The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - April 15th-21st 2024
From the house of @whydontyoutube
April 15th
1986: Michael Parkinson did six stand-ins on Film '86, for one of which he was allocated Creepers, the butchered UK version of Dario Argento's Phenomena. It wasn't well reviewed at the time, but a spectacularly grumpy and spectacularly Northern Parky seems to think its existence and release is a personal attack on him. At least it did better than two weeks later when he straight up refused to review early Paul Verhoeven film Flesh And Blood.
1992: a packed Wogan starts with Lenny and Griff previewing the upcoming Comic Relief special, followed by Rebecca De Mornay and Bill Gates promoting The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and Windows 3.1 respectively.
1995: television producers often grouse about how hard it is to represent stand-up comedy on TV even though they regularly do it well enough, ie as little extraneous detail as possible. The Stand-Up Show lasted a good few series maybe because it was in a late night slot and as here was compered for a while by Barry Cryer, introducing Paul Tonkinson, Phill Jupitus and a rare set as herself by Caroline Hook/Aherne.
2003: the Treasure Hunt revival isn’t greatly remembered, and wasn’t such at the time as the ten episodes were spread across four months. If it would be now it’d be for the second programme, which sent new skyrunner Suzi Perry around and above Mexico City while Dermot Murnaghan at base talks to the contestants, proud currency collector David Scott and his son. And to think Tom Scott says he doesn't do television! His claimed recent excursion to visit as many places called Mansfield as possible is very on brand for him too.
April 16th
1979: Anglia - good at representing its region, less so at telling the time.
1983: the third Children's Royal Variety Performance is as you'd expect a hell of a thing. Roger de Courcey sings! The Brian Rogers Dancers hoof to a Belle Stars cover! There's highly dubious puppets! Tommy Boyd and Mike Reid turn up for seconds apiece! The Game For A Laugh team provide the big finish! Modern Romance, Mari Wilson and far too much Stu Francis date it exactly!
April 17th
1971: Roger Whittaker's series Whittaker's World Of Music, as eclectic as the host's facial hair, showcases Shirley Bassey, Gilbert O'Sullivan, The Mixtures, Roy Budd, Sylvia McNeill singing A Whiter Shade Of Pale in a bubble chair lowered from the ceiling, future Star Turn On 45 (Pints) frontman J Vincent Edwards covering Knock Three Times and Roy Budd playing his theme to Get Carter partially on two keyboards at once.
1981: "We even brought in a computer!" Well, we've been dealing with Swap Shop Star Awards up the wazoo already so let's complete the set of Erics. Noel in the Swap Shop studio introduces Noel in the awards studio for no apparent reason - maybe there was just something he forgot to clarify while taping the latter - to launch a night (well, afternoon) in front of an audience of kids and hosts' parents as Justin Fashanu doesn't get to give an award but Michael Crawford does, we get banter from Anthony Daniels as C3P0 - bet Lucas didn't put that on the Blu-Ray - 4 ft 10 Lena Zavaroni meets 6 ft 4 (and partly in character) John Cleese and Barbara Woodhouse holds all the power. However the major news from the ceremony represents an update for bishops or important parsons with the world premiere of the video for I Wanna Be A Winner a full six months before its release. Did nobody ever point out referring for the rhyme scheme to "President Regan" puts the song in league with (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang?
1987: one of the home inhabitants in the third Through The Keyhole beats the panel and is then notably not namechecked before entering the studio. David Frost has taken the gamble that everyone will recognise him on sight and the panel's reaction proves him correct.
1992: Behind The Nose, a Comic Relief halfway house between the main events to let us know where our money had gone, offered on new sketch, a Thunderbirds spoof with Griff, Lenny and Jonathan as per, with Anneka Rice and Geoffrey Palmer as Lady Penelope and Parker and Karl Howman as Brains.
1993: "Here's another one you won't understand..." The final Going Live features Gordon the Gopher's bravura last stand, apparently fuelled on cactus juice champagne, and a summit meeting between Trevor & Simon and Rik & Ade, who actually kind of knew each other because they're all University of Manchester alumni and Lise Meyer's father was the former pair's tutor, and we should state for the record that we always loved the opening gag here.
2000: the glamour of a wet industrial estate in Peterborough was the ideal setting for Ideal World's big launch. Their first item is a new Beetle. Wonder what happened to the girl group Debbie Flint claims would be offering themselves up.
April 18th
1977: Newsround features Martin Bell, the man in the light blue suit, on David Owen's visit to Rhodesia, lambs in plastic macs, and something called windsurfing, which John Craven has found out about but doesn't seem keen. Afterwards John and Pete have left Lesley to complete the army assault course this time as they have to cover the growing inline skates controversy, introduce a jazz song for the jubilee and make a wardrobe for Action Man accessories.
1985: Pookiesnackenburger were a sprawling comedic band born of street theatre that eventually spawned Stomp. An episode of their own Channel 4 series attempted yet another take on the heavy metal spoof with a Wicker Man sideline.
April 19th
1982: here's a fun game for all the family - when did the first Countdown go out? Opening night of Channel 4, right? Wrong, it was on this day, when the countdown to a new channel was in its very early stages and Yorkshire ran Calendar Countdown for eight weeks, Twice Nightly and Cathy Hytner in place already and Ted Moult in the same dictionary corner (as it wasn't known then as there was no lexicographer) that he would take up come November. Channel 4 actually found Des Chiffres et Des Lettres independently of this but found the process of buying the rights much easier as a result. Carol Vorderman never resorted to a cape, mind.
1990: French & Saunders’ Modern Mother & Daughter was famously the beta test for Absolutely Fabulous, but also in that episode and equally worthy of note was a sketch that doesn’t feature them centrally at all as Raw Sex and selected friends launch The Trial Of Ralph McTell. Sorry about the French subtitles, can't be helped.
April 20th
1963: Desmond Leslie was an early developer of electronic music who designed the first multi-track mixing desk and had his musique concrete recordings used on Doctor Who, a ufologist who wrote one of the first influential books on the form, a satirist whose works included Patrick Moore as a co-author, a B-movie screenwriter and the restorer of a major castle in County Monaghan. None of this fascinating story is what he is most famous for. No, that was when he reacted to one particular bad review of his then-wife Agnes Bernelle's one woman show Savagery And Delight, which she later claimed was because a set he'd designed meant nobody could hear her, by seeking out the critic and lamping him one. The critic was Bernard Levin, a man who appears to be smaller standing up than sitting down, and Leslie chose as his unknowing location a live edition of That Was The Week That Was.
1976: Vision On is on the subject of 'time' and accordingly features a future Time Lord taking part with Pat Keysell amid the stop-motion (some by future Aardman personnel), speeded up footage, magic mirrors, chromakey backings and all held together by Tony Hart's trusted marker pens. Yes, Left Bank 2 does get play.
1986: That's Life goes for a London Marathon-based intro. Adrian, Grant and Gavin are the nancies with Mollie Sugden in the misprints corner as Doc Cox is reduced to a vox pop (and directorial credit) on the hot topic of Sunday trading. Esther's campaign against Skoal Bandits, which were being advertised freely on ITV two years earlier, was in motion. You'll need a hardy constitution to get through the final item unscathed.
1988: quite a bit of Points Of View, where Anne's batting away brickbats in the direction of Them Upstairs pauses as she remarks ballet A Simple Man is "doubtless on its way to being a classic". *shrug* Unfortunately we're then thrown into one of those debates about the boundaries of Middlesex that cropped up every few years and appears to have been going on for a while already. Students of the parochial geopolitics of it all will be delighted to find that Russell Grant is among its proponents - and if we're not mistaken he voices his letter himself! That can’t be allowed, surely?
1990: another for the canon of awkward Reeves and Mortimer interviews, with Ross King and the largely silent audience of The 8:15 From Manchester.
April 21st
1986: Kenneth Williams takes over the Wogan hotseat for a week, beginning with a confusing monologue, Derek Nimmo, Elaine Paige, Janet Brown and royal photographer Norman Parkinson.
1990: Roger Finn pops by the broom cupboard on Andy Crane's last day and says a mild swear word, which draws a notable reaction from Edd the Duck.
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