The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - March 11th-17th 2024
From the house of @whydontyoutube
March 11th
1981: A Song For Europe is barely controlled chaos - set changes happen on camera, Liquid Gold lose, Peter Dickson is the voice of his home town Belfast, badinage is engaged in with Ray Moore and Tel loses his way during the results before introducing the winners' encore with the wrong title.
1986: CITV magazine show Splash brings in Michael Groth as stand-in presenter to link items on fashion, environment and some kind of odd Holmes/Bill crossover featuring Rory McGrath, in between which co-presenter Victoria Studd is kidnapped.
1989: two hours of Going Live! featuring Prefab Sprout, Fuzzbox sitting on a grounded Red Arrow, Dr Alan Maryon Davies, the Singing Corner for Comic Relief, and a Young Entertainer Of The Year heat.
1993: Daniel Craig’s first TV role is in Drop The Dead Donkey, also featuring comparative telly veteran Patsy Palmer as part of his gang.
March 12th
1986: Rik Mayall in a chat show context is always a fascinating thing, here taking a break from filming Mr Jolly Lives Next Door to plug Living Doll on Wogan.
1992: Lauren Bacall is the guest on The Full Wax, but Ruby is more interested in trying to get Joanna Lumley's attention. It was this sketch that convinced Jennifer Saunders that she'd found her Patsy.
1993: it’s Comic Relief day, which apparently means a Hangar 17 special, wherein Shane Richie and Anthea Turner help out in a Whose Line-style improv game, Roy Castle's clipboard is ruined, Gaz Top and Neil Buchanan make what we think was their only CBBC appearance with the latter meeting Tony Hart, Grotbags is teamed with Darren Day and Mark Billingham as half of the Tracy Brothers in a talent contest, and then at/near the end everybody involved and even more gathering for a song. Krishnan Guru-Murthy Sings!
Of the evening itself the bit everyone remembers is the mass all-star mimealong to Bohemian Rhapsody. Or at least it would have been had it not premiered on the Big Breakfast three days earlier, Chris Evans possibly being the first person to call it "Bo Rap". Something that would undoubtedly be a bigger deal now because you know how these things are is Mr Bean on Blind Date, where Barbara Durkin, who had been in Boon and the film Wish You Were Here and would be the Linton Travel Tavern manager in I'm Alan Partridge, picks Bean over Alan Cumming and Hollyoaks and Emmerdale's Paul Opacic. A special interactive episode of Casualty, though we're not sure the voting procedure would pass post-premium rate scandal compliance, features... well, you'll have to see what the audience vote for. Lenny Henry hands over to Smashie & Nicey for a bit, Harry Enfield afterwards casting quite some shade on Terry Christian who had had a pop at him a few weeks earlier and later realising he just swore before the watershed, and then the pair having to deal with an actual member of the public from Woolworths. The oft referred to Chris Evans is marshalling a gunge tank, which seems beneath him.
March 13th
1985: Kenny Everett takes over Q.E.D. to investigate and showcase special effects in general and Quantel in particular.
1993: one of those heavily promoted Noel's House Party Gotchas goes to Eddie Large, key to which is Rebecca Front. Actually this episode is probably most famous for surprising Chris Evans on NTV, partially with a clip from TV Mayhem, coming less than six months after the Big Breakfast began which is how big that show was immediately - and no, *that* story is an urban myth partly, we suspect, spurred on by a comment Noel makes here but also as we'll find in the near future by something Evans was responsible for circulating himself.
1996: the way we did things when we surfed on the information superhighway as the Mirror's technology correspondent demonstrates the newspapers that are online already on Sky News, until Netscape Navigator reaches its limit.
March 14th
1981: Swap Shop rebranded as AM-UK, previewing what regular breakfast TV might be like, with an entirely new set, John Craven providing hourly news bulletins, Wendy Craig and Sad Cafe in other regional studios and a mariachi band at the natural home of Mexican culture, the Ideal Home Exhibition. Obviously this was partly an excuse for Noel to go on one of his patented TV Centre walkabout, here going behind the scenes of Grandstand VT.
1987: most of Saturday Live, with Ben Elton in full sparkly suit form, Fry and Laurie on hand, Chris Barrie in the space of one live hour performing in both Parliament Square and the studio, performances from Kit Hollerbach and fire eater Randolf The Remarkable, and on the music side the Bhundu Boys and Gary Moore. Missing from the start of this but referenced later are Erasure, with technical difficulties which someone in the comments of this video who worked on the show explains as the dry ice cutting out Vince Clarke's power supply and the director having to cut to the emergency backup rehearsal performance for a while.
2003: very late into the Comic Relief evening, the Blankety Blank spoof catching a whole host of just below the prime-time radar comedy acting talent some of whom wouldn't even remain at that level by the end of the year and revealing Peter Serafinowicz's uncanny Terry Wogan impression.
March 15th
1979: TV Eye previews the satellite revolution to come, comparing what we might get with what's going on in America, featuring an - obviously - satellite interview with a cigar touting Ted Turner on the rise of Superstation (now TBS) and since disgraced faith healer Jim Bakker, televangelists being to ‘this might come from the US into British homes post-deregulation’ what stripping game shows were to ‘this might come from Europe into British homes post-deregulation’.
1991: if we went right through every significant Comic Relief moment we'd be here all day so let's restrict ourselves to Fry and Laurie, sans framed photo of Bob Holness.
March 16th
1983: narrated by the comforting tones of Anthony Clare, Q.E.D. looks at the effects of freak weather by sending John Lees, a stuntman who worked on Aliens and Bond and Superman films (until his career was ended by an accident on the set of Superman IV) and here credited as the 'Q.E.D. Test Man', into an industrial wind tunnel, across the opening sluices of a reservoir and travels to Germany to have high voltage lightning bolts hit his car.
1986: given the date, or near enough, Gloria Hunniford hosted a commemoration of Irishness under the title of Celebrating St Patrick, in which her guests included Frank Carson, Dana and, in one hell of a booking, George Cunningham of Alright On The Night fast talking fame.
1990: the cast of On The Buses appear on Wogan to plug their upcoming revival series. No, you didn't miss or forget something, it was being developed by Scottish until it wasn't. Maybe this was the cause, as Bob Grant really wants to promote his panto and Reg Varney tells the most interminable pointless anecdote possible.
1990: What The Papers Say's move from ITV to BBC2 inspires a retrospective on its first 34 years, featuring a beardy Clive James, a young Anne Robinson, George Melly on the music press and proof Richard Ingrams was once middle aged.
1990: an evidently busy day ends with The Mission's Wayne Hussey appearing on The James Whale Radio Show. Briefly.
1991: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. The final series of The Little & Large Show begins with a New Kids On The Block parody and ends with a Grease routine which ends with Syd in a bikini because of course it would.
March 17th
1981: Looks Familiar, Denis Norden's nostalgic anecdote swapping opportunity disguised in a flimsy quiz wrapping, welcomes Bob Monkhouse, journalist and film historian Peter Noble and a veiled, single glove sporting and most importantly nearly 82 year old Gloria Swanson.
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