March 18th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: after a week off for *checks* a South Bank Show about jazz fusion, during which time the Miner's Strike has properly started, Spitting Image has knocked up an Arthur Scargill puppet but has less to say about him than they do about Janet Street-Porter.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Toby Anstis in the Broom Cupboard watching it fall apart right at the end, bisected by Krishan in the Newsround studio and the Live & Kicking team breaking the fourth wall; while still contracted to the Generation Game for one more series, Bruce Forsyth left his BBC contract after becoming disillusioned with their attitude to variety. So he went back to LWT who gave him nothing but game shows, starting with a Play Your Cards Right revival; From A To B - Tales Of Modern Motoring stuck some drivers in their cars and got them to talk about their relationships with driving in the fly-on-the-wall style, driven by skilled composite editing and stills photography partly by Martin Parr…
…as was the style at the time the BBC chose our Eurovision entrant, in this case the theatre's Frances Ruffelle, and then let A Song For Europe voters pick the song. Ken Bruce pops by to see Tel, Richard O'Brien helps provide guidance; Oasis make their national TV debut on The Word three weeks before Supersonic's release.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: yet more of the stardom pre-history of Olivia Colman, as a witness to Lucy Davis' disastrous hen party in Black Books.
March 19th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: a General Studies module entitled Reggae, Madness and the Wild Things, later given an evening repeat, presumably included the first and last too but we're circling on Madness in the studio recording One Better Day; Blue Peter starts with a novelty slide and carries on through fairground roundabouts, nesting boxes and geraniums in the garden, stop-motion animation and the story of the actual Great Escape. YES, WE CAN SEE WHAT THE TITLE IS, BUT WE CHECK THESE THINGS.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Noel's being given a surprise, everyone! It's Bob Monkhouse with a picture of Noel in which he looks slightly different, hoisting Edmonds by his own lie detector-driven Big Pork Pie petard (it was dropped after one series) Meanwhile Jon Pertwee gets a Gotcha, though he needs some convincing as to who it's for; Cher appears on Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and Chris has trained his audience to respond appropriately.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: the ongoing Coronation Street imbroglio of Amy Barlow's birth circumstances comes to a head when Karen McDonald interrupts her christening; long before the real infamy Amy Winehouse had enough of a gobby heartbreaker reputation that she was booked to chat and perform solo on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. Later on the Libertines play Can't Stand Me Now, not even released until August; one of the best TV Burps, featuring Murphy And Horse, Bob From Emmerdale Greetings Cards and Johnny Logan singing it out.
March 20th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: a News At Ten special reports on the Princess Anne kidnap attempt with an eyewitness who has a fag on the go throughout.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Chris Morris addresses criticism of The Day Today, uncompromisingly but sadly straightfaced and not in person, on BBC feedback show Biteback; why are Sky Movies doing a schlock horror season in March, and why are Trevor & Simon doing continuity for it? Ah, ours is not to question why; Ain't Misbehavin' was Roy Clarke's excursion into marital infidelity as family sitcom, wherein Peter Davison and Nicola Pagett investigate his wife Lesley Manville's possible affair with John Duttine. It did get a second series, for which Davison's spouse regenerated. Appropriately.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: a new series of Stars In Their Eyes Kids, and even Cat seems surprised at who ten year old Mitchel Emms is becoming about twenty minutes in. (He doesn't win.)
March 21st
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: paganistic vision Penda's Fen is one of the most celebrated Plays For Today ("make no mistake, we had a major work of television last night" - The Times the next day). Director Alan Clarke, usually a social realist, later admitted he didn't understand it.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sister Wendy Beckett, once freed from her convent to see and explain the nation's great artworks, went on a Grand Tour that took her to Rome to look at some Michaelangelo and Caravaggio.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Chris and Carl Palmer are trapped by the psychotic Tony and still haven't found Carl's son as Reeves and Mortimer's road trip sitcom Catterick comes to an end.
ALSO...
ITN's Shergar investigations special Theft Of A Thoroughbred today in 1983 is illustrated by lovely, valuable and ultimately completely unnecessary News At Ten production and gallery footage. Fans of that TV Burp up there will be keen to know it features B-roll of "the horsey field".
Channel 4 gave their Opinions slot to Dennis Potter and retreated to a safe distance today in 1993 as he lets loose on media morality and press freedom.
March 22nd
60 YEARS AGO TODAY: not often we get to see an ITN bulletin from this far back, read chiefly by Huw Thomas with Alistair Burnet giving details of a power unions dispute and reports that new world heavyweight champion Cassius Clay has changed his name.
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: it's Friday, it's five o'clock and it's Crackerjack, with Aspel (one of only two of his that are known to survive), Glaze, Maclean, Lieutenant Pigeon, Lulu's brother, apple bobbing, a building site, crown jewels and a very convoluted Ringo reworking.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the Sixth Doctor gets one story in before the end of this Doctor Who series, The Twin Dilemma. Regularly voted by fans as the worst Who story of all time, Russell T Davies has called it "the beginning of the end".
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Without Walls presented inevitably provocative genre overview Kiss My Baadass: Ice-T's Guide To Blaxploitation.
BBC News reports as Christopher Eccleston is officially named as the Ninth Doctor. That Eccleston isn't interviewed but an area manager of William Hill is suggests it's not being taken seriously yet.
March 23rd
60 YEARS AGO TODAY: Freddie and the Dreamers crash Blue Peter as Freddie Garrity serenades Petra. No sign of Dave Nice.
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: "it's the ref I'm sorry for" admits Kent Walton as Brian Glover, in his wrestling guise Leon Arras, takes on Les Kellett. This may not be an entirely serious contest; Jon Pertwee's penultimate Who story, The Monster Of Peladon is a lesser sequel to, yes, 1972's The Curse Of Peladon with its sundry double agents and Ice Warriors.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the increasingly enigmatic Scott Walker chats to Muriel Gray on The Tube, after which he disappeared for another eleven years. The week's main performing guest is Bo Diddley.
March 24th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: "It's no wonder you're a credit controller!" The Golden Shot in its Charlie Williams phase, and understandably this was his penultimate show as Bob Monkhouse had been approached to return earlier that week. Ken Dodd, Carl Wayne and Brotherhood Of Man prop it up.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the debut of The Price Is Right, an import that going by the press reaction was going to kill us all in our beds bringing Yank values, crowd hysteria and capitalism to ITV. Central initially wanted Russ Abbot, which is weird to think; Boy George charms Wogan explaining how pop has always been about image, being judged and whether he can have an ordinary life.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Outside Edge had already been adapted from its play origins for a 1982 one-off; twelve years and a complete recasting later the first of third series about a local cricket team and two couples at its centre began.
ALSO...
A morning with BBC1 today in 1995 - Good Morning With Nick but no Anne, Caroline Righton standing in with Derek Bentley's sister, Judith Durham and Simon Bates' Our Tune, followed by Pebble Mill where Gloria Hunniford's guests include David Jacobs and Judy Garland's other daughter.
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