The Why Don't YouTube? Catchup - April 29th-May 5th 2024

From the house of @whydontyoutube

April 29th

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: can you imagine a world where all of news and culture is interconnected into your home? Yes, and we also know where it's all gone wrong, which Tomorrow's World didn't see coming for all their form responses from the White House; we'd gladly post any and all episodes of In Bed With Medinner, but as well as Graham Taylor content this is especially notable for featuring Ulrika Jonsson as comedy straight woman before Shooting Stars.

20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Den's estranged wife Chrissie Watts arrives in Walford. Remember that, it will become important in the fulness of time; The All Star Comedy Show is pretty much what it says - Reeves and Mortimer (who produced it), Coogan, Corbett, Richard Wilson, Lucas and Walliams, Deayton, Kensit, Fiona Allen, Tim Healy, Ronni Ancona, Meera Syal and so forth.

ALSO... in one of those sentences that makes no more logical sense despite the evidence, however it's worded or added to, Bill Hicks is interviewed by Judi Spiers on Pebble Mill today in 1992.

April 30th

60 YEARS AGO TODAY: no clip but a bit of TV history in and of itself as Between The Lines, a BBC Scotland satirical sketch show featuring a young Tom Conti, is what Mary Whitehouse was referring to in her famous quote "I watched a TV show at 6.35pm last Thursday and it was the dirtiest programme that I have seen for a very long time" on launching her Clean Up TV campaign.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Leonard Rossiter and his luxurious tache talks to Sir Alastair Burnet on his interview show Talking Personally.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: the last in the series of What's Up Doc? and the wolves are about to follow almost all the other characters out the door. But hey, East 17 and EYC are there! By the way, Parallel 9 had an appearance by Norman Wisdom; Ireland win their third Eurovision Song Contest in a row, but the main takeaway from the night is the interval act, from 2:01:20. Even Terry is impressed, in his own way.

20 YEARS AGO TODAY: having just been subject to attempted strangulation by Janine, Laura Beale is too quick to answer the door to Ian; Des Lynam takes the Have I Got News For You chair but even his famed smoothness can't help the relationship between Paul Merton and Robert Kilroy-Silk; Bill Bailey discusses the problems with swimming with dolphins and demonstrates a theremin to Jonathan Ross.

ALSO... Gore Vidal explores the history of the American presidency for Without Walls in 1996.

May 1st

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: ditzy family sitcom And Mother Makes Three ended a year earlier with Wendy Craig's single mother lead character getting married to a single father, which led to successor And Mother Makes Five.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Children's BBC action game show Incredible Games (part two; three) ends its first series, and David Walliams' tenure as custodian of the lift with a look later ripped off for Scratchy & Co, with a celebrity special. Warning: contains Rivron; Ayrton Senna is killed at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola. The BBC highlights programme was necessarily replaced, continuity not wanting to spoil who died. Three days later BBC Sport put together a tribute programme.

20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Love On A Saturday Night, LWT's head injury replacement for Blind Date, lasted ten shows despite, or perhaps because of, including celebrity datees like Mark Owen.

May 2nd

60 YEARS AGO TODAY: the first edition of Horizon profiles architect and theorist Buckminster Fuller.

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: In Vision, a last thing at BBC2 night poking round the back of television, demonstrates the effort and operation involved in televising football both at the ground and in the studio with Jimmy Hill.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Daley Thompson gives Dame Edna Everage a full workout routine in his Channel 4 keep fit series Bodyshop; with its quarter-final ending early, the world snooker championship breaks glass for emergency John Virgo impressions.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Andi Peters heads to the set of Lois & Clark but isn't allowed near the two leads. Back in the Children's BBC studio Zoe Ball and Chris Jarvis exhibit decreasing levels of interest in Ratz; another year of the Children's Royal Variety Performance, with a surfeit of Joseph-era Darren Day, lots of medleys, Wayne Dobson doing one of David Copperfield's big tricks before he did, Gavin Campbell, Mickey Hutton and inevitable Blobby.

20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Historyonics is a concept you'll love - a Sunday early evening romp-like retelling of history - the Roman Invasion this week - retold by Nick Knowles, who also wrote it, like an own-brand Horrible Histories.

May 3rd

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: a Meldrew Point equivalent for Clive Dunn would have been self-defeating, he specialised in playing men much older than himself. Case in point, My Old Man, in which 53 year old Dunn is an irascible retiree living with his daughter.

ALSO... Sandi Toksvig's birthday, so let's watch the inaugural No. 73 from January 1982 and try to work out what accent she thinks she's doing, not to mention what the original theme is playing at.

May 4th

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: the FA Cup final's traditional pre-match community singing is led by a man who gets booed onto the pitch. However, he is Bruce Forsyth, so within seconds he has won them over; the Third Doctor embarks on his final mission, Planet Of The Spiders, which is about a planet with spiders.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: technology magazine The Net, along with the best games for under-5s, computerised choreography and free software, talks to Bill Gates about the future.

ALSO... Wire TV was one of Britain's few successful bespoke cable channels before the satellite revolution really took off. Lasting for three years, it began today in 1992 trailing among others "I can't believe this - women boxers!"

May 5th

60 YEARS AGO TODAY: "World In Action enters the struggling, changing world of the seven year old." And so begins Seven Up!, and by eventual extension maybe television's greatest ever documentary series.

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Terry Gilliam takes over Bob Godfrey's Do-It Yourself Film Animation Show to demonstrate his Python techniques.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Ear-Say talks at length and in largely darkness, presumably trying to channel Face To Face, to Duran Duran's John Taylor, who complains Boy George only gets nice things written about him; Eurovision goes to Luxembourg, the UK gets booed and a waspish Wogan is less than a minute in before he mentions getting drunk.

Like what we do? Why not support us? https://ko-fi.com/whydontyoutube