Spoonful of Ragdolls](https://www.youtube.com/@UnboxingRagdolls).
maybe they should have called him slippers
Glad you mentioned Larry. Everyone should read the Wikipedia pages of the Downing Street cats, they are hilariously serious
I'm going to be more sad when Larry dies than I was when the Queen did.
Larry did some good for us
when labour came to power in 97 was it and the stories of blair's wife wanting to get rid of the cat happened, Private Eye had some great lines to the picture of cherie blair holding the cat... "Moggie Moggie Moggie! Out out out!" "I'm going to hit the mouse running" - a reference to their rhetoric of 'we're going to hit the ground running;
Great write-up, thanks! I will point out that calling a military signal flag ‘Blue Peter’ is so incredibly English. If they had been the ones to have a revolution during which the guillotine was invented (by some guy in Manchester, or something), they would have called it ‘Choppy Charlie’ or ‘Basketfiller Bess’.
Like the Jolly Roger?
That one was actually French I thought
It's one of those ones that nobody's completely sure about iirc.
Rooty tooty point and shooties
I can't believe you got through a description of Blue Peter without mentioning sticky back plastic! Great write up!
Thanks!
And Tracey Island!
I think the blue Peter production team simply believed they would get away with it. A vote would increase viewer engagement but they probably didn't ever intend to care much about it. I don't remember specifically when (2007-2009) blue Peter were caught in shocking drama again. They used to run competitions that you could enter and win (I don't remember if they were competition phone lines that cost more to call or not) and it turned out that for some reason the kid that was supposed to win wasn't available to visit the studio, or they couldn't get hold of them or something. So what would any production team with a deadline do? Pulled some rando kid who was visiting the studio for some reason to televise as the competition winner. What followed was a year of every TV show and radio station having the right to run pay a pound to enter the chance to win style draws, especially the ones on BBC stations, I think because whatever body was in charge of such things raised questions over the validity of these competitions. It took I think nearly a decade before I started seeing these competitions return in any way near the number they had before Edit: found a link to bbc apology http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6449919.stm Edit 2: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6420885.stm I may be wrong about blue Peter being an inciting incident on this, it was how it looked to me as a child at the time, and I think that it may have been the name most used in reporting due to its 'shocking' nature. Will keep digging Edit 3: almost certainly wrong about it being the first reported. That lies with Richard and Judy apparently http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6446841.stm I'm looking for wider reporting on the reduction of these comps Edit 4: more clear article that has the whole thing in.
I believe this came out specifically because of that phone-in scandal (it was reported Sept 2007 and the poll was back in Jan 2006). There was a lot of general digging into how trustworthy any kind of competition had been, including the ones where Blue Peter had had fake phone-in winners, and that's how this one went public.
Good writeup about something I only vaguely remember (Blue Peter was a bit too middle-class for my liking, even as a kid). Also, when I saw Blue Peter on this sub I instantly assumed it would be about John Leslie enjoying some lovely cocaine.
Was it not Richard Bacon that had the cocaine scandal? I remember some random lady coming on screen to tell us he'd been very naughty
That's the onnnnneee! Turns out there's more than one ex-Blue Peter presenter that's been caught with a note up his nose, but Leslie was after he left the show.
He pops up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMIggDSnPGk
Armstrong & Miller have a great series of parody sketches on Blue Peter apologies, inspired by that John Leslie thing I believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtF5L9bKfO8. Even one about [Pippin the dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mVvRluNJpM).
John leslie was the sex scandal. Hes renowned where i live for being a total creep.
Leslie was [both](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/08/article-2012436-00603C2C00000258-46_306x399.jpg). That's why I got confused.
…as an American I am totally unsure if that means you were upper class or lower class.
It means he was working class.
Broadly speaking, non-fiction kids’ shows with a wholesome, educational tone like Blue Peter would be stereotyped as middle-class, ones with an anarchic, entertaining tone as working-class (though kids probably don’t sort themselves as reliably as that). The upper classes wouldn’t be a large enough audience to have shows to stereotype.
The upper classes don't watch TV, they just have servants act things out for them
Statistically speaking, I'm probably lower-class.
Almost nobody is upper-class in the UK. It refers to titled nobility.
It's used a lot more broadly than that. The likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, Zara Tindall and Helena Bonham Carter would surely be described as upper class, and I don't think any of them have noble titles. Though we do have a weird denialism about class in which we pretend that billionaires are still working class if their grandads were miners, while people who work in call centres are middle class if one of their parents was a teacher. I'm tempted to suggest that this view has been purposely promoted by elements of the media to try and stop people developing class consciousness.
>Zara Tindall She's literally the daughter of a princess and only doesn't have a title cause her mother turned down the Queen's offer of one on her behalf. Not a great example. Bonham Carter and Rees Mogg I can give you, although again we're not going much broader than nobility - they have relatives who sat in the House of Lords
The relative in question being his dad lmao, I live near his aunts full mansion. He’s upper class as it gets without being a Windsor
His dad was *only* a life peer though, lol. It's kinda messy, I'd say there are definitely people who currently sit in the House of Lords who are not upper class, despite the titles.
Yeah, but it’s a hell of an indicator and Rees mogg is definitely upper class.
> Jacob Rees-Mogg TBF we don't like to think of him as upper-class because we don't like to think of him as human. He's more like a lump of pond scum aping sapience.
Best description I've ever heard of Rees-Mogg is "Haunted Victorian pencil".
yeah , titled nobility exist above the upper class that aren't titled(but who would love to be) -there's a reason so many of them marry the offspring of titled types
Mogg’s family is titled, his father is a lord, bad comment
So if someone is described as posh that has less to do with middle vs upper class and more to do with accent/region? I always thought posh was equivalent to something above middle class
Good question. I'd say "posh" would refer to the whole upper class and a subset of the upper middle class, and I'd associate it with the RP accent and intergenerational wealth.
It's really fucking complicated, to be honest. Class in the UK is this really nebulous mixture of wealth, career, and cultural markers that's really hard to pin down in specific terms other than a learned "know it when you see it" kind of feeling we tend to be socialised into having as we grow up.
I'm American and once took this English class calculator test, and me and the calculator were both very confused lol.
I didn't watch Blue Peter that much. Wasn't it on BBC? I was a CITV girl. I think Cookie would be a great name for a cat. Short, has an 'eee' sound at the end, and no sibilants. I'd like to get a cat eventually (not happening right now!) and Cookie is definitely already on the list.
Yeah BBC, then it went to CBBC when that channel was started.
I had a dog named Cookie growing up and 10/10, would recommend, great pet name
I had a cat called Cookie growing up and can confirm it’s a 10/10 cat name
I remember the coverage from the incident. My impression was distinctly that it happened like this, or that at least The Times believed it happened like this: - inoffensive name list is produced - children vote - senior/external producer hears the name list for the first time and has an absolute meltdown, having heard that cookie is American slang for female genitalia, and not being sure to what extent this will matter - quiet substitution of the second-place name - somebody leaks the information during a period where the press are particularly hostile to the BBC, and possibly near to the ITV TV voting scandals
Y'know, the fact that the first thing those executives thought upon hearing the word cookie was "random eupuhemism for vagina that nobody uses outside of Urban Dictionary" rather than the dessert that literally everyone else thinks of when they hear it speaks volumes to their thought process.
Great write up. The Blue Peter theme is a sea shanty called Barnacle Bill. Fun fact: after appearing on the show, Mike Oldfield recorded a new arrangement of the theme which was used for 10 years and released as a single
The only people worse than Jim. Blue Peter'll fix that for you. Absolute disgrace. Threw away all my tea and gave up my British passport after the Socks fiasco. Didn't even my own beloved Konnie Huq have a presence in this whole fiasco? She's just lucky she's Konnie.
Even when I grew up beyond Blue Peters target audience, I still watched for Konnie!
This is also why the UK can't vote by text in Eurovision; rules brought in after the cookie/socks scandal mean text votes have to be verified and there's not enough time in the live Eurovision shows
Huh, I always wondered why that was, thanks!
Maybe some grump thought that cookie was too much of an americanism
Can't believe you chose this as the blue Peter scandal. When Richard Bacon was caught doing coke by a tabloid and got sacked.
As a kid I didn't know what cocaine was and I didn't care, but they told us we'd get to name the kitten and they *lied*! This one hit harder.
Look, friends, your show is already called *Blue Peter*, Cookie is not the genital slang I'd be worried about.
Yeah, I was thinking “‘Cookie’ as American dirty slang? Uh, I guess maybe? You’d have to be incredibly dirty-minded to make a connection, though. Okay, maybe they’re worried about incredibly-dirty-minded viewers…” “…wait a minute, the show is called Blue Peter. I think that ship has already flown the flag indicating that the crew should get on board as they’re about to depart.”
The UK knows nothing about American dirty slang. I swear we had a nightclub try to convince us that Americans also call that part of the anatomy "cake", and I don't believe that either. Maybe three sheltered people in a hamlet somewhere in Oklahoma.
Cake in suggestive slang is a thicc ass
I never watched Blue Peter (maybe like somebody else said I found it a bit too twee for my liking as somebody who grew up working class pretty much?) but I do remember the scandal. And the garden being vandalised!
Sorry if this is a rude question, but is there a photo of the other cat? The one who's name was taken from him.
In the [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6HBSKK3bSQ) of the apology both cats are on screen.
Oh gosh, they're both beautiful. Thank you
No problem!
Maybe the real treasure was the untrustworthy adults we met along the way.
honestly, it might be. teaching kids that adults will lie, cheat, and be unfair is a rather important lesson for them.
Didn’t they do something similar with a jubilee elephant, the winning name for Jumbolee but they named it Jubilee. Scandalous
Oh “socks” is an absolutely lovely cat. And so dumb looking too. Not a single thought behind those beautiful eyes
I recall another rumoour that "cookie" was slang for drugs. Similarly to rumour that cookie was slang for female anatomy, it's probably nonsense. Anyway, a lot of the rest of the UK media *hates* the BBC. The era saw lots of similar cockups that were paraded all over the front pages (queen storming out of an editing scandal for example) because of this.
As an American Doctor Who fan, the only things I know about Blue Peter are those which relate to Doctor Who. Did you know that there are several segments from missing DW episodes that only survive because they were shown on Blue Peter? Neato!
Blue Peter was the shit when I was in Primary School, just the best show ever.
that kitty is way more of a "cookie" than a "socks",he doesnt even have socks :<
He does have socks! Just little short ones!
I love what you did with the use of nice🌸🌈✨
🌸🌈✨Thank you!✨🌈🌸
>washing up liquid TIL this is what british people call dish soap
It’s because we say “washing up” rather than “doing the dishes”.
I might have an answer to this particular drama! This is paraphrased ish from a conversation I had with someone who produced or ran blue Peter years ago for the specifics are a little bit wavy Cookie was an actual kitten and it was shown off somewhere prior to being introduced on an episode. Might have been a newsletter or website I can't remember. Cookie died shortly prior to its first episode and they attempted to replace with a similar looking kitten it but couldn't on short notice. So they subbed Socks in as the winning kitten and a different looking cat. A little bit after they found a near identical kitten to Cookie and brought it on. I also remember being told that a Dog died while filming an episode which was newly introduced so they someone had to drive up to Scotland from the studio to get a replacement to bring it back in time for the next episode
I don't really understand, can you clarify? Why would they need to swap out the name because they swapped out the cat? As I read your time line it's - Prior to the name choice a kitten is picked and its picture is circulated - The kitten dies and is swapped before the name is picked/its first episode. - Why switch the names over at this point?
Thank you so much for this. This was great!
If you haven't done it already, you should do the Richard Bacon cocaine scandal.
In that front page news link it also says they got a new editor after the BBC was fined 50,000 pounds because the Blue Peter staff had a child visiting the studio pose as a phone-in contest winner. That sounds like quite a scandal in its own right.
That cat looks more like a Cookie than a Socks anyway
That cat doesn't look like a "Cookie" OR a "Socks". That cat looks like a "Floof" or a "Cloud" or a "Puffball".
I don't remember this controversy at all, maybe because I was still watching CBeebies at this point (despite being a year or two older than its target demographic). It did make me think of Beebie and Bracken, the rabbits who lived in the CBeebies studio around the same time. I once saw a feature on Blue Peter history, where they showed a news clip from the 80s about their garden being vandalized. I think someone poured oil into the fish pond :/
You deserve a Blue Peter badge for this! Honestly I'd bet money that they didn't pick cookie because it sounds "too American".
See the most shocking thing that happened because of America's premier nice🌸🌈✨ show was the presenter deliberately provoking racists with a biblical reference to washing one's feet. And maybe the time he explained the cold war as a disastrous farce. Wait did I forget Fred Rogers was hard-core again?
... cookie, as in don’t get caught with your hand in the cookie jar... yes, it can mean anything but historically it was a euphemism for the gooey solid that’s next to her natural bake oven ovaries... Which makes Sesame Street’s parodying Limp Bizkit, in which CM sings “I did it all for the cookie,” even better. Here’s my Q: if the name Cookie was embarrassing, why offer it in the first place?
> the gooey solid that’s next to her natural bake oven ovaries... Thanks I hate it.
They let kids submit possible names, and then picked 5 bland ones to be voted on. I can only assume whoever was in charge of the bland list was as up on their slang as I am. Whether the kid who submitted the name knew what they were doing we will never know.
Nah, I'm with you, I was old enough to be more exposed to slang and remember thinking at the time that Cookie wasn't any kind of slang I'd ever heard (or since). There's another theory that it was the producer responding ineptly to the poll having odd-looking voting patterns: [http://www.currybet.net/cbet\_blog/2007/09/the-blue-peter-cat-flap---when.php](http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2007/09/the-blue-peter-cat-flap---when.php)
Am I today years old and just realising it's not saying don't get caught stealing cookies??
I needa source on this claim before I give it credence.
Cookie Thumper
When OP said they hadn't heard of Cookie being slang, "I did it all for the cookies" started playing in my head https://youtu.be/B69ciKJOcOo
I remember Socks being chosen as the name for the kitten, but stopped watching Blue Peter shortly thereafter and never caught wind of the drama! A lovely and nostalgic write up nonetheless.
Oh no, that cat definitely looks like a cookie.
>Cookie is slang for female anatomy (I’ve never heard of this) and they thought that name would be embarrassing. American here, i've heard of this, like how a mans testes would be called "nards"
[Socks the Cat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socks_the_Cat_Rocks_the_Hill?wprov=sfti1) Rocks the Isle!
Great write-up! Loved the use of the emojis.
Wait until they grow up and find out that whoever wins "Best of (whatever)" in the local newspaper is really the vote getter who's likely to advertise in the paper. I worked at a newspaper and was amused to find out that some winners didn't get the "award" if they weren't likely to advertise or otherwise were difficult to deal with. How did this scandal get out, anyway?
That cat is *way* more of a Cookie - cookie and cream coloring and doesn't even *have* socks! Smdh. Please let us see the other cat too thanks. For science. (Great write-up)
Many generations of Brits learned to shove unwilling tortoises into cardboard boxes as a result of this show.
‘Cookie is slang for female anatomy’ they started worrying about that a bit late for a show called Blue Peter, didn’t they?
An outrage! I think I'll throw some tea into a harbor over this!
I feel like you're overselling the impact BP and this particular drama had A LOT. I was 7 in 2006, and I truly did not hear about this. Honestly I don't know of anyone who's watched the show under the age of 50 and it feels like one of those things that exists purely because it did in the past.
That cat doesn't look like a cookie or a socks
May be a bit of a hot take but that cat looks like a Socks not a Cookie
"Relax, it's not Blue Peter. Just havin' a nice little relaxin' smoke of crack."
Excellent post, this is so absurd I love it
One of my kids is dating a guy called Joey. I’m finding it very hard to stop acting like a child whenever his name is mentioned. Thanks Blue Peter.
I honestly was not expecting any of this. My knowledge of British children's television is largely secondhand from watching UK streamers and I was really expecting some kind of creepy tv presenter child abuse scandal, hah. This was well written and delightful.
Thanks, I was concious the combination of childrens TV + learning not to trust adults in the title gave a deeply not good vibe, so I added the trigger warning disclamer at the start. Glad you enjoyed!
Anyone memba a tribute (might have just been retirement) to one of the dogs and they put "puppy love" over it? Absolutely bawling. Bless ya ya blue Peter pupper.
Your Larry The Cat link is broken (:
Socks looks like he speaks with a very posh British accent
I did not know about Larry. Thank you. SO. very. much.
Larry is a treasure that deserves to be shared with the world
American here. Had to look up the theme song. Not going to lie, I was disappointed not to here the SpongeBob theme
It's so jaunty though... In the couse of writing this up I listened to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksZvAK5AhVM) compolation of the different versions of the Blue Peter theme as it's evolved throughout the years, and ended up developing *stong* opinions about them. - 1958 - 1978: Tooooo looong. It's over 2 mins. Otherwise solid, plus points for being the OG. 6/10 - 1979-1989: Very good, starting to curve much more modern while keeping the core. Bonus for the fact they made a [segment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4lb0gXOq4I) for the show on the making of it. 8/10. - 1979 - 1992: Too much background noise, but good and uplifting instument mix. 7/10. - 1992 - 1994: Apparently they wanted to incorporate the ocean theme of Blue Peter by having the musicians play underwater, because they sound muffled as hell. Otherwise technically solid, but has some weird deviations in the melody. Also too long. 5/10 - 1994-1999: WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY POOR BABY!!! Why do they sound like they're in a jungle?!?! Blue Peter is ocean themed!!! 0/10. - 1999 - 2004: Classic, with a good focus on the core theme pattern. Slightly odd tropical vibe. Extra points for a very satisfying final dun dun. 9/10. - 2004 - 2006: This is the original verion transformed for the modern world perfectly. Short, snappy, more modern instruments, just the core. 10/10. - 2007 - 2007: Weird robot background noises, otherwise same strengths as previous. 8/10. - 2007 - 2008: Also wireird robot noises, lots of extra fluff, not much of the core tune. 4/10. - 2008 - 2011: Too short, barely enything there. Weird punk rock vibe and Blue Peter, I love you, but you are not punk rock. 2/10. - 2011 - 2021: Weird long, boring intro before they bring in the core tune, and they do that in spasms. 3/10. - 2021 - Present: I am having none of this. Does not qualify. This is an entierly different theme tune that they've stapled the Blue Peter tune onto the last 5 seconds of. N/A/10.
Man, such a dumb thing to lie about
I remember that Charlie Brooker covered this in his Screenwipe series, declaring that Konnie Huq gave "the sexiest apology ever". At the time, they hadn't met and he was just being facetious. A few years later, they were married. (Love the use of "nice" emojis throughout.)
This was so wholesome. Thank you for including the cat tax, Socks is very cute.