Jerry Foulkes

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A Children's ITV promotional photo from 1989, of Jerry Foulkes & Scally The Dog, in their Streetwise cycling gear, which was used to promote road safety & also a competition to win 2 Muddy Fox mountain bikes.

Jerry Foulkes is a former presenter of Children's ITV (CITV), which is the brand name used for the majority of children's television output on ITV in the United Kingdom. He is also an ex-radio disc jockey & has successfully worked in the UK television industry for many years.

1 Children's ITV
2 TSW & CITV
3 Other Work
4 Further reading
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Children's ITV

In April 1989, the contract to produce Children's ITV (CITV) was taken over by an independent production company, called Stonewall Productions. Foulkes was hired to present the CITV weekday afternoons service, which he did so from April - December of 1989. CITV's afternoon service ran from 4:00 - 5:10pm (Monday - Friday), except on bank holidays. He co-presented CITV with a puppet character called, Scally The Dog & they had a catchphrase which was: "We're still here!", which they both often said during their links, referring to them still being on-air at the time.

There were several big competitions during Foulkes' time on CITV. One was in conjunction with the programme, Streetwise (which was a show all about cycle couriers & starred the then unknown, Andy Serkis). Viewers had to design & draw a customised bike of their own, featuring reflective lights & other things, so it could be rode safely in the dark. The main prizes for the winners were 2 Muddy Fox mountain bikes, with some special CITV reflective safety jackets & cycle lights as runner-up prizes. This competition was very successful, with over 32,000 entries in total. Another competition was a tie-in with the adventure game-show, Knightmare. Eagle-eyed viewers had to look out for random letters appearing on screen during one episode of the show, which would eventually spell-out a word connected with fantasy. The actual word was 'Excalibur' & the prizes for the lucky winner was a ZX Spectrum computer system & a copy of the first Knightmare computer game. Hordriss, a character from the show, appeared on CITV to set the competition & Foulkes announced the winner on the 8th December 1989, just before Episode 14 of Series 3 of the show.

Many special guests appeared in the studio during Foulkes' time on CITV. Various popstars such as Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Sonia, Big Fun, Lisa Stansfield, The Primitives & many more all appeared in 1989. Donovan's appearance on CITV was quite memorable, as due to him being stuck in traffic or something, he was extremely late arriving at the CITV studios in Birmingham, only turning up just before the final programme of the day was about to start, which was a repeat of Scooby-Doo. However, the show was started a bit earlier than originally planned & the final CITV link of the day was quite longer than usual, which gave Foulkes & Scally a bit more of air-time to chat to Donovan. Other stars who appeared in 1989, were the TV presenter & practical joker, Jeremy Beadle & the legendary Australian cartoonist, Rolf Harris, who drew portraits of both Jerry & Scally throughout the links on the day he appeared.

Foulkes left CITV on the 22nd December 1989 & on 2nd January 1990, fellow CITV presenter, Jeanne Downs (who had presented CITV's summer mornings service in '89) took over co-presenting the afternoons with Scally, until April 1991, when Stonewall lost the contract to produce CITV back to Central Television (who had also done it previously from 1983 - 1989).

[edit] TSW & CITV

TSW - Television South-West (The ITV franchise holder for the south-west, from 1982 - 1992).

From 1987 - 1990, TSW (the ITV company for the south-west region), used to often opt-out of showing the first & last CITV links of the day, so they would have more air-time for their local birthdays' dedications show, Gus Honeybun instead. Gus' slot was shown twice a day on weekdays (before & after CITV) & usually once a day at weekends. During Foulkes' time on CITV, they were relentless in opting-out of the final link of the day, only showing it twice in the period of April - September of 1989. Between September - December of 1989, they did occasionally start showing it a bit more regularly, but opt-outs were still very frequent. On Foulkes' last day on CITV on the 22nd December 1989, they opted-out of several links on this day, including the final one, which sadly meant that south-west viewers never got to hear him say "Goodbye". TSW's listings in TV magazines such as TV Times & Look-In used to show CITV only on TSW from 4:00 - 5:08pm, with Gus Honeybun following at 5:08pm. However, due to both a request from the CITV committee & the rescheduling of the Australian soap, Home and Away in September 1989 (which gave Gus some more air-time), the opt-outs suddenly stopped for good in January 1990, with only 3 further opt-outs ever occurring; one day in early 1990, once again on the 20th December 1991 & finally on one day in August 1992.

[edit] Other Work

After he graduated from Leicester University in 1983, Foulkes started his media career in radio, working on both BBC Radio Leicester & BBC Radio Norfolk in the 1980's. During his time at BBC Radio Norfolk, amongst other things, he presented an evening show called Nightdrive. After 4 years there, he left in 1987 to become a video jockey on the newly-launched music channel, MTV Europe. He left MTV in 1989 to join Children's ITV (CITV). After he left CITV, he then moved into the world of television production, becoming a very successful editor, director & producer. Early work included jobs with both the BBC World Service & Children's BBC (CBBC).

In 1992, he very briefly appeared in an episode of the BBC TV series, That's Life!, in a short featurette about a girl called, Allison Jordan, who had won a talent contest on the show & was just about to release her debut single, Boy From New York City. His name wasn't shown on-screen though, instead only a caption appeared saying he was "the plugger" (a slang term for promoter) of the record. The then current CBBC presenter, Andi Peters & a very young and then unknown Simon Cowell also appeared in it too. The single only reached No.23 in the UK charts though & the public interest in Jordan quickly waned, although she would later successfully become the editor-in-chief of Paranormal Magazine.

Later in 1996, Foulkes became the editor of the long-running Channel 4 TV review show, Right To Reply for 3 years. In 1997, he was also the editor of another Channel 4 TV review show, the short-lived Nightwatch, which was presented by Pat Kane (from the 80's duo, Hue and Cry). In 1999, he then moved to the BBC & became a commissioning executive. He left the BBC in 2003, to move to talkbackTHAMES & became the editor of factual programmes. He was the editor of one of their most successful shows, How Clean Is Your House?, which began on Channel 4 in 2003.

More recently in 2007, he was the series producer of a new show for the BBC called, Britain's Dream Homes, which was made by the TV production company, Twofour Broadcast. The series aired on BBC2 for 3 weeks in February 2008.^[1]