On this day: Christmas Day 1994

Here in 2024 there's been a social media kerfuffle about how ITV haven't tried for Christmas Day, merely offering an Emmerdale, a Coronation Street (with a major character leaving) and The Chase. This apparently represents a low point for the main commercial channel, one that anyone who reads these blogs every year will be laughing down their sleeve at after 1993's prime time line-up comprising three films and essentially a stunt clip show. After an IBA telling off ITV was forced into making a real effort and were rewarded, still not overcoming the BBC viewing dominance of the day but their share climbed fully ten percentage points to 31.6 percent.

That said, ITV, in a move that echoes down the decades to these last few years' mornings of "same procedure as every day?", starts exactly as it always does. Well, actually we shouldn't be blasé as to blame them, it's GMTV that runs as normal with The Sunday Review, The Sunday Programme and long running but instantly forgotten basic linkage Disney Club. They had Christmas morning veteran Philippa Forrester and a tyro Craig Doyle at the time too. ITV pick up the baton from 9.25am with a Scooby Doo, but not a festive one - no, it's The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair from the 1972 The New Scooby-Doo Movies series in which the gang meet, but of course, Batman and Robin who are like them investigating a mysterious plane drop that turns out to be an aid to Joker and Penguin's counterfeiting ring. That's except for viewers in Scotland, who have their own cartoons and Moderator's Christmas Messages.

Meanwhile the firm hands of Ball and Jarvis are marshalling BBC1 through to 10am - no displaced and obviously to the point of admitting it pre-recorded Saturday morning shows this year (on either channel, actually) so start with what's been moulding in the special cupboard all year, namely Santa and the Tooth Fairies, something called Wishing, a Playdays repeat and Santa's First Christmas, followed by two premieres that would do likewise for the rest of the decade - The Bears Who Saved Christmas, with Pam 'Mindy' Dawber amongst the voice cast, and an episode of the Cosgrove Hall version of Noddy, meaning Jimmy Hibbert as far as the eye can see. Then it's as far as we can tell terrestrial's only ever airing of Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, a 1970 stopmotion animation for ABC with Fred Astaire narrating (as a mailman) and Mickey Rooney as Kris Kringle himself, telling an origin story loosely based on the song. Channel 4 is also on its kids kick for the early risers with Paddington, Dutch film Sebastian Star Bear: First Mission, Canadian newspaper strip adaptation For Better Or For Worse, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Biker Mice from Mars and CBS' 1987 A Claymation Christmas Celebration, shoving The Big Breakfast Christmas Special with guests Claudia Schiffer, Bad Boys Inc and Zig & Zag singing - none of it live, we sort of suspect - out to 9.25am. BBC2, which never wanted kids anyway, harrumphs and sticks on MGM golden age of musicals celebration That's Entertainment.

It's a Sunday so there's still a God slot to be filled but that doesn't mean Songs Of Praise has to stick to its early evening slot any more. Instead it's put out to the 10am slot usually kept for the Christmas morning service and given a bit of the old showbiz razzle-dazzle, Linda Bellingham, Robert Duncan, Marti Webb and Roy Castle's widow joining Pam Rhodes in All Hallows Church in central London while a thousand strong choir sing carols in Blackpool, Marti Caine goes to Lapland with the usual selection of underprivileged children and "Don Maclean hosts a house party", of which more in the radio section. ITV fifteen minutes later looks at disability imagery from Tiny Tim onwards in filler social programme Link and then launches into a full two hours of Christmas Matters, a version of Sue Cook-fronted topical religious magazine Sunday Matters incorporating Christmas Morning Worship, a Roman Catholic service from Birmingham. Two hours! In that time your kids could be watching the original Doctor Dolittle on BBC2, Saved By The Bell, Take That In Concert and John Lasseter-directed Pixar short Knick Knack on Channel 4 (and, if they're particularly adventurous, Black Gospel Christmas Special), or 1990's Jetsons: the Movie for some reason and a filler Tom & Jerry on BBC1.



The morning over, the adults start filing back into the room as the final dinner preparations are carried out, and your choice of viewing is the Eastenders Omnibus, a tribute to Brian Lara's record breaking cricketing year on BBC2, Danny Kaye's musical biopic Hans Christian Andersen on Channel 4, or on ITV Mole's Christmas, a new animated Wind In The Willows offshoot with the voices of Richard Briers, Peter Davison, Imelda Sta/unton and Ellie Beaven (you do, she was in The Wild House and then was the teenager in Down To Earth. Mostly does theatre now.) Even if it isn't a Cosgrove Hall joint that's a prestigious line-up and a pretty prestigious marque to spin off from, so why's it on at 12.40pm against what's essentially filler and not even shown on Scottish, who prefer a compilation of Ms Young's chat show Kirsty? It's only been repeated thrice more too, once as first thing on Boxing Day 1995, then early on December 27th 1998, then Five stuck it on at 9.25am on Christmas Eve 2004. In any case it's got to be more worthwhile than acting as warm-up for 1986 Disney TV movie The Christmas Star, which takes up the 110 minutes up to the speech and wherein Ed Asner escapes from prison disguised as Santa Claus and while hiding is befriended by two local children believing him to be the real deal.

Talking of oddly scheduled programming, D-Day Remembered should surely be in prime-time closer to the end of the year and not at 1.10pm on BBC2, being recollections of the summer's fiftieth anniversary celebrations by Allied forces veterans. As if part of a theme afternoon it's followed by Going Underground, a repeat of the story of the escape from Stalag Luft by the few that survived it. Worthy, but you can't imagine a lot of household preferring it to Top Of The Pops, presented by Take That very much projecting to the back of the theatre with studio appearances by D:Ream, Doop, Toni Di Bart, Stiltskin, Wet Wet Wet, All-4-One, Let Loose, Whigfield, Pato Banton, Eternal - this wasn't a great year for pop's depth, was it? - and East 17 at number one, plus Mariah Carey via satellite.

An address! Again, mostly about the D-Day commemorations.



Or there's the Alternative Christmas Message from the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Channel 4, who were running a Black Christmas season. Or Tricks On Two, a handily ten minutes long compilation of some close-up magic clips that had been shoved in between programmes in recent times.

So with everyone coming out of whatever way they were marking 3pm, what next? Well, on BBC1 it's the fifth Noel's Christmas Presents, set to full heartwarming blast. This is the one with a Latvian émigré returning to his former home and being reunited with his last surviving relative, and another who from Edmonds' intro seems to have been led to believe he'd be taking part in a revival of Noel's Addicts. ITV... well, in today's other blog we talk about BBC1 getting to air Mary Poppins, and a decade later here it is in the same slot on the other side. Channel 4 were originally scheduled to show The Secret Life of Walter Mitty but that had since become a San Franciscan adaptation of Turandot, while BBC2 have put together an omnibus airing of Hard Times, produced for BBC Schools' English File in four half hour sections aired in October, but whatever necessary budgetary restrictions went on production aren't reflected in a cast list that includes Richard E Grant, Harriet Walter, Alan Bates, Bill Paterson, Bob Peck, Patsy Byrne and Alex Jennings, not to mention written and directed by Peter Barnes whose The Ruling Class became an Oscar-nominated film.

As if Noel and his gifts for the deserving weren't tearjerking enough for mildly sozzled folk who've stuck BBC1 on for the night, Animal Hospital Christmas should set them right off - we weren't to know then about Rolf - before the news with Jill Dando rouses them and The Wrong Trousers, premiered on BBC2 364 days earlier, brings them back fully. Or it's possible they'll turn over to BBC2 as Eastenders and Emmerdale teams vie for supremacy at Martyn Lewis' clip-festooned topical quiz Today's The Day followed by a Carpenters BBC live set from 1971, which coupled with the 25th anniversary compilation of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In seems like the start of a 70s theme night that the channel just decides it can't be bothered continuing with.

A year earlier Keeping Up Appearances had gone abroad and featured a role for Lord Lichfield. This year Richard has athlete's foot and Hyacinth wants a new kitchen which Trevor Bannister wants to sell her. It didn't do that badly in 1993, surely. Talking of Christmas specials featuring odd couples brings us to Channel 4 at roughly the same time, 5.30pm, and Zig and Zag's Christmas Special, also known as Zig & Zag: Entertainment Cops, a kind of pilot for their 1996 Dirty Deeds series in which they seek to undermine an Eamonn Holmes special with a remarkable cast list - Richard Wilson as their boss, Caroline Quentin, Keith Allen as their boss Marcus Plantpot (someone had fun with that one), Christopher Biggins, Frank Bruno, Chas & Dave, Major Ronald Ferguson, the Krankies, Lesley Joseph, Rod Hull and Emu, Rustie Lee, Kenneth MacDonald, Paul McKenna, Sonia, Tom O'Connor, Angela Rippon, Jim Rosenthal, Dale Winton, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Wolf from Gladiators and Helen Mirren as Superintendent Jane Tennison. Let's just say the whole thing ends on HMS Belfast with the pair dressed as Bruce Forsyth and Rosemarie Ford. The second hand Bugs Bunny that fills ten minutes to the news on ITV (Dennis Tuohy) cannot hope to compete, especially when Zig & Zag are followed by their old boss/running mate/offscreen flatmate Chris Evans, albeit a repeat of the previous day's Don't Forget Your Toothbrush with Roy Wood, a high powered drinks hose and a remote controlled turkey.



As we've said before, if you were keen to see some Disney on telly you'd usually have to survive on the meagre portions doled out every bank holiday Monday on Disney Time before, many years after release, the House of Mouse would relent but only one at a time. So it is that 1959's classic Sleeping Beauty has its TV premiere just after 6pm on ITV to a slightly disappointing given the circumstances eight million people, which you'd have to say is a contrast to Eastenders on BBC1 a little later. Nobody tries to kill themselves, unlike this time last year, the main story instead being Sharon signing the divorce papers with Grant - divorce papers on Christmas Day, do you see? - and walking out not to be seen again. For three months. And even if that doesn't appeal the Beeb has a large tangerine at the bottom of its stocking in the shape of the TV premiere of Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. 14.3 million people agreed, which is of course coincidentally the number of weeks (Everything I Do) I Do It For You was number one.

The Snowman finally shows up at 7pm on Channel 4, though it's all over the place for most of the next couple of decades, whilst BBC2 settles in for its usual night of the high arts with a Royal Opera House production of Aida. Channel 4 were actually going to air Turandot against it but the earlier change to the schedules left a gap that only the classic Irving Berlin musical There's No Business Like Show Business could reasonably fill. Earthier concerns over on ITV as it's their turn to try and grab the soap hindmost, this being the Coronation Street where Curly has a star named after Raquel, Phyllis returns after a year due to actress illness, and Deirdre promises to follow Samir back to Morocco, though he'll never make it there. And then it's Christmas Blind Date, which is exactly the same as normal Blind Date but with tinsel and one of the contestants being Jason Orange of Take That's twin brother.

One Foot In The Grave's Algarve set special a year earlier is recalled as a classic of the sitcom abroad genre now but it got some harsh reviews at the time, hence Victor and co now staying at home, though he'd likely wished he hadn't when Brian Murphy as Mr Foskett comes to visit seventeen years after a brief encounter on holiday. Reduced back down to forty minutes it's one of the series' genuine classics and features some patented David Renwick swings from ridiculousness to genuine bathos, and the rewards were reaped as it was the day's most watched show with 15.1 million viewers. Keeping the standards high it's followed by Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home, a recording of her Royal Albert Hall show. ITV's gambit for the 9pm hour is the fulsome nostalgia of Heartbeat, A Winter's Tale featuring Twiggy as a Lady whose estate's Christmas trees are purloined for fundraising requirements, while Greengrass both loses his lorry and gains a Santa Claus gig. In fairness it stood up well to Victor and co, being ITV's top rated show of the day itself with 13.8 million.

Meanwhile BBC2 and Channel 4 oddly get round to the Queen's speech at almost exactly the same time, 9.35pm/9.40pm, the latter following it with a Harry Connick Jnr concert, the former with a double bill of supernaturally inclined shorts launching a short series of them to run up to the new year, all written by, starring and directed by black and Asian women, under the header Siren Spirits. The first, the supposedly true story of a strange premonition, features Archie Panjabi's screen debut. More paranormality follows in The Butcher's Wife, a 1991 Demi Moore comedy-drama flop (and she regretted doing it) in which the titular figure influences everyone with her powers. Indeed there must have been something in the air as a little later Channel 4 show The Woman In Black, the ITV version of the Susan Hill novel adapted by Nigel Kneale that had been a big hit on Christmas Eve 1989, and indeed this has been its only TV repeat. Maybe it's the whole ghost stories for Christmas thing seeping back in when the main channels had abandoned all memory of it.

Television was really starting to get into the whole celebrities with cute but endangered animals thing and ITV, via a buy-in from PBS albeit through a British production team, had just the thing at 10pm, Robin Williams In The Wild With Dolphins, the human both sharply funny and naturally inquisitive about finding kinship with the curiosity and intelligence of the animals in Hawaii and the Bahamas. But BBC1 has the march on naturally funny men as it has years of Christmas specials by one and his short fat hairy legged friend, the post-news Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show being the 1971 one, Glenda, Shirley, Andrew Preview and all. After a five minute short entitled Christmas Spirit, which we don't know anything about so let's play safe and assume John Wells was involved, the last thing of the night is Trading Places. Hey, it's a Christmas film!

As for how everyone else ends the day, BBC2 go back to the late night horror well just after midnight with 1963 classic The Haunting, Channel 4 finish with Prince concert The Beautiful Experience and Chinese martial arts zombie flick Mr Vampire because at 1.55am you may as well, and ITV hosts Kiri's Coventry Carols, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa singing with the *checks notes* BBC Philharmonic followed by, depending on your region, a couple of films found down the back of the wardrobe. Phew. All that and no Movies, Games And Videos.

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Radio choice

Clive Warren, the very essence of a stand-in DJ, kicks off Radio 1's day, followed by Steve Wright and the Posse's Stars With Presents, Simon Mayo's Classic Christmas Years - the Golden Hour by any other name - and then Bruno Brookes delivers the Christmas Top 40 for the first time ever on Christmas Eve, which they could do now with computers, revealing Whatever stalling at no.3 behind Stay Another Day and All I Want For Christmas Is You. After that in the traditional Annie Nightingale slot, as a preview of something going out two days later, Paris, London explored the In Concert series from the Paris Theatre. Claire Sturgess introduces Donington highlights on The Christmas Rock Show at 8pm, after which comes Andy Kershaw armed with Johnny Cash's Glastonbury set up to Lisa I'Anson at midnight (she'd been asked to come in for 6, presumably) Boxing Day highlight: Chris Morris in the afternoon!

Roger Royle is an appropriate way for Radio 2 to get underway before Don Maclean, staying resolutely at home in Solihull, presenting Good Morning Christmas with Edward Heath, the Hall Green Salvation Army Band and stars of the Birmingham Hippodrome production of Jack and the Beanstalk, which means one or more of Kevin Lloyd from The Bill, Judi Spiers, Ray Meagher from Home And Away, Su Pollard, Malanda Burrows, Mike Doyle, Scorpio from Gladiators, Zippy, George, Bungle and, er, Don Maclean. Maybe he asked round the previous night. Ken Bruce follows the Queen, who himself is followed by Michael Aspel playing music that would have been played sixty years earlier and assorted anniversaries. We can think of a big one. Phillip Schofield Reads Joseph at 2pm in a repeat from Radio 5, which is just lazy, and then Robert Hardy narrates the story of The Christmas Truce, because it's Sunday The Cliff Adams Singers Sing Something Crosby whatever that means, Charlie Chester battles on with his music hall anecdotes which is why Tommy Cockles had to happen, The Huddlines cannot be stopped with a Bumper Christmas Annual, Richard Baker's Christmas Present is nothing of the sort, then Royle returns to host a gala Christmas concert from the Blackpool Tower Ballroom with lots of local choirs. Alan Keith is still wading through Your Hundred Best Tunes - a title that always confused us when younger, surely the list can't change so much that you wouldn't get through a hundred songs much quicker than however long that lasted? - before Steve Jones, presumably the Pyramid Game one, takes us through to midnight with "the best contemporary music featured on Radio 2 throughout the year", which is just what they do every day now. Nice to see Alex Lester on overnights even then.

The umbrella title Sacred and Profane sets out Radio 3's stall for the morning, including more than three hours of Brian Kay's Christmas Sunday Morning. The annual Christmas Quiz earns itself a lunchtime repeat from just the previous day, followed by Handel's Messiah as recorded in Cardiff a week earlier and A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols... again repeated from Christmas Eve! Budget cuts? Or could nobody be arsed? A new series of recreating Middle Ages nativity music, Paris 1200, is diverting enough at 6.10pm, as is the evening's feature Doctor Johnson's Christmas, an evening of plays, prose and poetry celebrating Dr Samuel's life and contemporary surroundings, the cast including Simon Callow as the great dictionarian, John Sessions as Boswell and Maria Aitken as his partner Hester Thrale. Music In Our Time at 10.10pm "takes a look at the lighter side of new music in the USA." Bagsy the Spin Doctors!

Richard Baker presenting festive classical music at 6am starts the day on, well, Radio 4. Sunday, what was there before Today ate everything up, presents guests, choirs, quizzes and "the Bethlehem story as it unfolds" for an hour before the Queen, the headlines and the morning service from Cambridge. Various repeats - the Archers omnibus, superior Comedy Store Players improvised play The Masterson Inheritance's Christmas Special from the previous year, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue likewise - fill the gap up to Desert Island Discs, in which Sue Lawley strands, appropriately for the date, David Jason. Radio broadcasting on the 25th is as we've seen over the years prime territory for prose and poetry, and so Deck The Halls - another much used title, almost as much as Christmas Present - has Jean Marsh and John Mortimer do the job With Great Pleasure pretty much does now but with extra seasonal chorale. A repeated Harry Thompson documentary about radio greetings from afar, It Was Christmas Day In The Empire, takes up half the usual play slot, the other being The Twelve Days Of Christmas, but not that one, this being about the festive travails of the Iannucci family - that choice surely has to be deliberate - who run an end of the pier ice cream parlour. Lemn Sissay is in it as a DJ, oddly. Chris Serle takes his Pick Of The Year as dusk draws in, followed by 94 year old Bloomsbury Group writer Frances Partridge recalling what she did on the 25th down the years in Dear Diary. Terry Waite In Wilmslow sounds like a wryly mischievous title but it's actuality (and repeated from the 20th) as he retraces his childhood steps at 5pm, followed by Poetry Please! celebrating the winners of the Radio 4 Young Poetry Competition. After the news Ned Sherrin talks to nonagenarians in Ninety Not Out, and then with the old Radio 5 having breathed its last that year a shortlived children's section on Sunday nights presents a new dramatisation of Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas In Wales with Philip Madoc and Freddie Jones as those reminiscing. Just to make sure things don't get too sappy poet Simon Rae "loads his gun and sprays the festivities with satirical bullets" in Shoot The Turkey. The rest of the night is makeweight repeats, apart from a 10pm Kaleidoscope special about the history of the waltz and shocking ballroom dances down the years, followed by a very Radio 4 commission God's Secret Agents, the cultural range of heavenly bodies.

As mentioned we have Radio 5 Live now and its first Christmas Day is... patchy. Julian Worricker is still stuck on breakfast and the morning is full of programmes with confusing titles and no eludication like Spotlight 94 with Robin Lustig or The Ad Break Christmas Special. At least we can guess what Yule Never Believe This! is and know about The Big Byte, a festive special presented by Gareth 'Top' Jones, which is followed by the short-lived Top Gear radio spinoff and sports investigate programme On The Line talking about streakers for some reason. The news and sport teams are pitted into a late afternoon Quiz Of The Year, followed by a review of the American sporting year, Messrs H Reeve and Docherty's sly northern phone-in Jim And The Doc (with Mark Radcliffe contributions) and at 8pm The Ultimate Christmas Preview. Er, guys? Anyway, if you're staying up for whatever reason there's Test Match Special from midnight covering the traditional Boxing Day Ashes test in Melbourne. Shouldn't bother, though, Australia win by 295 runs and England are all out for 92 in their second innings.