What is it with the BBC and children? You’d imagine after the Jimmy Savile scandal that execs in the children’s programming department would have gone out of their way to ensure shows directed at innocents were age appropriate and free from sexual innuendo. A cursory online glance at Caroline Flack’s time on a children’s show called TMI with Sam and Mark from around 2007 gives us an idea of the dark underbelly of this production. It also exposes the glaring lack of remorse for past sins from the BBC and its intention to proceed as normal.
Voodoo Baby
Let’s start with the ‘skit’ involving the baby doll, like a screwed up black magic voodoo ritual, made out to be a bit of a lark. Mark Rhodes (a former Pop Idol runner-up) holds up the male baby doll for a close-up shot, the little figure is in jeans and shirt and white shoes with a terrified look on his face, so carefully chosen for the ritual/act. Rhodes starts poking its stomach with a needle while his masked co-presenter Sam Nixon (another former Pop Idol contestant) has to guess where in the body the baby is being jabbed. Zero empathy is expressed for the doll by any of the presenters who ignore the desensitising nature of the challenge, like it’s perfectly normal to stab a baby with a needle in the stomach. What a hoot!
Who let this through the production meeting? Didn’t somebody, anybody, shout stop? What kind of dimwitted presenters would go along with something so inappropriate on a children’s show, for the BBC of all places? Grateful ones, perhaps, who’d do anything for fame and screen exposure. All the presenters had to do was say no, explain that it’s not suitable for children and come up with a different idea. Instead the child guests present in studio had to sit through a weird satanic display, watching adult presenters behave appallingly under the guise of fun. Poor kids.
The Savile Effect
The death of Jimmy Savile exposed the extent of the problem at the BBC. It wasn’t just him. He was a symptom of a sick organisation. The Prince’s confidante, his marriage counsellor, his friend. Savile was the guy given the master keys to terrorise and the freedom to roam unimpeded. He had a support network. He was untouchable. His protectors are still in key positions in media and politics and royalty.
Sexual Innuendo
In the second clip from the video montage (above), the producers have put two girls on either side of a man, all of them must root out a fruit from the front pocket of their aprons on the command of Caroline Flack for this outside broadcast. The cameraman closes in as they fumble around their nether regions. Again this is passed off as just a bit of harmless fun. The man pulls out a banana, the girls two apples, like an appendage and two balls. Seriously inappropriate. From the reaction of the presenters in the studio, you can tell it’s deliberate sexual innuendo. This kind of thing has no place on kids’ TV.
Cheesy toes
The third clip is particularly disturbing as a young girl called Kate is put in a position where she must eat cheese from the hairy toes of presenter Mark Rhodes to prove her ‘friendship to Phoebe’. This game stinks of grooming tactics. Wikipedia tells us:
The second series in 2007 saw the demise of the TMi flat and the introduction of a new theme where each week the presenters encouraged viewers to become their 'friend' on the show's website. Nixon, Rhodes and Flack would participate in various challenges, mostly involving gunge, in the hope of gaining new friends.
The child guest, Kate, handles the situation as best she can considering her young age. Sam Nixon goads her to hurry on. “Come on luv, we haven’t got all day,” he says as he makes a snide expression to camera, shaking his head, demeaning the child even further. Kate should never have been put in that position. It’s plain wrong. Adult presenters need to have enough cop to know when to call a halt to compromising skits. They always have the right to refuse to participate in ill-advised pieces for TV. The producers of the show exposed their lack of awareness at best, their sordid proclivities at worst. Frankly lack of awareness is no excuse at the BBC. So what is it then?
Licking the chocolate bar
“You need to eat a chocolate bar licked by Ronnie to prove your friendship to Sam,” announces Caroline Flack for the next stunt. She brings the bar over to the child and tells him: “I want you to put that right in your mouth and have a good old lick”. Rhodes and Nixon shout as the child does as he’s told for the challenge unaware of the sexual innuendo - the cameraman goes in for close-up shot of the child with the chocolate bar in his mouth. How did they get away with this in 2007? Clearly no lessons were learned from Savile. Viewers once again allowed themselves to be charmed into submission by ‘fun’ presenters. It is outrageous that this slot ever got passed any producers but we’re seeing a pattern emerge. They’re doing it on purpose. Be a sport and play along.
Attacking a baby
The weird baby theme turned up again with a visit from boyband McFly with a spoon of baby food attached to the camera for presenter Mark Rhodes to lick up close. Later in the show he’s dressed as a baby and placed in an oversized baby chair where the boyband, along with Caroline Flack and Sam Nixon, throw buckets of sludge on him as he cries loudly. More desensitising imagery, entirely inappropriate. Nobody should ever be encouraged to hurt a baby, even if it’s being passed off as fun. Never ever.
“I must not chase boys”
For another slot, we see Caroline Flack wearing a seductive red dress suitable for a nightclub or late night adult show. Braless, she has to keep pulling it up as it slips every time she runs. The challenge: the child participant must guess how many times Flack can write “I must not chase boys” on the blackboard. Imagine if it was a male presenter writing, “I must not chase girls”. Works both ways. Improper. Shouldn’t have been allowed. Why was it allowed? We then see Flack flirt with the child caller - saying Todd is her favourite boy name as she winks down the camera before running off to write “I must not chase boys” on the blackboard. It’s off. Tone deaf. And the BBC know it. Kids’ TV presenters should dress appropriately. The wardrobe department is well aware. The dress was on purpose too.
Ear licking
“Lick Mark’s ear,” says Flack as a dare to Sam Nixon in front of two child guests. “And when I say lick, you have to get the inside bit…in friendship”. Again lots of shouting and screeching while the camera man gets a close up shot of the ear being licked before the bros (who’ve never had a row apparently) high five and make loud noises. Perhaps they should have had a few disagreements over the years and they wouldn’t be so compromised looking back on their sorry career in kids’ TV. They should have said no. It might have shortened their TV careers but they would have held on to some bit of dignity.
Toe sucking
The dutiful duo again didn’t say no when to prove their friendship Sam Nixon sucked Mark Rhodes’ toe in front of two girls and a children’s audience. “That is friendship right there,” says Mark Rhodes. “Would you do that? I don’t think so,” he says the girl participant who hits back: “That was disgusting for one thing. That was wrong”. The child knew if was improper. Why didn’t the producers? Why didn’t the presenters? That’s supposed to be their job. I’ll tell you why, because they did know it was wrong and that’s why they were doing it, because it was inappropriate. That’s why the presenters got the job. That’s how it works at the BBC. That’s how you climb the greasy pole of showbiz.
Inappropriate physical contact
Physical contact between children and adult presenters should be kept to a minimum on TV shows considering the toxic culture of broadcasting and the BBC’s vile predatory history. On TMI with Sam and Mark, a little boy is encouraged to wrap himself around Mark Rhodes as he does push-ups for a ‘fun’ challenge. It seems innocent enough but put into context it’s distasteful. No child should be asked to mount an adult male stranger on TV, even if it’s passed off as harmless fun, especially on the BBC.
Toenail cracker
“Mark if you’re any kind of friend to Sam, you will eat this cracker with the toenails,” comes the next challenge from Caroline Flack who seems to delight in the grossness of the dare. He does it. Imagine what a show like this did to its suggestible audience, encouraging children to do disgusting things to prove their friendships, compromising them one creepy crawly step at a time. Grooming.
Fish eyeballs
“You have to eat a fish eyeball,” challenges Flack to Mark Rhodes as she holds a bowl full of large eyeballs. The audience chant, “Eat it, eat it, eat it”. Like a sick freemasonic initiation rite played out to corrupt impressionable minds, the children’s TV presenter eats the eyeball and retches. The child contestants seated behind look horrified, afraid they’ll be asked to do something as disgusting during the course of the show. No child should ever be made feel discomfort like that on a kids’ programme. The presenters and producers know this.
Butterfly tattoo
Many years later, after Caroline Flack had left TMI with Sam and Mark to further her TV career she showed off a butterfly tattoo on her back as reported in the Daily Mail on August 6, 2014. Was it just a tattoo of a butterfly or did it hold a deeper significance, like monarch mind control or some kind of pact for fame and fortune? Was her unprofessional fling with Harry Styles when he was a 17-year-old, fresh faced contestant on the X Factor and she a 32-year-old host of the Xtra Factor, just a PR stunt to blur the lines between adult and teenage relationships? Harry’s mum approved, after all. Love is love and all that. Put it into context - something is very off.
Flack also had connections to the royal House of Windsor and had a relationship with Prince Harry in 2009. Apparently they just bumped into each other on a night out. Sure.
Maybe this is why Caroline Flack had so many mental health issues - too many compromises to attain fame and wealth. It catches up in the end.
Liam Payne
Harry Styles’ bandmate in One Direction Liam Payne started off alright on the X Factor, then got all screwed up along the way. What happened? Was he taken advantage of by some TV exec or music mogul? Did he witness real satanic rituals? Why was he so broken?
Now it’s everyone else’s fault he fell off that balcony in Buenos Aires, just like it’s everyone else’s fault Caroline Flack took her own life in London after assaulting her then boyfriend. There’s another part of the puzzle missing - the toxic environment of showbiz that seemed to destroy their innocence and haunted them to self destruct. Who’s fault is that?
Disingenuous Disney
No doubt Disney, just as bad as the BBC, want to make excuses about press intrusion to fend off investigations into their practices when it comes to children. Hence the new documentary using Caroline Flack’s grieving mother to create new laws that would give celebrities special privileges when it comes to their crimes. Best let them off the hook or they might kill themselves, will be the gist.
Isn’t it time we stopped being played by predators?
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