The Why Don't YouTube? Newsletter - December 26th 2023
From the house of @whydontyoutube
Back in the actual timeline we’re two days from completing our eighth annual Advent Calendar featuring even more festive telly highlights. (Also, the hits rate has been appalling this year, we’ll level with you, so if you want us to go through the hours of effort to ensure a ninth…)
50 YEARS AGO
That's Christmas - Sez Les! starts with Dawson in a string vest, unedifyingly. That passes once fairy godmother Eli Woods has offered him the chance of his own seasonal sketch and loquaciousness special, where his rep company of Roy Barraclough (no Cissie and Ada, though), Woods and Gorden Kaye are joined by Clive Dunn, Jack Douglas and Ronnie Carroll, partly for ridiculous The Comedians spoof The Vicars. Musically there's the experience of Dawson introducing Slade, with Noddy allowed right of reply and a lot of audience clapping off the beat because the song isn't a standard yet, and David Essex, Lynsey De Paul who gets taken away from her piano and onto the ballroom dancefloor by Les, and, well, Clive Dunn singing something that is neither Grandad nor I Play The Spoons, worse luck.
As we're still in the era of the Christmas Day variety spectacular Barker and Corbett hadn't had their own sketch special yet but The Two Ronnies Old Fashioned Christmas Mystery resembles a stretched version of one of their show closing grand high concepts, taking place at a country residence on Christmas Eve 1872 where the turkey is stolen and the owners have to call in Piggy Malone and Charley Farley. That sets up a classic farce much as you'd expect from the pen of Gerald Wiley, and while much is recognisable - Barker monologuing, Corbett in a big chair, a Gilbert & Sullivan-inspired finish - there's also dancers, a balancing act, a B-plot featuring Gabrielle Drake and an interlude where Cheryl Kennedy delivers a monologue completely independent from anything else.
40 YEARS AGO
The Keith Harris Christmas Party marked the end of his and Orville's first year as a Saturday night prime-time star by, er, going out at 4.35pm, because this is very much aimed at children rather than families given the big visitor is then Crackerjack nuisance Stu Francis. A cold open features Harris in a lurid yellow sweater telling us we should have been there the previous day and then throwing to flashback, which is as big a sign as possible that he'd been told this would go out before or on the day and had to put in an emergency intro to explain why there's a long interlude in which Orville sings the nativity story. Shakin' Stevens sings, Cuddles has constructed a guillotine for use on Orville and it's not as troubling as his Savile impression (or some of Francis' material), and then right at the end half of showbiz arrives at the door, and also Cuddles who was surely already indoors. Come To My Party is now available on BBC Records & Tapes.
The Paul Daniels Magic Christmas Show was already establishing itself as an immoveable object in the schedules for years to come, and we'll catch the ebbing tide in a couple of days. For now and with no huge closing trick the fourth special goes through some of the classics, with things emerging from places normally too small for them, an assistant passing through something they shouldn't be able to, a card being located by unusual means which is played out to complete silence for no given reason, and the magic kettle producing different drinks which doesn't really translate to a home audience. The specialities are a family balancing act, Las Vegas illusionist greats the Pendragons and Al Carthy's mad scientist and monster routine which we would guess is giving those who saw it performed while an impressionable age cold sweat flashbacks.
Two years after shuffling over to Auntie Beeb's corridors The Kenny Everett Television Show feels like it's at least approaching a creative dead end, hence most of the programme being given to his capture by the BBC Anti-Smut Squad, with news updates from Fern Britton leading to a court case judged by Willie Rushton and Sheila Steafel with witness Lennie Bennett and a forced show takeover by Frank Thornton. The Police are the musical guests and you'd have to ask Andy Summers what he thinks he's doing. Otherwise there's SuperGeorge, a sketch which hinges on the idea everybody hates Culture Club, and as for guest stars... Billy Connolly again, is it? Naturally.
Richard Whitmore's turn on the BBC2 news roster leading with Yuri Andropov's disappearance, six weeks before his death, and the passing of Violet Carson of Ena Sharples fame, which headed the late ITN bulletins. And that news in subtitles again.
Obviously nobody knew it yet, which gives the first sketch unfortunate overtones, but this was to be the final Eric & Ernie's Christmas Show as it was now officially known, the vagaries of Thames once more stranding them from the big day. While we don't have the whole programme - littered with Derek Jacobi, Fulton Mackay, Nanette Newman, Peter Skellern, Patrick Mower and Burt Kwouk - to hand Eric had had health issues and it was widely seen as tired, with a lot of the material reworked from BBC shows past, and even Gary Morecambe later admitted he found no joy in it being "very weak by their own high standards". Afterwards, clock a very louche looking Philip Elsmore. Hold on, the cue dot's still on...
You don't often get clip shows with new framing material on TV, especially not this far back, which even with a full quarter of the programme fresh material makes Minder Christmas Bonus seem like an attempt to throw something together to take advance of the cult of Arthur, who doesn't seem the type to help Terry and Dave decorate the Winchester.
30 YEARS AGO
Ustinov Meets Pavarotti actually originally went out on 14th September but we somehow missed it then and you don't pass up a title like Ustinov Meets Pavarotti, in which the great raconteur and Il Maestro have a series of entertaining poolside, tableside and hammockside chats.
While the same night's Pantomime might be on there here's a Spitting Image project you won't find among the crumbling ruins of BritBox and not just because it was made for the BBC. Peter And The Wolf - A Prokofiev Fantasy is a fantastical reimagining of the symphonic story co-directed by Roger Law using a mixture of actors, including Roy Hudd as the composer, and new puppets, all narrated by a puppet Sting, played by Sting. The presence of What's Up Doc? puppeteer Simon Buckley may account for the look of the wolf, while entertainingly Giles Pilbrow, a producer on Spitting Image who went on to do the same for Have I Got News For You and Horrible Histories among others, is credited as an ice skater.
Antiques Roadshow - The Next Generation was an annual Boxing Day event by now as Hugh and the gang welcomed an ever changing cast of Children's BBC presenters, Andi Peters and Anthea Turner this year, and no end of children proffering heirloom teddies, annuals, die-cast toys and assorted highlights of collections.
A Grand Day Out actually debuted on Channel 4 in 1990 but its follow-up The Wrong Trousers premiered on the more familiar home of BBC2, as trailed around their sumptuous ident for that year. It was so anticipated a making of/preview, Inside The Wrong Trousers, went out the previous late afternoon.
It can't have taken much coercion from ITV for Battle Of The Gladiators Celebrity Special to come into being, the extravaganza having shot such a bolt through the middle of Saturday night prime-time and a generation's imaginations alike. John Fashanu says "awooga!" twice before Ulrika can actually introduce the programme, which is a fitting start to a special that went out right before the second series' final. Playing for charity in a line-up that features a distinct lack of women are the inevitable Vinnie Jones, boxers Denis Andries (who is sweating buckets in the introductory interview) and Gary Mason, gymnast Neil Adams and showjumper Oliver Skeete.
Les Dawson was one of the select number of beloved entertainers who did their best and most well regarded series for ITV, so fully six months after his passing Denis Norden introduces and Roy Barraclough links A Tribute To Les Dawson.
The sitcom is going abroad for Christmas, part one: Keeping Up Appearances takes to the QE2, filmed mostly on location and it takes half the episode to get there, as Hyacinth's dream is dented as she realises who else is on board too late, with a slapstick swing dancing climax.
The sitcom is going abroad for Christmas, part two: One Foot In The Algarve was Meldrew's peak, sweeping the week's ratings battle as the only programme to top twenty million viewers. They get away with it by a combination of Wilson's world-weariness and Renwick's twistedness, as Mrs Warboys (this was the only time Doreen Mantle was given co-lead credit) gets in trouble twice over before discovering a holiday romance with a heavy underside, the accommodation is as unaccommodating as expected, Craig Ferguson makes a brief appearance and they find themselves followed by Peter Cook, in his final TV role, as an Clouseau-esque investigative photographer who believes the Meldrews have an incriminating roll of film of his in their possession. Plus, a donkey.
20 YEARS AGO
The Young Visiters, based on Daisy Ashford's class conscious comedy drama written when she was nine years old as detailed in Alan Bennett's opening narration, is adapted by Patrick Barlow with Jim Broadbent and Hugh Laurie as the competing gentlemen leading a cast including Bill Nighy, Geoffrey Palmer, Anne Reid, Simon Russell Beale, Janine Duvitski and a little known Sally Hawkins.
A Life Beyond The Box was a strange idea for a series, adding extra biographical details to a series of beloved sitcom figures, though only two were ever actually carried through. The first was Norman Stanley Fletcher, co-written with apparent consultation from Clement and Le Frenais by someone who knows all about undead ghosts, Danny Robins. Patricia Brake, Peter Vaughan, Sam Kelly, Christopher Biggins, Tony Osoba and David Swift all appear to update their characters... as does, spoiler, Ronnie Barker, his final TV acting appearance bringing something full circle.
The Office. You might have heard of it, though you might have forgotten the story that a beauty technician somehow got sent the scripts accidentally, went straight to The Sun, and then frankly illegally the Mail bought them and revealed the plot at the start of the month. It came back for two conclusive episodes, the first sending David Brent to his personal depths despite being in an environment that also includes Mike McClean and failed Big Brother breakout star Bubble, the second the next day having him return to the Wernham Hogg office and accidentally on purpose see everything turn out right.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
1972: the Till Death Us Do Part Christmas special is a crossover episode with... Jesus Christ Superstar?! This, remarkably, starts with what’s thought to be the only officially filmed fragment of the acclaimed West End version with Paul Nicholas in the lead role, and for the first ten minutes he and Dana Gillespie as themselves are buttonholed in the bar afterwards by Alf willing to share his experience and pass on some friendly advice. Later Alf goes down the pub where he's introduced to, usually a casting we'd be all over but you know what's going to happen here, Derek Griffiths.
1975: Russell Harty Goes Upstairs Downstairs aired five days after the original series ended, where the Giggleswick gabbler attempts to talk to cast members in and out of character simultaneously and in his usual elaborate way before absolutely shattering any remaining illusion at the end.
1976: Val Doonican "loves to listen to record shows", but that's no excuse for him to drag Wogan, Blackburn and Pete Murray into it even with the topical lyrics.
1980: The Roman Invasion Of Ramsbottom is the kind of title that stands out in a set of listings. With a book by National Youth Music Theatre founder Jeremy James Taylor (it later provided Matt Lucas' first stage role), it's a kind of supposedly Python-inspired musical kid bellowathon about an attempt to build a chariotway through a 1st century pub, here performed by The Children's Music Theatre.
1981: even though Boxing Day is a big sporting day World Of Sport is on a holiday footing, with even the typists looking like skeleton staff, so Dickie makes up some time by introducing "the unusual, the offbeat and the mirth-making".
1985: THE CLOCKWORK ROBINS! Anyway.. the most famous visit to Easton Neston occurred on this date, as just as Peter Purves predicts ("I just hope we don't have the same problem today") Junior Kick Start ten year old junior competitor Mark Schofield (at 15:22) falls off the balance beam and into a straw-covered crevasse, closely followed by the St John's Ambulance men. "One shouldn't laugh" reassures Purves, a little late on everyone but Schofield's count, especially when a perfectly timed still makes the closing montage. That one man in the background might never have recovered to this day.
1992: the most watched Noel's House Party ever at just short of 16 million. In a live show so packed it nearly overshoots the scheduled ending one very notable thing is Mr Blobby making his first appearance in the house and getting a big cheer, and it does feel like with a sequence with Blobby crashing assorted other programming, including The Late Show (Sarah Dunant - prime-time!) and This Morning, is a production development crossing over with a character coming out party. A sporting Tony Blackburn accepts his inevitable Gotcha, with Rebecca Front involved, Frank Bruno and a confused Nigel Benn vie to escape the gunge tank, The Lyric Game engages the ever available London Community Gospel Choir, NTV turns into a classic Noel's Christmas Presents set-up and there's appearances by a whole host of soap actors, Edd the Duck and Joe Longthorne, who gets a lengthy solo spot if you don't count the dog he's holding throughout for no good reason.
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