July 8th
60 YEARS AGO TODAY: Hilda Ogden moves into Coronation Street, pops into the Rovers to see Stan and immediately walks into a fight involving Ken Barlow. Thus was the tone set.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Making A Splash, Peter Greenaway's impressionistic celebration of man's relationship with water, ending with synchronised swimming to a Michael Nyman score. (It's Peter Greenaway, so it features nudity)
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: there was a period where Richard Littlejohn seemed to turn up on most television so obviously he eventually got given his own show by LWT, Richard Littlejohn Live And Uncut. It was always going to end in a row, and so Michael Winner became the voice of reason.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: just because he could Peter Kay, sporting a disagreeable goatee beard, sings a crooner version of Van Halen's Jump on Yorkshire-only Andy Prior's Big Band Show.
ALSO... shortlived Channel 4 music show for the CD age Wired's Tim Graham takes tea at the Savoy with Nina Simone today in 1988.
July 9th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Mavericks profiles England rugby union star Dusty Hare, in the days when even the biggest rugby union stars had to turn their day job hand to the sheep market.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: the Chris Tarrant version of Pop Quiz comes to an end after all of eight weeks, with guests Martin Fry, the Wonder Stuff's Miles Hunt, Let Loose's Richie Wermeling, Toyah, the Beautiful South's David Hemingway and, before we were used to his makeover, Pete Burns; Beadle's Hot Shots, a pilot showcase for viewers' own home videoed comedic short films, includes two separate entries from twenty year old Edgar Wright, who worked on the 1996 full series as a researcher and occasional refilmer; again, the BBC reminds us which country the World Cup was taking place in; Johnny Cash gets most of Later With Jools Holland to himself (and June Carter Cash, Pops Staples and Carleen Anderson joining in for a song)
July 10th
70 YEARS AGO TODAY: Neil Tennant is born. A good excuse to revisit the half hour The O-Zone Pet Shop Boys special from 1993.
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Don't Ask Me was one of the first big pop-science series, making eccentric stars of Magnus Pyke, Miriam Stoppard and David Bellamy, assembled under the reliable eye of everyman Derek Griffiths, with cameos by Bruce Forsyth on a wet golf course and a giraffe.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: oh, IBA Engineering Announcements, you had us at "the latest developments in Teletext".
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Alex Cox cares not for your measly Gregorian calendar. If he wants to introduce Hallowe'en for Moviedrome on July 10th, he will do.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: the centrepiece of Sport Relief evening is David Beckham, who seems to enjoy being interviewed by fictional characters, meeting Ron Manager. There's also another hybrid They Think It's All A Question Of Sport, before the latter essentially become the former. Stephen Fry hosts Barker, McCoist and Dettori vs Hancock, Tufnell and Jupitus; just in time for the Strictly/Takeaway-abetted revival of Saturday night TV, Channel 4 assembles a fulsome cast to ask Who Killed Saturday Night TV? (part two; three; four; five; six; seven. Someone reupload it as one whole, for the love of god)
July 11th
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Ian Hislop attempts to put Kilroy, Postman Pat, Hello!, beards, Truly Madly Deeply, an Edwina Currie novel and his own interview with Tom Waits into Room 101.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Extreme Archaeology sounds like a sketch show routine involving firearms but was an actual Channel 4 concept involving, in this case, underground and often wet former mines which incorporated some of the earliest TV work of "expert in human bones" Alice Roberts.
ALSO... the Robinson continuum cannot be halted as Tony sits in for Anne on Points Of View today in 1990. The World Cup is on and not everybody is swept up in it, but there's also criticism for design experts and, much to Tony's open chagrin, Helen Atkinson-Wood.
July 12th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Bill Shankly retires as Liverpool manager. In what can only have been a deliberate move by Granada Reports the famously proud Mancunian Tony Wilson is assigned to inform the people of Liverpool's streets.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Andrea Arnold steps out from No. 73, though still credited as Dawn Lodge presumably because it's produced by TVS and a similar mix of fact and act, into Children's ITV natural history series Talking Animal, where she meets some snakes; helpfully live miked and with a sympathetic John Peel to introduce, Neil takes on Top Of The Pops; part of Arena, Beat This: A Hip Hop History is one of the first documentaries about the form and its culture, talking to the early figureheads and trendsetters. And also Mel Brooks.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: the thousandth EastEnders is marked with Nigel and Debbie's wedding; oh, is it another private detective series? No, because Chandler & Co is fronted by two women, see? And one of them is Barbara Flynn! Though you'll probably be more excited by their boss being Peter Capaldi.
ALSO... Exclusive Yarns, shown on Channel 4 today in 1987, is a real oddity, an adapted play about both a soap opera set in a yarn shop starring Maureen Lipman, Patricia Hodge and Lesley Joseph and some men watching it that then folds back in on itself.
Kelly Brook's five and a half months fronting The Big Breakfast did neither the show nor in retrospect her any good. While nobody knew it at the time today in 1999 would be her final Monday and they weren't scrimping on guests, not with Samuel L Jackson and Shannon Doherty.
July 13th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: That's Life! spotlights a barbershop sextet with train problems, cassette recorders from Reader's Digest, a Cyril Fletcher Odd Ode inspired by a barbers called Beyond The Fringe, a travelling carpet, Glyn Worsnip having to explain what a baby monitor is and Stephanie de Sykes in the "jungle".
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Emu's World becomes Emu's All Live Pink Windmill Show, gaining a studio audience and losing most of the fourth wall, though upon the live phone quiz Rod quickly wishes it hadn't; the first in a short series of Play At Home, giving bands an hour of Channel 4 to do what they want with, sends Siouxsie And The Banshees through the looking glass.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: the first series of Wipeout, in prime-time with Paul Daniels in charge. One of the contestants is a "self employed flag maker".
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Olivia Colman visits Swiss Toni's dealership at the start of his second series as a troubleshooter to try and turn the company around.
July 14th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: David Frost and the last twenty contestants head to Paris for the third round of Ultra Quiz '84, because the Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur was the necessarily location for a paint by numbers contest aided by Barbara Windsor dressed as a French maid; old cinema set anecdotes sound so much better coming out of Vincent Price's mouth, as Aspel & Company proves. He has a rejoiner for Michael at the end too; the thing about Darkplace, right, is that Channel 4 actually were making knowing pulpy horror spoofs in the early 80s, namely They Came From Somewhere Else (full series)
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Julian Cope makes Top Of The Pops bend to his will.
ALSO... a week after Silver Jubilee day, today in 1977, Thames' Today looks back at the street parties. Well, at least they're enjoying themselves. Apart from the crying child.
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