Our annual trawl through the detail of the Christmas Day schedules from thirty years ago leads us into the new decade. Styles, practices and visual trademarks that come to represent each ten year block don't definitively become apparent until two or three years in and the Nineties only really started to pick up its go-faster blocky aesthetic around 1992, but there's a couple of Xmas newcomers of interest and ITV's self-inflicted big day decline hasn't begun just yet. What is notable in a transitionary way is this is the last December in which you'd have had to buy more than one double issue TV listings guide, deregulation in February 1991 saving casual table space but meaning an end to the kind of market where the special Radio Times can sell 10.6 million copies as this one did, and the rise of multichannel television allied to that of the home gaming industry was facilitating the long tail fragmentation of the television audience. It's not worth going through the main Sky channels in detail (and probably won't be until we come to write the equivalent blog in around 2035 in truth) but Sky Movies offered Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Good Morning Vietnam in prime time, BSB's Movie Channel countered with Crocodile Dundee II and A Fish Called Wanda, while Sky One showed a gala from Milan starring in this of all years Pavarotti.
For the vastest of vast majorities it was as usual the third channel that sprung out of bed first at 6am, following a TV-am news bulletin with the annual catch-all Cartoon Carnival, from The Adventures Of Parsley (which ended in 1971) to The Adventures Of Portland Bill, both of which are stop-motion so not actually cartoons but that's the perils of alliteration for you. Channel 4 was up and going too but at a more sedentary pace with Bobby Jones Gospel and the reliable The Art Of Landscape. Children's BBC gets going at 7am from Santa's grotto with the A-list team - Peters, Parkin, Forrester, Duck - presenting a festive Wizbit, Playdays' supergroup Christmas Tree Stop and, brace yourselves, Jingle Bell Rap. Radio Times' blurb barely helps: "Now here's the story of a father and son/It's Christmas Day and there's a lot to be done/The rock group's strumming, But the singer's not humming/Here comes Santa to get things buzzing!" There was an animated film by that title released in 1990 which doesn't match up to that synopsis at all. That said we're not sure it matches up to anything, being about The K9-4, a rap group of animated dogs putting on a hometown gig. Writer/directors Jerry Reynolds and Russ Harris were previously responsible for A Merry Mirthworm Christmas so they knew the form. Then again the only competition was confused and noisy kids' jungle based game show Top Banana on ITV and Trans World Sport on Channel 4. Bruce Hammal... at Christmas!
BBC2 starts up at 8am with, counterintuitively, Summer Holiday - not that one, the 1948 musical with Mickey Rooney - while BBC1 offer the kids compilation The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie. And it would have to be the kids they're catering for as in place of the usual celebratory Good Morning Britain - must have been a strike on - we get a Cliff Richard Christmas Day Special, strangely buried in the year of his second festive chat topper Saviour's Day wherein the Peter Pan of something "sings, tells the Christmas story, shows some clips from his latest tour and introduces the Choirboy of the Year". Due to his fervent fanbase any Cliff is very well represented online but tellingly not this. Channel 4 meanwhile offer a preview of the day in Christmas On The Box and Oprah Winfrey talking to New Kids On The Block and Bobby Brown, and while TV-am fills the space up to its 9.25 handover with Alvin And The Chipmunks there's a festive Countdown Masters, the abbreviated version unmoored from its Channel 4 Daily home.
ITV recommences the cartoon trend once it gets going with three Tweety Pie cartoons, except in Scotland where the Moderator wanted a word first and on Tyne Tees which showed Inner Space for some reason. Everyone regathered afterwards to find out where your money went after May's 27 hour marathon in Telethon - Thanks To You, against Sesame Street on Channel 4. BBC2 has a rather more earthy cartoon in Watership Down from 9.30am, against which BBC1 get the god slot done early in Shout For Joy!, the Christmas Day Mass from St Francis Church, Handsworth. After that is something you probably wouldn't associate with this early hour even if host and date had had success there not long before - Noel's Christmas Presents, in its second year and still in the slot it would take up until moving to its more famous 3.10pm mooring in 1993, in which Noel heads worldwide and hands out twelve gifts and general issue surprises with the aid of Frank Bruno in disguise, David Essex in a back garden and, good moaning indeed, Arthur Bostrom, not to mention a Geoff McGivern character cameo. ITV is still on its social caring kick with Find A Family Update at 10.45am, featuring the children in care who had been put with new families as a result of Central's initiative being thrown a party at Beaulieu, the kind of thing that might be in prime-time these days rather than cut to fifteen minutes so communion at All Saints Church, Fulham could be taken. Channel 4 for their part continue a Batman And Robin story from the previous day followed by the traditional imported obscure animation, Australian 1987 work And The Lighthouse Made Three, and the other great Channel 4 tradition of the years we've been covering their festive offerings, a Cirque du Soleil film, this one pointedly titled We Reinvent The Circus. BBC2 meander even further on their own path with RKO musicals compilation Gotta Dance, Gotta Sing.
BBC1 get to midday with the first Allo Allo!, not yet under the repeated comedy catch-all Christmas Selection Box title. There's also comedy on BBC2 as they oddly throw out the Christmas special of American sitcom The Famous Teddy Z. Starring Jon Cryer (much later of Two And A Half Men) as a Hollywood showbiz agent and Alex Rocco (Mo from the Godfather, who actually won the comedy supporting actor Emmy for his role) as a heartless old-timer in the same trade, the first six episodes had been shown from October 1989 before the series was dropped, only to return to a 9pm slot on a piecemeal basis throughout 1991 including episodes not shown by CBS as they axed it three quarters of the way through its twenty week commission. The BBC1 repeats continue with the 1985 Two Ronnies special at midday, while ITV launch a classic kids vs parents battle for the remote with a Disney Club Christmas Special from Aspen, Colorado with Dannii Minogue and Breathe (them who did Hands To Heaven) and Channel 4 have a chat with Arnold Palmer, all whilst BBC2 ramp up their high culture alternate offering.
Because nobody wants anything too taxing while the sprouts are on BBC1 throw out another Dad's Army repeat at 12.55pm, the 1976 special The Love Of Three Oranges, and five minutes later BBC2 follow suit with the visual grace of Simon King documentary Drift, The Mute Swan. That's very much what the commercial channels aren't doing from 1pm, with a special for briefly in demand ventriloquist Ronn Lucas on ITV - a prime time series would follow - and Lisa Stansfield talking to Paul Gambaccini on Channel 4.
At 1.30pm Mark Goodier and Anthea Turner are your hosts for the Christmas Top Of The Pops, still being simultaneously broadcast on Radio 1, clips of festive number ones from down the years interspersing new studio performances from Kim Appleby, Beats International, the Beautiful South, Bombalurina, Kylie, Adamski, Londonbeat and Status Quo but Cliff only via repeat. That's followed by EastEnders, which in a pre-Queen slot still seems odd given its ubiquity borne through the divorce papers episode but the three years between then and now had seen it shown at 3.10pm, 1pm and not at all, and it would then skip the big day once more in 1991 before settling into prime time from 1992 onwards. As for this episode Diane finds Disa's new born baby on her doorstep and Ian deliberately crashes his van in an act of revenge over Simon not being his baby for the second time in five months. More genteel pursuits take place from 2pm elsewhere with BBC2 joining the traditional Christmas Day Concert from Amsterdam, Torvill & Dean with the Russian Allstars on ITV and on Channel 4 what sounds like a hell of a seasonal concept, Talking Turkey having Barry Took hold an "alternative Christmas lunch" with Warren Mitchell, John Noakes, Helen Lederer, Johnny Speight, Nina Myskow and Frank Sidebottom. Warren Mitchell and Frank Sidebottom met!
At 3pm, produced for the fifth and last time by David Attenborough, the Commonwealth listens.
That's for all except the minority channels, BBC2 still enjoying Liszt, Channel 4 showing 1986's Max Wall: A Life Class, which is as it sounds - Wall, who died that May, talks about his life to a group of Liverpool and Manchester art college students who then turn their impressions of him into art.
After the speech, the big films, and while ITV play it safe with their Bond catalogue in Moonraker (which debuted over Christmas 1982) there's a huge BBC1 premiere.
The start of a run of Spielberg hits on the big day - and in fact he had his own BBC1 season as a build-up - E.T. attracted 17.5 million viewers. Against that behemoth BBC2 offered To Try Again... And Succeed, the animated story of a baby eagle narrated by Orson Welles, then a study of Henry Moore's landscapes and the premiere of Powaqqatsi, the Third World based successor to time lapse cult film Koyaanisqatsi. On Channel 4 there's another Australian animation, 1985's The Huge Adventures Of Trevor - A Cat, after which...
...It's A Gift kicks off a WC Fields season before the public service breather of news and Queendom.
Jill Dando is on BBC News duty all day as Gorbachev gains more powers and parts of the country flood. Following that at 5.10pm is the day's most watched programme, 17.97 million tuning in for Only Fools And Horses, more than two million down on 1989 but still among the twenty most watched Christmas Day shows ever. And what do they get? Rodney Come Home, in the running for the most straight up depressing Only Fools episode ever, in which Rodney's marriage to Cassandra falls apart, none of the regulars outside the family appear and there's a tear-stained downer ending. Not exactly the previous year's Jolly Boys' Outing, even if it does set up the central story arc of the next series. Regardless, following the ITN news, the Strike It Lucky Christmas Special with child contestants couldn't match up, much less BBC2's repeated tribute to Joyce Grenfell - this got a lot of outings a decade or more after her death - or Channel 4's Faerie Tale Theatre - Jack and the Beanstalk, a 1983 episode from an American anthology series narrated by Shelley Duvall starring Elliott Gould, All In The Family's Jean Stapleton and Soap's Katherine Helmond. They followed that with the first part of Harry Enfield's Viz port The Further Adventures of Billy the Fish and, just in case you thought they'd forgotten, The Snowman.
You'd expect nothing less from Doddy than going long, and Ken Dodd At The London Palladium takes up 75 minutes of ITV from 6.15pm as we head into the evening. It's another old variety stager who made his name at that grand old venue who takes the honours of helming the day's third most watched programme at 6.25pm on BBC1, though, Bruce Forsyth's Christmas Generation Game marking the end of the first year of its return in front of 16.73 million. While Channel 4 gives in with an episode of Cosby Show spinoff A Different World and the party central of Father Oleg, Mother Russia, a profile of Russian Orthodox priest Father Oleg Cherepanin, BBC2 heads back to the opera - the Royal Opera House to be exact as Simon Rattle conducts Leos Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen. At 7.30pm it's time for Coronation Street to take the ratings hindmost with ITV's biggest audience of the day, 14.73 million watching as Gail Tilsley gives birth to David Platt the day after Rosie Webster was born. That beats out the Bread fifty minute special, which is more about shifting existing story arcs than a singular grand day out.
Corrie's not finished for the day, though, as over on Channel 4 at 8pm The Coronation Street Birthday Lecture is given by celebrity fan Roy Hattersley, a recorded version of a tribute he'd given to much bemusement at that year's Edinburgh Festival to mark the soap's thirtieth anniversary. ITV had moved on to something very dissimilar, the premiere of Beverly Hills Cop II, cut to shreds given the pre-watershed start time and with a twenty minute head start on BBC1's Birds Of A Feather, which features a convoluted hour-long story involving Sharon having to find a bubble car in Berlin and getting there by winning a game show hosted by Leslie Crowther. Once they get the Queen out of the way BBC2's alternate is another TV premiere, Jean de Florette, introduced by star Yves Montand.
Yet another premiere, successful but now forgotten Diane Keaton with inherited toddler rom-com Baby Boom, follows the late BBC1 news at 9.45pm, while ITV have one last festive special up their sleeve as Hester has Christmas pudding calamities on French Fields at 10pm. You'd almost be better off with Channel 4's Carmen On Ice from 9pm, a Bizet rewrite starring legendary figure skaters Katarina Witt and Brian Boitano, followed at 10pm by Nigel Kennedy Plays Bruch (no score draw) BBC2 meanwhile drift into the night with yet another Amnesty International benefit, An Embrace Of Hope, which took place in the newly de-Pinocheted Santiago two months earlier featuring Sting, Peter Gabriel, Sinéad O'Connor, Jackson Browne, Wynton Marsalis and New Kids On The Block.
By this time of night we're into repeats and dregs, so after a news update and weather from the actual Met Office office ITV drift into that good night with, depending on region, Barbra Streisand screwball comedy What's Up Doc?, Mike Hammer adaptation Murder Me Murder You, Burt Lancaster's Scorpio, German musical Feel The Motion (with Meat Loaf, Limahl, Pia Zadora, Falco, Katrina & The Waves, Re-Flex and Die Toten Hosen as themselves) and Sounds Like Christmas, "a documentary about the business of selling records at Christmas", at the prime time of 4.35am. BBC1 flings out the Party Games Yes Minister, five minutes of consideration of what all the fuss is about from Christian author Adrian Plass entitled Christmas Presence, and neo-noir spy thriller The Quiller Memorandum. BBC2 reaches for the Hitchcock with Notorious while Channel 4 closes on He Turned Up, the autobiographical tale of a Christian pastor, and Jackie Chan-produced Hong Kong thriller Rouge. And then it's onwards to the Boxing Day after, with toys to play with, turkey to finish and a demoted Russ Abbot, Lorna Doone starring Sean Bean, Peter Cook's A Life In Pieces, Christmas Cluedo and an actor special of the Krypton Factor to look forward to...
Friday, 25 December 2020
On this day: Christmas Day 1980
Because we've covered television on the 25th at the end of the decade over the last few years on this day, why not fill out the big yawning gap at the start of it over the next seven years too? If the golden age of Christmas telly was the 1970s as easy populist nostalgia makes out and given entertainment trends don't just change overnight, then surely some of it will have eked out into the exciting new space age decade...
...well, not immediately, clearly. Kids up early get nothing in these three channel, pre-breakfast TV days, not until one of many showings down the years of 1977's Watch: The Nativity kicks off BBC1 at 8.55am. ITV follow five minutes later throwing their annual party for kids this time at Yeaden Town Hall, Leeds, A Merry Morning featuring party debutant Don Maclean, a very down the dumper and long Dollarless Guys & Dolls and the original quartet of Chuckle Brothers making their first strides into kids' entertainment. ITV do at least get to church first, Eucharist taken from 9.45am at Canterbury Cathedral conducted by its new Archbishop Robert Runcie and "using the new Alternative Service Book", while BBC1 is still messing around with Mr Benn and the Pink Panther Show before dropping into the Family Mass at Clifton Cathedral.
BBC2 rouses briefly at 11am for Play School with a classic Harris/Chell/Leader line-up but once the big brother has returned from church they drop off again for a few more hours while BBC1 puts on acclaimed 1962 fantasy musical The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm. No such buy-in reservations on the third channel, who after cartoon A Christmas Star pull out a big gun at 11.10am... A Christmas Runaround On Ice! Once Mike Reid has refrained from clinging onto a prop polar bear for his life on an ice rink in Torquay we move on to, depending on region, either Laurel & Hardy Film Library and a spare Give Us A Clue or another once annual tradition of festive telly...
Yep, Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World. There's a whole generation now passed, maybe even two, who didn't get that unexpected introduction to Spike Milligan and Jim Dale during school holidays. After that we slide into the afternoon with Christmas Crossroads, the anodyne blurb for which claims "Reg Cotterill has a traumatic experience. Meg Mortimer learns something astonishing about her daughter Jill" but completely neglects to mention the disco. After that something more associated with the other side as Billy Smart's Christmas Circus pitches up near Windsor with Keith Harris, sealion, mules and "Anna Smart's golden horse". That's except for viewers in Scotland, who have their own Glen Michael Cavalcade and Christmas Sunshine. Complain to the moderator, not us.
BBC1, which got the circus rights (if circuses are subject to bidding wars) back soon afterwards only to make sure it was seen off by putting Keith Harris in charge, is still in a more traditional mood than even those big top thrills for the time being, Carols from Warwick Castle at 1.10pm only nodding at modernity through a Douglas Fairbanks Jr introduction. After that though all bets are off with Top of the Pops 80, Peter Powell never quite looking comfortable next to Savile as they introduce the Nolans, Dexys Midnight Runners, Liquid Gold, Marti Webb, Fern Kinney, Johnny Logan, Leo Sayer and Sheena Easton afresh in the studio plus Legs & Co hoofing to Barbra Streisand and Lipps Inc.
Families stand up for the Queen at 3pm, supposedly the most watched message to the Commonwealth ever, as she reflects on her mum's 80th before both main channels start on films that are really much the same thing - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on BBC1, George And Mildred on ITV. That spinoff, which came out a few months earlier shortly after Yootha Joyce's alcoholism related death, is credited with bringing the era of big screen sitcom adaptations to a crashing end. George is mistaken for a hitman. Yeah. As a distraction BBC2 is active again also from 3.10pm with, surprisingly for the timeslot and type, a new documentary, A Year In The Life Of An Exmoor Man measuring a year in the life of, um, a man who lives in Exmoor. Tom Rook actually had a city trade as an estate agent but spent the rest of his time lambing, shearing, point-to-pointing and so forth. After that came more reliable fare, Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby in Blue Skies.
Two relatively new big hits make their debuts for the 25th after 5pm, first up the 3-2-1 Pantomime with the company joined by a range of stars including Nicholas Parsons and Derek Batey as ugly sisters, Sheila Steafel, Bill Maynard, a returning and surer footed Mike Reid, Magnus Pyke, Bob Carolgees and, oh god, Cyril Smith. The panto in question is route one choice Cinderella but Dusty Bin only sports some tinsel, not the extra costumed mile he would go to in later years. Over on BBC1 ten minutes later The Paul Daniels Magic Show has an array of international variety talent including Harry Blackstone sawing a woman in half without the box and a quick change artist performing a solo Oliver Twist, and also Paul singing which nobody requested. Hope you got the Bunco Booth you wanted for Christmas!
As BBC2 fill ten minutes with heartwarming animation Little Swallow before more Astaire in the shape of The Band Wagon, BBC1 follows the news (Angela Rippon on duty) at 6.10pm with Larry Grayson's Generation Game, with the traditional array of carol singers, clod-hopping contestant dancers, a "recognise the famous person in seasonal disguise" round, an end game panto and a phalanx of stars, ranging from Val Doonican via Alfred Marks to, obviously being Larry's era, Noele Gordon. A bog standard episode of Dallas followed, because you could get away with that as a key treat in 1980 - this was less than five weeks after we found out Who Shot JR - in an episode brought forward two days from its regular scheduling in an in no way cynical move to counteract the Bond film on ITV, a grand tradition only just starting in the shape of The Man With The Golden Gun. It's followed at 8.05pm with Engelbert Humperdinck as the guest playing themselves in...
By now we're past the Newbury Fruits hour so BBC2 is busying itself with two and a half hours of Placido Domingo in a film production of Puccini's Tosca. BBC1 goes into the night with another big film, Airport 75, which gives ITV a chance to reach for its heavy hitters.
Firstly at 8.30pm it's The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, the second actual special of the Thames era and the first with Eddie Braben involved, but there's a lot of second hand material used and Peter Barkworth as the stooge in Ernie's play is no... well, Alec Guinness, Glenda Jackson, Jill Gascoigne, Hannah Gordon, Peter Cushing, Peter Vaughan or Gemma Craven, who all make appearances of varying lengths.
The traditional unsung hero Christmas This Is Your Life follows, this year's book going to Joan Wells, foster mother to more than 150 children, and then at 10pm Janet And Company is another Janet Brown vehicle, featuring Roy Kinnear, Frank Windsor, Rod Hull and Emu. Brown was in fact so highly thought of in the early, pre-Nallon Thatcher age she'd joined Eric, Ernie and Roger (who she'd cameo kind-of-alongside the following year in For Your Eyes Only) in a famous TV Times double issue cover.
And so towards closedown... after the late news Parkinson's on at 10.40pm on BBC1 with with Penelope Keith, James Galway and stage star Ben Vereen, followed by Fawlty Towers' Gourmet Night as a late treat. BBC2 finally get round to relaying the royal words at 10.10pm, followed by Seurat's La Grande Jatte in the ten minute filler One Hundred Great Paintings and the Lemmon/Matthau great The Front Page. ITV follow their own 10.30pm news with Liza Minnelli in Concert - unless you're in London for some reason, as Thames show Glenda Jackson/George Segal romcom A Touch of Class - and after midnight everywhere the self-defeating title It's Christmas. Time to turn the page, pick up the red pen and decide for tomorrow - Dame Edna in the first ever An Audience With or Blankety Blank with a double panel?
Thursday, 24 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 24: Channel 4, 1982
Last up on this year's Advent Calendar but first up on this pair from the fourth channel's first Christmas is a clip we've greatly enjoyed on our Twitter account but never thought to seal its place on here before. It's closedown on the 25th - not a great day, in truth, prime time being a one man telling of St Mark's Gospel, an Upstairs Downstairs repeat and the Olivier Richard III - and all Olga Hubicka has to do is preview the following day. You may notice she has a glass of wine to hand throughout and going by some of her link, especially her description of The Snowman and the film double bill's star, may have started on it early. Clock the jingle bells over Four Score too. The second video features some adverts from earlier in the day, including Freddie Laker's failed attempt to relaunch Skytrain just ten months after it had gone into receivership, plenty of exposure for the long lasting hair colouring tool Clairol Glints and one of five adverts ourselves and the mighty Neil Miles have found for Barrett's Liquor Mart and its... singular owner and frontman Freddie Barrett, who first became famous through years of radio advertising on LBC and for a short time tried to do the same on the pre-Equity agreement new network. Fat lot of good advertising your liquor wares on Christmas Day, of course, not only is the store shut but everyone will have got special booze in well before time. And that's your final reminder to do so too. Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, 23 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 23: The Generation Game, 1972
Every one of the eleven Generation Game Christmas Specials in its initial run, whether Forsyth or Grayson, went out on Christmas Day BBC1. That run sadly ended at fourteen when 1993's show, the fourth of the Brucie revival, was shunted back a day, and then not only did it never go out on the 25th during Jim Davidson's seven years but it was disposed of as early as the 19th in 1998, which says far more than any personality or textural analysis ever could. This is the second ever special, starting with the traditional "guess the celebrities in pantomime repose" game in which nobody even attempts to identify Roy Castle. Kenny Lynch cameos as Snow White, because the 1970s, before a game with someone whose name Bruce doesn't even attempt to pronounce does... um... pouring wine in a straight line up the face? We'd say it'll make sense when you watch it but we did and are none the wiser. Later on is the nightmare fuel of people dressed as Rupert the Bear and his friends in what appears to be a round specifically for any children watching although the observation element is only made clear after the event so defeating the purpose, followed by... BOB BLACKMAN! Christmas made! Sadly the following game involves writing on trays rather than using them for their newly recommended purpose, but any sense of a letdown is absorbed by the traditional closing play, Peter Pan starring Melvyn Hayes, Amanda Barrie and Madeleine Smith, the latter two having to stay behind and act with the couples in the usual advantage-taking chaos. Fun for all the family.
DIDN'T THEY DO WELL: Brucie's years include 1973 with Peter Sellers' widow as Cinderella corpsing badly at Frankie Howerd and 1990 with Rosemarie Ford rapping; in between 1978 was Larry Grayson's first Christmas and they found a contestant called Everard for the occasion
Tuesday, 22 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 22: Ant & Dec's Geordie Christmas
Blummin' old style YouTube editing restrictions. Anyway, it's hard to think about given their apparent ubiquity these past three decades but the end of 1997 was a piss-or-get-off-the-pot time for McPartlin and Donnelly. Their first album not as PJ & Duncan, The Cult Of Ant & Dec, stalled at number 15 (in fairness lower than any of its four singles) and the end of their recording contract meant it was also their last. In the spring their first grown-up series, Ant & Dec Unzipped, had had decent notices (and featured the last TV material written by Eddie Braben, though apparently most of his ideas were deemed too surreal for the show) but Channel 4 didn't recommission it and the pair don't think much of it either, though it introduced them to some of the production staff who would go on to SMTV Live. There was however a Christmas special from a boat on the Tyne at the end of the year, here rendered in filmed-off-a-telly-vision with the kind of Don't Forget Your Toothbrush overexuberant youth audience you don't get any more being presented with Joe Pasquale (with the "what does Joe Pasquale sound like on helium" experiment three years before Frank Skinner did it), Maureen Rees pretending to steer the ship of course, Aled Jones, Rowland Rivron as the ghost of Christmas past - sounds about right - transplanted sporting locals Rob Andrew and Warren Barton, too little of obligatory Mackems Kenickie, briefly youth entertainment-omnipresent Page 3 girl Jo Guest, lots and lots of gags about drinking and a big ending that doesn't work. Don't worry for their future, they'll be on Saturday mornings by the same time next year.
Monday, 21 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 21: Tomorrow's World Christmas Quiz, 1986
We've featured Tomorrow's World Christmas Quizzes on here before but never before the very first of the seven straight contests that replaced the usual format and allowed Howard Stableford to don an appropriate jumper. You should know the rigmarole by now - a mystery item is revealed, the regular presenters and the odd guest give conflicting explanations of what it's for, the audience use their proto-early You've Been Framed! multiple choice pads to vote for what they think it is, a guest panel give their verdict. This year the panel are Colin Baker in his Who outfit, Heather Couper and the director of the Science Museum. One of the potential answers involves a horse so RELEASE THE BOWNESS, alongside Kenny Everett with a model cow, Roland Rat with some things that vibrate, Ian McCaskill dropped from the heavens and Ray Reardon doing the machine gun trick shot, because he was a snooker player on a LE show that had room for a table so not to do it would have been against the law.
THE FUTURE OF THE CHRISTMAS QUIZ: 1987; 1988; 1989
Sunday, 20 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 20: Magpie, 1976
Mick, Jenny and the oft overlooked Douglas Rae have put their tree outside, which seems unnecessarily risky but does give the carolers some room. In between Mick helping to paint a wall there's an exchange of groaners, magic tricks, the usual details about which kings and Lord Protectors banned festivities and the appeal wall extending down the stairs outside the studio. No crib or gold magpie at the end or anything like that.
Saturday, 19 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 19: The Paul Daniels Magic Christmas Show, 1987
Unbowed by having being killed in an iron maiden two months earlier Paul had an appointment to keep, the ninth of his fifteen straight Christmas shows. No overarching theme this time as he milks Richard Whitmore with the aid of Michael Buerk, John Craven and Adam Raphael (who had a very brief stint fronting Newsnight), breaks the laws of physics with a child and toy car, introduces one armed card trickster Rene Lavand, a puppeteer and some climbers, and for a climax saws Felix Bowness' pantomime horse in half. Not having Bowness animatedly mouth at the second camera on the trick's reveal feels like a perfect opportunity wasted.
MORE OF THE MAN WHO EXCELS: 1980 in the Bunco Booth; 1985 with Snow White; 1990 with Paul in disguise (and singing)
Friday, 18 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 18: The Comedians Christmas Cracker
Until its stars started literally doing so, The Comedians was a show that would not die. The initial run of seven series in three years from 1971 to 1974 was followed by two more in 1979 and 1980, then another two in 1984 and 1985, and one more in 1992. It was cheap - a mike, a basic studio set, brief club sets for editing together - but in the face of comedy's shifting tones - "alternative *to* comedy, more like!", a sentence that somehow goes unsaid here - it feels like Granada had no better ideas. Even then that wasn't enough as the tail end of 1993 the group got together in a club to perform to an audience including all their compatriots in the front row, Bernard Manning as the alpha male guv'nor of the working men's club set and so getting chief heckling duties. Carson, Bowen, Boardman, Walker, Williams, Miller, Goodwin, Casson - they're all here, along with young stripling fella-me-lad Les Dennis. Charlie Williams, who was still active at the time, gets the last word with a weirdly emotional little speech.
Thursday, 17 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 17: All This - And Christmas Too!
Some good old fashioned festive broad farce from the offices of Yorkshire Television today, where it's 1971 and Sid James has moved into a new phase of his career taking the lead in Bless This House, the twinkle in his eye that had so far guided him through fourteen of his eventual nineteen Carry Ons augmented by a jaundiced view of what the kids of today thought they were doing. This one-off, penned by playwright and Carry On contributor Sam Cree as a stand-in for the (brief) annual tradition of a festive show featuring all the gang, obviously had to be clearly different to that sitcom to differentiate the characters. So, James plays Sid Jones, a henpecked father of two teenagers, one called Sally, who is trying to get to grips with the generation gap... oh, wait. Anyway, with Sally awaiting childbirth Sid is left to take up most of the screen time, with the aid of neighbour Kenneth Connor, before a baby turns up intended for his other daughter to sit. Bless This House never had a seasonal special but most of this is practically the same setup anyway so it's as near as makes no difference - that is apart from the never properly explained opening titles that rather than explain what's ahead read more as just something Cree and James fancied doing. Warning: contains comedy values of the day.
Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 16: Mike Yarwood Christmas Special, 1982
Having had nine straight BBC1 Christmas specials to that point, six of which were on Christmas Day and none of the others scheduled further away from the big day than the 27th, one can only speculate on Yarwood's thoughts on going to Thames at the end and finding his first festive spectacular relegated to the 21st. True, Christmas Day fell on a Saturday that year so the bulk of the big shows were under LWT's tight grip, but that still leaves better options than the preceding Tuesday for someone whose last BBC show had held up as their sixth most watched in Christmas week, albeit it still took fifth place in the 1982 equivalent week ITV ratings with only 700,000 fewer viewers year on year. The cause of Yarwood's decline, personal demons aside, is often said to be the rise of Thatcher - who, by the way, isn't even represented, not even by Janet Brown - but it feels more like he failed to get a handle on a time when Harold Wilson and Eddie Waring were not the centre of the popular universe. Indeed, in the cold open were it not for the borrowed set you'd wonder when it was that Larry Grayson sported a fulsome beard and jumper. One interesting sketch is Charles and Diana being interviewed by the actual Selina Scott (who had just been poached from ITN for Breakfast Time as she makes sure to mention) where not only is the relatively new Di played by Suzanne Danielle, not someone you'd associate with impersonation, but she gets the best gags, with David Renwick credited as main writer. Also, Yarwood does Sammy Davis Jr. The Nolans and Petula Clark play themselves.
THIS WAS HE: 1977, the most watched show on the most famous Christmas TV night of all, featuring Denis Healey as a punk; 1978 in the year he got the Radio Times cover and has to get Janet Brown in; 1979 in excerpt as Liberace (Yarwood) meets Johnny Mathis (Johnny Mathis)
Tuesday, 15 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 15: Big Break, 1994
Every year the pot-as-many-balls-as-you-can baize baloney game show would present a pantomime version, not with any narrative beyond the costumes but it's the thought that counts, chiefly the thought of how ridiculous the players can look. Jim Davidson is the Mad Hatter, John Virgo the March Hare, and the celebrity contestants are an awkward Zoe Ball as Cinders (with Jim essaying a pro-am Johnny impression), Terry Griffiths, Craig Charles and Steve Davis who is having little part of this as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, John Parrott as a cat and Marti Caine in a costume she can barely walk in. Then Charlie Drake appears, just 24 years after his last TV series and having latterly fallen into being part of Davidson's blue panto Sinderella. Caine would be dead by the following Christmas, Drake didn't appear on TV again after 1995.
Monday, 14 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 14: Grange Hill, 1985
Otherwise known as the arrival of Harriet the Donkey. Well, it was workable for a one-off. But it wasn't, was it? Penned by Phil Redmond himself for the first time in four years it acted as a bridge between series, wrapping up loose ends before series nine began in the new year, it's also the arrival of fibreglass-enabled golden age bully Imelda Davis and irate caretaker Mr Griffiths and the farewell of Gripper and Stewpot. Mr Baxter gets a fine sarcasm workout and Ro-Land is the centre of the story arc. Believers in the sanctity of the fourth wall, watch out.
Sunday, 13 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 13: Crackerjack, 1974
We've featured the 1984 Children's BBC Aladdin before, with its plangent love ballad between Sarah Greene and Jan Francis, but a decade earlier the Crackerjack team were putting on their own version with a support cast of hundreds including the Goodies doing their then-current single The Inbetweenies, Michael Aspel, Derek Griffiths, Dana, Deryck Guyler (who sadly doesn't get his washboard out), Pan's People, Ed Stewart and Barrie 'I'm Barrie Gosney' Gosney. Contains attitudes of the time, as Talking Pictures TV puts it.
Saturday, 12 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 12: Gone Live!, 1988
As the show that went out on Boxing Day 1987 was under the regular title this was the first time Philip, Sarah and co made no bones about not being there - it's the first thing Sarah points out - so presumably the Christmas Eve show went out live and this was so they could hand out presents, which is the lead-in to everyone travelling around in time in a series of almost half-formed sketches that might explain why from 1989 onwards they favoured the longform Trevor & Simon-penned set-pieces. Also included: a slightly wrong version of the Twelve Days Of Christmas from the Singing Corner, Bristol School of Dancing do a routine to Walking In The Air, Andy Crane and Jenny Powell are the victims of Double Dare, and Then Jericho.
NOT GOING LIVE: 1989 presents Philderella starring everyone from Kylie to Duncan Goodhew; 1990's reworking of A Christmas Carol brings Rowland Rivron, Norman Lovett and Susie Blake to the kids; 1993's The Looking Eye special features Schofield *as* Terry Christian.
Friday, 11 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 11: The Big Breakfast, 1993
Horrible background hissing on some of this, such is the risk with old VHSes, but a little moment of the development of entertainment television being captured here in Chris and Gaby's second and last seasonal morning cheer. It doesn't appear to be pre-recorded either, which feels rare for the show at this time of year, and the news every twenty minutes feels not only like too much breaking up the flow but far too much for the date. Simon Bates is on the bed, the biggest cracker in the country is in the kitchen, Zig's touching Christmas song and exciting new game are in the bathroom, and Keith Chegwin is in the middle of a housing estate in Birmingham. Obviously it ends with everyone plus a brass band in the garden. Also, somewhat incredibly as it's not the ITV overnight service, an outing for the Young At Heart compilation advert. Sounds Direct would never get that to you by the following day!
Thursday, 10 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 10: Telly Addicts, 1990
If a series of Telly Addicts acted for many people as a surrogate countdown to Christmas, beginning in September and running right up to the double issue period, the annual celebrity show must act as a palate cleanser. An often ill-disciplined and injokey palate cleanser, true, but nevertheless. Kids TV was the theme in this year, pitting Leslie Crowther, Jenny Powell, Tony Hart and Jenny Hanley against John Craven, Cheryl Baker, Andi Peters and Brian Cant.
HOOFER-DOOFERS AND HOLLY DRESSING: 1989 brought in the comedians (and Chris Tarrant; 1991's series winner the Pains take on Michael Grade's the Aches; 1992 pitches girls against boys and features Danny Baker introducing a clip of Noel where he looks slightly different
Wednesday, 9 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 9: The Parkinson Magic Show
This would have been so much better had Parky shown off a hitherto undisclosed talent for close-up work, but hey ho. Parkinson was a fan of the art, bringing legendary mentalist Chan Canasta out of retirement for a single appearance in 1971. Five years later he gave it a full hour, albeit at 11pm, in which Fred Kaps spreads his salt, future Secret Cabaret regular Ricky Jay splits a banana with cards and Richiardi Jr dismembers Michael better than Pipes could ever manage.
Tuesday, 8 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 8: Family Fortunes, 1991
No pantomime costumes for once on the festive Fortunes, this year's concept being The Upstars against The Push-Starts. To explain by example, the Upstarts whose providence Les doesn't actually explain are the original Tracy Barlow Dawn Acton, Brookside's Rachel Lindsay, Woof!'s Edward Fidoe, The Upper Hand's Kellie Bright and her future castmate, 23 year old ringer Adam Woodyatt. Against them and with at least two members playing things up for the little they're worth: Gorden Kaye, Lynne Perrie, Buster Merryfield, June Whitfield and Paul Shane.
IF IT'S THERE I'LL GIVE YOU THE TINSEL MESELF: two years earlier Les and co got into character.
Monday, 7 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 7: Wogan, 1984
Terry Wogan's history with Christmas Day BBC1 comprised Blankety Blank in 1979 and 1983, Christmas With The Carringtons in 1985, a new Auntie's Bloomers every year from 1995 to 1999 and then again in 2001, and this festive sally to verdant Shepherd's Bush Green to meet Freddie Starr singing and swapping shoes, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Elton John both doing the same one of those things, and an almost too knowing rematch with Victoria Principal by satellite.
Sunday, 6 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 6: Yet more 1980s and 1990s Christmas adverts
We've covered some of the great Neil Miles' festive uploads before - here, here and here - but new rediscoveries are always being, um, rediscovered. Herein there's yet another version of the Woolworths advert with a musical bent, the full Ronco catalogue, the Oblivion Boys reviewing their own output and tempters to visit several shopping centres. Don't forget to book the Manhattan Suite, Seaton Carew!
Saturday, 5 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 5: What's Up Doc?, 1992
The commonly agreed story of Saturday morning kids' shows is that ITV were hopeless in the decade or more between Number 73 becoming 7T3 and SMTV Live finding its feet. There's a lot of truth to that - the only genuine breakout star it had in those years was Gilbert The Alien, fondly remembered by some but Get Fresh mostly didn't deserve him. Beyond that, we're not about to start a re-evaluation of Mashed or Teleganticmegavision. However... What's Up Doc? may seem an unpromising candidate just from the title giving away that it was a Warner Bros tie-in to allow ITV the run of their archive, but at the time that included Animaniacs, Taz-Mania and the animated Batman. Furthermore while its Crane/Sharp/Fielding presenting team (Yvette's first gig after Blue Peter) is perfectly cromulent and took the piss out of themselves and the show the real meat was the chaotic menagerie of offbeat characters around them, most famously Bro and Bro the cannibalistic wolves who eventually got their own series. Stylistically it bridged a metaphorical gap between the Tiswas sketches and the odder Dick & Dom moments while occasionally outdoing both for adult oriented rudeness. Initially produced by TVS in their dying months, which may explain some of its devil-may-care attitude, replacement home STV got worried about what Warner Bros would make of the content, ordered the production team to change the format entirely, so the people behind the characters (including Steve Nallon) and most of the production team walked instead halfway through a second series that was beating Live & Kicking in the ratings, leaving it as a bog standard studio show with quickly evaporating interest. Anyway, here's a prime example of the good times in which John Altman appears and barely interacts with any of the humans, Darren Day appears and unfortunately does, Crane meets Brian Henson and his friends for one of the few genuinely good interviews with Muppets, Sharp dons stress relief shades that somehow end up as a competition prize and in-house socially awkward nerd and future Twix figurehead Simon Perry throws a Christmas party for all the characters, including Frank Sidebottom who was not only an occasional guest but Chris Sievey wrote the deeply strange even by this show's standards Life With The Amoebas segment. We may never see its like again. And Mr Spanky doesn't even appear properly.
SATURDAY SANTA SPECTACULARS: previously from the Saturday morning archives: Swap Shop, Tiswas, Saturday Banana, Saturday Superstore and Gone Live! 1989, 1990 and 1993
Friday, 4 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 4: Max Headroom's Giant Christmas Turkey
Something that feels odd about Mat Frewer's latex alter ego is that he had series running pretty much concurrently on both sides of the Atlantic that were completely different, Channel 4's surrealist chat and music show ending three weeks before (in fact only three months after this 1986 show) ABC's dystopian satirical sci-fi based on the original 20 Minutes Into The Future film began. Can't help feeling we got the best end of that deal given we get to hear Max's smooth croon - all the original songs were produced by Keith Strachan, who had an actual Christmas hit when co-writing Mistletoe And Wine two years later and later wrote the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? theme - as Robin Williams and Tina Turner exchange festive pleasantries, Dave Edmunds does his throwback rock'n'roll thing and the whole show climaxes with Max unveiling his Bob Geldof-penned big festive ballad Merry Christmas Santa Claus (You're A Lovely Guy). Yeah, we think he's better than Gary Crowley, frickin' liberal.
Thursday, 3 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 3: Carrott's Lib Christmas Special
Going out on
Wednesday, 2 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 2: Stars In Their Eyes Christmas Special, 1991
This is exactly what Bob and Midge had in mind. (Oh, and it is 1991 rather than the titled and oft stated 1992, given there wasn't a Stars In Their Eyes Christmas Special in 1992)
Tuesday, 1 December 2020
Advent Calendar 2020 Day 1: Roland's Winter Wonderland
Roland Rat didn't save TV-am by himself - Greg Dyke arrived offscreen just after he had onscreen at the start of April and gave the whole thing an immediate reboot - but there's no doubting the Superstar's infectious otherness pulled in increasing numbers, especially with the summer's Rat On The Road travelogue attracting attention to the new star and his/its offhanded manner. As finances were still precarious David Claridge and a crew were sent to Switzerland for a series of vignettes that were stretched across three weeks of the Christmas 1983 and new year 1984 period to make the still empty coffers go that little bit further. As a result, Good Morning Britain went from registering 200,000 viewers around early spring to more than two million for the 22nd December instalment. Shortly afterwards the company put the best of Roland, Kevin and Errol's adventures in culture clash and locals insulting out on video.
RUN TV, ERROL: We've been to the Ratcave below King's Cross Station before on the WDYT? Advent Calendar for a double header of Roland's Yuletide Binge and Roland Rat: The Series Christmas Special as he took the Beeb shilling only to do a Reverse Thames.
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