For the remake, Cosby said he wanted to bring back the live-action wraparounds that featured in the earlier programme.
That programme, widely said to have opened America's eyes to the senator's dishonesty and bullying, could not have been made, said Friendly, but for the success of the earlier programme.
More impressive still, it emerges that after the earlier programme was made, when most TV presenters would have been itching to move on to the next project, Malone stayed on as choirmaster in South Oxhey for another 18 unfilmed months.
The earlier programme's presenter, Jacob Bronowski, was a polymath, at home discussing the humanities and the sciences, with a Cambridge PhD in maths and author of a book on Blake.
As the earlier programme did not provide stipends and serious problems of retention arose, in the new programme, all APEs receive a monthly stipend equivalent to US$40, which is less than a fulltime salary.
In fact, he presented most of the early programmes, and was on air for 50 hours a week.
The French and Saunders sketch show returned in 2004, arguably a bit more hit and miss than the earlier programmes, and they said their goodbyes as a comedy duo in 2008 in a live greatest hits tour.
One of the pleasures of The Secret Life of 6 Year Olds (as with the earlier programmes devoted to the previous two year groups) is that it features groups of children interacting with one another unencumbered by screens of any kind.
To put it another way, Christopher Eccleston is old enough to be Billie Piper's father, and while I can see that paternalism doesn't appeal to today's younger generation, the earlier programmes would never have entertained an emotional/sexual attachment between the Doctor and his assistants.
Black Arrow was designed to reuse as much technology from the earlier programmes as possible in order to reduce costs, and simplify the development process.
