PAT KENNY FINISHED HIS stint at the helm of The Late Late Toy Show back in 2008, handing the responsibility to his successor Ryan Tubridy.
The former RTÉ broadcaster has since been firmly a news and current affairs broadcaster, but he said enjoyed his time hosting the most-watched programme on Irish television.
“I loved presenting the Toy Show,” he told TheJournal.ie, describing it as “the most fun you can have on television”.
However, there was one piece of advice his predecessor gave to him:
Happily, I learnt from Gay. Gay said, ‘Have nothing to do with those tickets. Do not have anything to do with them. On no account, dear boy, have anything to do with tickets for the Toy Show’. And I took his advice.
Kenny noted that a lot was changed when he took over, including moving the focus away from using researchers to demonstrate toys, dumping the Christmas jumper (feeling that it was an “intrusion” and switching to light sportswear), and the introduction of the long-stick microphone, still in use by Tubridy.
He added that the main focus was on the opening sequence. During his time the most notable one was Kenny riding into studio on a live elephant, his father having been the elephant keeper at Dublin Zoo.
Kenny feels they had almost exhausted the spectacular openings by the end of his ten-year stint, although concedes that he never tried song and dance:
Perhaps there were a few more years left in me if I had done that.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say