The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - August 12th-18th 2024

From the house of @whydontyoutube

August 12th

1982: The Associates often pushed the boat out for their Top Of The Pops appearances and none more so than for 18 Carat Love Affair. See, Alan Rankine is playing a guitar made out of chocolate. £230 all in from Thorntons, and you'll see he has two of them. You'll see it if you're quick, mind, as whether the director had spotted it or not is unclear but you don't really get a good look at it - there's a brief shot at 1:28, Billy Mackenzie gets handed the neck at 1:51 to his bemusement - Mackenzie and Muffins graduate Martha Ladly have their own prop fun going on later - then at 2:00 Rankine is trying his best to give the body of the first one away before realising he'd best get the other one if continuing trying to look convincing. Would you willingly take a lump of chocolate cradled for several minutes under hot studio lights?

1983: Michael Palin and a few close friends retrace his life steps for Comic Roots, via Spike Milligan, Terry Jones, historian and original comic partner Robert Hewison and a headmaster in a fulsome wig.

2000: 75% of the post-Geri Spice Girls pop by SMTV Live to play a game show about themselves. With Ant and Dec away, wait until you see who Cat's assistant is.

August 13th

1981: BIG BATES IS WATCHING YOU.

1983: The Main Attraction lands an actual major central guest as Dickie Henderson introduces, covers and generally plays off actual Broadway legend - for songwriting, not singing, despite his efforts - Sammy Cahn, who also has Gemma Craven deliver one of his. The other big overseas guest is sleight of hand master Ricky Jay, which isn't shabby. Unfortunately this is British variety so Cahn finds himself duetting with Mrs Thatcher, in the inevitable form of Janet Brown, and Jay has to introduce Mr Acker Bilk.

1985: Murder In Space was a right oddity, a sci-fi murder mystery co-production with Showtime in which a series of murders occur on an international space mission. The film was initially shown without the ending and viewers were set a competition to work out who was responsible, with a prize of £10,000. Jimmy Greaves on TV-am explains it all, confusing his listings magazines as he does so, with a silent cameo by Dusty Springfield. Not only was the film terrible, out of thousands of entries to the original US version nobody correctly guessed the culprit. And no, we don't have the reveal of the answer, or know who won the British prize if anyone. Anneka Rice told us what we, as represented by Central viewers, could do with our guess, after which the two Ronnie Barkers plug Walkers Crisps, TV Times asks who Pia Zadora is, and News At Ten ruins the mood by leading on what remains the deadliest single aircraft crash ever.

1986: it's Steve Blacknell and Breakfast Time's turn to try and keep up with Frank Sidebottom as he demonstrates his new EP and board game. The woman next to Frank Bough across the studio looks positively scared.

August 14th

1980: an extraordinary, often forgotten number 25 hit by Sue Wilkinson enlivens Top Of The Pops, with Slade's Don Powell on drums as their manager released it on his label. Why is she sitting like that?

1985: two odd Wogan interviews on this day, though obtuse for different reasons and his meeting with Max Headroom actually isn't quite as awkward as you'd expect...

1987: Love Me Tender was Central's commemoration of the tenth anniversary of Elvis' death, getting stars mostly of the day to cover his songs with a band including Elvis' guitarist James Burton. In order of first appearance: Roger Daltrey, Meat Loaf (who also gets the big emotional finish), Kim Wilde on a bed, Ben E King, Duane Eddy, Nona Hendryx, Dave Edmunds, Kiki Dee, Boy George, Carl Perkins, Elkie Brooks, Jaki Graham, Ruby Turner, the Inspirational Choir, the Pet Shop Boys (you know what they did and what it led to) and Dr Robert.

1991: ...unlike when Tin Machine appeared on Wogan. The performance, despite Reeves Gabrels playing an anti-guitar solo using a vibrator (as he had on the recording), is less famous than the subsequent interview, where Tel decided he's going to pick apart the apparent demand that the frontman is just some bloke in a band where all members were of equal value. In response Bowie decides to impart some quasi-monosyllabic, semi-truculent, semi-tongue in cheek dryness. Wogan later wrote "for some reason (Bowie) would not speak, or at least not sensibly, and would not allow his backing group to talk either. He will never know how close he came to a slap on live television."

1992: The Hitman And Her heads to the seaside, the Torquay Ritzy in fact. Pete really wants to get a singalong going to an act called Abbacadabra that does nothing except add instantly ageing dance beats to ageless Abba songs while Michaela reveals Russia has invented speed dating and has some women in the toilets discuss topless sunbathing - no, she doesn't, stop that - while Undercover's live PA brings the mood down. And then the greatest crossover event in history happens as in a supposedly quiet corner Michaela meets Little & Large, with "one woman rave" Linda Lusardi. Sadly Eddie has no routines about 2 Unlimited or Smart E's, but Linda does claim "we've been playing cricket with Jim Davidson" before the most awkward trailing off in television history.

August 15th

1989: can you imagine videotaping things off the telly for posterity? What use could anyone possibly make of that years into the future? The Media Show investigates the tape collector world.

1998: the penultimate ITV Chart Show saw a modern classic take number one, Stardust's Music Sounds Better With You... except its video wasn't ready yet. Never mind, as the show is coming to an end there's always quick and easy graphics-based nostalgia as a fill-in.

August 16th

1975: Lulu, Kenneth McKellar and Daley & Wayne are the given headline attractions on Seaside Special under Tony Blackburn's aegis. Roy Hudd in a knotted hanky turns up too, with support from Janet Brown, Mike Batt coming back to see what's been done to his theme, some lions, an overshowy strongman, New Edition (not that one) dancing to Funky Gibbon and "penny whistle man Des Lane". Oh, and also Abba promoting SOS, but they're relegated to mid-bill and don't even get to go in the big top to perform Waterloo.

1983: Woodentop, from the Thames anthology drama series Storyboard, depicts PC Jim Carver's first day at Sun Hill Police Station and his being partnered with experienced WPC June Ackland, who for some reason is introduced legs-first. It was seen as a stylistic experiment within the genre, written with realistic exchanges and filmed with hand-held cameras and natural lighting, which gave it a unique enough aura for a series to be commissioned, and the rest you know - though without Peter Dean, who was cast as Pete Beale soon after and whose character essentially became Bob Cryer.

1987: Nigel Mansell picked up an unusual head injury after the Austrian Grand Prix, as Murray Walker made sure we could see. Walker then reinjured him.

1992: "I personally am very fond of it. There are those who are not." Moviedrome's Alex Cox introduces Walker, a film that essentially killed the Hollywood system career of its director... Alex Cox.

August 17th

1987: Madonna played her first full UK gig at Leeds' Roundhay Park two days earlier. TV-am sent future Channel 4 sports presenter without portfolio Gary Imlach, who seems confused by the concept of people dressing like their idols, almost revels in the show not selling out at its extortionate highest ticket price of £15 but cares enough to worry about "video pirates" outside selling "a sleazy film Madonna made before she became famous" and be wowed by her show's "dozens of slides". He's back in the studio come the Monday - hence being on this date - to report back to Kay Burley and someone from Just Seventeen, after which Jimmy Greaves gives his two penn'orth.

1992: "It was never like this at Halifax Town!" The first weekend of the Premier League and thus Sky Sports' live coverage is topped off by the first Monday Night Football. The game is Manchester City versus Queen's Park Rangers, and kids, you'll have to believe us when we say QPR might have been favourites then. That, however, is very much not the point, not when Richard Keys makes sure the first thing he mentions and the first thing he asks the pundits about is the Sky Strikers dance troupe "about which you've heard so much". "That seemed to go down very well" chuckles Keys after their routine for "the official launch" of Simple Minds' seven years old Alive And Kicking, over the sound of chanting that has been going on regardless throughout. The Strikers were dropped during the season.

August 18th

1973: Sez Les, with Roy Barraclough not always in drag and the Flirtations as musical entertainment (as opposed to the Syd Lawrence Orchestra, who are nobody's entertainment), introduced by Dawson in a disturbing fashion, but we're most impressed with Les playing Mrs Dracula being interviewed by an embryonic Calendar-only Richard Whiteley. We don’t think Superflop was a regular feature but if they really commissioned the cartoon intro and song for a one-off sketch we'd be very impressed.

1973: the first series of That's Life ends with a story regarding problems with an AA account by Esther's fellow former Braden's Week comic contributor Chris Munds, gives a viewer's car-obsessed fiancée a go in a racing car round Brands Hatch as a brief precursor to a report into car sales and maintenance complaints, and the last Heap Of The Week, which was intended to be the big regular feature to drive the series, ends with a load of manure. Regular singers Judy Bruce and Stephanie de Sykes come together with a song which ends with the latter in a bikini. By the time the programme returned the following year Esther's first nancies George Layton and Bob Wellings had moved on, and in Layton's case not before time.

1980: World In Action's The Chart Busters exposes singles chart rigging and all the satin tour jackets that requires, including a couple of famous big hits being hyped to the top.

1983: Kraftwerk were unavailable, likely by choice, to perform Tour De France on Top Of The Pops so they were represented by, of course, the world hula hoop champion.

2001: Hear'Say It's Saturday was an attempt to keep that spring's Popstars bandwagon rolling with a throwback showcase variety format featuring guest duets, covers and a Laugh-In joke wall. The backlash against the band was famously full-on and after half a year of heavy promotion their attraction to ITV's core audience had already palled, the last shows being shoved to the other side of the early evening news divide.

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