As part of my ongoing mission to declutter my parents' house, I recently dropped off a dusty stack of DVDs at CeX, the cherry-red tech trade-in megastore whose name has been making us smirk since 1992. The returns were small, the smallest coming from a copy of The Best Of Wanderly Wagon, which I had to wrench from my father’s grip, only to hand him back a single cent.
I may have taken too much pleasure in telling my dad that his treasured childhood memories amounted to a coin that, having been withdrawn from circulation in 2015, was now entirely worthless. But the old man quickly put me in my place with an impassioned speech that – omitting much whimpering and teeth gnashing – I have done my best to paraphrase below.
Nora O'Mahony (Pic: RTÉ Archives)
Puppetry on RTÉ all started with one man: Eugene Lambert. After making his name as a ventriloquist on Dublin's variety circuit – notably supporting Laurel and Hardy on their 1953 Irish tour – Lambert became integral to RTÉ’s early children’s programming, with puppet shows Carta Hudai (1962) and Murphy agus a Chairde (1963–67). However, it was alongside director Don Lennox and production designer Jim O' Hare that he would secure his place in television history.
Together, they devised Wanderly Wagon (1967-82), introducing a generation of Irish children to puppets Judge, Mr Crow, and Foxy, who travelled far and wide with their human companions aboard the titular magical caravan. Essentially a horse-drawn TARDIS, this thing could fly off to fantastical lands, dive undersea and shoot into space. You’d be running into hooded druids one episode, rescuing princesses the next.
If you're thinking this all sounds a touch psychedelic – hold on to your love beads, it gets groovier.
Watch: Wanderly Wagon remembered at The Little Museum Of Dublin
Wanderly Wagon began life in monochrome, but once RTÉ launched its full-colour service in 1973, the show erupted into a technicolour fever dream. "It was the closest Ireland came to flower power," says musician Jim Doherty, whose theme music can be heard over what is surely the most hallucinatory intro to any kids' series ever.
Just as eye-catching as the visuals on screen were the names passing through the writers’ room. They included Neil Jordan, Pat Ingoldsby (another cult hero, and one we'll be returning to in a future article in this series) and Father Ted star Frank Kelly, whose additional role as the show’s arch-villain, Dr Astro, spooked many a child – an entirely reasonable reaction to seeing Father Jack in lederhosen. Looming largest, though, was theatrical trailblazer Carolyn Swift, who contributed a whopping 100 scripts during her tenure as series editor.
Calling Wanderly Wagon a cult show might raise eyebrows. It was so popular that, in 1974, when rumours swirled that the show might be cancelled, mobs of children picketed the gates of RTÉ. But sadly, as was common practice in TV at the time, many of those original tapes were wiped and reused, resulting in the loss of early recordings and the coveting of any that remain.
We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The good news is that many of those surviving episodes were packed onto DVD in 2005 as The Best of Wanderly Wagon Volumes 1 and 2. If you happen to see a love-worn copy adorning the shelves of your local CeX any time soon, please grab it before my father has any second thoughts.
Enjoy more RTÉ Cult TV Classics here
