Johnny Downes (1920-2004)

JOHNNY Downes was a pioneering television producer during its formative years after the war.

The originator of Crackerjack, a hugely popular children’s programme in the 1950s and 1960s, he produced it for many years and its popularity was largely due to Downes’s choice of presenters, first Eamonn Andrews and later Leslie Crowther.

Born John Haddon Downes, at Great Easton, he attended King’s School, Grantham, before training as a surveyor.

He joined the RAF on the outbreak of the war, which he spent as a flight lieutenant navigator in Mosquito nightfighters.

He and his pilot, Dennis Furse, were together for the duration of the war, and both were awarded the DFC.

After the war he turned to the theatre. His big break came after a chance meeting with Ivor Novello.

Novello was at the height of his powers as a writer of musicals and he offered Downes a job as stage manager of his new show, King’s Rhapsody.

During the run of this show he met Barbara Whiting, a singer and actress who would appear in such London productions as South Pacific and Guys and Dolls. They married in 1951.

King’s Rhapsody led to more stage management work and a period as a circus producer and ringmaster before Downes decided to move into TV. He joined the BBC in 1953 as a floor manager and was quickly promoted to producer.

Given a modest budget for six shows to come up with a live children’s entertainment programme, the result was Crackerjack, TV’s first live children’s show.

It was an instant success, and Downes produced and directed it for 10 years. In 1967 it won the National Television Award for children’s programmes.

He was responsible for several popular shows, notably all of the Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop programmes and he also originated the Basil Brush Show. Both Lamb Chop and Basil Brush were favourites of the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who invited Downes to produce them at Buckingham Palace.

Downes’s final success was with Call My Bluff, which he produced for some years.

He retired at 60 to live in Devon, where he died 24 years later.