Doctor Omega
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Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, more commonly known simply as Swap Shop, was a British children's entertainment programme that was broadcast on Saturday mornings on BBC1 for 146[1] episodes in six series between 1976 and 1982. It was ground-breaking in many ways: by being live, being nearly three hours in length, and using the phone-in format extensively for the first time on TV.
The show rivalled the growing success of rival broadcaster ITV's Tiswas—although the latter was initially only broadcast in the ATVregion in the Midlands and, at the time of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop's inception, had yet to be taken up by other ITV franchises around the country.
Content
The show was hosted by Noel Edmonds with Keith Chegwin, John Craven and, from 1978, Maggie Philbin.
Also featured was Posh Paws, a stuffed toy dinosaur. Edmonds once explained that his name was actually spelled "Pohs Paws", because that is Swap Shop backwards as suggested in the phone in by 5 year old Duncan Beck.
Another person named was "Eric" (Ilett), the often-referred to but never seen technician whose job was to lower a plastic globe containing postcards sent in by viewers as answers to competitions. Eric performed a similar task on the BBC's Ask The Family when technical assistance was required as part of the programme.[citation needed]
The content of the programme included music, visits from public figures, competitions, and cartoons. There was also coverage of news and issues relevant to children, presented by John Craven, building on his profile as the presenter of John Craven's Newsround.[citation needed]
The cornerstone, however, was the "Swaporama" element, hosted by Chegwin, who was very rarely in the studio. An outside broadcast unit would travel to different locations throughout the UK where children could swap their belongings with others. This proved to be one of the most popular aspects of the show, often achieving gatherings of more than 2,000 children.[citation needed]
Generally, the primary purpose of the BBC OB unit was to broadcast a sporting event at that Swaporama venue later that day. This allowed Swap Shop to use the same unit and save programming costs which would otherwise be prohibitive.[citation needed]
Edmonds, Chegwin and Philbin briefly formed a pop group called Brown Sauce in December 1981 and released a single called "I Wanna be a Winner". The song peaked at number 15 in the UK Singles Chart and stayed in the Top 40 for a total of nine weeks
Telephone number
The telephone number for the show from the second series onward was 01 811 8055.[3][4] The first series had a different number, 01 288 8055, before being changed to the number retained throughout the rest of the show's run, and retained for its successor, Saturday Superstore.[5]
The number was well known and remembered by children and was groundbreaking for the BBC, who previously had received viewer feedback mainly by letter.
