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...