Or can you? Starting this week was a new series of Roobarb.
The original series was in 1975. Very few programmes have waited 30 years to get a new one. This is not a new idea of course, bringing back a favourite of yesteryear chimes nicely for nostalgia hunting parents and adults as well as kids who, one hopes, can appreciate the simpler world. Any let us be fair, Roobarb’s world was a very simple one. A green dog feuding with a purple cat. And some birds laughing. So perhaps it is just as well there has been little media frenzy. Even Five, the people showing the new series (distinguished by being called Roobarb and Custard Too – putting right the inequality felt by the feline member of this double act) seem not all that interested by this original programming. The Five website just has a page where you can download Roobarb or Custard masks. Beware, page may damage eyes.
Roobarb was cheap TV in the seventies, so lord only known how cheap it would be now to make. But as long as the wobbly animation and Richard Briers stupid accents are in place, who cares? I will watch it about as much as I watched the reruns of Roobarb, which is on average once a week when late for work. I don’t need to relive my childhood, but they were funny cartoons. Dog vs cat like rhubarb and custard: a classic combination.