ARE you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...

Just seven simple words that didn't just define a generation, it helped shape its children into well-rounded individuals who knew right from wrong, good from bad and that it was not essentially wrong for Looby Lou to join Teddy and Andy Pandy in the big box.

Generations of children have somehow grown up sane despite adults trying to mess with their minds through characters that can only have been created after long lunch breaks or hallucenogenic drugs.

The Clangers, The Teletubbies, Fingerbobs, The Herbs, Mutant Ninja Turtles. Little wonder there are times when we look at our own children and fear that too much exposure to this stuff may have been a big mistake.

But it was the early, halcyon days of BBC children's television that created today's middle-aged movers and shakers and classic shows such as Muffin the Mule, Andy Pandy, The Woodentops and Bill and Ben made my generation the sane and balanced bunch we are.

For years, I believed a garden weed possessed the mental capacity to warn pot plants of impending danger and that flobba-dobba-lob' was an acceptable form of address in job interviews.

We evolved into teenagers and chose our favourite Wacky Racers and drooled over Captain Scarlet's Spectrum Angels.

Yet where are these gems of our childhood in today's top 20 children's television shows of all time?

Absolutely nowhere, which can only lead me to believe that the 5,000 adults' surveyed are simply young whippersnappers whose TV idols were overweight, crisp-eating buffoons rather than a guinea pig that could drive a speedboat.