The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - February 26th-March 3rd 2024

From the house of @whydontyoutube

February 26th

1973: then Poet Laureate John Betjeman's best remembered TV work was Metro-Land, a celebration of suburbia through Neasden, Wembley, the river in Harrow where Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan drowned, Pinner, a golf course in Rickmansworth, a Wurlitzer organ in Chorleywood and the line's terminus at the time, Amersham. These were the areas that grew up around the Metropolitan line of the Underground that was named such by the Metropolitan Railway between 1915 and 1933, Betjeman using a guide to the area published in the 1920s as an aid. An approving Clive James wrote "they’ll be repeating it until the millennium", which is true as it was last shown on BBC Four in 2014.

1983: that second special Bucks Fizz performance (see last week) came as a result of fog meaning half of them couldn't fly out to Jersey for a Saturday Superstore performance, but ultimately that's what the magic of CSO is for. You can't see the join!

1986: a barely credulous Anne and Nick meet Sigue Sigue Sputnik on Good Morning Britain. Michael Barrymore looks on, likewise.

1990: it's Shrove Tuesday eve and Yvette Fielding has been given the annual live Blue Peter pancake make but forgets to make sure the oil is hot enough.

February 27th

1976: The Muppet Show, as you probably know, was filmed at Elstree by ATV. While they were over to make the first series they made their UK TV debut on Des O'Connor Entertains.

February 28th

1983: a decade on from Ian McNaught-Davies being master of the micro domain, learning the wherefores of the PC (or whatever) turned all drama-documentary in Computing For The Terrified, which went out on 11am on Sunday. Written by sometime Alexei Sayle collaborator David Stafford, all the edutainment is fitted around a story regarding reluctant flatmates Carol Leader, the expert who finds out for us about barcodes and fast turnaround stock replenishment, and Helen Lederer.

1987: Television Centre went on fire, completely putting out the BBC1 continuity announcer not least as it meant the news having to be ultimately moved to the other side of Cagney & Lacey.

1988: Weekend World - yes, it still has the Mountain theme even if it's presented by Matthew Parris by now - looks at ITV itself and its potential future, including visiting the filming of a Who Dares Wins sketch.

1991: Studio 1 at Television Centre reopened after refurbishment and the first programme to come from it was Blue Peter, meaning all the excuse they needed to visit the gallery, show off some cameras and lighting and so forth. The lack of decoration as yet in an enormous space is filled by John Leslie driving a double decker bus in soon followed by a brass band, because when else were they going to get the chance. In further reasons for John, Diane and Yvette to be cheerful Bonnie's puppies have arrived.

1992: Trouble At The Top (part two, three, four) cauterises itself by examining the disaster of Eldorado in detail.

February 29th

1980: Delia Smith has Kate Bush round to hers as part of her Cookery Course.

March 1st

1982: Thames' Tony Bastable-fronted consumer protection show Money-Go-Round's report on transport pollution near schools is enlivened by the vox pops seemingly unwittingly including a snarky Sylvester McCoy.

1983: remember that time Tomorrow's World covered a CD in honey to prove it was indestructible? No you don't, as they never did that. However Breakfast Time did in passing during a report explaining why it was going to kill off the gramophone record, except that the Elcaset was meant to have done that. The morning's main guests were Peter Davison and Patrick Troughton, slightly oddly as it was two thirds of the way through the current Who series, in a morning that takes a weird turn involving both affecting not to recognise K9 and a Dalek threatening Russell Grant.

1988: TV-am looks a bit sparse and ragged, as if there was a strike on or something. Richard Keys makes at least three attempts to introduce Batman. Adam West's trailed appearance the following morning is treated rather better.

1989: Open Air devotes the whole show to discussing Australian soaps, though Peter Howitt is trailed as the big guest and this cuts off before he reveals why he left Bread. As for the key debate Phil Redmond moans about them, obviously, while Parky is piped in as a supposed expert on Aussie TV only to reveal he hasn't worked in the country for years. Bea and Lizzie from Prisoner Cell Block H are on the phone what must have been quite late at night for them.

1989: two days before the Profumo affair film Scandal's release a candid Christine Keeler joined its lead actor John Hurt on Wogan, with a pointedly unimpressed Sue Lawley sitting in and not getting on Hurt's good side either.

March 2nd

1972: Blue Peter was so well off that it could afford to run its own comics stand, which John Noakes used to show off and then build his own special hanger for them.

2002: among the loftily ambitious for BBC Four’s opening night shows was comic drama Surrealissimo: The Trial Of Salvador Dali, marking a Tate exhibition with a marvellously obtuse retelling, with Ewen Bremner as Dali butting heads with Matt Lucas as Bunuel, Stephen Fry as Andre Breton, Vic Reeves, Mark Gatiss, the Mighty Boosh, Ben Miller, Jonathan Meades and Michael Nyman.

March 3rd

1988: history kindly remembers Schofield's broom cupboard singalong efforts with Ulysses 31 but not so much Andy Crane's take on Willy Fog.

2000: apparently at the behest of Danny Baker's son, Slipknot lay literal waste to TFI Friday.

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