Mr Food

Ken Woodmixer (journalist, astrologer and agony aunt for the Daily Expresso) writes:
Regular daytime listeners to BBC Radio One in the 80’s and early 90’s will of course fondly remember its flagship programme “Steve Wright In the Afternoon.”
Its loyal audience of several million people would tune in each day to hear the show’s host (Steve Wright), his team (known as the Posse) and regular comedy characters such as Mr Angry, Sid The Manager and Diamond Geezer serve up a frothy brew of music, chat, jingles, sketches, impersonations and all sorts of other liveliness which attributed to its groundbreaking 'zoo radio' format.
Also included on the show’s daily menu was a certain gut-wrenching jingle which first appeared in the spring of 1990. It featured a character whose enthusiasm for the show was so fervent that he'd burst into song about his appetite for snacks and tasty recipes. No one quite knows why.
The song was called “…an’ that’s before me tea!” and the character who performed it became known as Mr Food.

FOR STARTERS...

Sung by a lad from the North East of England (as proven by his Geordie accent) and accompanied by a music-hall style piano backing, the half-a-minute song "an' that's before me tea" appeared regularly as a popular jingle ident on Steve Wright’s radio show for several months in 1990.
But even though the jingle had proved to be very palatable to Steve Wright's listeners, the true extent of the song’s appeal to the general public had not been fully digested until Steve Wright took his show up to the character’s home town, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in early April for an outside broadcast at the city’s bustling shopping centre, Eldon Square.
While the jingle was repeatedly played to the nation on the airwaves, a gathered crowd of Geordie shoppers clapped their hands in time and chanted along with the hook lines “…an that’s before me tea!” and ”s’pose I’ll have to run up to the shops to get some more”.
Steve Wright himself announced from the stage "this seems to be the most requested jingle of the day!”
Meanwhile one or two other people behind the scenes chewed over the possibility of releasing the song as a single!
MIXED PLATTERS

And so it came to pass. A new, made-to-order, extended mix of “…an’ that’s before me tea!” was quickly rustled up for a summer release with a bigger, bumper list of foodie lyrics including a verse revealing what Mr Food looked forward to eating on his holidays.

Success, fame and fortune seemed guaranteed for the ‘spikey-haired scoffer’ as he embarked on a mad month of nationwide television appearances, performances and interviews to promote the record’s release. Meanwhile, Mr Food’s new portion was getting enthusiastic reviews on TV and radio as being the potential ‘novelty hit of the summer.’

But things turned sour just when the party was in full swing.
Plans made for the record’s distribution had turned out to be half-baked. Consumers were getting cheesed off as records were not being delivered to shops at a suitable rate to satisfy their demands.

Sadly, potential buyers of Mr Food’s “…an’ that’s before me tea!” left shops empty-handed while the single merely simmered then dropped having only reached No.62 in the charts.
Some would perhaps say Mr Food got his just desserts.
Or maybe that he was forced to eat humble pie instead of his usual steak and kidney. But, as further events would show, this would prove to be more than just a flash in the pan.
THE RADIO HAM

With the heat off, Mr Food took a well-earned break until the end of the year when, catching everyone by surprise, the greedy Geordie was heard again on BBC Radio One’s “Steve Wright In The Afternoon” with a song that carried a new flavour ..."Nosh Rap."
For the occasion, Mr Food renamed himself as MC Food (as he thought it more fashionable in those days!) and “Nosh Rap” was aired regularly on Steve Wright’s show before finally Mr Food himself decided to cash in his chips for good (or so it seemed!).
Many would have thought they'd heard the last of Mr Food but then, some ten years later, in the summer of 2000, he re-emerged on Steve Wright’s afternoon show (now enjoying great success on BBC Radio Two) with a snappy trio of songs called “Margerine”, “Runny Brie” and “Broccoli”.
These songs revisited Mr Food’s former (knickerbocker) glory but with even crisper production values.
Despite having an extra bite to them, it was quite evident from these new ditties that little had changed. Mr Food STILL enjoyed eating “burger, chips and beans” and “crackers with a slab of runny brie” while shouting about it every day on Steve Wright’s Radio Two show for another period of several months.
CHRISTMAS CRACKERS

As if the public’s ears weren’t battered enough by now, the feast still continued during the festive season that year with even more foodie jingles by the madcap muncher. This time he based his ideas upon the “12 Days Of Christmas” (listeners may remember the line ‘five gold rings’ being replaced by ‘fried onion rings’, for instance).
After that, Mr Food's work would be left well and truly on the back burner.
For good?
Well, not quite.
He'd had enough on his plate with other things for some four years or so, but then surprisingly again, the jingles "Margerine" and "Runny Brie" returned for a further period of daily airplays during the whole of 2006 on…where else?…but BBC Radio Two’s “Steve Wright Show” of course!
So what's coming next, we wonder?
THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING

Could there be more juice squeezed from all this?
There may indeed be more in the can.
Or has Mr Food reached the end of his shelf life?
Whatever happens, the man himself doesn't seem to mind either way.
"I was only ever in it for the grub" says Mr Food who was never known to mince his words.
THE END
FANCY SEEING MR FOOD'S PROMOTIONAL VIDEO* FOR HIS 1990 SMASH HIT SINGLE "An That's Before Me Tea"?
Click on his plate of cheesy garlic bread, chips and salad...
*Courtesy of an unofficial source unconnected with BBC Radio or Mr Food.
Mr Food acknowledges that the copyright of certain images pertaining to Steve Wright and BBC Radio on this page belong to the British Broadcasting Corporation.