It’s the end of summer in 2009. I’ve just been to buy my very first mobile phone ready for secondary school — it’s a Nokia brick with a camera. It’s an exciting time. I’m wearing black low-rise Topshop skinny jeans with a graphic Rolling Stones t-shirt (new, from H&M), and I’ve just had a really cool side fringe cut in. I don’t yet have any social media profiles and life is good. I want some black Converse or Vans for my Year 7 school shoes, but my mum’s made me go to Clarks to get a “hard wearing” pair instead. I opt for velcro, knowing I will later regret it. Hopefully, we are nearing the end of the back-to-school shopping trip, so I can get home in time for Tracy Beaker. It’s a double bill tonight and things are looking tense between Tracy and Justine Littlewood.
Ah, those were the days. Though we might not have fully appreciated it at the time, the noughties just hit differently — especially when it came to kid’s television. More specifically, CBBC. Following the news last year that the channel would move to an online-only format before 2025, my friends and I spent ages reminiscing on the weird and wonderful shows CBBC aired throughout the 2010s. Although times have undoubtedly changed, and CBBC’s move does kind of make sense (even in 2016, a British Broadcasters’ Audience Board report found one in 20 households didn’t own a TV) it is the whole viewing experience I am nostalgic about. The only screen in our house, bar a clunky computer upstairs, was our equally clunky TV set.
My friends and I came to know CBBC’s schedules by heart, and we would always rush home for our favourite shows, eating copious amounts of toast (white bread, always) and delaying maths homework. My little sister also arrived home with friends in tow, so our living room often became a crowded viewing venue.
Google Trends shows that interest in CBBC has decreased over time and, while lockdown brought lots of children back to CBBC and CBeebies, it was to the channel’s digital platforms. It’s clear that changes to media landscapes and viewing habits have changed pretty drastically since my side fringe days. There is much more choice and flexibility now than there was in the early 2000s, but that doesn’t necessarily mean kid’s TV is better than it was then, and I hope the following shows prove noughties CBBC’s as one of the most elite eras of children’s television.
1. M.I. High
The M.I. High kids were the coolest on the block. My boyfriend wanted to be with Rose — I wanted to be Rose. How many people now work for secret intelligence services because of M.I. High? I bet it’s a lot. I mean, fair play to the teenage spies for balancing their schoolwork with having to save the world literally every day. Protecting everyone from the elusive Grand Master’s evil antics really didn’t free up much time for science homework.
M.I. High’s creator and writer, Keith Brumpton, said he thought it would be fun to do a children’s spy show — and worked from the idea that kids often find it difficult to keep secrets. It has also been revealed that MI5 and MI6 didn’t allow the show to use their names, but granted permission for them to use the (now obsolete) MI9. MI9 was the service that looked after covert operations in the UK and overseas during WWII and created various gadgets.