The Why Don't YouTube? Archive - October 14th-20th 2024

From the house of @whydontyoutube

October 14th

1976: Blue Peter demonstrates a new kind of cordless telephone by getting Peter Purves wet because Lesley Judd has the umbrella.

1980: the annual report from the Motor Show at the Birmingham NEC is enlivened by Jan Leeming finding an interested spectator lurking by the Saabs.

1980: strap in, it's the UK Disco Dancing Championships! (part two; part three) Our kingdom for a pristine white jacket with a regional logo on the back.

1986: No Limits goes to Winchester where we discover Jenny Powell's arthropodean kryptonite.

1993: Blue Peter celebrated its 35th anniversary with a whole group of former presenters, all of whom are required to pretend to row a dragon boat to introduce an Anthea Turner film in which she does so for real. Guess which suit Peter Duncan wore, maybe to distract from the revelation that his entire tenure on the programme could be cut down to the reveal of his arsecheeks. On more amenable terms Jemma Cooke, Tina Heath's daughter, makes her TV debut outside the womb.

October 15th

1980: Graham Chapman in his shellsuit comes clean - "alcoholism was beginning to affect my work" gets a laugh! - in the name of promoting A Liar's Autobiography on Parkinson, alongside Michael Bentine.

1983: after being "discovered" by Saturday Superstore attempting to enter their Search For A Star competition despite being comfortably below the minimum age of entry, Natalie Casey - the Hollyoaks/Two Pints one, yes - reached number 72 as a three year old with her rendition of Chick Chick Chicken. She returned to the show in its wake and found a playfriend in Boy George for the Pop Panel - don't play King Kurt at her for god's sake - after Roy Hay had guided her to the toilets.

1983: For 4 Tonight is a real under-investigated oddity from early Channel 4. an obtuse talk show parody "inspired" by the short-lived US series Fernwood 2 Night, written by Ruby Wax and produced by Micky Dolenz, starring George Irving (Dangerfield, Holby City) as the obsequious host, and Ken Morley appears in this episode six years before Reg Holdsworth. You'd be forgiven for thinking the Copyforce advert at the end of this incomplete taping was also part of it but apparently not.

October 16th

1972: conceived as a pre-schooler British answer to Sesame Street and with animated titles and interstitials designed by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, which so impressed Thames that the franchise not only hired them for future children’s animation series but helped them found a subsidiary studio in their names three years later, Rainbow begins. As you may be aware there's no Geoffrey (instead the resident human is David Cook, who went on to write Channel 4 drama launch Walter) or George, Telltale do the songs, Zippy doesn't appear until near the end and gets absolutely no introduction, and OH CHRIST IT'S ORIGINAL BUNGLE, with John Leeson inside learning initially about shapes.

1983: with The Good Old Days coming towards its end there was room for one last visit by Sheila Steafel as her genuinely brilliant music hall ingénue character Miss Popsy Wopsy.

1987: The Great Storm, overnight winds of up to 85mph as not predicted by Michael Fish, played havoc with breakfast TV, as our playlist (now including a recently uploaded not too far off three hour compilation) lays out. A huge power failure blacked out both Lime Grove Studios, White City and Breakfast Television Centre, Camden Lock, meaning both breakfast shows had to take emergency action to get on the air. Nicholas Witchell lived closest and the Broom Cupboard/continuity suite at Television Centre was small enough to operate from a generator, while TV-am hastened to a similar box room in Thames' studios about a mile away. Things were restored in time for the One O'Clock News, with Michael Buerk giving Ian McCaskill the full Paxman, or possibly the full Chris Morris with the weatherman as Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan. McCaskill is really not helped by looking like he knows all about the weather as he's spent all night standing in it - in fact he'd been on the Radio 4 late shift and had been trapped in Broadcasting House.

1991: another of our curated playlists to mark the announcement of the results for the ITV franchise auction that brought Carlton, GMTV and co into being, related material ranging from three years prior to fourteen years after. The Late Show that evening is fun, bringing as many interested parties, including Richard Branson and his ostentatious award, together to argue it out between themselves, including introducing someone captioned as "Voice of The Listener" very late in the programme and giving her forty seconds' airtime.

October 17th

1988: a day late even though the presenters keep referring to it as "today", Blue Peter celebrated its thirtieth birthday. In fairness it's easy to lose calendar focus when you have a special message from Simon Climie. What's going on in the Noel Edmonds message?

1989: as we’ve seen What's That Noise? always climaxed with a supergroup of the show's guests covering a standard. This time they tackle Tears Of A Clown with Craig Charles doing the rap. Wait, the what?

1993: Blue Peter turned 35, or at least this is the closest Sunday to that date, and earned itself a couple of special programmes. Here's One I Made Earlier, like all BBC2 cultural documentaries of the day, is all atmospheric lighting and shots of flickering TV screens as the natural choice Helen Lederer links clips, talking heads and memories of people who appeared on the show as children, and because the BBC is strictly netural, Tony Bastable and Jenny Hanley are allowed on to give the other side's views. Meanwhile John Noakes came back from whichever sunkissed coastline he was residing on at the time for The Final Challenge, to scale the Vantage West building in Brentford that apparently by coincidence bears his and Shep's photo blown up. He goes up in a cherry picker, the workshy waster.

2000: after Byker Grove youth leader Geoff was killed in a gas explosion residents past and present gathered for his funeral. Turns out he still cannae see.

October 18th

1983: Reporting London visits "very curious" goth hangout The Batcave and asks the regulars what they think they look like. Superbly, that's Morten Harket in a self-designed outfit and hair full of Dulux at 5:36.

1989: Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman make nice with each other on Wogan to promote documentary Champions Forever, with Joanna Lumley on the facing sofa and Harry Carpenter joining in. No shame on Joanna's work here, but imagine what Tel's interactions would have been like.

2003: Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow reaches the Bogies that really lifted the game into national institution status, the visit to Mitchell Library in Glasgow, with the quietest winning shout they ever had.

October 19th

1981: Des O'Connor Tonight made a habit of giving young breakout American comedians airtime in the UK to act as their expert feed, featuring over the years David Letterman, Jay Leno, Garry Shandling and here Jerry Seinfeld.

1986: Live From The Piccadilly came after Live from Her Majesty's and before Live from the Palladium but the set-up was much the same right down to Jimmy Tarbuck hosting and lacing his monologue with now impenetrable topical jokes. If you ever want to know about "attitudes of the time", watch the way he bases a routine mocking Prince Philip's racist remarks around impressions of and jokes about Chinese and Indians. This is followed by our opening act, Lester Freamon. Yes, Clarke Peters in his West End phase doing some LE soul boy showstopping surrounded by Brian Rogers' finest. Bob Monkhouse tops the bill ahead of shiny floor stalwarts Joe Longthorne and Frank Carson and the rather more unexpected Randy Crawford.

1991: BSB Power Station graduate Chris Evans (and Gary Monaghan)'s noisy TV-am playground for kids TV Mayhem was due to run for forty weeks but was dropped after six due to their parent losing the breakfast franchise and cutting costs to suit. This was the fifth show and thus the first to go out after the results were announced. Cathy Dennis joins in and seems to be enjoying herself.

1991: Vic and Bob visit Going Live! with some walnuts. You don't need our guidance to pinpoint the moment Philip loses his cool exterior.

1995: just after the station's fortieth anniversary Children's ITV ran Simply The Best, a week long series of specials showcasing their history, with a linking device between clips and special messages involving CITV's Malcolm Jeffries visiting "ordinary family" the Goggles, including Hilda ‘Nana Moon’ Braid and the late future Holby City star Laura Sadler. The week included Jon Pertwee's final outing as Worzel Gummidge but we're alighting on the baffling animals/art/computers/information show mashup Crazy How Bad Attack, featuring Fred Dinenage as Nam Rood.

2002: Bob Monkhouse appears on Parkinson to talk about, and more notably make jokes about, his terminal prostate cancer battle.

October 20th

1986: Open To Question was a series in which an audience of schoolchildren got to grill prominent figures of the day. Between 1984 and 1992 everyone from Neil Kinnock to Enoch Powell via King Hussein of Jordan faced dozens of inquisitive teenagers. Ian Botham by comparison might have been expecting an easier ride. He really didn't get one, under the watchful eye of future political reporter turned newsreader John Nicolson in his first TV job, and his increasing flusteredness might explain a lot.

1987: an odd and cumbersome setup on Newsround where after John Craven explains Black Monday actual day presenter Helen Rollason has to look away from the camera and at her monitor to read some breaking news despite having the rest of the story on her script.

1989: two days after the heavyweight boxers episode, another reunion on Wogan with Lumley as Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe get together. Both are then briefly joined by an unidentified third party who seems to be unexpected to everyone except the director and production team given how long he remains on screen for. Anyone know the story here?

1991: three years after being brought together Alex Tatham and Sue Middleton became Blind Date's first married couple, and last we heard they were still together. Cilla's hat at the ceremony drew a lot of comment at the time but that's letting the friend of Tatham's wearing a Napoleon-style tricorn off the hook.

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