Omoseye Bolaji reminisces on TV antecedents

Television, like modern technology generally, has grown by leaps and bounds. Now worldwide, via satellite TV there are countless stations to savour, including many specialised stations which millions - including myself - would never even bother to watch. Yet incredibly, it was not always like this. A few decades ago, most countries just had only one or two stations, mainly the national one. I was reminded of this recently when i made a brief acquaintance of an Australian tourist. Whilst we shared a few drinks he lamented the current boom in TV worldwide. "The good old days have gone," he said. "There is too much saturation these days. Then, there was the exhilaration of looking forward to, waiting days for the next episode of a TV hit, whether international, or our home grown Aussie shows." I grinned. “You mean like your Return to Eden? ‘ He smiled, not too surprised that I knew about this Australian series, featuring Stephanie Harper, Jakes Sanders etc. I added that as a kid, I also used to watch Skippy - Skippy, the bush kangaroo! He winced. "How could that be? That's many decades ago! Did youu grow up in Europe?" he asked. I replied that though I spent years as a kid in England, I actually watched most episodes of Skippy, the Australian show back in black Africa, so to speak. I explained: “You see, I happen to come from Ibadan, a Nigerian city which has the record of starting the first ever T.V station in the whole of Africa - over fifty years ago, so kids grew up watching shows from around the world. Like in your Australia etc then, it was black and white T.V of course. Colour came later." He said: "So in those days you watched our Skippy a lot?" He laughed. Ah, we were kids then! Did you know most of the stunts in the show were just film tricks? That even the kangaroo itself, "Skippy", was fake in the sense that many kangaroos were used, not just one? I myself learnt that many years later!" I shook my head. "No, we were too young then...you know even in those days, Nigeria had superb home-grown programmes too, including what is usually called soapies now. As you said earlier, the excitement was in waiting a week for the next episode!" My mind went back to Nigerian block-busting TV shows decades ago, like Village Headmaster, New Masquerade, Cockcrow at dawn, Suke, Fadeyi Oloro, Ripples. Gorgeous female stars of those days like Barbara Soky. My own personal favourite actor, Jegede in the comedy, Awada... I said: “Ah well, the world moves on. Now there is so much mushrooming of Nigerian movies, Nollywood. They are so popular here in South Africa! Even in the townships, synonymous with African Magic." The Australian sighed. “I prefer the old days,” he intoned, rather lugubriously. - Omoseye Bolaji