Zokko was a BBC television

BBC Television

BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...

 programme for children that ran on Saturday mornings between 1968 and 1970. It was devised by veteran children's TV producer Molly Cox, and featured a mixture of animations, film clips, magic and narrated cartoons. The show was named after its "presenter", a talking pinball machine (designed by Mike Ellis,the father of Blue Peter

Blue Peter

Blue Peter is the world's longest-running children's television show, having first aired in 1958. It is shown on CBBC, both in its BBC One programming block and on the CBBC channel. During its history there have been many presenters, often consisting of two women and two men at a time...

presenter Janet Ellis

Janet Ellis

Janet Ellis is a British television presenter and actress, who appeared on BBC children's television in the 1980s, including a four year period as a presenter on Blue Peter, a role she won after hosting the award-winning children's programme Jigsaw.- Early life :Ellis's father was a soldier,...

,and grandfather of singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Sophie Michelle Ellis-Bextor is an English singer, songwriter, model and occasional DJ. She first came to prominence in the late 1990s, as the lead singer of the indie rock band Theaudience. After the group disbanded, Ellis-Bextor went solo, achieving widespread success in the early 2000s...

) which introduced the clips and then scored them in its electronic voice e.g. "Zokko, Score 7". The programme is regarded as "the first televised children's comic" (The Independent 7 November, 1991 p 35). Apart from a compilation of highlights, only one complete episode remains in the BBC's archives.

External link

• Photograph of Zokko