Let's Pretend (TV series)

Let's Pretend was a 1980s children's television series aimed at preschool aged children in the United Kingdom.

It was shown across the ITV network, originally at 12:10 on Tuesdays, then later on Mondays, replacing the popular Pipkins which had been cancelled at the end of 1981. In Autumn 1987, the programme was moved to a mid-morning slot, usually 11:10.

Like its predecessor, each edition was fifteen minutes long, and the programme was produced using many of the same personnel, such as the puppeteer Nigel Plaskitt and the producer Michael Jeans.

Each week the presenters would find a number of ordinary household items and contrive to produce a short story featuring them all. The first programme, "The Story Of The Broken Puppet", was shown on Tuesday 5 January 1982 by Central Television. Eight seasons of the show were broadcast between 1982 and 1989. Between each new season selected repeats from the previous one were usually shown, giving the programme an almost weekly presence in the TV schedules for several years.

The show's original opening titles showed items moving along a conveyor belt into the mouth of a large plastic whale, and later a puppet caterpillar moving along the screen. The actual story began with the rising of a curtain with the same puppet caterpillar on accompanied to the same bars of the song On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at that were used as the pre-programme ident of Yorkshire Television.