June 17th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the last in the first series of Spitting Image starts with another cameo by Central's Stewart White, the actual Denis Healey in a branded jumper ("(his) presence did him no harm but I don’t think it did the show any good" - Steve Nallon) and to close the also actual Sting rewriting his big hit into Every Bomb You Make, for which his requested fee was copies of every episode so far.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: the World Cup starts on the Beeb with a special preview from Gary Lineker, not yet into his presenting career.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Fight Night, one of the great moments of Big Brother infamy, which because the live stream for some reason cut video but not audio led to viewers calling the police and Hertfordshire Constabulary sending a car round.
June 18th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: ITV's 1970s World Cup coverage in general was a feast of alpha male bickering. Jack Charlton and Derek Dougan's debate over a bad tackle ended in off-air offers outside.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Peter Duncan's got his suit on again! Well, he really had to as he was leaving Blue Peter.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Quo on Quo action as Pop Quiz (Tarrant's Version) puts Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt on opposing teams, their team-mates including Kim Appleby and Big Country's Stuart Adamson; the 141st and final Paul Daniels Magic Show has all the favourites - card tricks, appearing tricks, ESP, a Las Vegas conjuror (the hand of the film Addams Family Thing, in fact) - but a weirdly underwhelming final set-piece; the BBC Design Awards invites viewers to vote for the year's best new architecture. Muriel Gray becomes well travelled in the cause.
June 19th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Reading's cause celebre The Family near the end of their time on television and get to see first hand how famous they've become as the daughter gets married.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Fred Dibnah is the earth to a capped Heinz Wolff's livewire as The Great Egg Race challenges its teams to build a steam engine that can support a weight; having tried cricket, robbery and violence to stave off the boredom The Young Ones set off in a Routemaster on a summer holiday. As long as they mind the roadside signage. Alan Freeman, Lenny Henry, Jools Holland and writers Ben Elton and Lise Mayer all make cameos.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: men usually found singing in vegetable costumes shredded their amusing misprints and wept openly over their Guar Gum as That's Life ended. Stilgoe and Wet Wet Wet sing, Wood talks about singing and a whole load of ageing men with special talents reappear; Alex Cox previews The Harder They Come on Moviedrome.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: The Mysti Show harked back to the No.73 days of part-fiction part-factual magazine, except with a sci-fi element led by a half-human half-fairy played by Laura Aikman, later of the last Gavin & Stacey special and Not Going Out. Made sense to someone; ITV did a few specials in the early 00s of contemporary pop stars covering old songs of a specific range and sounding far more of their time than the originals. Discomania dragged in Donna Summer and Kool & The Gang to even less effect.
June 20th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: the ITV panel run through the World Cup's standouts so far. The Cruyff Turn had been brought to the world the previous night, impressing even the most hard-nosed of them at 16:45.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Buchanan and Powell are the yeah-they'll-do hosts of CITV's new wildlife series Animal Crazy, with advice on avoiding malaria, teaching penguins and getting crabs.
June 21st
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Children's BBC PE competition We Are The Champions starts anew series with the surely slightly disappointing sporting guest of world champion canoeist Richard Fox. Away you go!
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Baddiel and Skinner join the BBC World Cup panel with Bob Wilson as feed and Lineker in a mute watching role. Baddiel suggests people might want to watch ITV, bravely.
ALSO... Rock With Laughter is not the same as the later, spectacularly nosedived Bobby Davro BBC1 vehicle but Yorkshire's sub-Grumbleweeds interspersing of songs and one-liners by Phil Cool and a group of people never heard of again lasted just as long, i.e. one series that began today in 1980; The Olympic Game is a kind of A Question Of Very Specific Sport, Steve Rider pitching Olympiad-themed questions and badinage to Daley Thompson, Steve Cram, Mary Peters and David Wilkie today in 1996.
June 22nd
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: to demonstrate how big a deal Frankie Goes To Hollywood immediately were, The Tube ran a special show at 1am to premiere the video for Two Tribes, following which Holly Johnson and Paul Morley talked to Muriel Gray while the rest of the band sat around.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Criminal, a Screen Two film based on the true story of a bullied teenager's suicide in a young offender's prison, would win Best Single Drama at the Royal Television Society Awards; on the final Naked City: Oasis (including Noel's first ever TV interview), D:Ream, Des'Ree, Eddi Reader, Tori Amos in Caitlin Moran's kitchen, Michael Smiley at the Radio 1 Roadshow, Jeremy Clarkson on driving songs, pre-Faithless Maxi Jazz, and Collins & Maconie telling the history of rock.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Crimewatch UK's twentieth anniversary looks back at its successes and cold cases, including the first reconstruction it ever did still being unsolved (as it was until 2009) Moving forward, DC Rav Wilding makes his debut.
June 23rd
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: one of the great John Motson commentaries, France vs Portugal in the European Championship semi-finals; ahead of the following week's Midsummer Night's Tube II Frankie (er, Holly Johnson) goes to Newcastle for arts preview show Look Forward only to find The Tube’s studio mostly empty.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Matt Baker surrounded by blank E180s? Why, it's our idea of heaven! Blue Peter explains the past, present and future of archiving. That's after Konnie Huq maintains the London Eye and Matt grows sweetcorn in the garden.
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