Vision On
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Vision On was a British children's television programme, shown on BBC1 from 1964 to 1977. It was designed to appeal to deaf as well as hearing viewers. Conceived by BBC producers Ursula Eason and Patrick Dowling, it replaced a monthly series called For The Deaf, and was intended to reflect changes in the education of deaf children, placing an emphasis upon communication and interaction rather than image-based storytelling alone. The main presenter was Pat Keysell, who had combined an acting career with teaching deaf children. Keysell was usually the only presenter to address the audience directly. She was later joined by Tony Hart, who encouraged viewers to send in their paintings to the Vision On gallery, which showed viewers' paintings in sequence in the middle of the programme (a feature which survives in the current children's BBC programme SMart, complete with the same background music). Other presenters at various times included Ben Benison, and Sylvester McCoy, both of whom specialized in mime in the series, and Wilf Makepeace Lunn, who appeared as an eccentric inventor of equally eccentric machines. David Cleveland appeared in filmed sequences as 'the Prof'.
The title Vision On was a reference to the illuminated sign above the recording studio at the BBC, which showed when the cameras were live. The title animation in later series showed the words 'Vision On' in script joining up with their mirror image to form an animated character.
The series ended in 1977 when it was thought that its mode of addressing deaf children had in its own way become outdated. By this time, Ceefax (the method for decoding and displaying dialogue on television and enabling the use of closed captioned subtitling) had became more easily available, and so deaf children could enjoy a wider range of children's television.
Tony Hart took the gallery concept to his spin-off art series Take Hart and Hart Beat, while Vision On's last producer, Clive Doig, took its visual style on to his later series Jigsaw and Eureka!.
Many episodes of Vision On featured short animations produced by the Aardman Animations team, who went on to animate the claymation character Morph in Take Hart and later Wallace & Gromit.
In Canada, Vision On was broadcast on TVOntario.
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[edit] Music
Despite its intended hearing impaired audience the show made extensive use of music. Notable themes included:
- The Gallery theme, usually Left Bank (Wayne Hill) but sometimes Cavatina
- The Burbles theme, Goofy (Johns)
- Humphrey the tortoise theme, Merry Ocarina by Pierre Arvay
- The opening theme was Accroche-Toi, Caroline (Vasori)
[edit] Vision On In the USA
Many PBS stations aired "Vision On" during the 1970's however in Seattle KOMO TV 4 (ABC) aired the show from 1974 - 78 on Sunday mornings. One portion of the show was taped locally at the KOMO studios.
[edit] Elsewhere in the world
Vision on dubbed in French was aired in France and Québec under the name Déclic.
[edit] References
Radio Times, 1964–1977
