The Why Don't YouTube? Catchup - September 23rd-29th 2024
From the house of @whydontyoutube
September 23rd
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Ceefax goes live. By January 1977 it was being demonstrated on Pebble Mill alongside Pong.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: "In the days, months and years to come can the fabric of society hold together: how strong are the threads?" Ah, right, that's why it's called that. John Tusa was called upon for an explanatory introduction; for everything else in terms of background, check this and/or this. BBC2 come out of it with lots of follow-ups and a late news bulletin featuring David Mellor commenting on a sheep being killed in the street and a press-ups world record, before that most reassuring of presences, Tony Gubba.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Alan Partridge meets Tony Le Mesmer and agony aunt Daniella Forrest, The Day Today bit-parter Minnie Driver, who'd already starred in Mr Wroe's Virgins but was still making singular appearances with breakthrough Circle Of Friends six months away from release, taking on the role as her mate Doon couldn't make the recording date. This is the one with the opening monologue about being called "moribund" by a critic, which whether by accident or design is very similar to Noel (and that was early on in the series too, the third ever episode)
September 24th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: the first classic Look And Read story, Cloud Burst, in which two kids - one being future Blue Peter custodian Tina Heath - try to stop a secret invention falling into evil hands. Also between the drama, Wordy's debut!
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sheffield was destroyed the previous day, and yet Paul McDowell's Newsround still leads on royalty. At the end, a rare (understandably) clip of early instalment Barrymore business Get Set Go!; Frank Zappa demonstrates his Casio's pre-sets to London Plus' Sally Magnusson; this trailer is all we have of Tripper's Day, Leonard Rossiter's undistinguished supermarket based Thames sitcom that he wouldn't live to see the third episode air; World In Action challenges speechmaking and body language expert Max Atkinson to coach a regular housewife with no public speaking experience to give a speech to the SDP party conference, under the excellent title Claptrap. The party, who hadn't been tipped off about the experiment, apparently hated it despite supposedly leading to an increase in membership, though Atkinson was hired by Paddy Ashdown when he was Liberal Democrats leader; after broadcasting Threads and The 8th Day in consecutive nights John Tusa hosts a special debate for Newsnight on what's to be done about nuclear winters, with Robin Cook among the political wing.
September 25th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Echo & the Bunnymen's contribution to Play At Home is Life At Brian's, interspersing live performances with life as seen by the owners, employees and regulars at their favourite cafe. Influence of band manager Bill Drummond possibly apparent.
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Parkinson has his feet under the table on ITV, so bring on Ant & Dec, followed by Julie Andrews, Michael Palin - very offputting to hear audience laughter on a Ripping Yarns clip - and Tom Jones with Jools Holland.
September 26th
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: before there was Mark Williams there was Kenneth More to play G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown. Both series however opened with The Hammer Of God, the earlier one featuring William Russell, Graham Crowden and an early but misleadingly well into his screen career Alun Armstrong.
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: what's Minder done now? Well, Arthur has accidentally sold novelist Beryl Reid's sofa to a Belgian and foists Terry upon her in part-exchange, whereupon they find out her mutton chopped husband Bill Maynard is selling her furniture to a religious movement.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Telly Addicts is, sad to say, on the down slope, as this is the series that introduced Charles Collingwood as anachronistic scorer for bits of Noel business. It's also swapped families for teams, because anyone can do that. Actually the Heads are a family, but Warriors Gate? What's that? And they both have to dress as "favourite shows".
20 YEARS AGO TODAY: the newly bankable Michael Sheen stars in Dirty Filthy Love, winning BAFTA and RTS best actor nominations as an architect living with Tourette's and OCD who finds solace in Shirley Henderson and her support group as his personal life and disorders spiral out of control in parallel. Its US DVD release was marketed as a comedy, inexplicably.
ALSO... the first Going Live! today in 1987 ends with Peter Howitt in the first Hot Seat and one of the first Trevor & Simon sketches. Nobody was splashing out on costumes for them yet.
September 27th
60 YEARS AGO TODAY: Pauline Yates, the future Elizabeth Perrin, stars in Armchair Theatre production The Cherry On The Top as a woman who tires of life as a RAF communications officer and falls in with a man failing to sell gherkins to the local pub.
50 YEARS AGO TODAY: the eighth series of The Morecambe & Wise Show, and they've got Andre Previn back! Highly against his will, but Eric has plans for Mr Preview however much he may fundamentally disagree with how they're carried out. Meanwhile Eric and Ern face each other in the Mastermind final.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: inspired by the cut of a Harry Enfield's Television Programme made for a press launch, and eleven days after some of the cast had started in another comedy series with a large cultural trail, Whitehouse, Higson and the rest reputedly fit 27 sketches into its first episode of The Fast Show. It'd be easier to list the great characters that didn't appear straight from the start. So we will. Rowley Birkin, Swiss Toni, Bob Fleming, Colin Hunt, Competitive Dad, Billy Bleach, Dave Angel, I'll Get Me Coat, Inspector Monkfish, Jazz Club, Jesse, Gideon Soames, The 13th Duke of Wybourne ("with *my* reputation?"), "does my bum look big in this?", "which was nice"... think none of those are in this. But it does include the great forgotten Caroline Aherne recurring Our Janine, and it’s not their fault that every sketch show that came afterwards assumed what made it work was entirely having a lot of catchphrases; a drama about a radio station in a Glasgow psychiatric hospital doesn't seem like a starmaking vehicle but BAFTA winner Takin' Over The Asylum is where most people first took notice of David Tennant's abilities, and he says himself that, indirectly, every job he's had since then has been as a result of his role as an enthusiastic volunteer for Ken Stott's broadcasting start-up. The whole series is very worth your time. Notes: Arabella Weir is in the second half of the series, thus going back to back with herself, and Spike Milligan cameos as himself in the third episode; the Strictly Come Dancing of its day, Come Dancing... is a joke we will keep doing until you react to it. But, having presented us with a UK vs Netherlands dance-off, the special then throws us a line as Rosemarie Ford is 'surprised' by her screen husband. "That's later on in the year" Ford, who is tellingly wearing a completely different dress to the rest of the programme in this section, responds to a Generation Game reference even though the series had been running since the start of the month. (Ex-Strictly pro Karen Hardy appears as well, but she's not Brucie and would be the first to admit that)
ALSO... Biddy Baxter famously insisted for years that Blue Peter presenters not be allowed to use autocue or idiot boards. Hence John Noakes drying at 1:10 today in 1971, his Norway fishing partner Peter Purves having to dig him out while discussing the new Act restricting straying pets. Shep had got his name four days earlier, hence the live update on his size followed by an update on John's size. Valerie for her part is in bed with a rugby team.
Unusually, Elvis Costello's first TV appearance was on the not surface level punk-era cool Thames' Good Afternoon today in 1977, running the gauntlet of Mavis Nicholson, who had assumed he was Woody Allen.
September 28th
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: The Big Breakfast turns two years old. Chris, on his penultimate day, is put on a huge spinning wheel, Gaby gets a surprise visitor, Paula is joined by Frank Skinner, Peter Smith turns Derek Batey, a massive rabbit and Reel 2 Real (unrelated) are with Zig and Zag where we find out what international DJ Erick Morillo thinks of Radiohead, Cheggers visits former families of the week, and there's a competition involving milk.
ALSO... the star of No. 73 was spun off into Toksvig, a Children's ITV series that in the spirit of that show but on a weekday afternoon can't quite decide whether it's sitcom, sketch show, magazine show or "just some stuff going on". Today in 1988 things swing between cryogenics, a fashion show and punk poet Joolz amongst other things.
September 29th
40 YEARS AGO TODAY: once Culture Club have aired their radical belief that war is stupid and people are stupid, Boy George joins The Late Late Breakfast Show couch to judge a Noel lookalike contest, with hilarious consequences (for the time); we've got this far through 1984 and not even addressed LWT's The Entertainers promo, so from 0:39 let's solve that. Afterwards ITT invent the future and Hi-De-Hi! crosses over with Phileas Fogg snacks; Gene Wilder comes over all philosophical whilst promoting The Woman In Red on Wogan.
30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Chris Evans' final Big Breakfast has surprises, but somehow mostly those you'd expect (women and cars, basically) Gaby impersonates Savile, Bob Geldof sings I Will Survive, Cheggers surprises Lennox Lewis in something that appears to have no connection to the day, a tin of baked beans is blown up, there's a special message from Russell Grant that would take too much explaining now, and Gaby's present references everyone's favourite Evans urban myth; Gerry Adams and former Northern Ireland minister Michael Mates have a heated debate on Newsnight, the first televised meeting between the government and a Sinn Fein representative. Peter Snow gets told to pipe down by Adams early on; Radio Tip Top started as a cult loungecore post-modern pirate radio station and would get a couple of series on Radio 1. In between Kid Tempo and the Ginger Prince set up their Lunewyre technology in total Spectrasound onto a late night ITV music show pilot, Tip Top TV (part two), with Let Loose, D:Ream and Eternal, but not even readers of Corsair Magazine could help it go further.
Like what we do? Why not support us? https://ko-fi.com/whydontyoutube