Today, it’s hard to find local TV shows dedicated to children with a strong storytelling content but back in the 90s that was all the rage.
Shows like “Speak Out” and “Storyline,” which aired on Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), taught important life skills to children via stories and similar content. But the king amongst these shows was Tales By Moonlight, a 30-minute children’s programme that narrated traditional African folklore.
Tales By Moonlight was an absolute hit and in the 90s when on-demand content didn’t exist, hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents tuned in to NTA each Sunday at 6:30pm. There was something for everybody. It was superior to anything on TV at the time and NTA was THE station of the day.
Launched in 1984, each episode featured a woman, known simply as ‘Aunty’, narrating different tales from folklore to a group of kids seated underneath a tree.
At the end of each episode, the kids identified the lessons they picked from the story and also asked questions about things they were not clear about. Each episode typically ended with a dance battle of sorts.
Running into the 90s, Tales By Moonlight keyed into the age old tradition of storytelling and leveraged local folklore to teach critical life lessons that impacted the lives of children all over the country. Back then there were no PVRs or streaming but this show had people scrambling to their television sets every night.
It’s been a couple of decades since Tales By Moonlight went off air but the children it raised are out in the world doing many incredible things and changing the world. What a fantastic representation of the power in stories.