This article is about a children's television programme. "Chock-a-block" is also an English phrase meaning "packed" or "crowded".

Chock-A-Block was a 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...

 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 (the "new" name for the cycle originally known as Watch with Mother

Watch with Mother

Watch With Mother was a cycle of children's programmes broadcast from 1952 by BBC Television which was created by Freda Lingstrom.It was the first BBC television programme specifically aimed at pre-school children, like its radio equivalent Listen with Mother that also started in 1950...

). "Chock-A-Block" was an extremely large yellow computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

, modelled to resemble a mainframe

Mainframe computer

Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

 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

Fred Harris (presenter)

Fred Harris is a British comedian and children's television presenter. Formerly a school teacher, he began his television career as a presenter of the BBC children's programme Play School, on which he appeared regularly between 1973 and 1988...

 ("Chock-A-Bloke

Bloke

Bloke is a slang term for a man. It is commonly used in the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It is however used in French speaking parts of Canada as a derogative term for the English speaking population.Bloke may also refer to:...

") and Carol Leader

Carol Leader

Carol Leader is an English theatrical and television actress.She played Sadie Tomkins in Casualty from 1988 to 1989, Barbara Charlton in Young at Heart from 1980 to 1981 and has also been in Flambards, First and Last, Safe, Peak Practice, and 1992 TV series Kevin and Co...

 ("Chock-A-Girl"), but only one appeared in each episode. At the start of the show, they would drive around the studio towards the machine in a small yellow electric car

Electric car

An electric car is an automobile which is propelled by electric motor, using electrical energy stored in batteries or another energy storage device. Electric cars were popular in the late-19th century and early 20th century, until advances in internal combustion engine technology and mass...

 (with the catchphrase "Chock-A-Bloke (or Girl), 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 (which resembled the reel-to-reel tape drives used on actual mainframes, but with a design below to cause the reels to resemble the eyes of a smiling face).

Episodes

> > > > > > > > > > > > >

#	Title	Presenter	Airdate	Catalogue#

The presenter Fred Harris

Fred Harris (presenter)

Fred Harris is a British comedian and children's television presenter. Formerly a school teacher, he began his television career as a presenter of the BBC children's programme Play School, on which he appeared regularly between 1973 and 1988...

 went on to present the serious computing programme Micro Live

Micro Live

Micro Live was a BBC2 TV series that was produced by David Allen as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project, and followed on from earlier series such as The Computer Programme, Computers In Control, and Making the Most of the Micro...

and to become a personality strongly associated with computers in the public eye.