First episode date 1982 | ||
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Genre Children's television series Similar Pipkins, Playbox, The Book Tower, Chock‑A‑Block, Emu's TV Series | ||
Let's Pretend was a 1980s children's television series aimed at preschool ages in the UK. It was shown across the ITV network at 12:10 on Tuesdays, then later on Mondays, replacing the popular Pipkins which had been cancelled at the end of 1981. Like its predecessor, each edition was fifteen minutes long, and the programme was produced using many of the same personnel such as the puppeteer Nigel Plaskitt and the producer Michael Jeans.
Each week the presenters would find a number of ordinary household items and contrive to produce a short story featuring them all. The first programme, "The Story Of The Broken Puppet", was shown on Tuesday 5 January 1982 by Central Television. The show was broadcast weekly until 1988. Big Centre TV has since re-aired the programme.
The show's original opening titles showed items moving along a conveyor belt into the mouth of a large plastic whale, and later a puppet caterpillar moving along the screen.