The Why Don't YouTube? Catchup - August 12th-18th 2024
From the house of @whydontyoutube
August 12th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: A Moment To Talk, a series eavesdropping on the working folk of Britain, visits the women of the Peek Frean biscuits production line in Bermondsey.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Louis Theroux investigates new millennium end times/judgement day prophets - millennialists, as they're slightly confusingly referred to - for his second Michael Moore's TV Nation report. Not great production to start the report with footage of David Koresh, who Theroux looks quite a bit like; Rory Bremner returns to Whose Line Is It Anyway? alongside Lawrence, McShane and - he was on TV a lot, wasn't he? - Slattery.
ALSO... little known Dire Straits appear on the Peter Cook-fronted ATV music show Revolver today in 1978, and you can tell nobody there knows Sultans Of Swing yet because as they start there's a group of punks trying to pogo to it.
August 13th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: The Osmonds are given a week of prime-time BBC1 specials, of which this is the second, to do their well honed variety and performance routine, interspersed with Noel Edmonds chatting and, unnecessarily, Little Jimmy.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the Los Angeles Olympics have just finished, as the preceding Pages From Ceefax make clear, which means for Breakfast Time Selina Scott is in... Southend.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: the BBC had some money then to make grand epic trailers - not even playing into the coverage, a trailer - for the Olympics like this. Even the actual titles, before Barker and Rider introduce the opening ceremony, appear to be from its cut footage. Sadly not nearly enough is retained in this of the singular experience of Barry Davies commentating on the symbolism of a ceremony.
August 14th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Big Country's turn on Play At Home, in which they spend most of the time talking about the finances and blueprint of playing big live gigs.
August 15th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: the centrepiece of BBC1's special Osmonds Week is a co-host role with Noel on Top Of The Pops (part two; three; four) Bay City Rollers - the rivals! - the Glitter Band, Cozy Powell, Cockney Rebel and Sylvia (yes, Y Viva Espana) are among those fitting in between the screams.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: BBC1 previews its autumn collection before Tomorrow's World At Large, a themed spinoff which this week puts Judith Hann under stress. Sadly we don't see the end, where her reactions are tested in a lion's cage.
August 16th
ALSO... We all deal with memories and mark tragedy in our own ways. Channel 5's method of marking the upcoming first anniversary of Diana's death today in 1998 was a special edition of their quickfire quiz 100%.
August 17th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: That's Life! ends its second series with one in the eye for the nascent Rumbelows, Stephanie de Sykes' song in tribute to the show, an attempt to lift an elephant and an answer to the question 'who Odd Odes the Odd Ode-r?'
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Fern Britton is on Breakfast Time summer relief duty, flitting from the lifting of the Andrea Doria sunk liner to Guy Michelmore at the seaside with Captain Sensible, to Ned Sherrin's visible bemusement; in the Rainbow house Bungle is expectedly smug after being invited to Sooty's party (not pictured) The others are displeased, though how did Geoffrey expect him to get into the bath with Zippy and George?
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: the ugly cardiganned Chris Serle's turn as Anne's holiday relief on Points Of View, where he finds that Americans have found out about their email address and that most subjective form of all, comedy, is being treated entirely objectively. Actually they must have been short on letters this week as there's both a feature on the art of subtitling and vox pops of East Enders on, er, EastEnders.
August 18th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: one week left of Ultra Quiz 84 and we find David, Willie and the final five in Hawaii, where scores are kept in lei and hula dancers are never far away. But what happened to all the non-question challenges?
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Davina McCall's first TV employer was MTV Europe, initially on the fondly remembered Most Wanted as Ray Cokes' sidekick. Eventually she graduated to stand-in host, with a false intro, a failed phone call and a very patient Oasis.
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