The Why Don't YouTube? Newsletter - December 24th 2023

From the house of @whydontyoutube (for the 350th time)

50 YEARS AGO

Michael Bentine's Potty Time, the founder Goon's hirsute historical re-enactment puppets, reveals Santa has had to take on extra lookalikes to cope with the workload, taking Bentine to the secret North Pole processing centre where they've developed world-spanning computer present message networks and supersonic sleighs to back up the reindeer. Bear in mind Bentine is doing all the voices at the end singalong, having additionally channelled Leonard Sachs.

As usual, there are plans for a main character to go abroad in a Christmas sitcom special. Uncharacteristically, he doesn't, though as the sitcom is Steptoe & Son that might be as expected. Frank Thornton makes an excellent early turn as an obsequious travel agent.

The Goodies And The Beanstalk is a typically askew version of a Super Chaps Three pantomime in which the destitute trio are forced to sell the trandem for magic beans, leading to endless living cartoon capers, Eddie Waring commentating on Jeux Sans Frontiers with outdated representations, Alfie Bass, a version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? in the style of the Marx Brothers and a famous moment that is literally the last thing that happens. We know it's a poor quality version, can't be helped.

The fourth and final Carry On Christmas special has Sid James and writer Talbot Rothwell returning to Babs, Joan, Kenneth Conner, Peter Butterworth, Bernard Bresslaw and Jack Douglas after taking 1972 off for what's essentially a superannuated sketch show based around Sid as a department store Santa with deviations into the past and into, um, ballet.

40 YEARS AGO

The Fraggles Are Coming! THE FRAGGLES ARE COMING! Doubtless we'll get to this in full detail down the line, even if finding the Fulton Mackay cut-ins might be tricky since all the TVS mastertapes were eaten by the living ghost of Walt Disney himself, but the new Henson vehicle was given huge pre-publicity, so much so that this short preview that's mostly a cursory Aspel voiceover was repeated the next day.

Lots of Little & Large in the preview of BBC1's festivities, in between which Nicholas Witchell is still at the BBC news desk reporting on new leads in the Harrods bombing eight days earlier, Michael Buerk in South Africa and Brentford moving a league game to this date. Witchell calls it "Channel 1" in his rounding off. Maybe he still had a push-button set.

Taken from Jimmy Cricket's private collection, The Krankies At Christmas begins with a gag that implies Jimmy would gleefully urinate on Ian's head. That mental image passed, through the Club doors are Barbara Dickson, David Grant, Modern Romance, some trick rollerskaters who at one point seem to be trying to choke each other and end by attempting to murder Wee Jimmy instead, Melvyn Hayes as the dame and Bernie Winters as... Grotbags, we think, and then as Santa with his not-reindeer Schnorbitz. Why is there a bloodcurdling scream mid-sketch at 10:58?

In the adverts for the above Scottish clearly knew who'd be watching - small business owners! That's why they should be phoning STV, with a curious second part after Bob Holness has plugged the sheepskin and cutlery sale and proof that someone really, REALLY wanted people to see Krull.

Pop Quiz - POP QUIZ! - goes seasonal with Dave Edmunds, Mari Wilson and Leee John against Roger Taylor, Limahl and Midge Ure. And because it's Christmas, Mike Read gets his guitar out. The audience reaction seems to be much more actual upset than panto booing. There aren't even points at stake!

Was Diana Dors contractually obliged to be the celebrity contestant in every Punchlines Christmas Special? She's back again this time with Christopher Biggins, who isn't nearly as irritating as the actual member of the public whom Lennie suggests show off his best impression. They face a classic wall of LE in Faith Brown, Bob Carolgees, Pearly Gates, Diddy David Hamilton, Barbara Kelly, Mike Reid, Wincey Willis and Gary Wilmot, a group of people enjoying their own company far too much even by the terms of being led on by an overactive LWT audience.

Dick Whittington is the subject of the festive 3-2-1 with Dana, Kenneth Connor, Billy Dainty and child contestants playing for charity, which hardly seems fair on them, but not nearly so much as having a fourth pairing who can't play and have to depend on the other teams if their chosen charity wants to take something home for themselves.

(Incidentally, while we're dealing with 3-2-1 and the round number anniversary status of 1983 is disappearing towards the horizon we'd be remiss in not admitting that we missed what's now probably the most famous single moment of the entire series back on April 2nd)

Cilla Black in a studio living room singing All Night Long surrounded by young bodypoppers. It was 1983, we knew no better. Cilla Black's Christmas Eve, written by Vince Powell, came between Surprise Surprise and Blind Date as an attempt to shore up her family entertainer credentials, the singing coming in a combined tribute to Carmen Miranda, Ginger Rogers and Gracie Fields, of course. Obviously Frankie Howerd's there but the nub of the show is through satellite link-ups - the Bee Gees, George Benson, Julio Iglesias - before everybody in the LE world appears right at the end, none formally introduced. Kenny Dalglish, it turns out, is not a natural gagsmith but at least he makes out he's pleased to be there unlike Irene Handl.

A little Cribbins and Cryer goes a long way, as The Good Old Days knew very well as it came to its final regular edition in which they combine as a badly prepared fire-eating act on a bill which also includes Danny La Rue singing Marie Lloyd, tap dancers the Clark Brothers, tenor Robert White, magician Gaetan Bloom, soprano Valerie Masterson and regular supports the Players' Theatre doing a medley which ultimately posits La Rue as himself as Champagne Charlie giving the farewell song chiefly to the City Varieties itself.

Nadolig Llawen from S4C, where it's already 1.05am and Sian Thomas is in reception taking a moment to thank the staff "feeding us with the adverts", the budget having gone on hiring a choir to sing a Cymru White Christmas in the native language.

30 YEARS AGO

If you can cope with the horrible background hiss what appears to be a live Big Breakfast welcomes the Simon Bates nativity, the biggest cracker in the country (unrelated), Zig's touching Christmas song and exciting new game are in the bathroom, and Keith Chegwin in the middle of a housing estate in Birmingham. Obviously it ends with everyone plus a brass band in the garden.

There's nothing really Christmassy about the special Maid Marian And Her Merry Men, so much so it got divided into two parts for repeats at regular times of the year. After an intro that gives Danny-John Jules a chance to dance Philip Wright, who was DC Lillie in Prime Suspect 3 a few days earlier, arrives as a suave wheeler-dealer who Marian is alone in not falling for, which is unfortunate as he's fallen for her with an ulterior motive, just as the Sheriff of Nottingham and King John are on Robin's tail and Rotten Rose tries to intercede.

Slightly odd that Ed Tudor-Pole's first Crystal Maze should be the Christmas special - it surely left the children who as always made up the seasonal adventurers confused, for one - but at least they kept continuity with the cold open.

Have I Got News For You looks back at the year with a moustachioed Griff Rhys Jones and a laughing along Bob Geldof. In an attempt at swapping fortunes, Ian and Paul exchange both seating arrangements and preferred clothing. Merton promptly wins by the biggest margin to date.

HTV News leads on people leaving not just the area but the country, leaving for winter sun, which combined with overnight snow means the lead story is "cold, isn't it?", which goes unsaid minutes later in a feature on outdoor protestors having Christmas dinner outdoors. Just to really boost those good tidings, the other lead stories are a photographer who took remarkable photos of a (non-fatal) plane collision at an air show and apparently most importantly didn't make any money from it, Christmas dogs being abandoned already and "the curse of the Somerset chapel". No celebratory champagne, fake snow drops or party hats but at least they remember to (almost) end on a school choir.

Camp Christmas was nothing short of a moral outrage at the time. The gays? As Christmas entertainment? What horrors and filth were Channel 4 serving up at this strictly spiritual time? There were literal questions in the house. These were the days when Section 28 was newish, AIDS was still not understood and as Julian Clary had found out a couple of weeks earlier any mainstream hint of homosexuality could still affect a career. The weapon of choice was knowing Perry Como-style showbusiness celebration of both the season and the self. Your hosts inside the studio log cabin are Andy Bell and Melissa Etheridge, who sing throughout with music produced by Bell's Erasure partner Vince Clarke and Heaven 17's Martyn Ware. They're joined by a selection of wisecracking, panto-ing out celebrities, including Clary as the voice of a reindeer head, Pam St Clement as the fairy on the tree, a very visibly ailing Derek Jarman in his last television appearance, Lily Savage, footballer Justin Fashanu, Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer who was dismissed from the US Army on account of her sexuality a year earlier (and would six months later have her discharge ruled unconstitutional), comedy sensation of the moment Bob Downe (who co-wrote it with Kit Hesketh-Harvey), comedian Lea DeLaria years before Orange Is The New Black, East 17 for some reason and Father Stephen Frystmas, who hated the programme and was forced to improvise having had to miss rehearsal. Throw in messages from Martina Navratilova, Armistead Maupin reading A Christmas Carol, Quentin Crisp Scrooging it up, Ian McKellen, Simon Callow panto-luvvying it up... fair to assume that the context of having a daft laugh in the fulness of LGBTQness loses something in these Lycettuous days, especially being broadcast just after RuPaul's festive vehicle brought the drag underworld's idea of fun to the screen, but the point was enjoyment and entertainment in the contemporary context.

Tis the season and that, so an extended The South Bank Show tackles the Cliff Richard enigma. Even Sue Barker shows up.

20 YEARS AGO

When you employ Shane Richie as a central member of your cast you have to be prepared for the baggage he's going to bring with him, namely his propensity to entertain through song. That's how we end up with the non-canon Eastenders Christmas Party, the full whack of which includes the unlikely grouping of Suggs, Richard E Grant, Jo Brand, Greg Rusedski, Lulu, Clarissa Dickson Wright and Liberty X. But it's Richie who keeps the whole story, such as it pretends to be one, going, in character for duets on Baby It's Cold Outside and Fairytale Of New York, then very much not in closing with Merry Xmas Everybody. Oddly Mike Reid, who has plenty of form in the area, doesn't seem to have burst into song whether in or out of character, the wilf, but don't suppose you want to see Pat Butcher sing White Christmas, which could be as either?

The final Absolutely Fabulous, not to be confused with the final double episode from 1996, or the episode a year later, or the 2011 special, or the 2012 special, or the film, has Edina caught between going on holiday with Patsy or staying at home with Saffy and it turns out more family members from her past on both sides. Patsy then dies. Twice. Stuff gets laid on a bit thick.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

1977: it's gone down in folklore, not least from Dickie Davies telling interviewers right into the 2010s, that Eric Morecambe's disruptive appearance on World Of Sport was either dreamt up by the pair of them in the pub the previous night or was the result of Eric turning up early for a post-show party. If that's the case TV Times had incredible foresight because they featured Eric's appearance prominently in its preview and listed him as co-host.

1978: Bruce's Big Night ended its ill-starred run with star Karen Carpenter, alone as Richard was "ill" (about into go to rehab for addiction to quaaludes) The frantic banter exchange with Karen and the band seems undimmed, but while not at one of her acknowledged depths of anorexia at this time her bulky clothing choices are clearly only covering what was supposed to be a healthy 28 year old.

1981: why, who's this newly arrived to Auntie Beeb? Cuddly Ken had fallen out with Lord Thames over scheduling the Video Show/Cassette against Top Of The Pops and BBC1 saw potential in the Kenny Everett Television Show being their next big sketch series given how many of the previous incumbents had gone the other way in recent years. Not only is the defection not glossed over, it's basically the point of the first two minutes as Ken launches into "a show exactly the same as we did on the other side, except we're doing it over here - and cheaper". The first proper sketch not only features the debut under Ken’s watch of nineteen year old bit-part actress Cleo Rocos but also the Broadcasting Under Manager blowing Terry Wogan through a wall. After that it's hello to Cupid Stunt and the legally-distinct-from-Sid-Snot-Gizzard Puke, not to mention Billy Connolly, Bob Geldof, the Police, a sketch plagiarised from the Frost Report and the debut of Fox's Electro People end theme.

1982: BBC1 leads with a pirate ship-themed Radio Times advert with a carousel of festive star montages, followed by - yes! - Pages From Ceefax At Christmas! With jokes, and an advent calendar, and blocky candle flames! Festive greetings from abroad too, however that worked translated into Level 2, though the Europeans definitely had the edge in graphic design. Also, whoever put it together can't spell Cincinnati.

1986: A Song For Christmas was an annual competition through Pebble Mill At One to find a new carol performed by children, often involving whole schools or at least classes gathered together, judged by a panel led by Peter Skellern. One of this year's finalists was fifteen year old Frodsham High School student Gary Barlow with the self penned Let's Pray For Christmas, possibly written under the influence of George Michael. The audience like it, certainly.

1995: Jackanory got Adrian Mitchell to rewrite Jack and the Beanstalk, and there was only one person who could possibly have been chosen to read it.

1996: A morning with Children's BBC, featuring Zoe Ball and Chris Jarvis marvelling at the size of the studio Christmas tree, Take That (briefly) singing carols and Philippa Forrester variously sent to the Czech Republic and Pingu's gaff.

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