Flashing Blade/On The Waterfornt

Youth muddles the brain – I just went looking for The Flashing Blade thinking the English dubbed version had always been a spoof but it turns out that it was first shown on BBC as a straight serious dub of the original French series in the 60′s and 70′s but was later re-re-dubbed for the Saturday morning show On The Waterfront as the spoof version I so fondly remember.
Side note number one – apparently it was scripted by Russell T Davies.
Side note number two – why oh why aren’t there any good saturday morning children’s shows any more? The old mix of cartoons, music and silliness just doesn’t seem to exist any more, wither Banana Splits et al? I suspect that the sheer amount of channels available made them redundant.