July 15th
60 YEARS AGO TODAY: like everyone this side of the Stones, Cliff Richard and the Shadows had their own ATV entertainment special, er, Cliff and the Shadows, with guest star Liza Minnelli, Hank Marvin as comic fall guy and not even an attempt at a beach set.
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: a mysterious death in WWII trenches is the unexpected setting for a Whodunnit, John Challis among the suspects. The panel are Rodney Bewes, Billie Whitelaw, George Sewell and the kind of sober figure required for logical deduction, Reginald Bosanquet.
ALSO... Bickershaw was one of the first major British pop festivals, and also one of its most infamous due to weather and organisational issues. Austin Mitchell, unusually for the Beeb, narrates, well, Bickershaw today in 1972, and wait until you see who the promoter is.
July 16th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Nationwide's ever credulous Bob Wellings travels to Newcastle to investigate the popularity of the seconded stock at a local bakery. Can't see a company like Greggs making a long running business out of that.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Hit The Road was devised as a House Party Gotcha then turned into an actual action adventure series, whereupon it flopped. A shame, as given the choice who wouldn't want to see Cheggers and Bowen getting married in the aisle of a local supermarket; "Will you stop arguing about whether you like stick insects!" Pets Win Prizes, a much stranger thing than common infamy/memory recalls in its Danny Baker fronted first incarnation, with dogs playing snooker, racing tortoises and, yes, That's My Stick Insect!; feels like a year when Richard Fairbrass and George Formby-alikes make the Stars In Their Eyes live final is a weak one but who are we to judge.
July 17th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: after May's pilot Happy Ever After, starring Terry Scott and June Whitfield as Terry and June but not *that* Terry & June, begins its five series run properly by sending them to a hotel, eventually.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the ever individualistic Ray Gosling made Human Jigsaw for Granada, comparing our societal habits to those of tribal peoples in a not necessarily anthropologically sound way. In this edition he asks which group deals with young people better, the Masai or punk?; blackly comic Play For Today Dog Ends stars Leonard Rossiter as a man tiring of looking after his grandfather (and his dying dog) and considering euthanasia, to the near-apathy of his son and daughter-in-law David Threlfall and Lesley Manville.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: the World Cup final, as reported on the next day by, but of course, a Newsround Press Packer. "A Newsround/Coca-Cola World Cup assignment?" Doesn't that break all kinds of BBC advertising regulations?
July 18th
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Jo Brand's turn to face Room 101 and attempt to induct among others the Mona Lisa, Bonn, jazz, the Magic Roundabout and an eventful 1975.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Top Gear fires up a Boeing 747 jet engine and propels some cars behind it just to see what happens; as audacious as it is Spy feels very po-faced for a BBC Three series, which might work in its favour as a group of volunteers are taken away from their actual identities and trained by actual MI6 and CIA officers in all areas of espionage. Didn't even have a prize at the end.
July 19th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Divine brings their very being to Top Of The Pops.
July 20th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the second Emu's All Live Pink Windmill Show and the Spin Quiz isn't going that much better. Neither is Grotbags' sidekick Robot Redford, who reacts to his mistress being goosed by Emu at 15:27 by losing his head.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Children's BBC marks the 25th anniversary of the Apollo landing with An Afternoon On The Moon, unexpectedly starring ex-Top Gareth Jones alongside Zoe Ball and even more unexpectedly, in his only CBBC appearance, Gilbert the Alien. Special guest Buzz Aldrin had a wander with Jones around the roof of Television Centre, while Gilbert and Dogsbody from Space Vets count down/talk over the top ten space songs. Inspiral Carpets ahead of Bowie? Controversial. The afternoon ends on the roof with Patrick Moore, Helen Sharman and some rockets of their own; meanwhile on Children’s ITV Richard O'Brien scares kids - no, intentionally this time - as The Ink Thief, who steals imaginations in a comic fantasy... thing, also featuring Toyah Willcox as a dog.
ALSO... we'll say this for turn of the 90s BBC1, it didn't scrimp on People With A Story To Tell magazine shows. People, today in 1989, perhaps chose the most straight-ahead title to mask the oddity of hiring Frank Bruno as presenter. The first person interviewed: dye or wig?
July 21st
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: tricky to say who the more unlikely guest is on No. 73, future media big shot Nicholas Coleridge or Frankie Howerd, who not only plays the Sandwich Quiz but does so in a special outfit Sandi hasn't been warned about. Also popping by are David Jensen, Roger McGough, Aswad and some spiders; Ultra Quiz round four takes place in Bruges, which brings out the full poetics in David Frost and a series of challenges including buying stuff in a market and one which requires Willie Rushton to do some acting; after a few weeks of stars of stage, cinema and telly Aspel & Company resorts to the Prime Minister, in case you thought politicians chasing showbiz cred was a recent thing.
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