Sunday, January 10, 2010

S'kiddle Bits with Joey Gregorash

I believe I've written about the local 80s TV children's show "S'kiddle Bits" on here before, but I'll recap.

S'kiddle Bits was a locally produced children's TV show in Winnipeg that was broadcast at 12:00 (lunch time) on weekdays in the 1980s. It was specifically aimed at kids who came home from school to eat lunch (kids who ate at school were shit out of luck).

The host of the show was local talent Joey Gregorash (singer, radio DJ) and he'd usually have a bunch of local guests featured on the show. Every day, he'd send out Birthday greetings, take callers, and give out prizes to the nth caller, or to the person who would guess the "Watchamacallit" correctly. The "Watchamacallit" was basically an item (tennis ball, tooth brush, etc) that had only a small portion of it photographed and put on the screen. Kids would call in and try to guess what it was. He also did music videos of parodies for educational purposes or to try and get a specific message across.

In the 1990s, S'kiddle Bits re-invented itself and became a show called "High Noon" which featured some lame dog puppet as Joey's sidekick. It was around this time that I quit watching the show, as I was outgrowing it and the rebranding / reinvention killed it's 'cozy family entertainment' feeling. High Noon was cancelled after one year.

What I have here is two clips from S'kiddle Bits. The first features guest Robert Church who worked at Petland and was a regular guest on S'kiddle bits. In this clip, he brings along some suicidal turtles, newts, and plays with a scorpion.

The second is the Bus Driver Song done to the tune of "Yellow Submarine" (I hope Youtube doesn't remove the video due to copyright, as Joey used the real Beatles track). Those of you from Winnipeg who grew up in the 1980s will appreciate the nostalgia, and those who think of us Winnipeggers as goofy Canadian yahoos will certainly find validation in these two videos. Enjoy!



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was one of those lucky kids who phoned in and won. I won free passes to Skinners wet and wild for me and a friend. We made a music video for the show, how I wish I could get my hands on a copy, would be great for a few laughs!
Angie

Ben Century said...

That was probably the video for "I Saw Her Standing There." I used to have a copy of it, but it disappeared quite some time ago.

Anonymous said...

I grew up watching Uncle Bob and eventually worked on his show at the end, and then worked with Joey on Skiddle Bits and High Noon. Everytime I say "come on it's time".. my wife says... "What ? For Skiddle Bits ?". I wish I could find that show opening

Ben Century said...

I uploaded a full episode of Skiddle Bits on Youtube which includes the original opening.

Anonymous said...

My grade 5 class had a field trip to watch the filming of S'kittle Bits, in 1988 (I believe). We were interviewed by Joey on the show. I wish I could find an archive of it.

Anonymous said...

I was on Skittle Bits once with my BF at the time...wonder if the archives are available somewhere...