YMMV / Blue Peter

• Hilarious in Hindsight: Richard Bacon did an article on one Blue Peter book titled "Pot It" not long before his drug allegations.
• Les Yay:
  • 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 Blue Peter 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 Blue Peter were then scaled down to outside broadcasts and horse-related items, ending almost completely after her marriage in 1974.
• Misaimed Fandom: Joey Deacon, an author with cerebral palsy, appeared on Blue Peter in 1981. The show presented his life in a sensitive manner, but his distinctive speech and mannerisms caused him to be the target of playground mockery throughout the country, with "Joey" even becoming an insult meaning "idiot."
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Richard Bacon's drug scandal is the most memorable moment of his run as a Blue Peter presenter.
• Too Sexy for This Timeslot: 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.

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