History YMMV / BluePeter

* TooSexyForThisTimeslot: Several times. Katy Hill and Konnie Huq's miniskirt war drew criticism. Zöe Salmon, an ex-beauty queen, was accused of wearing swimming costumes that were way too skimpy when presenting swimming-pool related items. It was felt this detracted from the content of what she was actually presenting, ie about water safety.

** All the innuendos, rumours and whispered stories concerning long-standing presenter Valerie Singleton, a lady who kept her private life very much to herself and never married. It has been revealed that she actually had a discreet affair with fellow presenter Peter Purves. But this doesn't stop the rumours about her ''dominant'' gender preference being for other women.

** The series received the greatest mark of approval and respectability possible in 1972, when the then fourth-in-line-to-the-throne Princess Anne joined the presentation team. The Queen's only daughter joined the presenters, the golden team of Noakes, Purves and Singleton, on a safari summer expedition to Africa, proving herself a natural and unaffected TV presenter and a possible talent in the making. However, she was seen to strip down to a bikini in the company of BP presenter Valerie Singleton, a woman around whom many rumours and legends have coalesced over the years. Singleton also shared a tent with the young princess when out on the veldt. While most authorities are of the view that nothing untoward or improper happened, it was let known on behalf of the Palace that a daughter of the royal house dallying with a woman suspected of being a lesbian was not exactly good PR, even if by no stretch of the imagination could a 1972 bikini be called "skimpy". Princess Anne's contributions to BP were then scaled down to outside broadcasts and horse-related items, ending almost completely after her marriage in 1974.
* TooSexyForThisTimeslot: Several times. Katy Hill and Konnie Huq's miniskirt war drew criticism. Zöe Salmon, an ex beauty queen, was accused of wearing swimming costumes that were way too skimpy when presenting swimming-pool related items. It was felt this detracted from the content of what she was actually presenting, ie about water safety.

* TooSexyForThisTimeslot: Several times. Katy Hill and Connie Huq's miniskirt war drew criticism. Zöe Salmon, an ex beauty queen, was accused of wearing swimming costumes that were way too skimpy when presenting swimming-pool related items. It was felt this detracted from the content of what she was actually presenting, ie about water safety.

* LesYay: All the innuendos, rumours and whispered stories concerning long-standing presenter Valerie Singleton, a lady who kept her private life very much to herself and never married. It has been revealed that she actually had a discreet affair with fellow presenter Peter Purves. But this doesn't stop the rumours about her ''dominant'' gender preference being for other women.

* ContractualPurity - Very much the case here, at least while you're actually on the show. Presenters are required to present a "clean and wholesome" image at all times. This means no smoking, no drugs and certainly no being a PageThreeStunna.
** The very first presenter, Peter Trace, was sacked - for adultery - in 1959.
** A previous presenter's tenure was cut very short when tabloids revealed he'd not only been in porn, it was ''gay'' porn. This was compounded by his having, briefly, been a rent boy. BP takes it ''very'' seriously that its presenters should be morally upstanding and squeaky-clean.
** Richard Bacon's drug-related fall is well documented.
** Lesley Judd left the series shortly before it was revealed her lover had left his wife for her.
** Even in the morally less hung-up eighties, a female presenter was forced out when it was revealed she was having a baby but not married.
** Zoe Salmon's innappropriate on-air diversion into her Northern Irish political affiliations nearly got her sacked (see main).

* LesYay: All the innuendos, rumours and whispered stories concerning long-standing presenter Valerie Singleton, a lady who kept her private life very much to herself and never married. It has been revealed that she actually had a discreet affair with fellow presenter Peter Purvis. But this doesn't stop the rumours about her ''dominant'' gender preference being for other women.
* PantyShot: In the late 1990's/early 2000's, when miniskirts were in fashion again, and presenters Katy Hill and Konnie Huq seemed to be in competition as to who could flash her knickers most often when sitting on the Blue Peter sofa. Just to make it more obvious, Katy appeared to favour what was otherwise a style solecism of wearing white knickers with black tights. She also had a habit of crouching or squatting when presenting to camera that made it difficult to conceal in a miniskirt.
* {{Sideboob}} exposure: Zoe Salmon became the first BP presenter to go topless in the history of the show, and quite possibly the first presenter to do so in the entire history of BBC childrens' broadcasting. This wasn't even with any high-minded purpose, such as education or art. The presenters were reproducing iconic images from the James Bond movies and it fell to the blonde and pneumatic Zoe to do the one where the girl is covered in gold paint. The Blue Peter Annual no. 36 records the completed image, with a gold-painted Zoe clearly topless in sideboob pose and a combination of hair and right arm covering the contentious bits.

* HilariousInHindsight: Richard Bacon did an article on one ''BluePeter'' book titled "Pot It" not long before his drug allegations.

** A previous presenter's tenure was cut very short when tabloids revealed he'd not only been in porn, it was ''gay'' porn. This was compounded by his having, briefly, been a rent boy. BP takes it ''very'' seriously that its presenters should be morally upstanding and squeaky-clean. The original presenter from 1958, Peter Trace, was forced out when it was revealed he was getting divorced and moving in with his mistress. Richard Bacon's drug-related fall is well documented. Lesley Judd left the series shortly before it was revealed her lover had left his wife for her. Even in the morally less hung-up eighties, a female presenter was forced out when it was revealed she was having a baby but not married. Somehow, Valerie Singleton survived a very long association with the show, despite all the rumours about her gender preferences. (LesYay!) And Zoe Salmon's innappropriate on-air diversion into her Northern Irish political affiliations nearly got her sacked (see main).
* LesYay! all the innuendos, rumours and whispered stories concerning long-standing presenter Valerie Singleton, a lady who kept her private life very much to herself and never married. It has been revealed that she actually had a discreet affair with fellow presenter Peter Purvis. But this doesn't stop the rumours about her ''dominant'' gender preference being for other women.
** HRH Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, was a guest presenter on the show, although she is not usually counted as one of the "official" thirty-two. A friend and fan of the show, Anne Windsor accompanied the then presenters out to Africa on a summer safari, (refraining from pointing out exactly how much of the continent her family still owned in the early 1970's), sharing the privations of the veldt, proving herself to be an able TV presenter, spending time in hot tubs in a bikini alongside [[LesYay Valerie Singleton]], and generally enjoying herself and being very good PR for the Royals. Princess Anne also reported on horsey matters for the show and very graciously gave riding lessons to BP presenters hitherto innocent of the charms of equine contact. Her association with the show diminished after marriage in 1974, but she has returned at intervals.

* ContractualPurity - Very much the case here, at least while you're actually on the show. Presenters are required to present a "clean and wholesome" image at all times. This means no smoking, no drugs and certainly no being a PageThreeStunna.