April 1st
1957, the Panorama spaghetti harvest is from well before WDYT?'s usual timespan but you can't cover April Fools on telly without it - it was the idea of cameraman Charles de Jaeger, who remembered a teacher telling a classmate they were so stupid that if they were told spaghetti grew on trees they'd believe it.
1976: from the Top Of The Pops that kicked off the BBC Four repeat run in 2011, the final version of Pan's People and a panoply of increasingly cheap animal costumes reinterpret Hank Mizell's fluke hit Jungle Rock.
1982: and speaking of Top Of The Pops, it commemorated a Hurll-era Fool's Day in a curious way, especially for happening well after midday, enlisting Zoo members including future Take On Me video co-star Bunty Bailey. John Peel doesn't seem entirely keen.
1986: maybe the reason this one isn’t part of the April Fool canon is Channel 4’s idea happened at closedown, not just after the traditional midday cut-off - after all, all of those above were too - but technically on the 2nd.
1988: Good Friday, so Gary Terzza and Debbie Shore take time out to preview Children's ITV Easter programming including the Knight Rider pilot well out of sync and Dick Van Dyke Celebrates The Majesty Of Snow White or whatever it's called.
1989: Des Lynam hymns Grandstand's "highly professional team", which actually wasn’t the most memorable thing to have happened on BBC1 that morning as it was the day Eliot Fletcher got to speak to Five Star on Going Live - and we should acknowledge that over on Saint & Greavsie Jimmy was having his own fun.
1995: You Bet! takes on a quick change theatrical play challenge from a group of wardrobe assistants ensuring seven efficient character changes on the part of actor Ben Miller, assisted by sketch comedy friends Alexander Armstrong, a year before the pair were nominated for the Perrier Award in Edinburgh, and Struck Off And Die's Tony Gardner. Ye of little faith, Ross King.
2000: before we can complete this comedic day in telly history we have to acknowledge the most infamous one to have backfired, not unsurprisingly as Dec collapsing during SMTV Live isn't that much of a laughalong prank and ITV was forced to issue an apology later the same day. It was Dec's own idea too.
April 2nd
1983: …was Easter Saturday, and what could possibly mark our lord and saviour's impending resurrection better than The Cannon & Ball Easter Show? The last part is an extended plug of The Boys In Blue including a live performance of the theme song, a woo-wa-woo-woo and all, and some verite footage from the filming followed by a sketch based largely around Bobby's antipathy towards Eric Sykes. Between the fun there's music from Mari Wilson, Renee & Renato - followed by a sketch with Tommy and Bobby as them, which comes straight after and without acknowledging the actuality, which is a discussion we'd like to have eavesdropped on - and, within a Casablanca sketch, Jill Gascoine.
1992: Tracy Island was still nine months away but Blue Peter was fully in on the BBC2 Thunderbirds repeat run so Gerry Anderson came in to explain how the puppets worked. Lady Penelope and Parker dancing to the theme is the icing on the cake.
1992: the second series of Harry Enfield's Television Programme begins, following a ruined for television screening of Badfellas. Meanwhile Mr Cholmondley-Warner - who is, remember, Jon Glover, Enfield is Mr Grayson - examine association football. Every time Diversity appear on TV we're just waiting for someone to call one of their lead brothers "the man they call Mr Banjo".
April 3rd
1981: Points Of View with its funk opening and mustard coloured backdrop deals mostly with the recently concluded Triangle, which according to Barry Took was the subject of 283 letters in which opinion was "equally divided". Um...
1982: Tiswas outlived OTT and Swap Shop, by a week, and also ATV. In fact even this episode wasn't advertised as the end in advance, merely as Sally James' farewell. Her old friends don't appear and she's barely even featured in its flan-filled finale.
1987: Through The Keyhole, which had been part of TV-am literally since day one, graduated to a prime-time slot. Wash all Lemon thoughts out of your mind with the quality of snooped house owners in the first episode, not to mention the typical panel of the day of Alan Coren, Mary Parkinson and Kenneth Williams. The first one's house had been featured on television plenty before, maybe they could have got it without the clues.
1989: Channel 4 launched its own breakfast show in the shape of the Channel Four Daily. Conceived as a newspaper of the air split into short segments, the bureaus and very of their time graphics lasted three and a half years but we'd be surprised if many remember it compared especially to what came next. The previous day ITN went to have a snoop round.
1993: The Grand National That Never Was, when a double false start and failed recall system led to the race being declared void. Superbly, more than four hours of Grandstand's big annual day out with Des Lynam digging out his big coat has been retained, featuring nearly all the anticipation, an A-Z of the race, Griff Rhys Jones, Harvey Smith, Bobby Charlton and a rare chance to see what John Hanmer looked like. The whole "race" shebang begins at 2:52, though if you'd rather cut to the literal chase it's also here on its own, though be aware that that version doesn't include the lengthy shot of the jockey enquiry being held by Channel 4's Brough Scott, Richard Dunwoody springing up and down on the spot in a big overcoat, or more generally the full masterclass in filling to B-roll footage by Peter O'Sullevan.
April 4th
1981: Bucks Fizz' Eurovision chances are taken almost too literally by the Beeb’s publicity department.
1992: Andy, Neil, Steve and Gaby are in their best wedding gear for the final Motormouth, the reason being the show and the backstage sitcom bit have collided and become one. Among the actual show guests are Frank Sidebottom previewing Frank's Fantastic Shed Show, which went out very late at night, and premiering Motormouth Is Really Fantastic, Right Said Fred, some kite flyers, Terry Nutkins finally bringing some snakes in, Jenny Powell, Lewis Macleod and Nobby the Sheep ahead of Gimme 5, and some never explained men dressed as maggots. There's also the results of an animation competition and a photo of Nigel Pickard when he looked slightly different. Neil's final words suggest he wasn't looking at continuing his TV career, even though a series of Art Attack was continuing and Media Merchants can't have made that much yet.
April 5th
1973: now then. The Indoor League, Yorkshire's Sid Waddell-produced attempt to put pub games on telly, begins its six (!) series run with Fred Trueman, pipe and pint to hand, coming on like a seasoned veteran of the shove ha'penny scene.
1986: Lee MacDonald promotes Just Say No and by extension Zammo's habit on Saturday Superstore.
1997: Grandstand's annual relocation to Aintree was supposed to be most notable as Peter O'Sullivan's fiftieth and last Grand National, for which he got his own statue. Instead it became memorable due to an IRA bomb scare meaning 60,000 people had to be evacuated, as captured live on Grandstand with Des in the staff car park. Right at the end is a snatch of Gary Lineker, who'd never hosted the programme before and was hauled in having done Football Focus earlier in the afternoon.
2002: 24 Hour Party People was released so Granada had a game stab at profiling its subject's remarkable multitudes in That Tony Wilson, surely the only documentary to feature Bob Greaves, Sir Alex Ferguson and Vini Reilly together at last, never mind one of the few to approach its subject as a loveable twat. One thing, though - Remote Control was not a kid's show!
April 6th
1973: Sandie Shaw gets at very close quarters to one patron on The Good Old Days, also featuring Bernard Cribbins, a trapeze act which can't have helped the fittings at the City Varieties, and Leonard Sachs losing the run of himself at one point.
1980: see one, feel one, touch one, as it's Swap Shop Star Awards time, and before we start, yes, we know a clip of Savile is in it. As always the Awards are both glamorous and notably low budget, and as always the company burst into song at one stage, Cheggers leading a version of Under The Moon Of Love with backing singers including Delia Smith. A wide selection of kid-friendly stars feeling an Eric would serve them well appear, from Esther Rantzen to the Boomtown Rats via Richard Whitmore, Dick Emery, Josette Simon, Lorraine Chase in a dress she plainly hadn't worn before, Marti Webb, Suzi Quatro who we're very pleased to find gets played on by Johnny Pearson's boys with a bespoke version of He's A Sports PA, Sharron Davies sporting very silver possibly spray-on trousers and a motorised Posh Paws. "It looks like the restaurant in Secret Army!"
1985: we move on five years to find Noel in prime-time and the award ceremony becoming rather less open to public nomination as his special gift to us all for the bank holiday weekend is the Golden Easter Egg Awards. "Founded by Dame Helen Fielding" - yes, the same one, this never gets mentioned in her biographies - this was a way of putting together the best of Late Late's regular out-takes spot, a young Mark Austin and Jenni Murray among the "nominees", and you'll never guess who gets the lifetime achievement award.
1985: Theme Dreaming, an extraordinary one-off hour from Central comprising covers of and Brian Rogers' unit dancing to TV and film themes.
1988: Anne Robinson flavour Points Of View, and amid Song For Europe voting complaints and feedback about too much feedback we've at last found one featuring the interminable "bring back Blake's 7" campaign.
2002: Cat Deeley's final SMTV Live, apart from the very last one, and you'll never guess who appears to surprise her. It feels like everyone in production had given up post-Ant & Dec (oh yeah, it's them, but also Cilla Black) given Brian's Brain, which is literally Challenge Ant with a marker pen through the title, and the apparent necessity to write Cat out of a Casualty spoof that logically can't have been going for more than twelve weeks and in which Edith Bowman, who at the time was unknown outside MTV for any reason other than being Cat’s best mate, makes an unannounced cameo. Awkwardly she didn't leave CD:UK for another three years (!) so has to cap her emotional farewell by introducing that as if nothing untoward had just taken place.
April 7th
1983: it's TV Eye's turn to get to grips with the home computer boom, reporter and future shadow cabinet member Bryan Gould couching it in terms of how much money could be made from saving your hard-programmed games to a WH Smith C15.
1988: Cabaret At The Jongleurs was another attempt to put stand-up and its many tentacles on telly. As with nearly all of its type, it lasted one series, which may be what happens when you leave the compering of the last episode in the unsteady hands of John Sparkes as Frank Hovis. The bill includes a moustachioed Mark Steel, Jeremy Hardy, future Denise in Corrie/Joanne in Emmerdale/Vince's mum in Queer As Folk Denise Black, and a man credited as 'Dexter Felix'
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