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?

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 24: Bruce And Ronnie, 1988

This has been online since April 2017, why didn't we feature it last year? Surely not just because it's missing the last three minutes or so? Anyway... Forsyth and Corbett had hosted that year's Royal Variety Performance together so were given a BBC1 Christmas special, to give it its full top of the bill-averting title Bruce And Ronnie In the Corbett and Forsyth Show. However, according to Brucie's autobiography producer Marcus Mortimer entered the rehearsal room in tears one day and told the pair "I don't know how to tell you this - I've just had the schedules and we are to follow Lenny Henry who's on at ten o'clock on Boxing Night". Unless Eastenders special Civvy Street and the TV premiere of Beverley Hills Cop really were that urgent appointments to view there's no reason this shouldn't have been key to prime time, featuring as it does the classic structure of sketches (including one with Fiona Fullerton), crosstalk, hoofing, Bruce singing and Ronnie sitting. Enjoy this quintessential slab of LE, and a merry Christmas to you all!

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 24: S4C, Christmas Eve 1983

Let's finish with the WDYT? Advent Calendar debut of Cymru Christmas capers. Actually this is technically from Christmas Day as it's 1.05am and as nobody's up they've settled in reception. Don't worry about the language, it's all bilingual. We can be cynical, yes, but Sian Thomas taking a moment to thank the staff "feeding us with the adverts" is something you didn't get on LWT. Similarly, most regions meet the early hour closedown by sticking together some photos of birds, or wintry fields, or the Queen. S4C hired a choir to sing White Christmas in the native language. Nadolig Llawen!

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 23: Christmas With Eric & Ernie, 1979

Eric Morecambe suffered his second heart attack in March 1979 and had bypass surgery, so aware of the strain he always put on himself attempting to improve on the previous Christmas shows the pair took it easier in the form of a David Frost interview with interruptions. We've featured a clip from this before so we're gradually pulling the whole thing together - here Des O'Connor appeared so they didn't have to make fun of him behind his back, while the sole entirely new sketch was, of all things, a Looney Tunes spoof.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 23: Thames, Christmas Day 1980

Peter Marshall, with his voice like old brandy, in a fully decorated sitting room introducing the Billy Smart Circus with a Thames ident should be what every Christmas is like.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 22: Gone Live!, 1993

The last pre-recorded special Going Live! did (yes, we know Live & Kicking was in place by Christmas 1993 but this was actually shown on 2nd January and we're sticklers for accuracy) has turned up in the interim. The video quality is really quite poor early on but do stick with it as Nelson Polo and Horatio Mint, the investigative team known as The Looking Eye, examine television itself, make a mess of BBC TV, give Pip a disturbingly accurate vision of his comfortable daytime future and - Saturday morning kids' TV, remember - spoof The Word. George Takei, Judith Hann, Gayle and Gillian Blakeney, The Farm and Run The Risk fit in somewhere between.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 22: Heineken advert, 1977

A forgotten classic of the festive advert genre, and one that thanks to the legendary artist and illustrator Oscar Grillo precedes Who Framed Roger Rabbit? by a full decade in its combination of animation and actuality. Charlie Drake takes the role he often played for real at this time of year, early 90s Channel 4 video advert favourite Victor Borge delivers the narration and you don't need us to tell you who the other voice belongs to.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 21: Tomorrow's World Christmas Quiz, 1989

We've featured 1987 and 1988's future-facing quizzes before on the blog, but for this year the concept changed as a very applause happy audience, cajoled by Sybil Ruscoe, fielded multiple choice questions against a panel of Douglas Adams and two experts, the juries being led by Eartha Kitt, Paul Daniels, David Essex and Frank Bruno alongside a cameo from a homebound Bob Symes.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 21: ATV, Christmas Day 1979

We say this a lot but many of these animations are far too gorgeous to waste on trailers, aren't they? Especially so when plonked in a corner of a jet black backdrop behind Kevin Morrison, who understandably is more appreciative of the viewers than his employers. Looking ahead to Boxing Day as in the second video, the problematic Dick Emery sketch isn't really offset by the introduction of "the swinging Three Degrees" and their hit song Bicycle Hut.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 20: Russ Abbot's Madhouse, 1984

Still in its ITV 'teddy boys are inherently amusing' phase with the Dennis/Gee/Emberg/Holland/Blake/Hewson team, who at one point all turn into Abbot's dancers. Alyn Ainsworth must have been working union hours. Cooperman and Basildon Bond both turn up, Dustin Gee blacks up twice (and, notably, nobody else), and because it's 1984 Abbot ends with a rendition of Atmosphere, far from the only time he sings straight during the show. He must have fancied his chances of a second career.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 20: BBC1, Christmas Eve 1983

Roy Hudd in a Shakespeare documentary actually seems quite tempting, but BBC1 are busy looking ahead to the following day, or at least the family-friendly end of it. How is that meant to make us want to watch Christmas Top Of The Pops? Blankety Blank right after the Queen feels like odd scheduling, and Peggy gladly giving someone else a Yellowcoat is breaking character.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 19: The Mike Yarwood Show, 1979

Two years after his triumph on that Christmas night of BBC1 Christmas nights Yarwood had slipped behind To The Manor Born in the schedule and ratings, and as any fule no (except Jon Culshaw, who in the festive edition of TV Years blames "keyboard warriors" for the perception) the rise of Thatcher stymied his calling card of being able to take off all the top political names, although that's what he had Janet Brown for. This thirteen minute excerpt still sees him keeping up with Wilson and Heath before introducing Johnny Mathis, who playing off Mike as Liberace would at least have needed less explanation of the gag in advance unlike the Grayson/Abba meeting of the previous year's show.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 19: BBC2, Christmas Eve 1979

Rotating snowflakes served BBC2 well down the years, and the trailer for the TV premiere of Cabaret - strange that wasn't on BBC1 and was as late as 10.45pm, but anyway - combined with the multicoloured visual effects makes it sound like they've been taken down the circus. After Singin' In The Rain Tim Nichols transfers us into the big day with a warning on road conditions and a wintry piano ballad.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 18: Punchlines, 1982

Recorded in that timeframe where jokes about Mark Thatcher's driving could get shrieking laughs. Taking the feeds in what was sadly never referred to as the small box game are Judy Grindley (us neither), Lennie & Jerry sideman Albert Pontefract, Isla St Clair, Joe Brown, Madeline Smith, David Hamilton, Faith Brown (who gets wolf whistles) and Kenny Lynch. Joining and taking over from the contestants, Diana Dors and Freddie Starr. Go on, guess how Starr is dressed when he first appears. No, not as Elvis, the other one.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 18: Yorkshire, Boxing Day 1989

We're not sure Yorkshire's Christmas Line would have quite the same effect on the dispossessed over Christmas as LWT's. Even if the schedule for the rest of the day hasn't, someone within ITV has clearly made an effort for the TV premiere of Return Of The Jedi.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 17: Telly Addicts, 1985

They say a person can be aged by which Telly Addicts Christmas special was their first. OK, maybe not, but just as the start of a new series was a better guide than any equinox for judging when autumn truly started, so the end of season celebrity edition was for many years the show that held the last stages of TV's countdown to Christmas together. Joined in progress, this was after the end of the first series in which inaugural champions the Pains faced - do you see? - the Aches, comprising Michael Grade (making the first of three appearances on the end of year bonanza), Nina Myskow, Barry Took and Larry Grayson. And yes, there's some film of Noel when he looked slightly different.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 17: Central, 1982

Michael Aspel, on his lunch break going on how distracted he sounds, previews ITV's festive fare including the bizarre looking and sounding A Christmas Lantern, Brucie playing drunk and Sarah Kennedy falling over. Gary Terzza in his Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) suit makes the Easter joke that everyone on Twitter in mid-October now thinks they invented.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 16: The Lenny Henry Show, 1988

Post-Lenny Lenny Len, post-not-a-repeat, that year's series was the one where it turned into a Delbert Wilkins sitcom but Len returned to a sketch and standup format for the Special, the Brixton Broadcasting Corporation put aside for the return of Deakus, Josh Yarlog and Theophilus P Wildebeeste.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 16: 1980s and 1990s Christmas adverts

We've featured some of continuity scourer by appointment Neil Miles' finds before - twice over, in fact - but here's two all-new sets of commercials, all under a minute long and none setting out to be tearjerking, unless you count WH Smith deciding their true voice was Su Pollard.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 15: Battle Of The Gladiators Celebrity Special, 1993

John Fashanu says "awooga!" twice before Ulrika can actually introduce the programme, which is a fitting start to a special that went out right before the second series' final, enough time for Jet to become a national obsession and 'oversized cotton buds' to become the show's shorthand. Playing for charity in a line-up that features a distinct lack of women are the inevitable Vinnie Jones, Fashanu himself at one stage clearly pretending to have lost his male dignity, boxers Denis Andries (who is sweating buckets in the introductory interview) and Gary Mason, gymnast Neil Adams and showjumper Oliver Skeete, who as a black horseman was all over the media for a short time while never actually achieving anything of worth in the sport.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 15: Howard Jones on The Noel Edmonds Live Live Christmas Breakfast Show, 1984

No, not the whole thing. One day. ONE DAY. Instead here's HoJo wearing a bin bag and singing Like To Get To Know You Well live while disobeying all kinds of health regulations at Charing Cross Hospital, an idea Michael Leggo copied from Jones doing the same with commuters at Temple Meads Station, Bristol earlier the same year on that Top Of The Pops where they broke the UK train speed record. (Long story.)

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 14: Les Dawson and Gilbert O'Sullivan, 1974

Les Dawson's Christmas Box came after the ninth of Sez Les' eleven series, which means John Cleese was part of the usual Barraclough/Ball/Jazzmen team, with Wanda Ventham guesting. O'Sullivan was there to promote his number 12 hit Christmas Song, which it's fair to say hasn't survived as well as the popular Christmas hits of the previous year, and he clearly hadn't been at rehearsals for Les' piano part.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 14: BBC1, Christmas Day 1978

Even discounting the strike that nearly enveloped it, Christmas 1978 was very much after the Lord Mayor's show for BBC1 - Morecambe & Wise were across on the other side and despite getting the Radio Times cover Mike Yarwood couldn't keep up his momentum of the previous year, although in the ratings he only fell behind another offering on the same channel, the TV premiere of The Sound Of Music. That has just finished as we join BBC1 with only a real bottom of the barrel offering to trail in terms of movies. Compared to that previous St Nicholas celebration the animated trails, while not exactly scrimping, feel boxy and less inviting too. Once we've seen what's ahead Peter Woods runs through some standard Christmas Day news before Parkinson At The Pantomime, obviously the kind of special only a journalist is qualified to host. And then OH GOD THAT SANTA FACE.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 13: The Likely Lads, 1974

Sleigh bells drowning out the theme! Ah, those were the days. There's some subsequent confusion about whether this went out under the Whatever Happened To...? title as that was obviously what the series that ended earlier in 1974 was called, but both the title sequence and Radio Times bill it under the shortened form, so Likely Lads it is. Bob, with a beard, and Thelma go to a fancy dress party, and Terry passes his driving test. This was the final episode, though Bolam and Bewes would take time away from badly falling out to make radio and film versions. Footnote: Bob makes a joke about watching The Great Escape on TV again when it had only debuted on BBC1 three years earlier and wouldn't next appear in the days around Christmas until 28th December 1983, which is also the earliest press reference we can find to it being on every Christmas (after that was Boxing Day 1985, Boxing Day 1987, 27th December 2003 and 23rd December 2007)

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 13: Thames, Christmas Day 1986

See how the building lights light up as the day progresses from afternoon into night. It's those little touches that make a welcoming festive continuity atmosphere. Amid the adverts Victoria Wood was the face and voice of Thames' annual Christmas Line initiative, and we really must also draw your attention to the date specific Adrian Mole trailer at the start of the second video.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 12: Dave Allen At Large, 1979

Another little thing at the end of this (not the end of the video unfortunately, it's one of those uploads that loops back around) that time and progress has sadly made redundant - every Boxing Day a comedy show would make a point of telling the viewer how many shopping days there were until the next Christmas. This was the final show to go out under Allen's most famous programme title, from now on only going out in one-off specials or compilations until a self-titled series in 1990. Among his repertory company: Paul McDowell from Porridge, Kirsten Cooke (Michelle from Allo Allo) and JoAnne Good now of BBC Radio London.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 12: Anglia, Boxing Day 1988

We're not convinced of the link between ITV's shortlived The Look Of... branding exercise and the jukebox setting, but whatever. Shockingly, Patrick Anthony chooses this of all days to assault BC.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 11: Les Dennis Laughter Show, 1990

The Laughter Show, maybe the BBC's most hostage to fortune show title ever, only had one series left before the great early 90s LE putsch, but given this went out on the 22nd everyone must have known the writing was already on the wall. You can tell from her getting a lengthy monologue sketch that his sidekick here Lisa Maxwell ("currently appearing in Russ Abbot's Palladium Madhouse") is being lined up to take over, which she did for one series just before leaving TV for years and returning as a serious actor. As per government decree for late 1990 there's a Gazza sketch in which the punchline is 'he cries'. Two, in fact. Still, nice to see Brian Glover.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 11: BBC1, Christmas Day 1980

Really we just wanted to include this for the Paul Daniels photo.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 10: Coronation Street, Christmas Eve 1984

Hilda Ogden left the Street three years and a day later - who moves house on Christmas Day? - but everyone remembers the close of this pre-Christmas episode too as, just over a month after her husband Stan passed away, she leads a Rovers-wide hymnal of Silent Night. We have no idea if this is deliberate but when Stan found himself being held hostage at gunpoint the same week in 1970 his captor forced him to sing that same song. There's also a subplot about Jack and Vera's Christmas tree, and we bet that wasn't the only time that happened.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 10: ITN News, Christmas Day 1981

Just because it was Christmas doesn't mean Solidarity took a rest. This comes from Southern, which closed down a week later. We don't want to suggest the loss of picture just as Alastair Stewart begins talking about the Queen is necessarily connected, but...

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 9: The Dick Emery Show, 1980

For Whom The Jingle Bells Toll, a Godfather spoof of sorts all shot on film for extra prestige in which Emery takes many one-off characters alongside a cast list including Harry H Corbett in one of his last roles, Roy Kinnear, June Whitfield, Iain Cuthbertson, Glynn Edwards and pre-Arthur Bill Treacher.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 9: Woolworths advert, 1981

You can do longform festive advertising that isn't "heartwarming" in the slightest. We wish some companies would. We've featured nearly all of Woolies' once traditional big rollouts before on this blog - 1977, 1978, 1979 (yes, we know we got the year wrong first time), 1980 (first one in the second video), 1982, 1983 - so let's fill that gap with reliable Anita Harris, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Windsor Davies, Don Estelle, an amusingly bass-voiced Di-alike, Chinese acrobats and Cossack dancers. Were Windsor Davies and Joe Brown busy?

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 8: Bob's Full House, 1985

We've had the 1984 special before; a year later it's a standard episode but with the contestants all giving their cash prizes to a chosen charity. They take the other prizes home with them, but the money's not theirs. Otherwise it's all the Monkhouse Master Card and concept of being Wallied you'd want.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 8: Christmas Wrapping - TV Times

We've featured Matthew Harris' sterling work over Advent Calendars past, and you really should watch and follow everything Bob The Fish Productions puts out anyway. Having already covered Radio Times double issues and beyond, last year's addition was this guide to festively never knowing it had so much in it.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 7: Rentasanta, 1979

Not a dramatic version of Chris Hill's hit of three years earlier but a seasonal episode of Rentaghost, and no, they don't reword the title song. It actually turned out to be the end of an era - while that is the correct year for its actual debut it was actually originally scheduled for transmission in 1978 but due to industrial action didn't go out. By the time it was screened Michael Darbyshire had died and Anthony Jackson decided not to continue in his absence, which meant two of the original three central characters had to be written out and as that just left clown Timothy Claypole writer Bob Block's approach was forced to veer into slapstick by the time it returned in 1980. Anyway, this is a musical episode set in a department store where said trio are employed as Santa Clauses (Clauii?) while the Meakers want them back home for a production of Aladdin. Watch for Michael Staniforth's spectacular performance of Swinging On A Star and note this is where Dobbin the house pantomime horse debuted, just to push the point about the future.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 7: Thames, Boxing Day 1983

The end of what would be the final Morecambe & Wise Christmas special - on Boxing Day, just to emphasise how far they'd fallen on ITV - is followed by a very louche looking Philip Elsmore. Hold on, the cue dot's still on...

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 6: 3-2-1, 1983

As usual the Rogers connection was pantomime, specifically Dick Whittington. The contestants are children playing for charity, which hardly seems fair on them, but not nearly so much as having a fourth pairing who can't play and have to depend on the other teams if their chosen charity wants to take something home for themselves. A strangely underpowered celebrity cast for a festive spectacular of Dana, Kenneth Connor, Billy Dainty and June Rogers (nope) in the title role takes part.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 6: BBC2, Christmas Day 1982

Starting up in the afternoon with a triumphant fanfare, a man called Dennis Skillicorn, a brief issue with the green filter and the calming tones of Bruce Hammal. If he had been the voice of Protect & Survive the Cold War might not have been so disturbing.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 5: The Paul Daniels Magic Show, 1985

Around his earliest TV appearances Paul Daniels insisted he would rather be known as an "unusualist", as he saw himself as more on the entertainment side compared to a traditional magician, but we suppose The Paul Daniels Unusualism Show wouldn't have come across the same way. The Magic Show certainly wasn't nothing but tricks, and here Paul promises that "many of our acts are very young indeed" which covers some double dutch skippers, a Chinese contortionist and, we suppose, Matthew Corbett with Sooty and Sweep, but definitely not Vegas illusionist Lance Burton. The big finale casts Debbie as Snow White against Ali Bongo, Brian Rogers' latest dance unit and the unmissable Fenella Fielding as the Wicked Queen.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 5: BBC1, Christmas Day 1985

Nice festive start there, we know (this is what happened) We've already seen something from this day on advent past, but it's worth dwelling further on how by now the Beeb had inherited from ITV the tradition of topping and tailing their trailers in beautifully animated fashion unbecoming their actual status. Hey, it's the clockwork robins!

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 4: Father Christmas, 1991

Raymond Briggs' difficult second Christmas themed Channel 4 animation, and it not only has a shared universe with The Snowman but rewrites its ending. In fact if you look closely when the titular Mel Smith-voiced character visits Scotland it's also shared with When The Wind Blows, somehow. The spinoff single peaked at 59. Should have got Aled Jones to cover it.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 4: ATV, Boxing Day 1980

1980, the year Santa rode around in Danger Mouse's Space Hopper - he wouldn't need it for another year, in fairness - the An Audience With... strand began and ATV believed in the power of calming light blue and a snobbish looking Father Christmas. The adverts contain a lot of holidaymaker ideas, as was Boxing Day tradition.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 3: Christmas With Val Doonican, 1986

"Tonight for me is no jaunt or spree, for I'm off to work at the BBC!" Eat it raw, Dylan. Val's BBC1 Christmas Eve shows only actually lasted from 1978 to 1988 but the combined impact of his rocking-but-gently, becardiganed LE spectaculars cannot be underestimated, right from the opening sequence filmed in his actual home. Jan Leeming reveals the secrets of the news Christmas shift, Dennis Taylor does some trick shots because it's the mid-80s, the deaf Evelyn Glennie keeps conversation with Val despite having seemingly no visual aid and White Christmas is essayed from the suspiciously shiny rocking chair.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 3: ITV trailer, 1993

Don't take this line-up too much to heart, three of these shows featured appeared on the day itself, and two of those were films. In stark contrast to BBC1 having gotta lotta fings on, this was the year ITV decided to schedule its biggest shows in the periods before and after Christmas to capture the more valuable advertising revenue during a downturn. As Christmas Day was a Saturday, uninspired magazine filler Movies Games And Videos was kept in its post-Chart Show slot; between the Queen and 11.40pm the line-up consisted of four movies, a Beadle-fronted compilation of daredevil stunts and two news bulletins. The result: not much above 20 percent of all viewing in what was still for a vast majority the four-channel era (eight BBC1 shows on Christmas Day had more viewers than ITV's most watched output) and a carpeting from the ITC who told them never to try that again.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 2: Rutland Weekend Television, 1975

Idle and Innes' low budget - on and off screen - sketch show got its own special half hour in between its two series, featuring George Harrison as a pirate possibly having taken a pre-show cocktail, a spoof of that year's Tommy, Film Night in which Idle plays both Philip Jenkinson and Tony Bilbow alongside Gwen Taylor playing heavily against type, and the ever reliable for one very specific walk-on role Jeanette Charles.

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 2: The DJ Kat Show, 1994

DJ Kat was an unprepossessing puppet, Dutch in origin - in fact it was created by the company that became Endemol - which served as the mascot of Sky's kids' output, such as they had much, every weekday morning between 1986 and 1995. In later years it was mostly a framing device for imported cartoons and puppeteer-ed by Don Austen (responsible for a horde of puppet and animatronic film and TV work from Live & Kicking's Leprechauns via Spitting Image to The Phantom Menace) but rarely let off from a glorious mess of sketches, skits, interactivity and so forth. Put together from broadcasts over two days, the 20th and 21st December, Kat, human sidekick Joe Greco (Spatz, Emu's Pink Windmill Show) and a cast of... two others put on a version of A Christmas Carol.

Home Advent Calendar 2018 Day 1: Windmill, 1985

Let's start this December's perambulation around the centre and outskirts alike of old festive TV with a show that did much the same itself. Windmill was a Sunday morning treat where Chris Serle acted as welcoming host to a plundering of the Windmill Road BBC archive, a Trojan horse of telly nostalgia that led so many down the path we all now tread these days. John Craven is the guest, and even if the illustrative clip of him in a boat in Panama is not entirely festive it's followed in short order by a clip from a Swap Shop pantomime and All-Star Record Breakers. Plus, Serle sings!

Work Advent Calendar 2018 Day 1: LWT, 22nd December 1978

Is it beyond the realms of possibility for someone to find and upload Pam Ayres Hong Kong Christmas in the next year? So we're not quite up to Christmas here but it's all Peter Lewis can think about, starting with a look at Saturday 23rd and a chance to wonder what exactly Gemma Craven is wearing in her Celebrity Squares box. Imagine the green room conversations between Elaine Stritch and Dick Emery. After that News At Ten reports on the end of the two day BBC strike and a story about the moon where we cannot work out what Alastair Burnet is supposed to say. We hope he hadn't been digging into his co-anchor Reginald Bosanquet's secret stash before going on air. Also, is that continuity announcement meant to suggest the next day's news has been extended because of wrestling?

Festive road - WDYT? at Christmas 2018

Twenty. Five. Years. Ago.



Back on 1st December 2015 that was the first video on 100 Clips Of Christmas, the feature that kicked off our blogging Advent adventures. This year from tomorrow right up to at least Christmas Eve we're making our usual contribution to the spirit of generosity to which even the meanest heart falls victim. To be accurate we're having festive countdown adventures in quadruplicate, if that's a word (and it's not coming up as underlined in the Blogger editor so it must be):

- Work Advent Calendar: 24 days of continuity, previews, trailers and suchlike for short viewing during hours when you're supposed to be earning corn instead

- Home Advent Calendar: full length festive specials, from the great to the Laughter Show

- TV Cream Advent Calendar: we've popped next door for a daily revised version of last year's On This Day posts...

- On This Day II: ...and then we've found a few more covering most of the days over the period, plus a second look at New Year's Eve and our usual thirty years ago Christmas Day round-up


Just one more thing before we forget - our annual audit of the 172 videos posted to this blog previously has found far more than we expected that are still there (or replaceable), but such is YouTube that a lot aren't, and as of mid-November these are the clips missing that we'd like help finding and re-uploading if at all possible (as long as they don't contravene released material, of course, we know at least three of these are out on DVD):

100 Clips Of Christmas

No. 42 Kenny Everett's Christmas Carol
45 All Star Comedy Carnival 1972
51 Tyne Tees continuity, Christmas Day 1989
57 On Safari, 1982
58 Runaround On Ice
62 Larry Hagman and Linda Gray on Wogan, Christmas Eve 1986
74 All Star Comedy Carnival 1973
90 Channel 4 startup with Tom Noddy, 27th December 1982

2016 Advent Calendar

Day 1 Gone Live! 1990

2017 Home Advent Calendar

Day 12 The Kenny Everett Christmas Show, 1984
Day 17 Tomorrow's World Christmas Special, 1975

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.