The Why Don't YouTube? Weekly Newsletter - July 17th 2023

From the house of @whydontyoutube

July 17th

20 YEARS AGO

John Middleton, Ashley the vicar in Emmerdale, isn't an especially big name to be "got" for This Is Your Life, but while practically the whole village is in the studio, a pre-recorded message lands from his best mate at school and the man who introduced him to his wife, Neil Tennant.

It's kind of forgotten now that Adam Ant was sectioned after throwing an alternator through a pub window but for a good while those depths were the only thing he was referenced alongside, and even if it is more understanding than you'd imagine for the early 00s a man very open about his mental health struggles now definitely wouldn't have a documentary about him entitled The Madness Of Prince Charming, no more than they'd persuade Justine Frischmann to do the voiceover.

July 18th

40 YEARS AGO

Christopher Reeve is grilled about Superman III, which was definitely going to be his last one, by Laurie Mayer on South East At 6.

30 YEARS AGO

The BBC's monthly long hard look at its own navel Biteback asks what BBC1 could do to bring its big audiences back, as if making a popular programme was piss-easy, with a panel of producers and critics including Jimmy Mulville then of The Brain Drain - whose producer Dan Patterson separately responds to a complaint about the show in a way nobody ever would before or since - and Lawrence Marks asked what they were going to do about it. Too much news, too many repeats (though this was the summer the Beeb messed up its accounts and basically had no money), not populist enough, not daring enough, all the usual complaints.

Jurassic Park had been in British cinemas for two days so Channel 4's Equinox - admit it, you're trying to do the electronically treated voice from the titles even now - wondered whether recreating dinosaurs via DNA synthesis and opening a space for their display would work in the real world.

July 19th

50 YEARS AGO

John, Pete and Val in their swimwear might be enough for you as Blue Peter reports back from its expedition to Mexico, but they're actually there for the cliff diving.

40 YEARS AGO

John Pilger was fair rifling through full length documentaries when Central commissioned Frontline: The Search For Truth In Wartime, about the development of war correspondents and their being subject to government cover-up.

July 20th

50 YEARS AGO

Willie Rushton, initially in a panama hat and apparently operating the camera himself for his first vox pop, files a light Nationwide report on the coming metric system.

40 YEARS AGO

Yet another notable name turning up in Jemima Shore Investigates, this time Bill Nighy very early in his career as a photographer very close friend of Shore's whose model client is killed by suspicious, maybe well connected forces.

The Black Adder comes to a close with an attempt to overthrow the King with the aid of the six most evil men in the kingdom, including Roger Sloman and Patrick Malahide, only to run into Patrick Allen and be sent to prison with only the company of Rik Mayall as Mad Gerald, the first of several appearances in the series that he would essentially take hostage and credited "as himself" as was Rik's style at the time. Lukewarmly received, Curtis and Atkinson would at some point in the subsequent two and a half years have to make a call to Ben Elton.

30 YEARS AGO

A For Abba, and indeed an entire BBC1 Abba Night that comprised this, a French & Saunders repeat and The Movie, doesn't appear to have been attached to anything specific but came less than a year after Abba Gold and thus pretty early on in the swing from 'pin-ups for taste-averse 70s' to 'unarguable pop genii'. The documentary definitely makes a case for taking their craft seriously, with admirer John Peel hosting and comment from Tim Rice, Ray Davies, Pete Waterman, Elvis Costello, Roy Wood, Ian McCulloch, Eddi Reader and Lowri Turner who can't get past the clothes but as we said this was early days.

20 YEARS AGO

Formula 1 coverage is still on ITV and they have a lot of space to fill, which is how Jenson Button has been roped into racing a lawnmower in the pouring rain against pitlane reporter (and still likewise for Sky Sports F1) Ted Kravitz.

Over on Coronation Street Shelley Unwin has got married to Peter Barlow, and despite nearly being cancelled and Shelley arriving late, for once the ceremony itself has passed off without a hitch! Hooray! Except that Peter already married Lucy four months earlier, but they'll get to that in time. In the meantime Tracy Barlow is reminded of her bet with Bev Unwin - Susie Blake causing trouble again - that she could bed Roy Cropper, which she carries out with the aid of her, and here comes a hell of a concept to throw into a big prime-time soap, spare Rohypnol.

July 21st

40 YEARS AGO

Six Fifty-Five Special, Sally James by now joined by Paul Coia, sprints through the history of TV puppets. All felt life is here, chiefly Muffin The Mule, Andy Pandy, Bill & Ben, Mr Turnip from Whirligig - alright, maybe they don't all age that well, but his voice Peter Hawkins did plenty else - Sooty with Harry Corbett and yes of course Sally gets a water pistol soaking ("that takes me back a bit!" she says just as we were thinking it) and Gerry Anderson bringing along a preview of what a Terrahawk will look like.

July 22nd

40 YEARS AGO

Turns out Steve Taylor did somehow get work outside Loose Talk, as South Of Watford sent him to a big outdoor David Bowie gig at Milton Keynes Bowl at the start of the month, with an extra tie-in to Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’s release a month later. As part of it he interviews a woman who seems very shy and nervous about being vox popped whilst not being so reserved about being naked in a crowded arena.

July 23rd

40 YEARS AGO

TV-am's seasonal Saturday morning strand Summer Run, featuring some early Timmy Mallet and current Sooty carer Richard Cadell. Dick King-Smith appears in a trail, showing what he had in children's writing he didn't have in children's presenting.

One of the last regular BBC1 variety spectaculars The Main Attraction, led by Tommy Cooper with hat box and glasses/bottles ahoy, also featuring Chas & Dave, Pam Ayres, Frankie Vaughan and the choreographal whip hand of Brian Rogers.

30 YEARS AGO

Channel 4's latest attempt to synthesise the dirty edge of pop culture into its own image was Naked City, another feather in the increasingly flowery Johnny Vaughan cap but more notable for his co-presenter, eighteen year old Melody Maker writer, already Times columnist and owner of a big hat Caitlin Moran, who starts off with talking to Bjork.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

July 17th

1985: it's Wogan's Weepy Wednesday! After yet another face-off with Victoria Principal Tel gets to give a typically verbose introduction to his favourite, Dallas, with a TV set handily placed.

1996: an extended Points Of View special saw Anne Robinson get to tackle the boss of Them Upstairs, new BBC chairman and Beach Boys fan - worth knowing - Sir Christopher Bland.

July 18th

1979: Southern's Day By Day was intended to be a special edition from Cowdray Park covering royal polo but, as David Bobin and Fred Dinenage explain in split screen, technical issues prevented it. Maybe it's because Bobin was enveloped in film stock.

1987: On Stage, the kind of parlour chat a certain strain of BBC2 thrived upon, brought together Amanda Barrie, Paul Eddington, Roy Hudd and Olivier-winning RSC regular Margaret Courtenay to swap theatrical anecdotes under the watch of Glyn Worsnip.

1991: "I'm going to be interviewing Scooby-Doo!" Tommy Boyd ambitiously promises on Children's ITV before spending the afternoon mocking actual guest Pat Sharp about his hair. Endlessly. Also, a comparison to Joan Collins.

July 19th

1975: time to pump up the big top, and New Edition, for a round of Seaside Special as David Hamilton welcomes us to "breezy Blackpool", our all-waving guest stars being Mike and Bernie Winters - christ etc - Peter Gordino, the Three Degrees and the actual compere, Who Do You Do?'s Paul Melba. Diddy is also very keen to tell us there's "one or two people who have expressed a desire to be daredevils", which can't help but bring visions of poorly maintained Whirly Wheelers to come, but the volunteers are in fact two women both from Skelmersdale who look very middle-aged so are likely to have actually been around 28 and whose stunt work involves getting custard pied by "Pierre the clown and his crazy car".

July 20th

1987: Biddy Baxter's Blue Peter rod of iron was examined in detail by Did You See...?

1987: punk died.

1988: Kellyvision sends the titular Chris to see how Spitting Image is made, starting with Luck & Flaw at the puppet workshop, on to a production meeting helmed by Geoffrey Perkins, and then a very literal handover to the Central studios takes us to Gaz Top by which time Perkins has put on a branded sweatshirt and Chris Barrie, who would have just finished filming the first series of Red Dwarf, and Harry Enfield are gathered around a single overhead mike. The appearance of Nigel Plaskitt as demonstrator puppeteer alongside Steve Nallon is a neat callback to Children's ITV shows past.

1994: Children's BBC marked the 25th anniversary of the Apollo landing with An Afternoon On The Moon. As well as involving two people to have set foot on it, Harrison Schmitt and the ever reliable Buzz Aldrin, the day included Gilbert the Alien's sole proper BBC appearance, co-hosting a rundown of the top ten space songs. Inspiral Carpets ahead of Bowie? Controversial.

July 21st

1972: a bearded, vaguely mulleted Clive James considers sexual messaging via shopping trolley on What The Papers Say.

1981: the BBC Nine O'Clock News has a late breaking top story that makes an absolute mess of the first minute, leading to a spectacular Jan Leeming eye roll. The climax of the famous Headingley Ashes Test is more than halfway down the running order.

1992: "Britain's least famous best-selling author" Terry Pratchett visits the National Garden Festival in Ebbw Vale, where BBC1 summer lunchtime magazine filler Summer Scene was based. Linda Mitchell's first question is "give me a definition of fantasy", and Pratchett's sigh-exhalation should have been his entire response.

1996: The South Bank Show changes tack and deliberately profiles someone who isn't famous, a 21 year old trying to find sponsorship to take up a place at RADA. Not famous at the time in any case as it's Maxine Peake, whose only credit at the time was a reoccurring secondary role in a series of Children's Ward. Annoyingly this upload is from a later repeat with Melvyn Bragg that acknowledges their good fortune; pleasingly it keeps in not just Peake comparing accent issues with Jane Horrocks but her going for private elocution lessons with her drama school friend Diane Morgan.

July 22nd

1991: for his thousandth show Wogan left verdant Shepherd's Bush Green for a place that did alright for itself by comparison, Cannes. His reason: to meet Madonna, in town to promote In Bed With... (not Truth Or Dare, modern BBC)

2000: the centrepiece of the hundredth SMTV Live is a huge scale Chums based around the charity appeal that's either Blink For Ant or Ant Aid, incorporating a classic pratfall from the sort-of-titular star, a cameo from Steve Wilson right after being let go from Live & Kicking, and Dec somehow mixing Cat up with, we're led to assume, his then-girlfriend Clare Buckfield off 2point4children. The rest of the show includes Victoria Beckham on Challenge Ant and a second cameoing former Live & Kicking presenter, while at the close of CD:UK basically the whole of pop music shows up to admire that two of the hosts inevitably remind us they could still remember all the moves at the end.

July 23rd

1982: to LWT we go for the mighty Six O'Clock Show, where after Michael Aspel has read out the newspapers' critiques the topics include Brian Glover, John Wells and Janet Street-Porter on school reports and John Walters and Denis Healey on Walkman headphones. Were those the work of editor Greg Dyke or researcher Paul Ross? Meanwhile some deely boppers appear and Fred Housego is in the traffic copter, supposedly.

1992: Central celebrates its tenth anniversary (nearly seven months late) by putting its stars in a studio with Jim Bowen and showing them the region's cock-ups in The Birthday Bloopers. Inexplicably, there was also an extended VHS version.

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