The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - June 3rd-9th 2024
From the house of @whydontyoutube
June 3rd
1982: it's unclear how much they say they had in it, but Echo & the Bunnymen are joined by a special friend on Top Of The Pops.
1983: "Princess Carrie Fisher", as Sue Cook calls her, reveals how to act against bluescreen to Nationwide.
1988: The actual studio tape of The Last Resort With Jonathan Ross, with Tracey Ullman, Sabrina, Marenghi-esque horror writer Shaun Hutson and Danny Wilson. Warning: contains Rivron.
1992: Dead At Thirty was the first work outside Enfield-dom by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson, an entry level awkward flatshare sitcom pilot starring Mark Williams, Paterson Joseph and Jesse Birdsall. A whole series was written but the station wasn't interested.
1993: the best remembered and most loved of the Rik Mayall Presents series, Dancing Queen is the one with Rik as the Hooray Henry bridegroom being spiked at his stag night by Nathaniel Parker and Martin Clunes, finding himself on a train with a one way ticket to Scarborough sans trousers and with stripper Helena Bonham Carter accompanying him. A year later Clunes directed and starred in Staggered, a film in which a bridegroom who has the same first name as Mayall's character is spiked on his stag do and wakes up underdressed and miles from his wedding...
June 4th
1968: Johnny Ball: Origins, the earliest surviving colour Play School, out and about at Marlow Lock with Ball joined by Marla Landi, an Italian actress who had been in Hammer horrors a few years earlier.
1982: There's Nothing To Worry About! was a Granada sketch show intended as an answer to the deceased Not The Nine O'Clock News, but that it was not just only shown in one region but is less remembered than its reboot tells you how well that went down. The cast were two-thirds drawn from the celebrated Cambridge Footlights Revue - Fry, Laurie, Thompson and Paul Shearer - whose Cellar Tapes had gone out on BBC2 only two weeks earlier, plus Siobhan Redmond and, recommended by Rik Mayall who had been approached but turned it down, Ben Elton. The cast have joint writing credits so they only have themselves to blame, sharpening up by the time it was recommissioned as Alfresco.
1993: part of already endangered Holbeck Hall in Scarborough chooses its moment to collapse over a cliff live on Calendar. Richard Whiteley's face when he thinks he's finished makes it.
1993: Points Of View starts with someone criticising the theme music and continues in much the same tone with upset dog owners, royalists (at Rustie Lee), Kathy Kirby fans, naval base fans, coriander sceptics and Delia conspiracists.
1993: you don't need us to tell you the circumstances under which Paul Merton has ended up being paired with saturated white fat product on Have I Got News For You. What you may not remember is how Merton plays the partnership throughout, his T-shirt bring a series-long running joke to a climax or how the cards are stacked against him even greater in the missing words round. Or, actually, the official apology to Michael Winner, by unexpected way of Calley from Grange Hill.
June 5th
1973: Nationwide features David Bowie on what would turn out to be the final Ziggy Stardust tour, filmed at Bournemouth Winter Gardens on 25th May. Bernard Falk would openly rather be somewhere else.
1982: Cannon & Ball start meta with a gag based around a dog that was there in rehearsals and descends into heavy pathos, Bobby is given a substandard whip by Frankie Laine, and the lengthy centrepiece is an Yukon sketch featuring early 1980s sketch comedy's favourite instant punchline, Suzanne Danielle in a short skirt, but moreover a spectacular corpsing interlude and some remarkable handcuffed physical comedy, the last of which seems to have caused a minor costume trauma.
1993: a brave booking and bizarre set-up for a Saturday morning as Gimme 5 welcomes on a reticent, Richey inclusive Manic Street Preachers (start of the interview), performing From Despair To Where in front of Nobby The Sheep bopping along having been introduced to their own digitised heads.
June 6th
1980: the final Magpie (part two), in between tablecloth removal games, traced a cultural history of its twelve year run, something which involves Mick Robertson dressing as a punk.
1983: Janet Ellis shows Blue Peter viewers how to make their own Blake's 7 style bracelet, then Sarah Greene gets cut off before the full monstrosity of what she's introducing can be revealed.
1992: "You can't say that, James" "Yes I can, I just have!" Saint & Greavsie were just about still a thing, presenting coverage of an England vs Italy schoolboys international at Wembley as their last show from the UK. As such they're demob happy, making a big thing about losing a bet with Ladbrokes that television would never clear even in these days when betting advertising is legal. Greavsie for his part wants to see Elton Welsby thrown off a crane, avers that he won't be watching the new Premier League as he doesn't have a Sky dish (Saint: "we can get a job with Alan Sugar") and in attempting to come up with new songs about referees checks what language he can use and then decides "poof" is much more acceptable. If all that isn't enough we get a clip of the video for You Are The Number One, ITV's football theme for years to come.
June 7th
1969: As part of authored documentary series One Pair Of Eyes, Marty Feldman talks to comedy figures including Peter Sellers, Eric Morecambe, Dudley Moore, Johnny Speight, Denis Norden and Barry Took about the creative process.
1971: Blue Peter digs for future victory. Or semi-defeat, maybe, as it buries its time capsule. The box was exhumed and opened on the first show of the new millennium, finding most of the contents were waterlogged and some had been secretly rewrapped when the capsule was moved during redevelopment work.
1983: remember when Ricky Gervais became famous and it was found he'd been in a New Romantic duo? Well, introduced by a 17 year old Lisa Stansfield and looking like the Blitz Club archetype, Seona Dancing make their TV debut on Razzmatazz.
1986: Pamela Stephenson spent most of the post-Not pre-SNL mid-80s attempting to cultivate a "wild"/"unpredictable" reputation. This mostly resulted in performative overfamiliarity, but also laying unexpected waste to Bob Monkhouse's set.
1990: Mark Goodier turns fearless football journalist on Top Of The Pops’ behalf.
June 9th
1977: Neil Innes says he wrote his Silver Jubilee tribute on a bet; regardless it was played straight on Top Of The Pops and pretty much never heard again. Stay tuned for Tony Blackburn introducing that standout genre of the year, A Bit Of That Sort Of Rock.
1983: the Cricket World Cup begins, with that famous and evocative BBC theme tune.
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