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And Finally Media
BBC forced to apologise after repeating Savile-impersonating Tweenie
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 21 January 2013
While BBC bosses have been busy analysing every minute of ‘Top Of The Pops’ footage looking for moments featuring the Corporation’s former flagship sex offender Jimmy Savile, to ensure the disgraced former DJ doesn’t bother BBC4 viewers when the channel airs ‘TOTP’ repeats, no one thought to give the ‘Tweenies’ archive a once over.
Which is how an edition of the kids show aired on CBeebies this weekend featuring one of the show’s characters dressed as Savile in a pop show sequence, and employing the presenter’s catchphrase “Now then guys and gals”.
As parents took to the social networks to remark on just how inappropriate a Savile tribute was on a kids show, given what we now know about the DJ, BBC bosses were kicking each other very hard in the shins, presumably mightily pissed off that they’d just walked into another Savile-related PR disaster. If only someone had checked the 2001 edition of ‘Tweenies’ first before pressing play.
A BBC spokesman issued a speedy statement, telling ‘Tweenies’ fans everywhere: “This morning CBeebies broadcast a repeat of an episode of ‘The Tweenies’, originally made in 2001, featuring a character dressed as a DJ impersonating Jimmy Savile. This programme will not be repeated and we are very sorry for any offence caused”.
