On this day special: Christmas Day 1988

Three or four years ago we started trailing the Christmas Day viewing of thirty years previously on Twitter; last year we moved it so we could write in a more longform format, and for another year here we all are again...




As always, BBC1 and ITV got up early to clear their throat with some cartoons for the kids who couldn't sleep. ITV got in first from 6am with Christmas Robins, a Cribbins-narrated RSPB film that isn't related to Cribbins-narrated BBC film Round Robin. That was followed by CBS' 1978 animated version of Puff The Magic Dragon with Burgess Meredith as Puff. 'Christmas with TV-am' as an umbrella title featured carols from their regional outposts and an hour long version of Black Beauty. Meanwhile BBC1 got going at 6.55am under the umbrella of Now It's Christmas, adapted from the Sunday morning Now On 2 strand, where Parkin and Crane introduce the Henson team's The Christmas Toy, The Christmas Raccoons, The Nativity Play, a Playbus Why Bird Stop, The Pink Panther Show and Charlie's Christmas Project, in which the titular child (played by an 11 year old Seth Green) gets involved in pet adoption. Being a Sunday, they then run up to 10am with a special of kids' religious show Umbrella - "Why did a hooded figure visit the house of a poor merchant with gifts for his daughters, and why did a Manchester man give his daughter a poem for Christmas?" Rather less spiritually on ITV, Motormouth On Christmas Day From Disneyworld. Pretty sure Andrea Arnold, Neil Buchannan, Tony Gregory and the other two weren't actually there at the time.

By that time Channel 4 has woken up and started with something else being given a fresh Cribbins voiceover, Swedish animation Christopher's Christmas Mission. That's followed at 10am by Silent Mouse, an uneven mix of the story of how Silent Night was written, shot on location in Austria using local choirs and orchestras, and photography from the point of view of an actual mouse. Lynn Redgrave narrates, Gregor Fisher plays composer Franz Gruber. By then BBC1 is onto Christmas Worship from Paisley Abbey, ITV are showing animation The Little Troll Prince, and BBC2 wake up with Storm Boy, a 1976 Australian children's film which won a plethora of awards in the country and is currently being remade with Geoffrey Rush.

But hey, we're just filling time here until 11am...



By now Noel had been brought down from the BT Tower and this was not a classic year as the format breathed its last (Christmas Presents took over from 1989), with Shane Richie and Sophie Aldred as captains of a show-long quiz, Christmas messages from the political great and good including Noel chatting to Thatcher within Number 10, the debut of the concept of Auntie's Bloomers and the patented annual "television first" that Noel would always brag about, in this case a hesitant live link with the Mir space station. This goes on and off YouTube but it's there at time of writing so try your luck.

ITV moved to Lemsford, Herts for Morning Worship, Channel 4 slipped into an unfestive Waltons, and come 11.25am BBC2 were throwing their lot in with two and three-quarter hours of The Bible: In the Beginning..., Dino De Laurentiis' attempt to film as much as possible of the book of Genesis, with Richard Harris, John Huston, Peter O'Toole, Ava Gardner and George C Scott leading a cast of thousands.

While at midday Channel 4 slum it with a repeat of 1985's Florida special of Treasure Hunt and ITV sling on a Mickey, Donald and Goofy gang show in Moving Day, BBC1 follow ITV's lead by sending a show to the Magic Kingdom. It's A Charity Knockout From Walt Disney World Resort, to be precise, the format unbowed by the previous year's Grand Knockout Tournament as teams representing Britain, America and Australia raised money for Children In Need. Check some of that lineup: Jenny Agutter, Joe Bugner, Bernie Clifton, Annabel Croft, Eddie Edwards, the Fat Boys (ah, 1988), David Gower, Lloyd Honeyghan, George Lazenby, Meatloaf, Richard 'Shaft' Roundtree and Toyah. ITV pick up their own entertainment pace at 12.15pm with The Great British Pop Machine, an entertaining take on the music of the year format including performances from the likes of Yazz, linked by French & Saunders, including an "interview" with Def Leppard.

On Boxing Day Eastenders would get its first spinoff, the WWII set Civvy Street, but despite being only three years on from Den's divorce papers the soap skipped putting a new episode on the big day for the first time, though the omnibus filled the hour from 1pm. While an unseasonal Lost In Space kept Channel 4 running, TVS supplied ITV with a Mr Majeika special in which Santa drops in early.

BBC1 retook the musical hindmost at 2pm with the Top Of The Pops Christmas party, starring double Pet Shop Boys, Aswad, Fairground Attraction with Eddi Reader feeding the crowd, the Timelords with Gary Glitter, Wet Wet Wet, Bros, a chat with Robin Gibb and of course a special message from Breathe, of Hands To Heaven fame. But ITV know Christmas lunch glamour too, hence at 2.15pm the Bullseye Christmas Special with Marti Caine, Les Dennis, Bob Holness, Roy Walker, Eric Bristow, Jocky Wilson, Bob Anderson and the Birmingham Cathedral Choir. Channel 4, beaten, slings on 1928 cameo-heavy silent Show People.

BBC2, as ever seeking the alternative, goes to, over and underneath the Hawaiian Islands in Islands of the Fire Goddess and then from 3pm covers the next five hours 20 minutes with a re-run of the summer's Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Concert from Wembley Stadium. Harry Belafonte, Derek B and Harry Enfield - together at last! And no, Fry & Laurie's mikes still die, followed by them.

After BBC1 and ITV have covered a word to the Commonwealth and its subjects, the former goes big with the Back To The Future TV premiere. ITV have a big debut too, The Empire Strikes Back, and at least one region knew exactly what gravitas to give it.



Actually ITV crucially held off on that until 3.55pm so they could use as a buffer a festive Blind Date. BBC1 came out of its big Christmas film first with something else that would in time become its own Feast of Stephen perennial, Only Fools and Horses. Dates, already its seventh special, is the one where Del first meets Raquel.

This year's invariable classical music on the big day comes from Channel 4, with a Viennese staging of Mozart's Mass In C Minor at 3.30pm followed by the strangely common sight across the Eighties and into the early Nineties of John Wells doing something special and usually not satirical. John Wells And The Three Wise Men involved Wells chairing a discussion about faith between Christian, Jewish and Muslim representatives, set on a supposedly broken down train. The Queen was delayed to 5.20pm - no Alternative Christmas Message until 1993 - followed by The Snowman, because obviously.

There must have been something about the progression past six o'clock that made the big channels want to break out even more star names all in one go. ITV went first with a Save The Children fundraiser of Christmas music performed by the stars of the West End, including Michael Ball, David Essex, Anita Harris, Bonnie Langford, Paul Nicholas, Elaine Paige, Francis Rufelle and your host Michael Crawford. Meanwhile after the news at 6.30pm BBC1 celebrated with the annual Arts Centre Group get-together in a Songs Of Praise special (again, remember this was a Sunday), hosted by Cliff Richard and Sally Magnusson with our celebrants including Wendy Craig, Thora Hird, Paul Jones, Ian McCaskill, Pam Rhodes, Roger Royle and that man again John Wells. Channel 4 went in a different direction, plucking from Showtime's Faerie Tale Theatre anthology series a 1984 adaptation of Pinocchio with Paul Reubens as lead, Carl Reiner as Gepetto and James Coburn, Michael Richards and Jim Belushi in the cast.

Teatime just about cleared, it was time for the light entertainment hordes to step in. Bread took up most of the evening, 75 minutes of the Boswells visiting Rome and winning the day's ratings battle. ITV put up Coronation Street in opposition - Hilda Ogden's departure had won the day for ITV in 1987 but despite Deirdre's kidnapping this year was a comparative flop with around half the audience, less in fact than Ten Years Of Alright On The Night which followed. (That show was the first time we ever saw the Yogs clip and it scared the hell out of junior us) Channel 4? Well, after the news at 7pm was Time Is A Country, a profile of patron of the arts Margaret Gardiner looking at her friendships with the likes of Barbara Hepworth and W. H. Auden and her left-wing political involvement. This cannot have registered anything with BARB, surely.

BBC2 rejoined the fray at 8.20pm with the Queen plus signing and subtitles followed by Once In A Lifetime, an adaptation of a 1930 satirical play about the rise of talking pictures with Zoe Wanamaker, David Suchet and Brian Blessed involved. Surely indistinguishable from what started at the same time over on BBC1, the Russ Abbot Christmas Show with Cribbins' third appearance of the day. Channel 4, going very much its own way, covered the restoration of York Minster on Challenge By Fire, which is also a good summation of London's Burning, whose 90-minute special included a small role for Arthur Smith.

Past the watershed, Channel 4 switch back into arts mode with a version of the ballet Creole Giselle by the Dance Theatre of Harlem, set in 19th century Louisiana, then see out the night with Jean-Michel Jarre in Docklands two months earlier and a repeat of the same month's Human Rights Now! concert in Buenos Aires featuring Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and Youssou N'Dour. BBC2 meanwhile head back to the film vaults and pick out foreign language Oscar-nominated Italian drama The Family and, more populist apart from that it was on at twenty past midnight, Some Like It Hot. BBC1 filled out the night with films too, the TV premiere of Silverado after the news, the musical Carousel after a reading of The Gospel According to St Matthew. ITV still had something big left in One More Audience With Dame Edna at 10.25pm after their own news, followed by a variety of movies depending on your region, High Plains Drifter and Our Man Flint among them going through the night in the new era of 24 hour commercial TV.

And then onto Boxing Day - is it to be Bruce & Ronnie at 10.55pm (a time that drove their producer to tears in the rehearsal room, as discussed), The Story of Reader's Digest on BBC2, After Henry on ITV or an Italian film about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers impersonators on Channel 4?