Saturday Superstore (1984)

Concept and creative process

Titles for a live Saturday morning kids show with Mike Read, Keith Chegwin, Sarah Greene, John Craven and David Icke. There were two other presenters Maggie Philbin and Vicky Licorish. ‘Saturday Superstore’ (1982-1987) was the successor to ‘Multi-Coloured Swap Shop’ which ended in 1981. Marc Ortmans’ brief required the retention of the logo from the previous titles. “My idea was to make it more about being a big store and feature the programme title as signage above the door. Stylistically I chose to do it with an art deco flavour like the big stores in America. The animated sections were intercut with live action of the presenters doing antics while shopping, complete with Saturday Superstore branded bags. The production organised and directed the shoots and assembled the final edited version.
I had been working with the animator Chris Tucker on 'Entertainment USA' and ‘The Main Attraction'. His style was fashionable at the time and lent itself to the design of the big store. In fact the neon stylised dancers at the start of the sequence were probably the same as the ones we created for 'The Main Attraction'. The sequences were shot on a rostrum camera working to a supplied soundtrack.”