British 90s nostalgia and shite

THIS is an art attack.

THIS is an art attack.

THIS is a heart attack.

This is: ART ATTACK.

Art Attack

One of the programmes that was actually quite good when I was growing up was Art Attack.

It featured this man from Liverpool called Neil Buchanan who would try to teach retarded kids like me to make things from card and paint.

Neil Buchanan

Neil Buchanan was the world's nicest man. He was really down-to-earth and encouraging. For example, while Neil was painting or drawing something, he would say something nice like, "I'm doing this really quickly, so I'm sure you can do a better job than me." He seemed to really believe that too.

Unfortunately though, I could never make things as well as Neil Buchanan. He was naturally artistic while I was just naturally autistic.

In hindsight, maybe it's no surprise that I couldn't make art as good as Neil Buchanan's, considering I was just an 8-year-old whereas he was a fully-grown man with an Arts degree.

Neil Buchanan was the British version of Bob Ross, in that both are calm and supportive. Except the difference between Neil Buchanan and Bob Ross is that Neil Buchanan is still alive. In fact, he's now a guitarist in a heavy metal band.

That's not a joke by the way. Here's a picture to prove it.

Once you've seen that photo you can never unsee it.

Big art attacks

Neil Buchanan would do these things called big art attacks. He would move cardboard boxes around or spread clothes out on the floor, seemingly like an untreated mental patient, but at the end, an overhead view would reveal that he'd actually been making a giant picture the whole time, like this giant tiger:

You could tell that big art attacks were what he enjoyed best. They were his life's calling. He liked nothing more than to arrange fabric in a field in such a way that it made a picture of a hot air balloon when viewed from above. In his ideal life, he would just make big art attacks all day and nothing else. But he could only afford to do one per episode because probably a single big art attack would blow the episode's budget.

I hope that when he's old and living in a retirement home, he'll still be making big art attacks by arranging people's zimmerframes and wheelchairs on the floor, to the annoyance of the care home staff.

The big art attack that sticks in my mind is the one where he drew with salt from a salt container. He used loads of salt, loads and loads of it. It was as though he was trying to prevent witches and demons from getting into the studio.

The weird thing though is that I never saw him get a new container. This implies that the salt in his container was endless, which in turn implies that Neil Buchanan was some sort of wizard. Either that or they just didn't bother to show the parts where he refilled his salt container.

Also, all that salt would give someone a big heart attack. (Yes, I am re-using my jokes now).

Head

Then there was this talking head statue that was called "Head". That was his actual name which wasn't very imaginative if you ask me, especially for a show that's supposed to be about creativity. If he had been a head and a dick, then I guess he would’ve been called Dickhead.

The reason Head was called Head is that he used to give head to Neil Buchanan between episodes. That's 100% true. Think about it. You're Neil Buchanan and you have a talking head. So what do you do when you get horny? Get the head to suck you off, of course. It all makes sense.

The show's director, Randy McLiarface, confirmed this in an interview with Life Magazine:

It's true that Head performed oral sex on Neil Buchanan between episodes. Neil would put his penis in Head's mouth, and then the puppeteer controlling Head would grab his penis with Head's mouth and perform a simultaneous handjob/blowjob on Neil Buchanan. This is 100% factual and definitely not made up in any way.

Head wasn't always a puppet by the way. In the first two seasons of Art Attack, he was an actual person painted grey. Here's what Head looked like in the first season.

Here's what he looked like in the second season.

I can't decide which is worse. Probably the second one.

The set

The set consisted of giant art tools. There were giant pencils, a giant notepad, and giant paintbrushes. Or were they normal-size and Neil Buchanan was really small? It's impossible to tell but I hope it's the latter.

Other versions of Art Attack

Art Attack was so popular that every country got its own version.

Here's Art Attack in France:

Germany:

Here's the man who did the Latin American Art Attack, looking very cheerful:

India:

What I want to know is which of these presenters would win in a fight. I reckon the Indian one would die first because he has the frame and physique of a ten-year-old child. The German one would probably be next to go, and then the French one would finish off the Spanish one by kicking him in the head.

SMart

There was another art show for children called SMart. SMart had three presenters instead of one and it was shown on CBBC instead of CITV.

With three presenters, you would think SMart would be three times better than Art Attack. But no.

The problem with SMart was that the presenters kept telling you to use unusual and expensive materials like felt and pipe cleaners. In fact, from what I remember, nearly every creation involved felt in some way. I didn’t have any felt because my family was poor. Felt was a middle-class material. We didn't have any so I couldn't make any of the SMart creations.

The closest thing I had to felt was felt tip markers, and even those didn't work anymore because I forgot to put the lids back on.

Art Attack, on the other hand, got you to use materials you could find in the bin, like toilet roll tubes, washing up bottles and your dad's used condoms. You didn't need to be as rich as Bruce Wayne to take part. It was all-inclusive art. Art for the masses.

The castle

There was this one time Neil made a pretty impressive castle just from toilet roll tubes, newspaper, PVA glue, and paint. These were things we had around the house. We had these things. That's what made Art Attack accessible to kids like me and my siblings.

But where did Neil get all those toilet rolls tubes from? He must have suffered from constant diarrhoea. He must have done, to get through so many toilet rolls. It's the only explanation I can think of.

No wonder you never see anyone else on screen apart from Neil. It's because he shat himself every episode. And no one wanted to come near him because of the smell.

In conclusion, I thank you, Neil, for showing us that art isn't just for rich people. It's for poor people and for people with diarrhoea too.