The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - March 4th-10th 2024

From the house of @whydontyoutube

March 4th

1978: Johnny Nash throws himself willingly into the Tiswas spirit, joke telling with Frank Carson, dying fly and all. Johnny Briggs turns up at the end too.

1986: No Limits' Jenny Powell is confused by Bernard Matthews.

1993: Marvel: "Avengers Infinity War is the most ambitious crossover event in history."Channel Television: Gus Honeybun on Puffin's Pla(i)ce.

1995: Annabel Giles becomes the only person to spot the Noel's House Party Gotcha hidden camera, having already become suspicious about the driver's activities and then spotted a passing communications van that had been used on something she'd just worked on.

March 5th

1979: good news: Derek Griffiths on Play School. Better news: he's brought his typewriter with him! Meanwhile Chloe Ashcroft is busy making noises and percussionist James Blades tells the story.

1988: the second series of Bob Says Opportunity Knocks begins with a bang as we're introduced to "snooker champ from Billericay" and future Tabloid Love Rat (TM) Darren Day doing impressions. For a chaser there's also later acclaimed musical comedian Boothby Graffoe doing what we recall as Les Bubb's act with sellotape round the face - a belated apology for not warning us about not doing it at home appeared after the following week's show.

1993: Terry Wogan's Friday Night was his promised post-7pm show bolthole but only lasted five months. The final show began Miriam Margolyes' reign of Friday chat terror - of course there's an anecdote about underwear removal in a public space - alongside Ruby Wax, Brian Glover, Diana Ross (who sadly doesn't join in the debate) and irregular sidekick Frank Skinner, sporting an Elvis tie, meeting Robin Williams.

March 6th

1982: this might be the greatest moment in Michael Parkinson's career and he had to do little but watch Roy Castle, Buddy Rich, Kenny Everett and another guest who enters halfway through to everyone but Parky's surprise. Watch especially from 7 minutes on. There was a follow-up too.

1986: Kay Burley paid her news reporting dues at the Uncle Joe's Mint Balls factory on behalf of Good Morning Britain. Studio guest Ann Leslie deflects Nick Owen's attempted lower division football banter, Anne Diamond exposes the early days of mobile communications privacy and Owen casually drops in "Martina Navratilova was stopped at customs with a gun" (it was at San Francisco airport and she claimed not to know it was there)

1987: it's a shame that "greatest crossover event" meme died long ago, apart from when we used it up there for effect, because it'd be perfect for Blankety Blank's Allo Allo special. Guy Siner's hippo sweater is worth it alone.

1992: your recommended dose of Bob Greaves in Granada's What's On. Among many and varied items appear Rodney Bewes, Henry Normal, Martin Offiah, Pinhead from Hellraiser, Dave Spikey, Mike Shaft, Eithne Brown, the resident DJ from Wigan Casino and Michele Stephens (you know, Danny Baker's Radio 5 Morning Edition successor. No?)

1993: the penultimate Noel's House Party of the series... didn't happen. A telephoned hoax bomb threat had Television Centre cleared and a standby Noel's Christmas Presents was aired instead, followed by Noel in the broom cupboard/continuity suite to fill the remaining five minutes of the hour. Oddly this went unremarked upon in any of that week's press as far as we could find, although the Mirror that week ran an exclusive that the show was moving to LWT for £1m. Spoiler: this did not happen.

1993: Christopher Walken reads The Three Little Pigs for Saturday Zoo.

March 7th

1981: Swap Shop escapes the studio and while Keith and Maggie are in the foyer Noel wanders over to the next studio and finds Little and Large dressed as scouts. Hopefully not for filming reasons.

1982: once Martyn Lewis is done with the news as part of Weekend World and the credits go full Nantucket Sleighride, because just the advert itself wasn't enough IPC's circulation director appeared in vision to outline the full campaign for Options magazine, as if someone accidentally cued up the video intended for wholesalers.

1987: the highlight of Saturday Live is Fry & Laurie's Piano Masterclass, with a TV debutant in the 'backing band' and the background awareness that Stephen is performing under hypnosis to combat his fear when faced with the sketch's ending. As for the rest of the programme, taken from the slightly cut down Saturday Almost Live repeats that autumn, Ben Elton seems to be even faster and more intense than usual, guest Lenny Henry brings Joshua Yahlog's Singing Detective impression and Deakus with him, stand-up comes from Jenny Lecoat and Mike Macdonald, music from Terence Trent D'Arby, Level 42 and someone called Gary Howard.

2003: maybe there were loads of incredible late period Top Of The Pops performances that nobody talks about because nobody was watching the programme then? Well, no there weren't, but there was Royksopp taking to the stationary studio-bound open road in their accessory laden Pontiac.

March 8th

1970: such was the power of LWT that David Frost managed to get his name on top of the bill even when they were broadcasting the Baftas.

1981: for 21 years Terry Wogan held the record for the longest golf putt ever televised, by means of Pro-Celebrity Golf.

1982: Not The Nine O'Clock News ends, though its influence kinda lingers. Surprisingly one of the series' best remembered sketches, and maybe the one with the most afterlife, was in this final episode, The Two Ninnies written in retaliation after Ronnie Barker had claimed the show had gone too far and John Lloyd thought it was rich coming from a show that so relied on double entrende. Barker didn't take it well and supposedly sent John Lloyd a letter describing it as "excrement". Peter Brewis, who wrote the song, ended up doing the same job for the Ronnies. Also, “bracken up me anus” is the greatest sentence in the language,

1986: "Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie on Wide Awake Club" is a statement full of promise enough before you see the pair joining in the marzipan cooking make, admiring an otter and backing the world hackysack champion with a bowed cage.

March 9th

1997: the last days of The Clive James Show on ITV as he's basically being given all but title equal star billing with Margarita Pracatan. The line-up doesn't give him much time to extemporise either, being packed out with Tom Cruise via satellite from Paris, the Spice Girls on a far too small sofa, Lily Savage, Rory McGrath and a revival of The Japanese Game Show Endurance.

March 10th

1973: three weeks earlier Kenneth Williams had become embroiled in a row with Michael Parkinson about the conduct of the trade unions. This became such a hot potato that Williams asked if he could have a better platform to make his case, leading to Parkinson making his programme into a kind of Question Time offshoot with audience contributions. The sole guest other than Williams was Jimmy Reid, the Clyde shipbuilders' shop steward who in the midst of a raft of nationwide industrial action staged a successful "work-in" against plans to leverage a closure of the shipyard, which gave him a level of national notoriety and an oratory style that matched Williams' theatricality.

1980: BBC Schools series Communicate! features comedy writing, including rehearsal and production footage of first series Not The Nine, radio Hitch-Hiker's Guide and Blankety Blank.

1989: a compilation of new sketches and appearances from Comic Relief 2, including a snippet of the failed Paul Daniels milk trick and "the Belgians!" Sadly a pall was cast over the evening by the death of Loadsamoney.

1992: The Budget and horse racing moves Children's BBC and Andi has a little resultant local difficulty. "They're recording this!”

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