Bananaman Made in 1983, but repeated repeatedly since, each episode lasted only five minutes. The programme always started with the same words "This is 29 Acacia Road, home of Eric, the schoolboy who leads an amazing double-life. For whenever Eric eats a banana, an amazing transformation occurs. Eric is bananaman, ever alert for the call to action." Bananaman was indeed a mere weedy schoolboy until he ate a banana, at which point he would suddenly turn into a ''super-hero'' with considerably more muscles (even if with no more brain cells). Bananas did for Eric what Spinach did for Popeye, it seems, which was convenient for Bananaman, as bananas taste considerably nicer than spinach, in my opinion at least. In fact, this programme probably helped banana sales, considerably. Anyway, Bananaman's mission often seemed to be to save the town from the bad guys (namely Col. Blight, Doc. and Appleman) and to rescue the local TV newsreader from their evil clutches. He usually managed this rather well, eventually, but not without the help of his trustworthy companion, the amiable Crow, who seemed to be the one who supplied him with the bananas (why didn't the damn fool carry some on him - or am I being too logical?), and not before being kidnapped himself and very almost killed. Luckily, Crow would always appear as if by magic at the last minute before Bananaman was about to be killed by Col.Blight, and feed him a banana (see above), enabling him to escape and overpower them all. Bananaman came across to me as extremely simple, in fact probably the simplest super-hero ever. He also didn't seem to be able to understand that he was in danger, as he never stopped grinning, he just sarcastically said " Oh no". Also featured was the local policeman who gave Bananaman his orders. The programme was voiced by The Goodies' Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor, amongst others. Despite the show's bad jokes and predictability, even from a child's point of view, this was a first-class cartoon, and marked itself apart from other super-hero cartoons of its day, such as He-man and Spiderman. KIDS' PROGRAMMES OF THE 1980S PAGE