The Why Don't YouTube? Catchup - February 12th-18th 2024
From the house of @whydontyoutube
February 12th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: when Bagpuss wakes up all his friends wake up too, and they woke up for the first time in a thirteen week run, famously all the episodes that were ever made but branded thoroughly on a generation's memories.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Live & Kicking gets excited about Le Walk, a procession through the newly completed Channel Tunnel for The Children's Society overseen in mist by Mike Smith and incorporating an Allo Allo reunion; the reinvigoration of the big studio game show begins with the first Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, with musical guest Sandie Shaw; Laurie Pike must have been engaged when World Of Wonder rang as instead future SNL and Will & Grace cast member Laura Kightlinger takes a detached look at American cable telly in United States Of Television.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Jeremy Clarkson's Inventions That Changed the World tackles the history and effect of television; the second series begins of Sean Lock's tower block miserycom 15 Storeys High, the very first person to appear being Holby City's Chizzy Akudolu in her TV debut.
February 13th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the first of 22 episodes of enormously popular at one time going to Marbella and having affairs at cross-purposes Yorkshire TV farce Duty Free.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Konnie Huq takes the Blue Peter challenge to become a PA on a live Top Of The Pops for one song.
February 14th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Dennis Potter penned Play For Today Joe's Ark stars Freddie Jones as a pet shop owner whose daughter Angharad Rees has terminal cancer and club comedian son Dennis Waterman is estranged, both of which lead him to turn on religion.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Torvill and Dean, and Ravel, go "right across the board" in front of an audience of NOT 24 MILLION AS KEEPS BEING REPORTED. Near enough to that to make no difference did watch the pair, but we’ll come back to that - this one got 15.95 million tuning in, fewer than the following day’s Corrie; the prolific forger Tom Keating's second Channel 4 series On Impressionism begins two days after his sudden death.
February 15th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: fending off Davros and innumerable others in part two of Resurrection Of The Daleks proves too much for Tegan.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: the Pet Shop Boys, suitable for miners at the Brits.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: because Channel 5 have too much time on their hands and their schedule Back To Reality put a group of reality show contestants in a big house and let what few viewers it got vote for their favourite. James Hewitt, apparently; Bella And The Boys, in which three former children's home residents meet up at a reunion and what happened between them becomes clear, was the drama that convinced critics Billie Piper had a future in acting (but note what's playing at 4:55) (part two, three, four, five, six); Reeves and Mortimer's one-series absurdist road trip sitcom Catterick begins.
MEANWHILE… a Harty special today in 1983 previews The Dark Crystal with Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and as a completely different starter course some children reading letters about their mums, who get something of a shock right at the end.
Saturday Superstore in 1986 - the main guest are a pair of ballet dancers, Cheggers gets his sister in and a Search for a SuperStar heat includes an introduction to the lovelorn scarf-bearing of Clare & Friends.
February 16th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Frank Bough appears on Cilla. Seriously, Frank, just a couple of bon mots between the pair of you would have done.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: This Morning demonstrate a videophone by organising some kind of talent contest, without ever specifying how to enter, with judging from the cutting edge of technological advancement, Paul Shane and Nina Myskow; Maid Marian And Her Merry Men come to the end of their travels by hijacking a battleship and sailing to a parallel universe; of all the people you might expect to crop up on the Baywatch beach Michael Aspel must be low down the list but he and the This Is Your Life book are there to surprise David Hasselhoff. Guests range from Lou Rawls to Kitt; it’s war!
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: it's a Coronation Street wedding, Steve and Karen McDonald's, so obviously something's going to go horribly wrong, and it very much does when Tracy Barlow is around with news to impart; The Catherine Tate Show begins imprinting its catchphrases on the minds of the nation. Alright, one.
February 17th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Channel 4 and a nascent Celador gave Television Scrabble a go with a neat computerised board, some complicated pedals to move the cursor and Alan Coren as presenter, as the series champions, including John Junkin, take on two national champions; Yorkshire's umbrella thriller series Killer begins with Killer Waiting, starring John Thaw as a former army major with an IRA hitman on his tail.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Mud is lighter than 'Children's BBC drama about social care' sounds as three kids including Russell Tovey are taken by social worker Susie Blake to an activity centre run by Victoria 'Sally Smedley' Wicks and staffed by... oh, Russell Brand.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: the Brits, the year The Darkness won everything, wherein Alicia Keys, Gwen Stefani and Missy Elliott collectively miss the point of Prince's Kiss; Flipside TV, getting comedians to comment on live telly, picked up a shortlived but cult following on Sky outpost Nation 277. Christian O'Connell takes a rare go in the presenting chair alongside Karl Pilkington and Justin Lee Collins.
February 18th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Blue Peter and James Burke announce the winners of the Year 2000 competition. We hope they weren't all sorely disappointed in reality.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: John Craven in his Saturday Superstore T-shirt finds out how Ceefax subtitling works, using a Slade video as demonstration; head for safe ground immediately, 3-2-1 is doing a Bond spoof starring Don Estelle; Wogan welcomes Larry Grayson, ballerina Lesley Collier, the Manhattan Transfer and Mel Brooks, who immediately deconstructs its entire structure.
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