It's not easy meeting your (action) heroes. Especially if you're so knackered you've already wet yourself. You've spent the morning smothering yourself in paint and you arrive, tired and hungry, to meet the most important people in your world. And you lose it. Big style.
Sammy (two and three quarters) never misses Hi-5, writes Jimmy Leach.
Each morning on Channel 5 he munches his breakfast jiggling along to the toothsome Aussie group of three girls and two boys whose energetic colourful routines hit the spot and act as the metronome for the family day (story's over, last song on - time to hit the shower).
And he's not the only one - Channel 5 claim that the music, counting and dancing act are watched by a third of UK children - can any other demographic be captured quite so adroitly?
Now they're over here on their 22-date Action Heroes Live tour and doing the PR as warm-up, with the presenters from Channel 5's children's theme brand Milkshake. It's dreamtime for Sammy.
A TV group assembled by Australia's Channel 9 eight years ago, Hi-5 has captured a demographic with a vengeance. In their home country and New Zealand it is, in their words 'manic', helped by more mainstream timings (5.30pm). They're equally popular in Singapore where a sizeable portion of the audience use the programme to perfect their English.
But would a slightly damp tantrum-prone toddler provide the ultimate challenge for their breezy Aussie natures? Would he break that children's entertainer schtick and reveal a malevolence underneath?
Not a bit of it. Kathleen (who, sorry Dads, is pregnant), Charli, Kelly, Nathan and Tim exude cheery warmth that no tears can breach. Small boy wriggling violently in his embarrassed parent's arms? The smiles just get wider. Baby sister screaming piercingly in the laps of the talent? They just get broodier. The fivesome are sunny through and through - "We're looking forward to Halifax', enjoying their job "Hammersmith will be awesome", and loving their audience "Remember the little dude in the Hulk costume ..."
Even Sammy, grumpy little sod as he is, somehow wins their affection. And it's reciprocated - as we leave, he decides that life without them isn't worth living. And we're into tantrum overdrive. Tomorrow we'll make him watch GMTV as punishment.
