The Why Don't YouTube? Catchup - September 9th-15th 2024

From the house of @whydontyoutube

September 9th

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: with all the pros presumably hiding Bullseye gets George Best, who already looks unsteady, in to throw for charity.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Knightmare's eighth and final series begins, involving seven quests, one winning team and one Dungeoneer that gets sliced in half; BBC2, still trying to find a satirical panel show, steal one from Radio 4 in Loose Talk, Kevin Day chairing yet another comedian Q&A format and one that the conversion managed to kill in both outlets. Jeremy Hardy, Mark Steel, Hattie Hayridge and Phill Jupitus are the panel; following is an episode from the 30th with Hardy, Jupitus, Richard Herring and Felix Dexter.

September 10th

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Pebble Mill At One pays tribute to Donny MacLeod, who died four days earlier; if the idea of a sitcom vehicle for Kenneth Cope in 1984 seems odd, the actuality of it being Bootle Saddles clears it, casting him as the proprietor of a failing frontier town cowboy-themed attraction on Merseyside in a scenario that, for all its surrealism and oddity, could never have made it to series two; Fegen & Norriss would write The Brittas Empire eventually but their first notable sitcom was Channel 4's Chance In A Million, Simon Callow and Brenda Blethyn enduring bad luck nominative determinism - he's called Tom Chance, see - amid their fledgling romance in a setup that tries to bring class to a mainstream sitcom of embarrassment but also ends with Blethyn in her pants. Bill Pertwee cameos as a police sergeant, knowingly.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: What's Up Doc? started its third series the previous week and as previously covered at length it's far past the days when it was interesting, with only the wolves (just about) and irritant Baljit left of the menagerie of characters. It's just an ITV Saturday morning show now, and that won't do. But there's a fascinating set of guests on this one, including Brookside's Anna Friel and Katie Rogers - one of them gets asked about a screen kiss and it's not the one you'd expect - Michaela Strachan, Hartbeat's Gabrielle Bradshaw, the reveal of the show's own fantasy football team and the most cursory of appearances by Cyndi Lauper. 3D phone game Joe Razz was not however the future however excited Andy gets about playing it; Gladiators is back for a third series, the John Fashanu "awooga!" is setting in and the overall prize is a 4x4; we're in the middle of a run of BBC radio to TV transfers, some more successful than others. Among the "others", and everyone surely saw this not entirely being a happy transfer coming, was The Moral Maze, thrown out on late night BBC2 with Michael Buerk using "Malthusian" in his introduction, a table borrowed from Question Time, and Dr David Starkey and all his friends.

September 11th

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: the latest in a line of unconnected specials, The Tommy Cooper Hour features all you'd expect with a cast including Sheila Steafal, Janet Brown and a Kenny Everett voiceover, guest slots for Lynsey de Paul, Dutch stars Mouth & MacNeal and poor man's Bonzos The New Vaudeville Band, the double act of your dreams Topo Gigio and Allan Cuthbertson, and a credits voiceover demanding strict accuracy.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the animation team behind Mr Benn and King Rollo did something just as basic in composition, Towser, an inquisitive but smart dog voiced by Roy Kinnear; George Michael makes his second appearance on Pop Quiz and this time he's been elevated to captaincy, leading Chris Rea and Tears For Fears' Curt Smith against Steve Harley, Tracie and Jon Moss; Michael Parkinson has joined Liza Goddard and Lionel Blair - not yet "MIchael PAAARkinson... Liza GDDRD... and LINL BLAR" - on Give Us A Clue, which in turn is joined by Keith Barron and Gwen Taylor in opposition, Sheila Hancock, Madeleine Smith, Roy Kinnear and George Chisholm. The title Lionel is given to mime must have set off a lightbulb in the I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue office.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Victoria Wood's masterly Screen One offering Pat And Margaret brings most of her core cast in (and briefly Julie Hesmondhalgh in one of her first roles, as a carer) for a story of reunited sisters, one successful, one not.

20 YEARS AGO TODAY: "SHUT IT Dick & Dom You pair of pants, you can get some" indeed. It's the return of Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow and a load of new games none of which work except Baby Race, which wins out by being catastrophic. But it doesn't matter as Creamy Muck Muck is brought about by the first dramatic entry of Detective Inspector Harry Batt. Also, Batfink!; Harry Hill takes over You've Been Framed!; we saw Simon Nye writing for Neil Morrissey last week; now Nye writes for Martin Clunes in Beauty (part two, three, four, five), a reworking of the Beast-driven fable in which the disfigured spoiled aristo meets the daughter of a plumber, Sienna Guillory.

September 12th

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Brian Clough is fired by Leeds United after 44 days. Invited to Yorkshire's studios to explain what happened to Calendar special Goodbye Mr Clough he found not just Austin Mitchell waiting but also his predecessor and nemesis Don Revie. A celebratedly heated debate ensues. Then news editor Graham Ironside reminisced for Calendar this week.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Arthur Daley comes into accidental possession of forged notes thanks to Art Malik, who attempts to make it up through bootlegs of a Bollywood movie. Actually it just stays the right side of what you're imagining. Meanwhile Robbie Coltrane tries on an East End accent as a hairdresser with a line in wig wholesale.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monster Café is set in a café. Run by monsters. You know, for kids (apart from when a CBeebies re-run was pulled early after complaints); having been cast out in the great BBC LE putsch Granada got in quick to keep The Russ Abbot Show going, somehow both more expensive in shiny floor cost and cheaper in sketch quality, which along with all the famous characters being ditched and only Bella Emberg of his core team following him (though he does pick up Siobhan Finneran) may both explain why it only got two series.

ALSO... "If you thought snooker was staid..." not the words we'd choose to introduce Ray Reardon but we aren't Paul Coia on Pebble Mill At One today in 1983, which means Dracula running through the trick shots.

Michael Palin, promoting A Fish Called Wanda, and raconteurish Robert Morley share the Wogan couch today in 1988. (Palin doesn't mention this in his diaries, damn him.)

September 13th

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: the independent network really got their money's worth out of discovering Larry Grayson, as LWT gave him a one-off Hour Of Stars, though the Stars amounted to Anna Neagle and a pre-recorded chat on a staircase with Michael Crawford.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: Fred Dinenage oversees TVS' Coast To Coast like the south coast zelig he is, BT sending a cheque to the wrong person being top story over a murder and strike action, while Fred is introduced to the concept of vegetarianism; ten minutes of a forgotten side-effect in the alternative comedy explosion, Little Armadillos, Steve Steen and Jim Sweeney's Channel 4 sketch show within a darkly surreal nightclub sitcom with the peak of whatever ally acting talent was around.

20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Early Doors returns for a second series of Stockport pub subtle interpersonal realite.

ALSO... ehhh, ratfans? David Claridge jumped the once sinking ship and was given Roland Rat: The Series, Stock Aitken Waterman theme and all, the first series of which went out at the start of Saturday prime-time and was so successful the second had to be moved to Children's BBC hours on Mondays to give everything else a chance. Launching BBC Three, a title that was always going to be hostage to fortune, it's a show that hasn't actually worked out what it is apart from "about Roland and his gang", the second show today in 1986 featuring Wendy Richard, Curiosity Killed The Cat and a cameo by Colin Baker in character.

September 14th

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Candid Camera returns after a seven year break with Peter Dulay, previously a writer and producer (and indeed producer of this series) who oversaw Sez Les and helped launch Larry Grayson, in charge and the legendary in the field Arthur Atkins and Sheila Bernette leading the cast; It's Cliff Richard was the current iteration of the Cliff shiny floor variety vehicle, this week featuring The Lovely Aimi MacDonald singing Drive My Car, Pearly Gates, who doesn't seem au fait with the comedy elements, and the Nolans for about twenty seconds, joining Cliff and the Nigel Lythgoe Dancers on a medley from the not so far in the past countercultural Hair.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: David Suchet is Dr Sigmund Freud in slow moving docudrama, well, Freud.

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Roy Clarke isn't the first writer you'd automatically entrust with an Americanised fantasy miniseries for Sky but we've seen before the man has depth. Maybe not enough for The Wanderer, admittedly, given it was a huge ratings failure. The ever willing Bryan Brown stars as both of a pair of reincarnated Middle Ages knights, one a billionaire, the other wanting vengeance for his death. See how it pans out, if you must; with the first episode having gone missing, we pick up in week two with comedy drama Common As Muck, starring Edward Woodward in that obvious role of leader of a gang of bin men, one pitched against the local council trying to privatise them. You don't even need telling that Tim Healy is in it.

ALSO… difficult to see what Leslie Crowther singing The Candyman with two schools' worth of dance student kids has to do with the God Slot but we're not producing Highway so we have to defer to their greater wisdom. Harry Secombe docks in Great Yarmouth today in 1986 and forms a double act with Crowther in matching suits after Rod Hull sings and Brian Rix talks.

September 15th

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: David Jason's career had been stuck in radio and theatre since Do Not Adjust Your Set and while he'd already been in the Open All Hours pilot leading man fame seemed some way away. It may have seemed even further after post-Get Smart spy spoof The Top Secret Life Of Edgar Briggs, an LWT comedy bringing his physical comedy side and character ability to fake confidence to bear as an inept intelligence officer. It didn't get a second series and Jason was so ashamed of it he blocked repeats for decades.

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: World Of Sport hosts The Silk Cut Challenge, a contest to find cricket's best all-rounder, leading to the unlikely commentary pairing of Brian Moore and Imran Khan; The Tripods was the BBC's great sci-fi hope, led down by the effects, young actors and leisurely pace but far from without its fans. Set in 2089, so if their arrival is seen as traditional by then they're going to have to get a move on. Except, there's one thing that briefly overshadowed it, as the day’s finest text graphics reveal that the Princess of Wales has delivered her second son. Harry's arrival - with a delighted Kate Adie at Buckingham Palace, which seems appropriate somehow - is however clearly no reason to hold up the Late Late Breakfast Show too much, Noel delivering his own newsflash; ah, Bottle Boys. Sometimes a byword for the nadir of the LWT broad sitcom - Mark Lewisohn went as far as calling it TV's worst ever - bringing together Vince Powell and Robin Askwith both the best part of a decade after what they were best known and rarely touched with bargepoles since for. In this episode a new milkman who is a woman - A WOMAN - is employed, who is older, mardy, cougarish when in private with Askwith and played by Pam St Clement, who can't have got away to Walford quickly enough.

ALSO...having been chased up a tree by SMTV, Live And Kicking was punted up to Scotland and into the summer, where it ended in a Steps-heavy fashion after seven years today in 2001, and the former presenters can't even be arsed to traipse further than a pre-recorded green screen set.

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