Missing Maggie

The clicking noise Skippy used to communicate was a complete fabrication: kangaroos don’t make this noise in real life. Nor do they move their mouth in talking movements: to do that, the crew fed the kangaroos rubber bands. All the clever gestures — picking up things, playing the drums, calling for help on the radio — were, of course, done by humans standing off-camera, using a pair of dead kangaroo’s hands.

By some miracle, it worked. I loved it as a child. So, probably, did you. The 91 episodes filmed over two years were seen in 128 countries, though not in Sweden. The Swedes insisted that it was quite inappropriate that children should be shown animals doing things they couldn’t do in real life.

Final treat of the week was historian Lisa Hilton in Vampires: Why They Bite (BBC3, Monday) confirming something I have long suspected about my favourite evil creatures: that they have been slowly transformed from terrifying Satanic spawn into slushy fantasy fodder for pubescent girls. It’s SO wrong. One of things that made me the man I am today was being scared witless as a child by James Mason saying ‘the Master wants you!’ in Salem’s Lot. Stephanie Meyer, I hate you.