The Why Don't YouTube? Post-Christmas Newsletter - December 27th 2023
From the house of @whydontyoutube
But the Christmas special period, as we’ll see, carries on for longer than the day itself so you can if you want still catch up on this year’s WDYT? Advent Calendar, which came to a spectacular end up the Telecom Tower.
Additionally the latest blog posts taking a full granular look at Christmas Day schedules are up, covering 1983 - now with the full version of Terry meeting Captain Tom on his last Blankety Blank, and we would add "the former's" but it's not like Moore appeared on it again either - and the very Steve Priestley year of 1993.
December 27th
50 YEARS AGO
Around double issue time Crown Court (part two, three, four, five) would occasionally indulge itself with a light-hearted, self-mocking or otherwise odd set of episodes. The apogee would arrive four years later with N.F. Simpson's An Upward Fall, but Murder Most Foul by regular TV play writer Patricia Hooker, which comes with special festive titles and portentous voiceover to boot, is a fine subversion of the form into the shape of a traditional country house murder mystery in which the lord and his heir have both died in suspicious circumstances. John Le Mesurier, Liz Fraser, Arthur English and Tony Doyle are among those hamming it up, as well as William Mervyn as the judge and long future Demon Headmaster Terrence Hardiman as QC.
Technically, despite being A Very Special Episode too, The Baby Arrives would be the last episode of the second series - both within 1973 - of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and perhaps understandably the last for nearly five years, though there were two actual Christmas episodes over the next two years. The title somewhat gives the plot away, via a blundered trip to the confession box.
40 YEARS AGO
Channel 4 have room for an intermission, and those close-ups of the faces of ageing Christmas toys are really reassuring. And when that runs out, LOGO IN SPACE.
The Cosgrove Hall version of The Wind In The Willows is the version of the story a whole generation know best thanks to the beauty and grandiose detail of the sets and stop-motion action, the junior nightmare fuel of the weasels and the voiceover work of David Jason (who has said this was his favourite of his many Cosgrove Hall gigs, partly because of the presence of...), Sir Michael Hordern, Ian Carmichael and Richard Pearson, not to mention Beryl Reid, Una Stubbs and Dangermouse's Brian Trueman and Edward Kelsey in support. The Stone Roses' John Squire was responsible for some of the props.
There was really no such thing as an extended sitcom episode before now, the big budgeted ideas going to film instead, but the BBC were looking to make an effort to transpose special productions onto screen instead and when Bill Owen and producer Alan JW Bell suggested that there was potential in a full-length version of Roy Clarke's original 1974 Last Of The Summer Wine novel they gave it a shot over 88 minutes. Audience-free, all on film and (relatively) naturalistic, not being a videotape broad half hour allows Clarke to extemporise with greater depth and less set-piece showiness. It's become known since broadcast as Getting Sam Home, as the trio smuggled the never before seen Sam out of his invalid hospital bed for one last night with his splendidly named old flame Lily-Bless-Her (Lynda Baron) only for him to die in her bed and Compo, Clegg and Foggy having to smuggle his body back to his actual home before his wife finds out, like a Holmfirth Weekend At Bernie's, with only an unreliable fish and chip van available to borrow. As if the comedy wasn't black enough John Comer who played Sid was so ill from throat cancer - he died in February 1984 - that his voice musing about life after death had to be dubbed over.
Early Channel 4 was keen on using special occasions to raid the then more cobwebbed corners of the ITV archive, having done Fifties To The Fore a year earlier, and for its second Christmas period ITV Comedy Classics brought back episodes of four series unseen for years, namely ATV's original Morecambe And Wise Show, George And The Dragon, the Forsyth/Wisdom Sunday Night At The London Palladium, introduced anew by its stars, and At Last The 1948 Show.
30 YEARS AGO
Prince Cinders, Babette Cole's tuned around version of the classic tale, gets the animation treatment (by the same director as did Madonna's Dear Jessie) in which a weakling prince (Dexter Fletcher) taken advantage of by Ugly Brothers (Jim Broadbent, Jonathan Ross and Robert Llewellyn, who also did the adaptation) is accidentally transformed into an ape by a trainee fairy godmother (Jennifer Saunders), who also enables his cat to talk (Craig Charles), before he can go to Princess Lovelypenny (Victoria Wicks)'s disco. Lenny Henry presumably turned up late to the session but he does get to sing the closing theme.
Given what Michael Barrymore was like with adults on Strike It Lucky you can imagine how he approached a children's special, especially as one pair of kids is blind and one of them wants to sing.
The Lovejoys are going to America! The Lost Colony sent Lovejoy and co to North Carolina, which going by Clement and Le Frenais is entirely Deliverance country, in search of some stolen antiques from the possession of a Lord played by John Gielgud which takes him on the trail of Ken Kercheval and Kate Vernon (Falcon Crest, Pretty In Pink, the revived Battlestar Galactica). He ends up in trouble with the law, of course. This is not regarded by anyone as a classic or befitting episode as the series began a late period decline.
Ten years after the subtlety of Getting Same Home Last Of The Summer Wine introduces an alien landing storyline, Clarke now deciding the area harbours both an ancient stone circle and an extra-terrestrial club manned by Paul Bown from Watching. At least Ronnie Hazlehurst and the visual effects team had fun with ET nods at the end, James Casey and Eli Woods pass by as drunk onlookers presumably waiting for Roy Castle to appear carrying a box, plus somehow John Cleese makes a post-credits cameo of less than twenty seconds' length.
BBC2 up and gave four hours of the evening to At Home With Vic & Bob. In between Rutland Weekend Television, the Dad's Army sketch from 1972's Christmas Night With The Stars, Wildlife On One's Meerkats United and Nuts in May the pair invite us to their house and introduce Vic's collection of University Challenge hairstyles, Badgerwatch, regional news headlines from the shed with the Bra Men, Slade's Christmas plans disrupted by Simon le Bon, Le Corbusier et Papin, Mulligan and O'Hare's seasonal medley and a surprise visit from John Shuttleworth. The one new full-length offering was an intended one-off celebrity and telly quiz called Shooting Stars, pitting Jonathan Ross, Martin Clunes - who with Men Behaving Badly not having taken off yet has to have his most recent big role added to his intro so people know who he is - and Wendy Richard against Danny Baker, Noddy Holder and Ulrika Jonsson.
20 YEARS AGO
After nearly five and a half years SMTV Live breathed its last, though it had been on compilations for the last few months and had been ailing since Ant & Dec's departure led to a veritable revolving door of presenters over its last two years. Some but by no means all return and even then not all interact or are on screen at the same time until the very end, and even then we're not sure all of them are on stage for the climactic singalong. What's definite is in between Gareth Gates, a Girls Aloud megamix and a competition none of whose winners are ever revealed, none of those that followed the pair are involved in the new Challenge Ant, Dec Says, Chums or the chat with Ant, Dec and Cat which notably is conducted by Philip and Fern, ie not Tess and Brian. And the last person seen on the show? Naturally, it's executive producer Conor McAnally.
So what's on the other side? From when Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow introduces introduces Pudding Pete, a living Christmas pudding, and then encourage the Bungalowheads to beat him up in a possibly unscripted decision you know it's going to be lively. So it goes with Dom having trouble with a brussel sprout related world record attempt, the neighbour's cat's bum hat, Santa being punched, Bogies in Butterfly And Insect World and a reindeer office party.
We've kept this quiet over the years but for a day in late 2003 we were the commissioning editor of BBC2.* Obviously not everything we pitched got through, Smithy’s Kaff fly on the wall documentary was rejected (couldn’t find it, apparently), the twenty part investigation into BBC1 Has Got A Lotta Fings On supposedly "more a Channel 5 thing" and the Stilgoe Night pitch had us fired on the spot, but we did manage to push through That Was The Week We Watched, a six part retrospective each examining a chosen week in TV history illustrated by animated Radio Times pages. (Simon Pegg's voiceover was written and recorded behind our back) The first, covering the week of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips' wedding, went out the day before; the second was built around the scheduled being ripped up awaiting Apollo 13's rescue, including studio chat. Over the next three days the mildly deep dives took in Channel 4's launch, the Our World satellite spectacular and World Safari with a side of the launch of BBC1 daytime including Children's BBC and Neighbours.
(* citation required)
December 28th
60 YEARS AGO
Doctor Who lasted six episodes before the Daleks made their first appearance, and even then it was the second episode of the serial actually called The Daleks before they showed their metallic faces. Easy to overlook that although script editor David Whitaker recruited him for his one script for ABC's Out Of This World, up to this point writer Terry Nation had a comedy reputation, having been part of the fabled Associated London Scripts collective collaborating with John Junkin and Johnny Speight and then became Tony Hancock's writer for his ATV series.
30 YEARS AGO
We've commented plenty in the past at how The Paul Daniels Magic Christmas Show was a quiet staple of the double issue's central pages for fourteen years. Well, with the series axed the following summer this was the final one - unless you're counting Christmas Secrets, and we're not sure even Paul would do that - and the joint furthest away it ever got from the 25th. You can't say he and his team haven't put the effort in though, with a fantastical series of set-pieces, one for Martin P, one A Christmas Carol with a transformation angle, one one a Beauty And The Beast giving Debbie a chance to show her dance tuition and Paul having to reassure any children watching that it's not a real beast, it's his son with a mask on. Did we have to hear Paul crooning? No more than centre stage had to be given over to a junior tapdance troupe from Sylvia Young FOR THE LAST FIVE MINTUES. Ah, that's why it didn't come back.
"A good year? No, not really." Barry Norman celebrates his Films Of The Year.
Until its stars started literally doing so, The Comedians was a show that would not die. A fifth attempt at a comeback from Granada had the classic group and ringer Les Dennis get together in a club to perform to an audience including all their compatriots in the front row, Bernard Manning as the alpha male guv'nor of the working men's club set and so getting chief heckling duties. Charlie Williams gets the last word with a weirdly emotional little speech.
As all those Comedians would have said, “alternative comedy? Alternative *to* comedy, more like!” Julian Clary in Brace Yourself Sydney has the kind of wander round that bit of Australia you'd expect he and lapdog Russell Churney to have, from beach to outback to boat to, um, space, taking in Craig McLachlan, Strictly Ballroom's Tara Morice and Bob Downe along the way.
BBC2 had just done their Radio Night crossover the previous week and BBC1 at closedown, after the following day's highlights, decided to get in on the act with Steve Madden. The feedback suggests why they never did it again.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
December 27th
1974: An Audience With Muhammad Ali sees Dickie Davies engage The Greatest in a 45 minute Q&A in front of an invited audience of boxing luminaries such as Henry Cooper, Reg Gutteridge and Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart.
1979: Tomorrow's World wrapped up a decade of achievement, including mocking William Woollard for predicting there'd be a Channel tunnel, news of Prestel sabotage and Judith Hann riding a mechanical rodeo bull.
1981: Of Muppets And Men, a wonderful behind the scenes view of the fifth series of The Muppet Show from writer's room to filming, voiced by Jim Henson himself.
1981: we've featured part of this All Star Record Breakers before on the Advent Calendar, namely Sarah Greene's performance of I Can't Do It Alone in full Sally Bowles gear; in fact the whole show is based around the principle that Roy's going to put the show on right here, the most ambitious and glamorous song and dance spectacular they ever did. We've only got just under half an hour of the full fifty minute extravaganza so far, so we don't get to see Mark Curry sing Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs to Tony Hart, but the remarkable guest list is largely present and correct - Johnny Ball, Floella Benjamin in Carmen Miranda gear, Mr Bennett, Keith Chegwin, John Craven, Mark Curry, Peter Duncan. Janet Ellis, Stu Francis, Sheelagh Gilbey, Kim Goody (soon to defect to Maidstone), Simon Groom, Tony Hart, Adrian Hedley, Su Ingle, Lesley Judd, Carol Leader, Paul McDowell, Stuart McGugan, Leigh Miles, Maggie Philbin, Peter Powell, Peter Purves, Lucie Skeaping on the violin, Sally Ann Triplett in the world's most expensive bikini for the dads, Heather Williams and the Krankies.
1984: Tomorrow's World examined the world of illusion and deceiving the eye, from artistic perception tricks to modern CGI.
1989: Barry Norman closes off a decade in the same seat and corner studio by rounding up his Films Of The 80s, though most of it is spent on 1989 alone.
1992: the ITN Lunchtime News is led by a "Christmas miracle" non-fatal plane crash, but after the break John Suchet leads a debate on whether traditional pantomime is old hat between Bill Oddie and Jean Boht, except it turns out Oddie at least hadn't been told this is what he'd been brought on for and doesn't agree with the point he's supposed to be defending. Still, they try.
December 28th
1979: unaware for a few more days yet that they only had two left, Southern celebrated 21 years (from 8:07) via interviews with seemingly everyone who ever worked on or for them, with a notable lean towards high cultural output.
1980: sadly only nine minutes of one-off Denis Norden's World Of Television, which essentially invents the James/Floyd/Tarrant On TV franchise.
1984: the last of the original run of Pop Quiz (POP QUIZ!) was also the most famous, Duran Duran vs Spandau Ballet.
1985: not to suggest Channel 4 had commissioner's remorse about Emma Thompson's self-penned sketch one-off Up For Grabs, but it went out at midnight.
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