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

From the house of @whydontyoutube

November 4th

1972: some second series Generation Game? Gladly. Bruce suggests viewers send in their own game ideas and pronounces Michael Heseltine's surname "Hazeltine", there's a Guy Fawkes spin on the traditional celebrities in disguise opener which one team thinks Laurence Olivier would obviously take part in, a Ronnie Hazlehurst namecheck gets knowing crew laughs, the sound of wellies being dropped is apparently very recognisable and the final game involves Mick McManus.

1982: on Channel 4’s third night, Max Boyce Meets The Dallas Cowboys. Please, no wagers.

November 5th

1972: the cast of Till Death Us Do Part go surprisingly meta at the Royal Variety Performance. Contains Till Death Us Do Part language.

1977: ""I would love to see a television cameraman"? You live dangerously!" This Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, the oldest one still existing in full, is most famous for the bit where Noel goes on a wander and finds It Ain't Half Hot Mum in a dress rehearsal, but a show that begins with Noel hijacking continuity cannot be a bad thing, despite the musical guests being the Wurzels with their Guy Fawkes song and the Thurrock Drum and Trumpet Corps. Noel has been gifted all the Paddingtons before being presented with an even larger selection of Trolls, John Craven meets BBC Lebanon reporter Chris Drake because nothing changes, while fresh from his introduction to skateboarding Keith is on a wet Blackpool beach with coal miners, which seems misplaced, a massive stick of rock and 25% of Showaddywaddy.

1982: Watch It! packs up for the weekend before LWT's takeover and, pausing only to mention there's something new over on that upstart channel, onto the 6 O'Clock Show, where Michael Aspel casts shade on Countdown before his reporters set fire to the Southwark Council bonfire.

1985: Good Morning Britain was replacing its sofa so gave the original to a competition winning family with a huge and unruly Alsatian. At the other end of that day, the BBC Nine O'Clock News gets off to a literal shaky start.

1999: stop all the darts, cut off the trampoline, prevent the News Bunny from squeaking with a juicy carrot. L!VE TV closed down, here taken from the Birmingham opt-out - did you know there was even such a thing? - after four and a half years. Of course it didn't go quietly, but note that it isn't even live.

November 6th

1971: Aquarius is invited to the Newscaster Of The Year Awards, thrown by Monty Python to promote their Big Red Book. Barry Cryer MCs, everyone fixates on Jilly Cooper's breasts and, who'd have thought, Reginald Bosanquet went to a piss-up.

1981: Points Of View celebrated its twentieth anniversary (more than a month late) with the extended Points Review. Much of what Barry Took - who makes a point of praising Griff Rhys-Jones' pisstake - and, briefly, Robert Robinson discuss rings down the years, though not the bit where Took calls the ongoing Triangle "an absolute winner", and it's strange that Took emphasises the unpopularity of the Apollo missions given there'd be live coverage of a shuttle launch on BBC1 the following week. Following that, the Nine O'Clock News graphics and volume control get stuck, but so little has happened that a photocall of Miss World contestants makes the bulletin. The And Finally is about a girl in Worcestershire who had been sneezing for ten months, unaware that she still had 22 to go.

1982: Abba make their final in-person British TV appearance on the Late Late Breakfast Show, where they deny they're splitting. Their penultimate appearance, or at least Agnetha and Benny's, was on Saturday Superstore that morning, where Benny gets to show off his colours.

1986: Late Night Line-Up returned to BBC2 for a week for the TV50 commemorations with the original presenters. As part of it Ned Sherrin, Ian Hislop and Ian Hislop's huge glasses discussed the current standing of satire with Joan Bakewell.

1992: Cher appears on Terry Wogan's Friday Night and forms a double act, if one that needs some sharpening over time, with Les Dawson.

1997: Graham Norton famously won a British Comedy Award that year for his stand-in work on Not The Jack Docherty Show in the same category as Jack Docherty had been nominated, though it should be noted that the gong was Top Television Comedy Newcomer and Absolutely started in 1989. Norton's spell ends with a series of hilarious out-takes and an eagerly anticipated appearance by Vanilla, of No Way No Way infamy.

November 7th

1970: "It's so pathetic, and so childish, and so pointless, and we'll be right back!" David Frost was busy interviewing Jerry Rubin, leader of countercultural pranksters the Yippies, on The Frost Programme (video taken by a member as the actual broadcast has been copyright struck down) when the rest of the group did the only thing they're remembered for and invaded the set, former Oz co-editor and future publishing magnate Felix Dennis becoming the first person to use the word "cunt" on TV in the process much to Frost's comically utter dismissiveness.

1983: BBC Schools' Zig Zag keeps in the lawful way with a visit to police training college before halfway through handing over to Shaw Taylor, introduced as host of Junior Police 5 on the other side, for a historical perspective. He even gets to do some pro-am acting later.

November 8th

1975: Demis Roussos, in many ways the Greek Derek Fowlds, duets with Basil Brush.

1976: well, what was David supposed to tell the Panorama audience?

1991: the first of three incidences within a month of Nirvana surprising a production team, as their The Word appearance starts with a personal entreaty from Kurt that led to the programme having to go off the air before Smells Like Teen Spirit had ended, though the whole thing was archived. The rest of the show was busy enough with Rob Newman, David Baddiel and Jean-Paul Gaultier on the couch, Burt Reynolds via dubious satellite, Katie Puckrick in a bed with Jeff Koons and Cicciolina (one with their top off - no, the other one), John Waters and Laura Dern on tape, and Al Murray doing his original act of weaponry noises.

1993: Kim Wilde sits in for a week on The Big Breakfast, not someone you'd associate with the thrust and wiles of having to present two hours of fast moving morning edutainment so you suspect ulterior motives on the production team's part, born out when she and Chris Evans became an item as a direct result and dated for a few weeks. The presenting side of it could have started better, as in she could have directed her very first link to the right camera; later on Wilde is blindfolded to eat some bacon sandwiches and has Mormonism explained to her while Evans spites both the gym owner who leaked Diana pictures and the idea of having to read HTV West schedules. The editing on this is very piecemeal, so we don't get to see what Chris insists on trailing in a Dave Nice-recalling way as "Victor Meldrew in the bathroom", which if you listen closely he practically admits is pre-recorded, or why "Sheila Ferguson just pinned me down outside".

1995: Funny For Money, a fascinating BBC2 one-off, presumably an on-air pilot that didn't take, in which Bob Monkhouse talks to Ben Elton about the technique and craft of comedy.

November 9th

1971: Something For The Children, a post-watershed BBC1 documentary about the growth of the children's market, specifically the toy industry and its merchandising relationship to what youthful entertainment kids watch, as seen by Biddy Baxter, Sylvia Anderson, Trumptonshire's Gordon Murray and, filming effects and building models on location, Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin.

1979: Friday Night Saturday Morning plays host to the famous debate over Monty Python's Life Of Brian, with John Cleese and Michael Palin against Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark. Cleese later remarked on how the opposing pair's dismissive attitude meant there was "absolutely no attempt at a proper discussion", which in light of his recent persona seems interesting wording. Notice how, quite apart from being refereed by Tim Rice, it takes up the first 52 minutes in all and still threatens to keep going. Paul Jones' blues band and Norris McWhirter come in after the fact.

1981: Janet in her maid outfit and Adrian find themselves having to restart Jigsaw for fear of giving away the week's secret word too quickly, but the whole thing just confuses the O-Men into early arrival anyway. Jigg nominates a pig of the week, Noseybonk is on a rollercoaster and forgotten Jigsaw third wheel Tommy Boyd has to be put down for the quality of his jokes. Sylvester McCoy is appearing in Can't Pay Won't Pay.

1988: Palace Hill was a spin-off from a recurring sketch on Your Mother Wouldn't Like It which put Royal Family members in a warped Grange Hill setting. Fleshing out to full length required a sizeable intake from that magical nexus of dreams, the Central Junior Television Workshop, including Mark Dexter and, most famously, Alison Hammond as an American computer expert.

November 10th

1983: Channel 4 inherit the World Disco Dancing Championships, broadcasting it live as producer Mike Mansfield tells the dancers in a very obviously pre-recorded and thus extremely meta moment at the start. That's swiftly followed by a precognition event as they're introduced to their opening group routine choreographer Bruno Tonioli, with Arlene Phillips on the heavily overbooked judging panel alongside many others Tony Blackburn, who we're sure gets boos, and - you wot? - Steve Walsh. The actual extravaganza is presented by Leee John, who often seems to be hoping the syllables hang together correctly but has at least brought the rest of Imagination with him for part of the entertainment. A special award goes to the entrant "most helpful to his fellow competitors", the Channel Islands and Isle of Man get their own entrants and the winner takes home a brand new Escort XR3i. For added fun, if you thought some mainland Channel 4 adverts were on the cheap side while the Equity row dragged on, you should see those from Northern Ireland.

1996: three years before taking over and reshaping The Daily Show Jon Stewart fronted Where's Elvis This Week?, a BBC2 transatlantic satirical panel show filmed in New York. The series' final panel comprises Felix Dexter, Joe Queenan, Norm Macdonald and Mirror columnist Lowri Turner, who in the week of the Beatles Anthology release had just claimed she wished Mark Chapman had acted earlier just to save us from the Free As A Bird demo. Not even Now And Then led to that.

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