Pigsty (CBBC, 1990-1991)
This is a CBBC show that was a combination of comedy and music. Firstly, the writer of Pigsty was Paul Mendelson, who also worked on various sitcoms for the grown-ups around this time including May To December and So Haunt Me. This was also going to be a show that featured a lot of porcine japery (I think I went to school with someone called Porcine Japery).
In Pigsty, the main characters were a family of pigs (who I think were siblings), Troyboy, Pinks, and Little Pig, who had American accents, and were described as “humans in pig outfits obviously” (“obviously”). Well no, I mean I thought that they actually were real pigs who have had a lot of training. Well they say that pigs are some of the most intelligent animals, so maybe they were. Honestly, who could tell.
Episodes were set at the Pizza Café that they ran (presumably this was the place where people would go before the Monster Café launched). Indeed, this was where all of the trendy people wanted to be seen, especially pop stars. And as this was the early-90s, there were lots of jokes about the big acts of the era including New Kids On The Block and Rick Astley.
The other main character is MT, who is human, and a rather slimy music business bigwig who is always trying to scupper the pigs and their chances of becoming big famous singers themselves. Ainsley Harriott was also in an episode or two, a while before he became better known for being a TV chef. And the café made the tastiest steamed hams this side of Spatz.
Of course, like with most children’s TV shows, this was a rather unusual idea, but also a fun one. There were 18 episodes of Pigsty in two series, and they were all only ten minutes long. Repeat runs continued until 1992, but I don’t think that this was shown as part of the CBBC On Choice strand, and there has been no DVD release of anything like that. Releasing the music from this show seems to have been a missed opportunity as well.
ADAM'S NOSTALGIC MEMORIES 