The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - August 19th-25th 2024

From the house of @whydontyoutube

August 19th

1981: after nearly fifteen years the original run of How comes to an end with Jon Miller collapsing a tin can pyramid and Jack Hargreaves explaining how the show was put together.

1989: people only know UP2U for Anthea's little accident - assuming they don't think it was on Going Live, or if you’re American that it killed her - five weeks before this but its capacity for wandering around to find Saturday morning entertainment seems undimmed, albeit with Turner safely in the studio as Jenny Powell crashes Mark Goodier's Radio 1 show for a single link.

1996: Neighbours (UK airdate) got a familiar new postman.

August 20th

1983: ah, that ITV - TVS, in fact - ever came up with something so ambitious as Ultra Quiz. Well, they didn't, it was adapted from a Japanese format (with Jeremy Beadle consulting on game localisation), but you know what we mean when we say it began with TWO THOUSAND contestants, almost instantly reduced by 90% to a number that could be sent abroad, from France to the Netherlands and beyond, for a series of rounds where their number was gradually reduced through a series of questions. We meet the series at the semi-final stage where the last eight are sent to Hong Kong with roving reporters Sally James and Jonathan King, while back in the studio Michael Aspel takes predictions from Russell Grant and computer expert David Manuel (they were both ultimately wrong)

1996: It's not often television just loses a programme entirely but it happened on BBC1 when a tape getting chewed up in the machine led to, ironically, Heaven Can Wait being lost and the funk springing into replacement action while a separate VT machine had to be booted up with a change of programming. Not unreasonably Peter Brook sounds less than his usual smooth self.

August 21st

1982: making a rare live appearance on No. 73, The Firm perform their then current meisterwork Arthur Daley ('E's Alright), as you'd expect, and then Polk Salad Annie in full Elvis impression, as you wouldn't. Pound for a penny that he don't get paid on account of the recession in the gold lame trade.

1987: Philip Schofield is fired *pauses, anticipate responses, carries on* by Michael Grade, who drops in a very knowing joke (about himself, before you say anything), so leaves Children's BBC's Broom Cupboard. Literally leaves it, as he was in the centre of the Concrete Doughnut for his final day. There are messages, clips and guests, including a cut-throat Colin Bennett as You Should Be So Lucky’s Vince Purity.

1992: Frank Sidebottom throws a summer fete within the Fantastic Shed Show's back garden. Nicholas Parsons is the guest of honour, a clairvoyant reads a turtle's shell, an unexpectedly hirsute Marc Riley is The Mild Man Of Borneo and Little Frank turns daredevil.

August 22nd

1983: Colin Baker had just been announced as the Sixth Doctor when he followed in his predecessor’s recent footsteps and visited Breakfast Time to review the papers, expanding on his dislike of John McEnroe and belief in the Loch Ness Monster. His thoughts on what sort of Doctor he'd be are pretty vague as yet, but Russell Grant has a good idea.

August 23rd

1985: Roland Rat's OWRRAS Summer Spectacular (Official Worldwide Roland Rat Appreciation Society, since you ask) ended with Toyah Willcox and in Roland's Roving Report the epic showdown between Rat and someone they couldn't avoid latching on to and sponsoring while he was racing in this country, future Formula 1 driver - killed the day before Ayrton Senna, in fact - Roland Ratzenberger.

1991: Tony Wilson is presumably dragged against his will to Edinburgh, where he hangs out in the foyer with Lily Savage, Roy Hattersley and Cynthia Payne while on stage Jack Dee introduces Frank Skinner, Lee Evans, Bill Hicks, Ennio Marchetto and Corky & the Juice Pigs.

1995: a Right To Reply citizen journalist wants SERIOUS TV science fiction like Isaac Asimov, not stupid fantasy like Dr Who so that's YOU told.

August 24th

1972: another landmark and much lovingly mocked Top Of The Pops performance, Roxy Music’s Virginia Plain.

1993: Far Flung Floyd sent the sozzled gastronome on a Far East tour, this final week taking up residence in Hong Kong, where as well as learning about dim sum and yin and yang in food and doing lobster on the deck of a junk boat, Keith sets about cooking stir-fry prawns on the quayside while an argument with water taxi staff upset at the filming goes on around him.

August 25th

1975: this Disney Time upload is in terrible quality, but it's linked by Tom Baker as the Doctor and is therefore unmissable.

1978: Didn't you just hate it as a kid when you went to sit in the audience of a TV show like Runaround and ended up inhaling toxic fumes?

1995: if you've got Robbie Williams presenting your show, or at least insomuch as Keith Chegwin is also there doing the heavy lifting alongside Dani Behr, it's doubtful you need another gimmick, but The Big Breakfast goes in on a sci-fi special, which means decking the presenting area out like a half-remembered Starship Enterprise. The suspicion they don't really know what the term means as opposed to "just space things" is confirmed very early when the big guest is revealed as Patrick Moore and again later as Richard Orford is at Nasa mission control. They do in fairness later introduce Danny John-Jules, Carole Ann Ford, Louise Jameson (nametagged Louisa), Sophie Aldred, K-9 with John Leeson's voice and some cosplayers, plus ufologist Roy Lake. The gravitational pull of Williams is however forefronted throughout, not least when he is the object in a snogging competition which we'll be shocked if it bypassed Ofcom without comment.

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