Blue Peter/Headscratchers


 * Okay, don't get me wrong. I grew up watching Blue Peter, and I loved it and all, but am I the only one who thinks the title sounds a little....dirty? I know it's referring to a flag, but still...
 * You know, I think you might indeed be the only one. Thanks for that thought, though.
 * Apparently their is a Blue Peter porn site (one called that anyway) out there, so no you're not.
 * Maybe I'm just being dense but how is Blue Peter dirty? Okay I'll give you blue, as in blue movie, but Peter?
 * Yes, you are being dense. "Peter" is one of the many synonyms for "penis". ...Wait, does that make this show Dr. Manhattan?
 * (Different troper) Peter being a euphemism for penis is not that common in the part of the UK I'm from.
 * I've had more than one North American friend question that a TV show for children has a name that they would associate as something much dirtier. I explained that Peter being slang for Penis wasn't common in the UK (as far as I am aware). So anyone thinking it sounds dirty isn't the only one.
 * Just think of it as revenge for the film Free Willy. (Even though it's significantly older. Pre-emptive revenge.)
 * It was a readymade headline when the tabloid press discovered that Peter Duncan had once been in an "adult movie", though. (It was VERY tame - the worst he did was take his shirt off.)
 * A previous presenter's tenure was cut very short when tabloids revealed he'd not only been in porn, it was gay porn. This was compounded by his having, briefly, been a rent boy. BP takes it very seriously that its presenters should be morally upstanding and squeaky-clean. The original presenter from 1958, Peter Trace, was forced out when it was revealed he was getting divorced and moving in with his mistress. Richard Bacon's drug-related fall is well documented. Lesley Judd left the series shortly before it was revealed her lover had left his wife for her. Even in the morally less hung-up eighties, a female presenter was forced out when it was revealed she was having a baby but not married. Somehow, Valerie Singleton survived a very long association with the show, despite all the rumours about her gender preferences. (Les Yay!) And Zoe Salmon's innappropriate on-air revelation about her Northern Irish politics nearly got her sacked (see main).