Rod, Jane and Freddy

Children’s Programme, 1981 – 1991

This musical trio popped up to provide a musical interlude on the cult children’s show Rainbow and they became so popular they gained their own spin off show and were still appearing in pantomime a decade later.

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The trio had originally started as Rod, Matt and Jane – Matt being Matthew Corbet, later of Sooty fame. Matt was then replaced by Roger before Freddy Marks finally joined completing the trio.

Rod, Jane and Freddy would appear in some Rainbow episodes. They would turn up, sometimes as part of the overarching storyline such as everyone coming around for a picnic, and then find a way to perform a relevant musical number.

On other occasions their song would be a completely separate recording without any interaction between the rest of the Rainbow cast – yet always relevant to the storyline for that episode.

While their musical numbers would be considered twee and cheesy today for a children’s show they were surprisingly well produced and sometimes catchy songs.

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I really enjoyed the antics of Rod, Jane and Freddy as a preschooler and I was as much a fan of their spin off show which was set as if on a theatre stage. Somewhere I have conflated a false memory that I went to see them perform at the theatre but that definitely didn’t happen.

Yes at this point it is worth mentioning that Jane had once been in a relationship with Rod she then later had a relationship with Freddy, eventually marrying him a few years ago before he sadly died.

Also, just because I love obscure trivia like this I’ll mention that Freddy saved Bill Oddie from drowning off the Seychelles in 1985. Freddy had previously been a lifeguard.

Staying on the theme of trivia, I’m attempting to stick to writing just my memories of things but I like to do a bit of fact checking and I have to admit I had no idea that Rod, Jane and Freddie’s stand alone show had run for so long (starting before I was even born back in 1981).

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For me the musical interludes in Rainbow kept my short childhood attention span firmly planted towards the screen and they still remain firmly imbedded in my early childhood memory banks.