The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - July 22nd-28th 2024
From the house of @whydontyoutube
July 22nd
1991: for his thousandth show Wogan left verdant Shepherd's Bush Green for a place that did alright for itself by comparison, Cannes. His reason: to meet Madonna, in town to promote Truth Or Dare In Bed With...
2000: the centrepiece of the hundredth SMTV Live is a huge scale Chums based around the charity appeal that's either Blink For Ant or Ant Aid, incorporating a classic pratfall from the sort-of-titular star, a cameo from Steve Wilson right after being let go from Live & Kicking, and Dec somehow mixing Cat up with, we're led to assume, his then-girlfriend Clare Buckfield off 2point4children. The rest of the show includes Victoria Beckham on Challenge Ant and a second cameoing former Live & Kicking presenter, while at the close of CD:UK basically the whole of pop music shows up to admire that two of the hosts inevitably remind us they could still remember all the moves at the end.
July 23rd
1982: to LWT we go for the mighty Six O'Clock Show, where after Michael Aspel has read out the newspapers' critiques the topics include Brian Glover, John Wells and Janet Street-Porter on school reports and John Walters and Denis Healey on Walkman headphones. Were those the work of editor Greg Dyke or researcher Paul Ross? Meanwhile some deely boppers appear and Fred Housego is in the traffic copter, supposedly.
1992: Central celebrates its tenth anniversary (nearly seven months late) by putting its stars in a studio with Jim Bowen and showing them the region's cock-ups in The Birthday Bloopers. Inexplicably, there was also an extended VHS version.
July 24th
1980: Thames change the schedules to pay tribute to Peter Sellers, who had died in the early hours. A day later Alan Whicker paid his own tribute.
1986: "Cue the piper! Play, you bastard!" The Edinburgh Commonwealth Games opening ceremony via another bravura directorial talkback performance from Stewart 'roller' Morris.
1989: Dramarama's Rosie The Great is about a tiny island discovering they are actually a sovereign nation. All very Passport To Pimlico, of course, but also notable not only as still uncommon early TV work for Peter Capaldi but also as the first drama directorial credit for Michael Winterbottom.
1991: Wogan is the appropriately forelock tugging last programme to come from the BBC Television Theatre at Shepherd's Bush, which then reverted to being the Empire.
1992: Frank Sidebottom's Fantastic Shed Show began its series - you know it did, it really did - with an Olympics special, because they are of course really fantastic. Unfortunately his attempt to persuade the mayor of Manchester that Timperley could co-host the Games with Barcelona falls on deaf ears but he does get Lee Chapman and Dennis Taylor interested in his particular sporting ideas, with music from Londonbeat and accompaniment from shopkeeper/keyboardist Emerson Lake, who bears a strong resemblance to Mark Radcliffe.
July 25th
1981: after a summer off from the big top's travels BBC1 rebranded Seaside Special as Summertime Special, now stationed entirely in Brighton with new and named ahead of their time dance troupe The A-Team. Lena Zavaroni is the brave choice of compere given her autocue skills, introducing Bucks Fizz, Faith Brown, old school comedian Lenny Windsor, Argentinian jugglers Victor Ponche and Sylvia (as billed, but Sylvia doesn't really do a lot) and a well out of place Randy Crawford.
1988: the first Roland Rat - The Series went out on Saturdays at 5.20pm but did so badly the second came more than eighteen months later at 4.30pm on Mondays, by which time he'd already had Roland's Rat Race go out in the not so prime pre-Going Live! slot. That said David Claridge must have still had some sway by the time the Children's BBC run came to an end given the musical guests were Pere Ubu.
1988: Calendar's Richard Whiteley and Alan Hardwick, for no given reason, ride a pink Cadillac into Chesterfield for its 21st Anniversary Roadshow, meeting Bob Wilson and Kes' David Bradley there.
1996: we suspect the start of The Big Breakfast isn't live given it involves Zoe Ball, five weeks away from departing and here two weeks after her famously fractious partnership with Mark Little was dissolved, and Keith Chegwin parachuting out of plane, seemingly for real, and then are back on earth and entirely recovered when driven to the house in a jeep three minutes later. This is for the thousandth show, clip laden as you'd hope, and while the big launch detail of giving away a thousand cameras seems underwhelming they soon drown us in celebrities, chiefly Baywatch's Alexandra Paul, for whom they set up a big embarrassing surprise that doesn't quite work as intended, and Jason Simmons. Gillian Taylforth, doing something notably phallic, and Julia 'tell me it's the mid-90s without telling me it's the mid-90s' Carling (who was wrongly reported as the show's new host that weekend) get into a ball pool, Richard Orford and Dannii Minogue are at someone's house taking Frank Bruno and Gabrielle with them, East 17 play live and Bob Geldof, keeping his shades on, has come to survey what wreckage hath been brought in his name.
July 26th
1973: Blue Peter Flies The World travels to Iceland on the journey to the Arctic. John, Pete and Val in their swimming cossies is unexpected. John being attacked by huge skuas, somehow less so.
1988: separated by four years they may be but in the first of two straight very off-brand seeming episodes of Rainbow some disturbing cross-Children's ITV synergy goes on as Zippy develops a crush on Debbie Shore.
July 27th
1988: Kellyvision spends a day at ITN both in the office and on location. The director chooses to introduce the kids to the Iranian embassy siege, and while there's no filming going on as the story emerges as with all programmes going behind the scenes of a TV news organisation a big story breaks while they're there, the King's Cross fire, which reporter Anne Leuchars admits almost missing as she was in a wine bar.
July 28th
1973: series seven of Sez Les - Dawson made eleven in all - was the only one on which Roy Barraclough was the only other regular cast member (though not as Cissie in this episode) and it shows given the 38 minutes are liberally interspersed with guest Olivia Newton-John, the Syd Lawrence Orchestra, the Irving Davies Dancers and a very long physical comedy sketch with straight man Eli Woods, who you probably only know from that one Roy Castle sketch. Les does do the candle routine about a decade and a half before its more famous Blankety Blank outing and introduces what seems like it might be the debut of Cosmo Smallpiece, Les' set-up framing the character as exactly what we now know as an incel.
1975: before there was Cluedo there was Whodunnit?, a murder mystery celebrity panel series fronted by Jon Pertwee. Here Richard O'Sullivan and Paula Wilcox are among those trying to work out who offed a singer of a band with Robert Lindsay on drums.
1989: as the nearest weekend to LWT's 21st birthday, the party started under the weekend-long banner of 21 Live, Gloria Hunniford linking a variety of guests from Frost to Carolgees alongside Joanna Kay trying to launch some kind of competition. Wonder at an On The Buses reunion! See Cilla Black iron! Watch Danny Baker burst out of a painting of himself!
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