CBBC Memories – Hangar 17.

Hangar 17 (CBBC, 1992-1994)

How to describe Hangar 17? It was a lot of things really, a lively sort of comedy/variety/music entertainment show thing and it was hosted by the stand-up comedian Mickey Hutton. Mickey’s presenting style was notable for two reasons. First of all, he had a rather thick Geordie accent so no-one knew what he was on about half the time, and secondly, he had the most ridiculous hairstyle. Not that I feel like I’m qualified to mock people’s choices in this area, but he did have really long hair. 

Alongside him on the presenting team were two guys called Ox and Weasel (I thought they were characters in Saved By The Bell?), plus Paul Leyshon who was also a DJ on the show (he went on to be in Hollyoaks, you know) and some woman who used to be in Neighbours. 

The idea with the show was that various acts performed. There were jugglers, comedians, mime artists, ventriloquists and so on who would do their thing on the stage for the gathered studio audience. There was also a regular comedy troupe on the show who performed silly sketches including David Schneider who was seemingly moonlighting from The Day Today. Lots of celebrity guests turned up too including that guy off Home And Away. 

There was also a music slot on the show which along with featuring here today-gone tomorrow pop bands also had a few groups that did have more success. The likes of Take That and East 17 turned up a lot, and there were lots of other bands who were around at the time who performed on the show including Johnny Hates Jazz and Voice Of The Beehive, much to the delight of the crowd. 

One of my favourite features on the show was Comedy Cones. This was where three acts had a minute or two to perform their routine and the quality definitely varied. At the end, everyone voted on who they thought the best one was. This meant the other two losing acts were gunged which was always very amusing. 

There was also the memorable feature Teacher On The Hotseat where a pupil made one of their teachers who they didn’t like take part in a quiz challenge. If they got the answers wrong, as they always did because the questions were practically impossible, then once again it was gunge time. Honestly, why do I remember these things? 

Hangar 17 was a good attempt to create a show where anything could happen really, it featured lots of different acts, and it ran for three series on CBBC. I never recorded any episodes at the time and having a look at a few clips that I found on YouTube it did bring back some good memories. After Hangar 17 ended Mickey Hutton went on to host another show that I remember watching and I will be reviewing on here soon.

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