During his time with the BBC, Waddell penned ten episodes of a successful children's television series, "Jossy's Giants" in 1986. He was also the writer of two series of another children's show "Sloggers" which ran from 1994 to 1996. His credits also include working with the eccentric scientist Magnus Pyke and he was Alan Whicker's producer on "Whicker's Women" in 1972. He worked on the "Russell Harty Show", and in 1993 did a series for Tyne Tees Television called "Waddell's World" in which he was a butler to a posh Tweeddale family, a caravanner and on the dole.