“Those treasured memories of our childhoods fuelled my generation of parents’ love of TLLTS, so we hyped it up to our own children.” Photo: Andres Poveda/ RTÉ
I am not even sure if I’m allowed to say this out loud but The Late Late Toy Show (TLLTS) is wildly overrated. We are, of course, all supposed to be on board with it being absolutely AMAZING, but the truth is closer to it being The Emperor’s New Toys. Oh, I know how the mythology began – it was my generation that started it! We watched the first TLLTS as tiny kids in the 1970s and 80s.
I remember the excitement of being allowed to stay up in my PJs and slippers – tired before the owl even took flight. But then the thrill of all the toys! Toys you had absolutely no chance of ever getting or of even seeing in real life. We pressed our little matchstick-girl-and-boy noses up against the TV screen and dreamed. It was a night of kid fantasy.
