The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - February 19th-25th 2024
From the house of @whydontyoutube
February 19th
1968: the thousandth Play School. To celebrate Big Ted gets a Noddy Holder's hat-styled waistcoat from Julie Stevens and then sat on by Colin Jeavons. Meanwhile children play in a gravel pit in what looks disconcertingly like it should have become a graphic PIF.
1988: after David Dundas In Dub comes the first Friday Night Live after its day move, complete with baffling claymation titles. Also debuting is Ben Elton's Lego man beard and Harry Enfield as 'The Plasterer', who Elton introduces as one of the people who built the new studio and afterwards calls "a fascinating new character which will no doubt run and run", which he would under a subtly different name. Also featuring: Voice Of The Beehive, Feargal Sharkey, Stavros, Joan Collins Fan Club 'covering' Leader Of The Pack, Bob Mills, American stand-up Joe Bolster, Jack Docherty & Moray Hunter, Josie Lawrence and Ben hosting a game show spoof ("this is going to run all through the series" - it didn't) with Stephen Fry and Jimmy Mulville.
1989: As part of a Comic Relief initiative Stephen Fry and Harry Enfield are taught sign language by See Hear!
February 20th
1985: not often you see a full episode of Children's ITV's dramatised reading aid The Book Tower. Neil Innes, the latest of its many hosts over eleven series, meets sci-fi author Nicholas Fisk.
February 21st
1985: Paul Coia runs through the new VHS releases on Pebble Mill At One with unglamorous assistance from Morrissey. "Something that you might like, all the rude videos on one VHS" offers Coia, clearly not knowing anything about his guest.
February 22nd
1973: after a class from Reading designed a four metre long Dad's Army frieze and sent it to Blue Peter as part of a Bayeux Tapestry tribute competition, Mainwaring and Wilson came to have a look at it with comments supplied by Croft and Perry. Don't tell him, Val!
February 23rd
1982: Arena celebrates Desert Island Discs' fortieth anniversary.
1990: One Hour With Jonathan Ross is entirely set on a London to Coventry train with passengers Tony Benn, Paula Yates, Slim Gaillard, a vampire hunter, Mark E Smith (unconnected) and Mary Coughlan.
February 24th
1981: Animal Magic’s Johnny Morris imagines that there's "controversy" about how to pronounce the name of Terry Nutkins' seal, so takes the only possible course of action - writing and singing a song about it. He has a pleasing baritone, in fairness.
1983: the Bermondsey by-election was one of the most infamous in history, taken on a huge swing by Liberal Simon Hughes after sustained personal and physical attacks on Labour candidate Peter Tatchell, including from his own party. ITN devoted two and a half hours to their results special, with Neil Kinnock, Cecil Parkinson and Clement Freud in the studio.
1987: one of ITV's most notorious flops of the era, Hardwicke House attempted to put a prime-time school sitcom gloss on an idea of Young Ones anarchy but was dropped after two episodes after media criticism. Having never been aired in any form the whole series appeared on YouTube in 2019, including a guest appearance by Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson (in episode five) which before these can to light people only definitely knew about because of a tiny clip on a Central Christmas tape.
February 25th
1982: Bucks Fizz made their two greatest TV appearances - yes, we’re including Eurovision, some of Jay’s more minimalist outfits and and that one where Cheryl dressed as a tomato in that - a year and a day apart. You’ll have a wait a week until the second reveals itself; the first came when they traversed a North Sea oil rig at the behest of Russell Harty.
1987: a Conservative Party Political Broadcast breaks down spectacularly on Thames and Yorkshire.
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