I WAS a Bengo boy. Bengo the Boxer Pup graced our TVs in the days when children would crowd round black-and-white screens to watch the likes of Spotty Dog, Lenny the Lion, Muffin and Rag, Tag and Bobtail.

They were early triumphs of television and, I'd argue, have rarely been bettered.

That said, I have to applaud the result of a CBeebies Animals magazine poll to find the favourite TV animal of all time that saw the splendid Bagpuss come out on top.

What was a surprise, however, was that, with the exception of Shaun the Sheep, all the favourites were old-timers like Danger- mouse, Scooby-Doo and Basil Brush.

Whereas the children's TV characters of the past seemed real and believable, don't the modern remakes of the likes of Bill and Ben, the Magic Roundabout and Andy Pandy, for all their technical sophistication and wizardry, seem to have had the life sucked out of them?

What's more, the move to blandness hasn't just happened with children's TV. This week I watched Headcases, a new satirical programme branded as a son of Spitting Image. And it was disappointing. Compared with the irreverent Spitting Image of the 1980s and '90s, Headcases' computer-generated animations were flat.

Technology apart, a chunk of the problem lies with the blandness of today's crop of politicians. Love them or hate them, there was something richly eccentric in the political heavyweights of the past. Just cast your mind back to the likes of Harold Wilson, Mrs Thatcher, Michael Foot and Arthur Scargill. They were sharp people.

Today, apart from Ken and Boris - the Spongebob Squarepants and Teletubby of modern politics - Brown, Clegg, Cameron and Co, like the remakes of Andy Pandy, seem lifeless, boring and two-dimensional.

If that isn't fact then my name's not Mr Ed.