All the stuff people say about writing for kids’ TV is very true – that you’re writing for the most demanding yet most appreciative and vocal of audiences, that maybe you’re helping craft shows that will in some minor way become cultural touchstones in people’s lives (as shows like The Wombles and Tomorrow People certainly are in mine). But, having written for both ‘grown-up’ and kids’ TV, I have to say the biggest benefit of writing for the latter (apart from the My Parents Are Aliens residuals!) is an utterly, utterly selfish one: when you write for this audience, you get to use much, much more of your imagination than you do when writing for their boring ol’ parents. So - you have way more fun. Which makes the shows more fun. So for me, the saddest thing about losing kids’ TV would be the way it would inevitably diminish the ‘imagination quotient’ of television as a whole.
Paul Alexander has written for Goodnight Sweetheart, My Hero, All About Me, S-Club, Barking, My Parents Are Aliens, and Horrid Henry. He was a writer/script editor on Red Dwarf and Green Green Grass.
