On this day special: Christmas Day 30 years ago

We do this every year on Twitter, but if we've learnt anything from the last 24 days it's that the blog posts are as successful as all the On This Day tweets (that is to say, not many care and things we retweet are far more popular) and there's a lot to get through so let's move it over here for this year as we look back at what the nation could have watched on Christmas Day 1987:

BBC1's day started at 7am with dangerous overmanning, Crane, Potter and Parkin all on duty for Play School, a Brian Cant reading of Aladdin, Bryan Murray's religious show Umbrella and firstly, and most interestingly, Ziggy's Gift. The Emmy-winning silent cartoon, based on a syndicated cartoon strip and made by ABC five years earlier, has impressive lineage - director Richard Williams oversaw the Oscar-winning animated 1971 A Christmas Carol and the titles of the Pink Panther films and would be animation director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, art director Eric Goldberg directed Pocahontas in a long career up to being animation supervisor for Moana, and animator Tom Sita worked on many big Disney and Dreamworks hits and was storyboard director on Shrek. Oh, and the music is by Harry Nilsson.

After Songs Of Praise, with a gospel reading by President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, we're up the Telecom Tower with Noel, "also being transmitted live throughout Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Gibraltar". We can't work out which one this is precisely and YouTube is no help so we'll have to reluctantly turn over and watch the end of strike-baiting TV-am and a festive Thames, as already featured this month. Never mind, because that's followed at 9.40am by Tony Robinson in the garden with a tale from Fat Tulip's Fat Christmas.

BBC2 meanwhile has been on a black and white film morning with The Cheaters and White Christmas, followed at 12.30pm by Peter Alliss' many sets, but once Noel's out the way it's very much a morning to spend cooking - BBC1 breaks into Noel's reverie with the royal service from Windsor Castle, then fills a gap with the No Way Out Porridge; ITV follows its family worship half-hour by kicking off its day of films with Mickey's Christmas Carol and Dumbo, with The Spy Who Loved Me at 12.40pm; and Channel 4, in Michael Grade's first Christmas there, is full of repeats - Richard Chamberlain's The Christmas Messenger, The Story of Abba (filmed in 1982, first shown in January 1985 and already out on VHS), The Little Snow Girl and Bach's Christmas Oratorio. At 1.10pm we're back into the swing of undemanding festive fare with Julie Andrews... The Sound of Christmas, filmed in Austria with John Denver, Placido Domingo and the King's Singers. That's followed at 2.05pm by the Top of the Pops Christmas Party, which we've blogged twice before, once for the links and once for T'Pau's drummer vs the Snowman.

For those that don't take the Queen at 3pm - a speech that was leaked six days in advance having been inadvertedly revealed by BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole at a press correspondent's lunch - BBC2 showed The Natural World on nesting penguins at 1.45pm followed by a Jacqueline du Pré Masterclass, while at the same time Channel 4 had the dubious sounding A Wink Of Heaven, a T.S. Eliot adaptation which is set at Christmas but is actually about Thomas Becket wanting to martyr himself, followed by a Tony Harrison adaptation of the Nativity from the Medieval English Mystery Plays. On the big channels, it's time to speak to the Commonwealth.

Even though we now know it wasn't the day's most watched programme, Paul Nicholas on Just Good Friends being confirmed as the 80s Yarwood, everyone remembers Christmas Day 1986 for Den and Angie. How odd, then, that the year after that epochal moment, with two episodes at 6.35 and 10, the following year Eastenders retreated to 3.10pm. After that it's the TV premiere of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - the day's biggest audience with just under nineteen million viewers - to take us up to a largely unfestive news bulletin. ITV meanwhile stuck to their 'Disney At Christmas' theme with Alice In Wonderland and Bedknobs And Broomsticks, with a 4.30pm news bulletin in between - here's how Thames and Central linked out of that, and if you look closely here's LWT taking over mid-film and jamming its break bumpers in accordingly. BBC2 continued on its resolutely non-populist way, a Domingo-led La Traviata followed by White Nights Of Dance, a Franco-Soviet production in which Russian and Western (actually Belgian) companies came together for the first time. More resolute fare on Channel 4 with the Countdown final, in which Nic Brown wiped the floor 108-36 with Joel Salkin while Gyles Brandreth and Carol Thatcher both watched, and the already comfort food of The Snowman.

So we're now very much into the early evening, 5.45pm on BBC1, and Russ Abbot is currently appearing at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. By the time it's finished both BBC2 (Amsterdam Christmas Concert) and Channel 4 (The Amadeus Quartet) are deep into the classics, so at 6.25pm it's time to pull out Only Fools And Horses. Not that the show had the festive legacy it has now, being the second Christmas special after the disastrous A Royal Flush, and it went so badly that producer Ray Butt decided not only to leave the BBC in its wake but tell John Sullivan on his way out that the show had run its course and should finish. Christmas Blind Date at 6.45pm is by comparison almost wholesome.

"Memo to producer: Thanks for yours of 10 November. If the Two Ronnies can actually get Charlton Heston to be in their film Pinocchio II: Killer Doll I will eat my hat. If the show also includes guest stars Lynda Baron, Maria Charles, Sandra Dickinson, Frank Finlay, Alfred Marks, Denis Quilley and Elton John I will resign and go to Channel 4. Yours, M. Grade." Ah, we miss gags in Radio Times billings. Christmas Night with the Two Ronnies would not only be the most expensive they ever did thanks to the Pinocchio II set but the last Ronnie Barker would do, publicly announcing his retirement three weeks later. Not that all the trouble helped the ratings, as over on ITV Hilda Ogden was retiring in front of 18 million, who stuck around for...




...It'll Be Alright On Christmas Night. Fans of edit spotting might like to compare and contrast with how it was later rebranded as Alright 5 - which is odd given number 3 was also shown on Christmas Day. Channel 4 padded out the time with Sean Connery film Five Days One Summer, BBC2 with a profile of Mother Teresa.

The Norden juggernaut also ran over the usually reliable Joan Hickson, 4.50 From Paddington being the ninth BBC1 Miss Marple adaptation here presented in glorious Copyright-Baiting-O-Vision. ITV for their part continued their big night from 9pm with two hours of their own occasional murder drama hit Inspector Morse, the fourth episode The Wolvercote Tongue, with Simon Callow and Kenneth Cranham among the cast. Against that there was earthier, more spiritual fare on Channel 4, Everybody Say Yeah! - Paul Simon hosting a gospel session also featuring Luther Vandross at the First Presbyterian Church, Hollywood - and a two hour Garbo portrait on BBC2.

Onto 10pm, and while Channel 4 gives up and puts on a random Golden Girls BBC1 has one big hitter left in In Sickness And In Health. John Bird and Ken Campbell are reliable presences. Only half an hour for a special, though, so once they were into the late news and after Blanche and co had done it was time to mark the first year of one of Channel 4's big breakthrough shows and stars with the Steve Martin-heavy The Least Embarassing Of The Last Resort. BBC2 took that same opportunity at just after half past ten to put on their big hitter of the day, an Alasdair Gray adaptation of an unfinished Robert Louis Stevenson work, The Story of A Recluse, with a 74 year old Stewart Granger in the lead role and a very well received supporting performance by - and here's your link across the three decades - Peter Capaldi, a breakthrough having found only bit parts and stage work after Local Hero. Director Alastair Reid was also at the helm of Morse, meaning that for 25 minutes his handiwork was on screen on two channels simultaneously.

And beyond that? Just mopping up, really. After the news BBC1 showed Terms Of Endearment and a version of the Gospel According to St Luke filmed on location in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, with Shakespearean actor Roger Rees; BBC2 saw the day out with Julian Lloyd Webber playing the Cello Concerto in E minor; ITV went into the night with Airplane II; and Channel 4's walnuts by the open fire was a repeat of Dire Straits Live in '85 at Wembley Arena. Onto Boxing Day with us all - Ghostbusters' TV premiere, the A Bit Of Fry & Laurie pilot, and of course Christmas Robbins with Ted and Kate...

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 24: Generation Game, 1990

And finally for 2017's festive selection, we had to end on this year's biggest loss. The Gen Game revival had been the inevitable huge hit that autumn so the Christmas Day show is pretty much a standard programme with the traditional 'famous people in costume' game and a pantomime that aside from the lack of Frankie Howerd input hits all the key notes of the round - Wench, Embarrassing Dance Forced Upon Contestants, Hostess' Legs, Cameo By Bruce's Mate (Kenny Lynch), Cameo By Unlikely Star (Anne Charleston and Ian Smith), Thing That Hasn't Aged Well At All (Rosemarie Ford rapping). It finishes, as it always should, with Brucie at the piano. There'll never be another. It's hard to believe there was one in the first place.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 24: Tyne Tees Boxing Day closedown, 1986

Because a closedown, complete with epilogue bringing news of Archbishop Desmond Tutu's visit to Durham, is the only thing that could see out a TV continuity rundown, though that's never a live picture of the sky behind Annie St John and her glittery top. What on earth is going on in that Cannon & Ball clip?

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 23: Cilla Black's Christmas, 1983

Cilla Black in a studio living room singing All Night Long surrounded by young bodypoppers. It was 1983, we knew no better. Cilla had been in the career shadows but an appearance on Wogan led to LWT snapping her up within 24 hours, and while they readied a vehicle for her - Surprise Surprise followed in May, Blind Date a year later - this Vince Powell-penned salt-of-the-earth showcase of family entertainment got her name back onto prime-time. The reminder of the famous singer comes in a combined tribute to Carmen Miranda, Ginger Rogers and Gracie Fields, and to surely nobody's great surprise Frankie Howerd pops in early. While the nub of the show seems to be through satellite link-ups with the Bee Gees, George Benson and Julio Iglesias, and we can't work out if booking that much time makes the show cheap or costly, the big set-piece is right at the end as Our Bobby appears and opens the way for an eclectic array of stars - Diana Dors, Wincey Willis, Berni Flint, Lennie Bennett, Sally James, Melvyn Hayes, a pissed off looking Irene Handl - none of whom are formally introduced and whose job it is to walk on set, join in a chorus of We Wish You A Merry Christmas and for some tell a joke. Kenny Dalglish, it turns out, is not a natural gagsmith.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 23: Just What I Always Wanted!

A quick one for Christmas Saturday night, a satirical John Wells monologue shown by BBC1 at 11.50pm on Christmas Day 1991 and made by the Religious Department. Enjoy afterwards a trailer for Antiques Roadshow Going Live!, with the heartening news that Gordon the Gopher got over his fear of dogs after that one incident.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 22: Bullseye, 1990

Those one-off titles must have taken an unnecessary amount of time to animate. A game show loosely based on A Christmas Carol? What does Bowen think this is, 3-2-1? Bobby Davro, Bella Emberg and Paul Shane play with actual darts players - Eric Bristow, Leighton Rees and Bob Anderson - just to make sure everyone gets everything.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 22: Rainbow Christmas Panto Special, 1987

For the actual last working day (for most, we imagine)... in front of a studio audience, with Jane getting more of a central part than you may have reasonably expected, and if you thought Original Bungle was nightmare fuel, wait until you see Pantomime Villain Bungle.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 21: The Rock and Goal Years Christmas Special

A slight cheat here as this isn't a programme from "our" era - 2005, in fact - but a compilation of festive football footage put together by Granada, from games in the snow to players in full panto outfits on Kick Off and sounding as enthusiastic as you'd think about it, with festive songs slipped in along the way including a choir of footballers and the odd diversion. Colin Crompton, for one. And if you're like us you know what you want to see in full - the unreleased and slightly disturbing Christmas version of Mari Wilson's Just What I Always Wanted from Pop Goes Christmas.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 21: BBC1 and ITV trailers, 1981

The first one there was too short to feature on its own but also too unmissable, and we do hope the longer version that surely exists turns up one day because they can't all have been brought together like that just for that. To counteract that, Southern is into its last week but still looking forward, including a trailer for It'll Be Alright For The Night 3 which includes clips that didn't make the show itself.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 20: The Paul Daniels Magic Christmas Show, 1980

The Man Who Exhales and his jury in a series of sketches that don't really need the season to work but are given that decoration in a way that's workable. Guests are Harry Blackstone doing his version of the sawing in half routine, a quick change artist and a trick cyclist; bonus points if you spot Lindsey Danvers, later of Toto Coelo, among the assistants (Debbie was already working alongside Paul at this stage but not on every show) No true festive household should be without its own Christmas Bunco Booth.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 20: Channel 4 intermission, 27th December 1983

Those close-ups of the faces of ageing toys are really reassuring. And when that runs out, LOGO IN SPACE.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 19: Wogan In Pantoland

What panto is that opening routine from, then? From 1988 a roll-call of appropriate guests and Jim Davidson file on, do their routines, then run through their pantomime anecdotes - Hudd, Biggins and Cribbins as dames, Barbara Windsor as the fairy, Dana as Snow White, Little & Large as something or other, and at the end a Cinderella whose identity seems to be a genuine surprise to Tel, unlike the identity of the group song that ends matters.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 19: Blue Peter, 1987

It's Christmas Eve and the Caron, Yvette and Mark team are proving that there's nothing so comfortingly repetitive as the format of the last BP before Christmas - final candle on the advent crown, cards from viewers, presents for the pets, big leap on the appeal totaliser, "last minute" make, crib, hundreds of kids in choirs, Chalk Farm Salvation Army band, big silver version of the ship at the end. To prove that it wasn't just the Richard Marson era where self-indulgence was allowed its head however, there's a Hollywood song and dance routine worked in too.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 18: The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show, 1978

Full disclosure: we were going to post a version of this which halfway through develops a huge audio lag, but just today we saw a new upload taken from when the Beeb repeated it the following May between the start of the election program and the first results, which as well as being fully synced has the added bonus of eighty seconds of Dimbleby, Bough and Wellings at the start. Anyway, we know now that Yarwood's show the previous year was the most watched show on that most famous of festive schedules, and in 1978 he got the Radio Times cover but was beaten by the TV premiere of The Sound Of Music. There's a reference in his brief opening spiel to Morecambe and Wise having Harold Wilson on their Thames Christmas debut, leading into the brave new world of having to hire a woman, Janet Brown, to do Thatcher, which is odd because she later does Anna Ford in a voice more like Steve Nallon's Thatcher. If you know this show at all it's because Abba were the guests, and we wonder how much their cameo on a Generation Game sketch had to be explained to them.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 18: Two Ronnies trailer, 1978

They may have had Christmas Night with the Stars 1971 and 1972 as their personal fiefdoms but even with the superior BBC double act having defected Yarwood, Spencer and, um, True Grit: A Further Adventure held sway on the 25th in this year, Barker and Corbett having to wait until 1981 for the most prime slot of all. In the meantime their Boxing Day show doubled as the start of a new series. Is that why they appear to have jokes left over for the trailer? Or why the audience are so easily pleased?

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 17: Tomorrow's World Christmas Special, 1975

No Christmas Quiz in those days, instead something actively improving under the sub-title Now You See It.... Now You Don't! Raymond Baxter as our ineffable MC leads a group of children towards the show's resident presenters and experts, including Michael Rodd, Judith Hann and William Woolard, as they have fun with science through the use of mirrors, drawings, oversized dice, swings, toys, electronic signals, bells, some kind of electronic ears and a bit where Rodd invents that Jamiroquai video.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 17: 1990s adverts

See yesterday, but a decade later.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 16: Russ Abbot Christmas Show, 1986

And just look at that perfectly positioned ident! Songs of joy and tears of laughter follow, the first sketch after the opening titles putting Bella Emberg in a compromising position at the start and not logically developing much further. Les Dennis appears to be playing the role Russ himself had in Freddie Starr's Variety Madhouse, that is to say getting almost as much screen time and just as many laughs as the named star. Spot Gordon Kennedy hoping the earth swallows him whole as CU Jimmy's mute sideman at 31 minutes.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 16: 1980s adverts

One of the people who allows us to keep the Twitter account overflowing with stuff and nonsense, Neil Miles (@neilsmiles, uploads a new batch of clips every Monday evening, introduced us to the wonderful and frightening world of Freddie Barrett), compiled this weekend's Work Advent Calendar entertainment in the form of a series of commercials marking the season, what you should be buying to mark it yourself and where to shop for it. Festive versions of established favourites, digitised or animated snowstorms, and a lot of perfume. Plus Cannon & Ball in panto in Bristol and an open invitation to a shopping centre in Bradford.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 15: Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees Up!

One believes sirs to be Cockneys. On the same night, though not the same time, as a Two Ronnies parody of the pair, LWT did a studio up as a working pub, brought in what seems to be the inhabitants of all the local hostelries and then forgot to put any toilets in. Eric Clapton shows up, as do Lennie Peters from Peters & Lee, Jimmy Cricket and Chas' old bandmate Albert Lee, unfortunately not all together (Lee doing his unmissable party piece Country Boy, obviously) The whole thing ends in a conga line, as nature intended. Hey, it's the penultimate Friday night before Christmas, it's perfect for the time. Further viewing: ITV's Aspel-voiced preview of the season before Gary Terzza becomes one of the first people to do the "Easter already!" gag.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 15: The Krankies At Christmas, 1983

Don't worry, the show isn't as long as the upload, only dead air after 40 minutes. And we need to establish full disclosure on the upload, as it's by Jimmy Cricket! After the jolt of a gag in which it is implied Jimmy Krankie would gleefully have urinated on Ian's head we find guesting alongside our uploader are Barbara Dickson, David Grant, Modern Romance, some puppets the audience find the last word in hilarity, some trick rollerskaters who at one point seem to be trying to choke each other and end by attempting to murder Wee Jimmy (wait...) instead, Melvyn Hayes as the dame and Bernie Winters, making his second appearance here this month in baffling character, as... Grotbags, we think, and then as Santa with his not-reindeer Schnorbitz. Why is there a bloodcurdling scream mid-sketch at 10:58?

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 14: 3-2-1, 1979

To continue a thread that seems to be running through much of this year's Calendar, Dickens is the theme of the festive cryptic refuse-based fun. The roll call for this year: Terry Scott as Bill Sykes, Bill Maynard as Mr Micawber, Jimmy Krankie as Oliver Twist and Wilfrid Brambell as Scrooge in an abbreviated version of A Christmas Carol that leaves the ghost of Christmas Present until last and is introduced by Ted delivering a tongue-twister at pace with no audience reaction at all. Just wait til you see what the winning couple take home on this happiest of days.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 14: Record Breakers, 1972

Not yet in All-Star mode, but then this pre-Christmas show was also Record Breakers' second ever edition. Roy has the patter down even if the show seems a little sparse, the McWhirters not yet taking requests and only one record attempt and pre-recorded film piece each, and snooker's Rex Williams doing some trick shots where you'd expect a world record attempt. It does finish in the way you'd hope it would, Roy crooning White Christmas to an arrangement seemingly based on Whiter Shade Of Pale.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 13: Blankety Blank Christmas Special, 1987

Yet more Victorian Christmas invoking all round, which even Les isn't sure is supposed to be pantomime based or not, with unusually a walk-on for the guests - top row Roy Hudd, Lynda Baron, Geoff Capes; bottom row Lorraine Chase (and a dog), Joe Brown, Wendy Richard.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 13: Aladdin & The Forty Thieves

We've featured a clip before from Children's BBC's New Year's Day 1984 pantomime, but here's the marvellous whole thing. Watch for a very Crackerjack-like rendition of This Ole House by Sarah Greene, Johnny Morris and Terry Nutkins, Brian Cant as the emperor of China, Tucker's Luck-era Todd Carty as Ali Baba with the actual Rentaghost Dobbin inhabitants as his horse, Christopher Biggins somehow not as the dame, four minutes set completely aside for Kenneth Williams in full Jackanory mode, Clive Dunn almost knowing what he's doing and small roles for such acting giants as Howard Stableford, Barry Took and Mat Irvine.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 12: The Kenny Everett Christmas Show, 1984

Cuddly Ken's festive shows don't really drop off in quality until after the following year's Christmas Carol, though this isn't as good as the 1980-1982 run. (You're sold already, we can tell) But hey, the big sketch is built around Bernie Winters in a fat suit and features a selection of otherwise magnificently pointless celebrity cameos in the way only Kenny could get away with. All this and a Daniel Peacock cameo too.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 12: BBC1 and Channel 4 trailers, 1988

A grab-bag of both - on BBC1 the second time Del, Rodney and Albert had been pressed into promoting the double issue Radio Times, Bread going abroad together like it's 1974 and a mention of Blackadder's Christmas Carol featuring a clip not from that show, while Channel 4's styling is just as impressionistic as you'd expect from them in the late 80s.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 11: Gone Live!, 1989

As with the previously featured 1990, the one time the show was recorded every year would build towards Trevor and Simon's pantomime, and even before we've got there there's tangible, telling proof that Phil Collins was much better at pretending not to be famous than Bros. Philderella features the traditional hundredweight of roles and cameos - game previous guests making safely pre-recorded appearances (Kylie, Wogan, Nigel Kennedy), welcome surprise bookings for a kids' show at the time (Helen Lederer, Vas Blackwood, Christopher Ryan confirmed as smaller than Sarah), people pretending to know what they signed up for (Duncan Goodhew, Michael Fish, Liz & Bruno) and pop acts having to do as little character work as possible (Big Fun, Sydney Youngblood)

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 11: TV-am and Thames, Christmas Day 1987

This is by some distance the clip with the smallest collection of sets you'll see in this rundown. TV-am at least had a reason for the lack of decoration on the Wide Awake Club set, and for that matter the lack of decoration on the Wide Awake Club presenter, as TV-am's technical staff were still locked out and presumably was all they could afford to set up for Timmy's allowed half hour or so. Thames could afford to get into the spirit and Philip Elsmore very much did before Debbie Shore and Gary Terzza do the perennial comedy present swapping.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 10: Telly Addicts, 1992

Telly Addicts Celebrity Special (1992) from Colonel Buchan on Vimeo.

That year's team concept being Girls vs Boys, Rosemarie Ford, Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Michelle Collins against Michael Ball, Keith Barron, Geoffrey Hughes and Danny Baker, who has a clip of Noel where he looks slightly different. One of those teams definitely looks more of a piece than the other.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 10: Christmas Top Of The Pops 1987 links

These days most full-length Pops uploads get zapped by the label/publishing copyright police so this foreshortened version looking back at a year of "the old jack mixing and things" is all we're left with, and Smitty's presence (not for the usual reasons, because he didn't sign off on anything of his being repeated without his consent before he died and his estate has chosen to respect his wishes) means we won't see it, or his fight with a bow tie on the second link, on BBC4 this time next year either. Ah well, at least we still have T'Pau vs the Snowman, as Woo Gary mentions, and that under-explained cameo by Andy Gibb, who died three months later.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 9: Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special, 1978

We've seen the continuity before, now here's the whole of Eric and Ern's Thames sophomore outing and festive debut. With Eddie Braben still contractually BBC bound until 1980 the old reliables Barry Cryer and John Junkin stepped in, though Cryer later said Eric had come up with the ideas and the pair decided not to write any more as it was substandard on everyone's part, something critics agreed with (Clive James: "they were on thin ice, routines tended to be half thought out") Guest stars: Harold Wilson, Leonard Rossiter, Frank Finlay, Nicholas Parsons, Eamonn Andrews and Jenny Hanley.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 9: Christmas Radio Times 1988

It may not be a bashful Del Boy, but someone put the effort into this year's advert to match the traditional "TV star as panto dame" shoot inside. "Get down with Delbert Wilkins for some crucial tips" says the whitest, most middle-aged voiceover they could find. Other listings magazines are not yet available.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 8: Noel's Christmas Presents, 1995

A good example of the family tearjerker that lasted for more than a decade after the Queen's speech on BBC1, and incorporated within a handy invocation of the Victoriana that used to go hand in hand with popular Christmas imagery. The emotional crux ties in with the WWII anniversary, before which Noel and Chris Jarvis take kids to Lapland to meet Santa, as everyone does these days, and Noel lays territorial claim on behalf of the show to Antarctica. If you want more, the previous day Noel's Christmas Past looked back at the previous five years, the Hollies one that everybody remembers included.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 8: Central, Christmas Day 1987

Someone in ITN really got the Deluxe Paint out for that festive logo, especially when put next to the network's animation. In other news Jonathan Ross is the face of the IBA, the unemployed are forced to stay up all night and It'll Be Alright On Christmas Night seems to be trailed by a Denis out-take, a recursive loop of blooper.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 7: Grapevine, 1981

"The Self-Help Show", which originally used the Slits' cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine as its theme and at this point was BBC Community Programming Unit Meets Rockers Uptown, is still low-key in its dark studio and occasional mumbling - at one point Jeni 'You & Me' Barnett introduces "a film from Telford" with no further details, and we're still not sure what it was about even after watching it - and its parochial idea of fun is a screenprinting demonstration, a film made by an animation workshop for kids, a very short piece of juggling and, good god, Doc Cox as Ivor Biggun. The following year's extravaganza sounds like even more of a, if you'll pardon the expression, cracker: "David Rappaport has a close encounter with three shocking pink dancing girls, two performing seals, and a headmaster in a Christmas tree. Plus a seasonally apt report on home birth rights; a film featuring community shopping in the Outer Hebrides; and Juliet Blake's Gripe-vine of the week."

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 7: BBC1 news, Christmas Day 1984

Shame that Les didn't get dolled up that year. Watch Jan Leeming get understandably caught out by a lack of intro to the usual Christmas Day bulletin where the Queen's message is as close to uplifting as things get, Scargill in a caravan inclusive, before another look at that celebratory weather map. Escape To Victory on Boxing Day, just as it should be.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 6: Roland's Yuletide Binge & Roland Rat - The Series Christmas Special

We posted in On This Day earlier today about the end of Roland Rat: The Series, but going on scheduling alone it does seem his stature deflated fairly quickly after his high-profile 1985 leap to the BBC. In the week before this first show he was targeting all markets with appearances on Breakfast Time, Blue Peter and Blankety Blank, reflecting how much he'd crossed over from being promoted as the spearhead of TV-am's revival. And then the Beeb stuck Yuletide Binge on at 11.30am and added a childrens' audience and singers. Then in 1986, after the aforementioned prime-time series, it was put on at 8.45am! Iggy Pop was thought an appropriate musical guest for the latter regardless of the time and audience, though David Claridge would get Pere Ubu booked for Roland's Rat Race and Iggy had infamously previously popped in on No.73. That Jeannette Charles appears in both shows however feels just right. Does James Saxon as D'Arcy DeFarcy look remarkably like Horrible Histories etc's Jim Howick to anyone else?

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 6: BBC2, Christmas Day 1987

Nowt so festive as emergency transmitter information! That ident is quite classy, though the extended version is quite crowded as they tended to be around then. Your feelings on spending Christmas afternoon with Peter Alliss are yours to keep.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 5: Russell Harty's Christmas Party, 1983

This is the third of Harty's four festive soirees, the others taking place either in a West End theatre or Giggleswick. This one took place in a residential home for the elderly in Woking. We're sure it made sense in context. Joined by regular sidekicks Susan Cuff and Mr A, a kind of first draft Mr Motivator, Russell attempts to get something out of the residents who were happy spending the evening ignoring Shakin' Stevens, who at one point gets assailed by a man on stilts, and Rod Hull. We're most interested in the Only Fools And Horses cast in a sketch written to order by John Sullivan (at 20:03), if only because it didn't turn up as a rarity being talked all over in that recent Gold series.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 5: Watch - The Nativity

The fondly remembered double festive edition of the lightly religious schools programme was first broadcast on 22nd November (!) 1977 and repeated as recently as 1996. The department clearly saw the potential in this as Louise Hall-Taylor was sent out to the Holy Land to hang out in a cave with some sheep, James Earl Adair balancing the books in a basic studio with some cardboard. Some fine location shots, though, and someone hired a stunt Joseph, Mary, donkey, wise men and camels too.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 4: Bob's Full House, 1984

If only when spelling out the golden bingo card Bob had added "let's hope it's not Lapland!" With what sounds like a very easy audience, the contestants represent "the services that serve us all throughout the year" - NHS, the fire brigade, St John's Ambulance and the RNLI, the latter of whom seemingly wins Bonnie Langford.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 4: Southern, Christmas Day 1977

BBC1 may have had the programming - and no wonder they were enormously popular, Churchill or not that's not what families want to kick back to after a day of festivity, and it was nearly three hours long to boot - but ITV clearly had much the better trailer, in which loosely defined children eat literal mountains of jelly while Santa takes part in the Last Supper and then provides his own roof cleaning service. Unfortunately, much as we're aware it was an austere age, Bill Flynn's sparsely decorated continuity set and very deliberate phrasing doesn't resonate cheer. Nice tune, though, and good to see Vrillon's dire warnings a month earlier didn't put Southern off.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 3: Lenny Henry Christmas Special 1987

He's back and it's not a repeat. Except it kind of is in this form, isn't it? The rest of the special disappeared in transit but the bit that everyone recalls is the extended Rock'n'Roll Years spoof, featuring the inevitable Michael Jackson but also his actively frightening Ike & Tina Turner.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 3: Grotbags sings, 1984

It's well known that Carol Lee Scott, who died in July, was a singer on the working men's club and holiday camp circuit, where she was spotted by Rod Hull performing in summer season and brought into the fold when he joined the nascent Central. Indeed throughout her run and into her own show there'd be songs crowbarred in, including this exuberant take on We Need A Little Christmas from the Broadway musical Mame. This was originally shown on the Emu's World episode dated 30th... March. Yep, the plot involved Grotbags fooling the Pink Windmill kids into visiting Santa out of season. But just to make sure, here's Rod, Susan Maughan and Carl Wayne delivering the same song on that year's actual Christmas special.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 2: Christmas Night With The Stars, 1972

The fifteenth of BBC1's traditional Christmas Nights, and the last (discounting that Fry & Laurie version). It may have looked foolish for All Star Comedy Carnival on ITV to go head to head with it, but we see the results. The Two Ronnies host, got the Radio Times cover for it, and it really feels with how often they feature it's built around a show of their own rather than having them linking different elements. In one notable segment they compare gifts in a segment notable for how often Barker's flubs are left in, which we hope was for lack of editing time rather than spite. The linking script has thirteen credited writers, including Michael Palin and Terry Jones (and Barry Cryer, but you'd probably have guessed that - no Gerald Wiley, for the record) Elsewhere Lulu frugs with the Young Generation, the Goodies showcase their manic, silent Travelling Instant Five Minute Christmas, the Liver Birds overindulge and view the turkey in much the way Carla Lane would have, Mike Yarwood does Gerald Nabarro and Malcolm Muggeridge - yeah, this sketch might not have worn the passage of time well - Corbett and Cilla do a satirical duet and Dad's Army broadcast live to the nation. Also Sally James is in one sketch. Fun for all.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 2: adverts, 1980

This is here because it almost entirely comprises a completely different version of the Woolworths advert to that we've had before - no Harry Secombe, for one - and the traditional curtain raiser to the festive season comes with a cracker of an arrangement. The Roy Castle-voiced Everybody Needs Woolworths campaign, of long extension leads and Binatone cassettes fame, had been big that year so he was brought back for the supersized festive tradition extolling the virtues of "the Beatles back on MFP", while Woolies perennials Nimmo, Cuddly, Windsor, Stewpot and, um, Anita Harris (who we think that is on female vocal lead but aren't sure) make their cameos. As a bonus, the Olympus Trip advert with David Bailey, Bryan Pringle from the Heineken My Fair Lady advert and a post-Scum, pre-Quadrophenia Phil Daniels.

Home Advent Calendar 2017 Day 1: The Two Ronnies Old Fashioned Christmas Mystery

Barker and Corbett only ever made four standalone (as in not part of a regular series) Christmas shows, and the second was in 1982. This from 1973 is as high concept as the show ever really got, a self-contained story taking place at the country residence of Sir Giles and Lady Hampton on Christmas Eve 1872, in which the turkey is stolen and they have to call in Piggy Malone and Charley Farley, who were supposed going by their own regular sketches to be contemporary-set characters but let that pass. That sets up a classic farce much as you'd expect from the pen of Gerald Wiley, and while much is recognisable - a Barker monologue (watch the actors behind vainly attempt to keep a straight face), Corbett stealing away to sit in a big chair and confide in us, a big musical finish with apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan - there's also dancers, a balancing act, a B-plot featuring Gabrielle Drake, and a strange interlude where stage actress Cheryl Kennedy, who had been the resident musical turn on that year's first series of That's Life!, delivers a monologue that doesn't fit with the rest of the set-up. According to the credits Sally James, a Ronnies sidewoman in several sketches around that time (indeed we'll see her as a straightwoman elsewhere this time tomorrow), and Barry 'I'm Barry Gosney' Gosney are in there somewhere.

Work Advent Calendar 2017 Day 1: BBC1, Christmas Day 1984

Let's start off another year's worth, via the ever resourceful Transdiffusion, with an actual Christmas Day and something you don't get in this era of digitised weather maps, namely a gleefully decorated board and "set". We'd suggest Michael Fish is wearing his Christmas jumper, but that's just as likely what he would have worn whatever the date. After that is the infamous three-way snowman cracker and a snatch of Les Dawson in what you might thing is familiar festive repose except as far as we can tell he only ever wore it once.

Tis the season - TVC/WDYT?'s Advent adventures 2017

So it's coming quickly up to that time when we bring in the children's choir, dust down the crib, ready the large silver-coloured ship logo and present another year of YouTube-sourced Christmas programming and the festive bits in between. This year, starting as the calendar intended on this Friday, we're really going for it - we've gathered together so many "new" videos over the last year and a bit that we're going to have two rundowns this year, Home and Work Advent Calendars. The Work calendar door will be opened every morning at 9.30am revealing either a kids' TV clip or something shorter you can get away with watching during breaks; the Home calendar, a longform festive programme, is revealed at 5.30pm every day to luxuriate in of an evening.

But that's not all! Alongside those 48, or at least to avoid getting in their way on Twitter, half way between the two at 1pm we'll be illuminating lunchtimes and beyond with On This Day, a carry-over and extension from the @whydontyoutube account of five videos from telly broadcast on that date across the Cream Era, giving a fuller picture of this month in UK TV popular history. A real Christmas feast, a series of Christmas crackers, a Christmas selection box... whatever you want to call it, between December 1st and 24th TV Cream and Why Don't YouTube have gotta lotta fings on.


One more thing while we're here - much to our own amazement the vast majority of the 124 (plus multi-parts) videos posted here in previous years are still viewable (or at least replaceable) without being geoblocked or the uploader's account being struck out. However, at the time of our mid-November audit eight of them were gone with no sign of a like-for-like replacement. The two full All-Star Comedy Carnivals are likely lost for good as they're now out on DVD, but we wonder if anyone out there can help us locate the following (apart from the Granada one, which we've just found and replaced but are too lazy to edit the list now):