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WORDS AND PICTURES
(LATE 1970s-1980s)
BBC
BASIC ALPHABET and sentence tuition, featuring floating spongelike cartoon CHARLIE, and scary stop-motion stories with the words lighting up on the screen as they were spoken. Set in a public library; the "We've got a new book in" introduction set up the theme of the show. Funny how this herd of unsupervised kids just turned up out of nowhere, though. HENRY WOOLF was nominally in charge, later replaced by VICKI IRELAND. Stuck in our minds are animations like Lazy Lion, Cool Cat (who played a double bass with such gusto that in true cartoon style he drove the spike through the ground which gave way below him, causing him to fall down the "Acme Bottomless pit type 1 UK issue") and various other alliterative animals. The format was always the same - a basic loop of the animal in question, with that jazzy, laid back tune, pause - "Cool! Cat!", ba-dum, bum, bom - and round it went again. And again. Plus the magic pencil, displaying in great detail how to write a particular letter: "Top to bottom, over...and down". Those scary model ones (the central 'story' of each show) included various folktales; the butcher and his wife whose every wish comes true - 'I wish your nose was a sausage!' - cue rather alarming visual representation of same; the Jack O'Lantern pumpkin that came alive and hobbled to people's doorsteps on a staff-and-boot combo; that one about a mouse/man thing who walked for hundreds of miles and met various 'travelling tinkers' (their expression) who offered him a new pair of shoes, a new pair of socks, and, hideously, a NEW PAIR OF FEET (he just unscrewed the old ones); and the infamous Frog and Toad animations, which we think also turned up on Play School from time to time. They were scary, though - it was the way the eyes rolled around and the long pauses between sentences. The kids meanwhile got on with making things and doing stuff, all under the watchful eye of Charlie, although he inevitably got a bit carried away with whatever activity they were doing and ending up covered in paint/glue etc - cue presenter and kids en masse: "Chaaaaarlie!" And it was always Halloween - much apple-bobbing, and so on: "We're witches of Halloween, wooo-oo/Our faces are yellow and green, wooo-ooo." Words and Pictures also turned up in, of all places, THREADS, educating post-bomb survivors in basic literacy. A chilling thought, in more ways than one.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...TOP TO BOTTOM, UP AND OVER
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SMITH AND JONES
(1987-88)
LWT
HERE'S A weird one. Mel & Griff temporarily decamp from the BBC to earn big bucks from Dyke Towers for routine effort in the Spitting Image/Clive James Sunday slot, revisiting history via means of clips from crappy old films linked with terrible one-liners written by a third-rate script team led by main Roland Rat writer Colin Bostock-Smith. Pathetic main gag revolved around the fact that every week, one of the hapless 50s B-movie actors resembled Smith. Jones: "Just stop that there...look, it's Mel!" Smith: "It doesn't look anything like me". And running jokes about Keith Chegwin (in clips from Children's Film Foundation classic Young Robin Hood) and the same stock footage of a bloke shooting an arrow turning up in hundreds of films. But the main (only) point of interest concerns the fact that they made 12 shows, but after ITV screened the first block of six, Smith and Jones made a new series for BBC, in which they almightily took the piss out of their ITV efforts ("A Load Of Old Jokes According To Smith And Jones") and sent up the Mel-lookalike gag, perhaps in order to conceal their shame and embarrassment. But then ITV screened the second set of six, ostensibly as a new series, making S&J look like a pair of hypocritical tossers. And how they deserved it for making the fiasco in the first place.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NO MENTION IN THE SMITH AND JOKES SKETCHBOOK, OF COURSE
THE WORLD AT WAR
(1972-73)
THAMES
COMES WITH a faintly ridiculous semi-mystical, hushed tones, doff-your-hat air nowadays, but still a near-flawless stab at definitive telly history, pompous LAURENCE OLIVIER narration aside. Notable for a) scary flaming opening titles b) crappy sound effects dubbed onto all those silent films of people walking about and c) being co-directed by DAVID "EUROPEAN BLUE REVIEW" ELSTEIN.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...A JEREMY "ARTSWORLD" ISAACS CREATION, AS HE NEVER CEASES OF REMINDING THE ENTIRE PLANET
WORLD BMX CHAMPIONSHIPS
(EARLY 1980s)
ITV
THE QUARTERPIPE! ENDOES! etc! The quintessential early-eighties bike, the BMX was a more serious affair than the weird Chopper, and sturdier than the Grifter, but these championships were dull as fuck. In 1985 the more sensible mountain bike took over ("Gears! You ponce!"). Bearded RAZZMATAZZ frontman ALISTAIR PIRRIE did the commentary: "Give 'em a bit of encouragement!"
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."IT'S GOT A MONGOOSE FRAME, WITH MAG WHEELS, AND THE CROSSBAR'S OVOID CROSS-SECTION!"
ITV'S ANSWER to GRANDSTAND, of course. First in the presenter's chair was EAMONN ANDREWS, introducing a line-up that ran something like this -
PETER LORENZO of the "Sun"analyses the latest football news and sums up the day's outstanding games.
JOHN RICKMAN gives informed selections of the day's televised races.
IAN WOOLDRIDGE of the "Daily Mail" reports from South Africa on the M.M.C. tour.
FREDDIE TRUEMAN voices a down-to-earth opinion on controversial issues in sport.
JIMMY HILL takes a fresh look at soccer's problems.
POOLS SERVICE: an exclusive feature on the Treble Chance and the immediate news of the day's probable dividends.
RESULTS ROUND-UP: the full classified scores, Rugby League and late racing results, League tables and sports headlines
Then in '66, one "Richard Davies" took over - better known as moustachioed silver-streak DICKIE DAVIES, and billed as such from about '72 onwards. FRED DINENAGE was a co-anchor for a while. In its late '70s pomp, the running order went:
12.35 On the Ball
13.00 International Sports Special: some crap novelty thing from the US, such as cliff diving or truck racing; once they actually had the World Bus-Jump Classic: someone jumping a bus over 100 motorbikes. Didn't work.
13.20 (after the news) The ITV Six (later Seven) - a seven horse-race accumulator beloved of Ladbrokes-frequenting uncles in front rooms up and down the land.
15.10 Another ISS
15.50 Half-time round-up
16.00 Wrestling - proper old-school Daddy/Haystacks/Mad Mick McManus/Cyanide Sid Cooper wrestling, mind.
16.50 Results service (always got the football results in late).
Some of our favourite WOS commentators - Brian "Retired" Moore and Gerald "crackly voice" Sinstadt (football), Kent Walton (wrestling, of course) and Reg Gutteridge (boxing).
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."REALLY DRIVING THOSE TRUCKS!"
WORLD'S/BRITAIN'S STRONGEST MAN
(LATE 1970s ONWARDS)
BBC
JUST LIKE the LORD MAYOR'S SHOW, one of those dreary, '70s-originating annual televised events that somehow forgot to stop happening around 1983. Various fat bastards put on bodybelts and grunt while pulling trucks up hills or carrying barrels over a fence as a bored crowd look in the other direction. World contest always dominated by huge Swedes, but Britain's champion was, is and always will be the redoubtable GEOFF CAPES.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BRITISH CONTEST HOSTED BY DEREK HOBSON; THE PRIZE WAS THE "BRITISH MEAT TROPHY"
DAVID "RAPIDLY LOSING HIS KID LICENCE" JENSEN hosted this bizarre geographical quiz from atop a crane-mounted armchair which floated over the studio, for absolutely no reason at all. The object of the game was to circumnavigate the globe ("you must cross the equator twice!") quicker than the other team of generic T-shirt-colour-coded sullen '80s kids. A large luminous map and early CGI was used to bring this desultory vision to life.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...MINUSCULE AMOUNT OF DRAMA DERIVED FROM INVOLVING THE JOKER-LIKE "EMERGENCY VISAS"
WORZEL GUMMIDGE
(1979-81)
SOUTHERN
JON P'TWEE was your thick-but-loveable scarecrow befriended by kids, according to the 7" single (see below), "just like John and Sue", with all the "thinking head"/"cup of tea and slice of cake" stuff. (Sue was, in fact, a pre-pubescent CHARLOTTE "FOUR/MARMALADE/ORANGES" COLEMAN.) Aunt Sally (UNA STUBBS) and "The playing-God-with-bits-of-turnip-and-carrot-alchemist Crowman" (GEOFFREY "CATWEAZLE" BAYLDON) did the schtick, along with multiple guest appearances down the years by BARBARA WINDSOR as Saucy Nancy. Original Southern television production later shifted lock, stock to New Zealand (for co-production of the "...DOWN UNDER"), though the series had long since deviated from the original BARBARA EUPHAN-TODD books.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...P'TWEE, TRAGICALLY, RELEASED A SINGLE ("WORZEL'S THEME") EXPLAINING, TO A VERSION OF THE JAUNTY TROMBONE THEME, HOW TO TALK BOLLOCKS - "YOU PUT A WOR AFTER W/PUT A WOR AFTER O/PUT A WOR AFTER R/AND IT'S AWAY WE GO..." NO, THAT'S ENOUGH.
THAT TELL-TALE exclamation mark heralds another patronising educational strand from the Beeb (see SORRY MATE, I DIDN'T SEE YOU!), this one a poor man's ON THE MOVE with BARRY TOOK and a host of familiar BBC celebs who all lied about not being able to spell "together" etc. Adults after literacy tuition could have done (slightly) better with LOOK AND READ.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...01 992 5522, IF YOU'RE INTERESTED
UNPRONOUNCEABLE IMPORT sneaked out on Thursday evenings as part of otherwise half-arsed early C4 yoof initiative. Ended up cult-ish viewing mostly down to impenetrable storylines, only partly rendered intelligible by slipshot on-screen subtitles. Six half hour episodes traced the fortunes of eponymous Scandinavian teenager (BENNY HAAG), a sex-obsessed white Rastafarian desperately trying to get his end away and striking daft bets with friends Tony (JOAKIM BORJLIND) and Pekka (KALLE WESTERDAHL) over who'll be first to retrieve manufacturing tag from a pair of girl's knickers. Ace catchy theme tune. Ended with Xerxes' step-family telling him his real father had just croaked, who'd actually been in Sweden all along and not living in the West Indies like they'd told him, then Xerxes passing his driving test which meant he could now legally drive the car given to him by a deceased co-worker, and finally bedding girl of dreams after numerous failed attempts (including persuading mates to inform girl he needed to have sex in order to clear his mind before taking aforementioned test).
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SEX AND DEATH BETWEEN THE MUNSTERS AND CHANNEL FOUR NEWS
RATHER SURPRISINGLY well-done cartoon (though very low-fi) series about a Yak and his friend Crow who had various unlikely adventures. We recall the poignant farewell episode (surely a staple of childrens's series - often much more "downbeat" than an adult series would have allowed?) where Yak left to return home, on his own, without friends or help.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...HAIRY
YES MINISTER/YES PRIME MINISTER
(1980-88)
BBC
CORRUSCATING COMMONS satirecom, with PAUL "JERRY" EDDINGTON as hapless (and clueless) Minister for Administrative Affairs Jim Hacker fighting a losing battle with amoral Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by NIGEL "GEORGE" HAWTHORNE. "MR." DEREK FOWLDS was stuck-in-the-middle Personal Secretary Bernard Woolley. Politely deranged stuff, and as Hacker was promoted to PM the scale of destruction got even greater. JOHNATHAN LYNN and ANTHONY JAY wrote, light entertainment music-grüppenfuhrer RONNIE HAZLEHURST penned the faintly regal theme, GERALD SCARFE supplied the watch-how-it-did-them line-drawn titles. Top cameos from ROBIN "I DIDN'T KNOW" BAILEY and GRAEME GARDEN.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."THERE ARE CERTAIN ITEMS OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION WHICH WHILE THEY ARE IN THEORY SUSCEPTIBLE OF INNOCENT INTERPRETATION DO NEVERTHELESS CONTAIN A SUFFICIENT ELEMENT OF AMBIGUITY, SO THAT, SHOULD THEY BE PRESENTED IN A LESS THAN GENEROUS MANNER TO AN UNCHARITABLE MIND, THEY MIGHT BE A SOURCE OF CONSIDERABLE EMBARRASSMENT, AND EVEN - CONCEIVABLY - HAZARD, WERE THEY TO IMPINGE UPON THE DELIBERATIONS OF AN OFFICE OF MORE THAN USUAL SENSITIVITY"
MORE SELF-INDULGENT than LYNN MARSHALL on the subject of "Hatha" yoga, this bizarre black-limbo with a few pseudo-Chinese bordello trappings-set tranceathon had bearded Californian guru bloke plus two "demonstrators" go through the motions of this ancient technique. General stoned atmosphere all round.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CONTORTED
UBIQUITOUS KIDS' infotainment presented in classic era by one of the following: a) stop-motion duo of hamster ("Alice") and hyperactive crow ("Crow") doing a sort of running commentary on some footage of real life kids doing mundane stuff (going to the doctor/library etc.), with Crow the impatient uncomprehending stooge and Alice the knowledgeable one calmly explaining everything; b) the clackety-mouthed Duncan the Dragon; a human presenter would chat in the studio with Duncan sitting on his wall, there'd be a story, with, again, frequent interruptions/questions from Duncan etc. Very basic but enduring stuff. Makeover in the 80s resulted in lame puppet things Cosmo and Dibs and reggaefied theme by UB40.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."COME ON CROW, SAY HELLO TO EVERYBODY" "HELLO TO EVERYBODY!" "NO CROW, EVERYBODY!" "OH, EVERYBODY! OH WELL, THAT'S DIFFERENT! HELLO MUMS" "AND TEACHERS" "AND GRANNIES" "AND NURSES" "AND DADS" "AND MINDERS" "AND GIRLS" "AND BOYS" "AND... AND..." "AND?" "OH, YES! AND YOU!" "AND ME..."
YOU MUST BE JOKING!/PAULINE'S QUIRKES/YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS
(1975-76/1976/1978)
THAMES
MORE YOUNG persons stuff, this time a string of variety-esque affairs masterminded by ROGER "TOMORROW PEOPLE" PRICE, peopled with kids who weren't obviously "stage school", and blessed with scripts that usually resulted in the kids ending up in uncomfortable situations, being knocked about and having all manner of crap dumped on their heads. The sketches were about common teenage situations and conflict with authority. ...JOKING! was the first, in which token adult JIM BOWEN failed to take charge of Anna Scher kids including PAULINE QUIRKE and LINDA ROBSON, and music of a sort from GARY KEMP and Flintlock; PAULINE'S QUIRKES pushed the two birds to the top of the bill, along with Flintlock for nudge-nudge snog interest - the shows were anarchic enough for the Tyne Tees and Yorkshire regions to refuse to show them; while ...SERIOUS was back to the original format, this time with a new set of kids who never really made it after, and a different token adult each week, including CLIVE DUNN, DEREK GRIFFITHS, STEPHEN "BLAKEY" LEWIS, "DIDDY" DAVID HAMILTON, and the newly grown-up Quirke on a return visit.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...PAULINE'S PEOPLE SOON FOLLOWED, WHEREIN THE TWO BIRDS EXAMINED LIFE "FOR TEENS" IN LONDON
YOU MUST BE THE HUSBAND
(1987-88)
BBC
WOEFUL BARGAIN bin laughless comedy with TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR adjudging his uselessness in contrast to wealthy bestselling writer wife DIANE KEEN. Meaningless shitty dialogue - "Have you read it?" "No, I wrote it." "Yes, but have you read it?" - confirms writer to be COLIN "RAT" BOSTOCK-SMITH.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."AND JUST WHERE DID SHE GET THE RESEARCH FOR ALL THOSE GRAPHIC SEX ROMPS?" NOBODY WONDERED
YOU RANG, M'LORD?
(1988-93)
BBC
YET ANOTHER load of You Have Been Watching lummoxery from David Croft, as usual set in some hilariously over-cliched recent period of British history, and as usual starring SU POLLARD, PAUL SHANE and JEFFREY HOLLAND. This time the laughs were to be found - allegedly - in a 1920s house where, and hold onto your sides now, the upper classes are battier than those below stairs! And everybody's either trying to diddle or screw everyone else! Basically, Shane and Holland gain the employ of Lord Meldrum (DONALD HEWLETT) years after saving his life in the First World War, only to install Shane's - gulp - daughter Su Pollard as parlourmaid. Cue "oo eck!" accidents with dusters, slippery scullery floor scrapes and falling out of cupboards in ill-fitting clothes. Also living in the house are, variously, a demented biddy, a lesbian who dresses as a man, a randy pensioner, numerous stupid toffs and toffesses, wailing cooks, dim-witted errand boys and BARBARA WINDSOR. Oh, and BILL PERTWEE used to call round for a bit of tongue from the head cook. And some food as well. Best thing by far was undoubtedly the theme tune, crooned by none other than SIR BOB MONKHOUSE in his best clipped-voice posh-man impersonation ("From Mayfair to Park Lane/you will hear the same refrain/in every house again, again...") replete with PAUL SHANE interjections (spoken, thankfully: "You rang, m'lord?"). Various topical events of the 1920s turned up, including - implausibly - the General Strike. Ended when the Meldrums ran out of money and had to sack everyone. Now that's our idea of going out on a high.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...QUOTH LORD BOB: "POOR VALENTINO'S PASSED AWAY!" CUE TED BOVIS: "HOW SAD, M'LORD"
YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY!
(MID 1980s)
BBC
NOTICE HOW all these "YOU..." shows have bloody exclamation marks in... Anyway. This was basically a giant in-studio Snakes and Ladders game show in which teams of stage school kids competed against each other for "fame". A clapometer was used to determine the number of moves, after a group from one team had performed an act. "Fame" quotient measured, logically, in Blackpool rock. Hosted by an impoverished COLIN BENNETT* as the oleaginous Butlin's reject Vince Purity. Weird career curve, has our Mr. Bennett. Theatrical background (produced a musical of Nillson's infamous "The Point" - the story of Oblio, a bloke with a round head in a land of pointy-headed people, songs like "Me And My Arrow..." etc.) Moved into TV as presenter and writer, most famously for Luna, but also such stuff as bizarre and diverse as Captain Zep, Roland Rat, Women of a Certain Age, Panda Pete, Headfirst, Greetings from England, Little Thistle, Tricky Business, Robo Pigeon (yeah), Fantasy Five, It's Weird, etc. etc. Whatever they are. Also the model railway fanatic in the non-classic Yellow Pages "R186 signal box" ad, as well as dad in one of those "There may be trouble ahead" insurance ads.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...GUESS WHAT THE CATCHPHRASE WAS, SHOUTED EVERY THIRTY SECONDS BY THE AUDIENCE. GO ON...
THE YOUNG DOCTORS
(1970s DOWN UNDER, 1980s UP HERE)
REG GRUNDY
NOT THAT there was anything very young about them. Possibly the foundation stone of the now omnipresent, scary Masonic-style icosahedron logo-bearing Grundy empire, this budgetarily-challenged Aussie medsoap found its way into many an early 80s ITV afternoon line-up, in lieu of anything else that wasn't GIVE US A CLUE or TROPIC. Most famous graduate was a pre-NEIGHBOURS ALAN DALE, distinguished by a superb Afro haircut. Precious few sets: hospital lobby, minuscule ward (not that they ever got many patients), and a couple of multi-purpose offices a la ARE YOU BEING SERVED. Possibly a corridor for the evil Dr Steele and that white-haired bloke who ran the hospital to stomp down. Lots of "plain" nurses in thick glasses: "Just take those off for a moment...why, has anyone ever told you you're beautiful?". There for the course were hospital kiosk matriarch turned TV cookery celebrity Ada, and oft-engaged orderly Dennis.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CRACKING THEME TUNE ("BABBA-DABBA-DERRRR!") ENHANCED BY TERRIFICALLY MURKY 1970S STANDARDS CONVERSION, ESPECIALLY WHEN SLOWED DOWN FOR TEAR-JERKING FINAL EPISODE MONTAGE
TATTIEST, NOISIEST, hammiest and blusteriest thing BBC2 has ever shown. You all know what went on here. Suffice to say age hasn't treated it well, but the special effects still look good. And that bit with THE GOOD LIFE titles is ace. It was contractually obliged that everyone who was in it went on to be famous, which alas meant stardom beckoned both for PAUL MERTON *and* CHRIS BARRIE.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."QUICK! GET THE PICTURE BACK ON BEFORE ELEPHANT HEAD STARTS SINGING!"
YOUR LIFE IN THEIR HANDS
(1958-64, 1980-86, 1991)
BBC
SOFTLY-SPOKEN SURGEONS inform patients of the intricacies of kidney stone removal before performing the necessary operation and inviting the patient to come back and talk about how they're feeling four months later. All on camera. Viewers claim to "prefer suicide" than submit to such an ordeal themselves. British Medical Association spokespeople bluster about scaremongering. Ordinary doctors profess pleasure in seeing things being told as they are. Patients profess incredulity at all the fuss and express wish for "a cup of sweet tea".
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...GLOOPY
YOUR MOTHER WOULDN'T LIKE IT
(1985-88)
CENTRAL
THIS IS more like it. The Central Junior Television Workshop presents! Here were dozens of kids doing just what you wished you could do, i.e. dress up and do vaguely-rude sketches and piss-takes about farting, the royal family and everything on TV. Seminal for giving a break to teenage STEVEN RYDE, the brain behind Dick And Dom In Da Bungalow (and indeed IAN KIRKBY, regular contributor to said show). Among the coterie: Tweeman, superhero Street Budgie, Loaf and his tea-lady mum, and of course Tapeworm. Spun-off into the equally brilliant PALACE HILL.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...FRIDAYS AT 4.50PM; NO BETTER WAY TO SEE OFF THE SCHOOL WEEK
YOU'RE ONLY YOUNG TWICE
(1977-81)
YORKSHIRE
EXTREMELY ROTTEN ITV sitcom that managed to stink up the schedules for four years. Easy laughs were accrued from old folks home setting - The Paradise Lodge - home to PEGGY MOUNT, playing Peggy Mount, and PAT COOMBS, as her weak-willed stooge Cissie. Dismal. Creators Pam Valentine and Michael Ashton went on to inflict THAT'S MY BOY and MY HUSBAND AND I on an ungrateful nation.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...ALSO STARRED DIANA KING AND CHARMIAN MAY
BUT WAIT! It gets worse! LAMENTABLE SEQUEL to ROMANY JONES, with the MULLARD et al relocated from a caravan site to crappy council flat. First episode saw elder brother, appearing from nowhere, turn out to be MIKE REID. Upper-class twit lived next door. Much non-hilarity when Arf discovers first non-stick frying pan.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...VER 'LARD WRAPPED PIPES ROUND ABYSMAL TITLE THEME
COLOSSUS OF small screen blue light institutions, dreamt up by the great TROY KENNEDY MARTIN as a response to "tame" DIXON OF DOCK GREEN, only to see it drag on right through to, incredibly, a post-SWEENEY late 70s graveyard. Early years the best, with crazy "live" transmission policy meaning tense, rough and ready edge to scenes and dialogue, plus plentiful reliance on the old "out the rear window" back projections. DCI Charlie Barlow, aka STRATFORD JOHNS, was number one bad bastard cop, aided by "nice" FRANK WINDSOR (DS John Watt) and BRIAN BLESSED (PC William "Fancy" Smith), with PCs John Weir (JOSEPH BRADY) and Herbert Lynch (JAMES ELLIS) completing unique titular patrol combo. Much acclaimed depiction of force as "real people", i.e. drunks, gamblers, wife-beaters, but inevitably tame compared with later decade displays of rank-filled vice and corruption. Switched from 50 minute eps to twice weekly 25 minute doses in 1967, when Johns and Windsor left for SOFTLY SOFTLY and were replaced by JOHN BARRIE (DI Sam Hudson) and JOHN SLATER (DS Stone). Proto-soap format didn't work, however, so it was back to the 50 minute affairs from '71. Passing through Newtown Station over the years were COLIN WELLAND (PC Graham), STEPHEN YARDLEY (PC May), GEOFFREY WHITEHEAD (DS Miller), ALISON STEADMAN (WPC Bayliss), GEORGE SEWELL (DI Brogan), JUNE WATSON (WP Cameron), JOSS ACKLAND (DI Todd) and several constabularies' worth of extras. JOHN THAW was a trainee copper; JUDI DENCH a teenage runaway; TERENCE EDMOND drowned while saving a young boy; LEONARD ROSSITER was a foul-mouthed temporary boss; KENNETH COPE and IAIN GREGORY hammed it up as "the notorious Hancock brothers"; PATRICK TROUGHTON served as a local councillor; PAUL DARROW thieved and PATSY KENSIT blubbed. All crowned with peerless whistle-along theme "Johnny Todd" by Johnny Keating.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...AND THEY ALL CAME BACK FOR THE LAST EPISODE
POST-NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE drama, but then they all were then. A lone girl survivor (PIPPA HINCHLEY) in the Welsh middle-of-nowhere finds ANTHONY "SEBASTIAN" ANDREWS as symbolic stranger. Then not a lot happens. Apart from numerous shots of Andrews dragging his survival kit behind him. Again, only those unlucky enough to be taught it at school had read the original book.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...Z FOR WHAT?
EDUCATIONAL KIDS' pot pourri presented by SHEELAGH "DO IT" GILBEY with a different subject each "term" - Eskimos, "the future", knights, and so on. Top "All right class, get your topic books out!" school project-based, pre-National Curriculum craziness.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...ZAPPY METALLIC TITLES ALONG WITH RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP-BASED VOCODER THEME WAS BEST BIT
DON'T WORRY, we've nearly finished. TOM O'CONNOR fronted this none-more-pointless 5.15 weekday ITV quiz, based around signs of the zodiac, predictably enough. Even more predictably, RUSSELL GRANT was on hand, but not even he could see that the whole thing was doomed from the start. There was also a Through The Keyhole-style mystery guest, who would be sitting round the back, but superimposed into the studio utilising the worst CSO process outside the BBC sci-fi department.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...YOUR FORECAST: DISMAL
SATURDAY MORNING cartoon linking device featuring a talking pinball machine of that name which played pinball, showed film clips and cartoons, including the home grown (and barely animated) space serial Skayne, Bevis and Sabor. The Radiophonic Workshop supplied the voice, Janet Ellis' dad made the pinball machine, and ALI BONGO provided the magic salt. Either inspired, or insipid.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."ZOKKO - SCORE - ELEVEN...SERIAL." DING!
ROLLOCKING RESISTANCE capery wherein four French veterans reunite 30 years on to sweep the Riviera streets clean of loitering Nazi war criminality. Casting of the kind only capable by Lord Lew found none other than JOHN MILLS leading the charge as Tommy Devon, codename Elephant, aided by BRIAN KEITH, BARRY MORSE and LILLI PALMER. Eponymous moniker was their old World War Two "handle", revived for contemporary do-goodery and subsequent other "acts" of, well, social justice. Only lasted six episodes. Theme tune, thanks again to the golden Grade touch, by Macca. And his missus, officially.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BAND ON THE RUN
SHORT-TROUSERED LOOK-AT-THIS be-caged business initially hosted by fearsome anthropological fellow DESMOND MORRIS. Kids shielded from all naked apery, however. Later helmsman CHRIS KELLY oversaw regionally-tactful switch from London Zoo to Chester Zoo, conveniently just in time for the latest franchise renewal round.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."THIS...IS A FLAMINGO...AND THERE...IS ANOTHER ONE..."
ZOOM THE DOLPHIN
(EARLY 1980s)
FILMATION
HMMMM, WELL, yes. Hawaiian dolphin research labs, complete with absent-minded professor and his lil' daughter, have adventures with headset-enhanced dolphin of title. Mischevious monkey also featured. Overtaken rapidly by animal welfare attitudes.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."ICK-ICK-ICK-ICK-ICK!" "HE'S TRYING TO SAY SOMETHING!"
THAT ZOOMY-OUT ANIMATION THING AKA COSMIC ZOOM AKA POWERS OF TEN
(1968, 1977)
NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA
...AND SO we come to this, made by the redoubtable NFBC (see separate entry), and re-done by IBM-affiliated heads a few years later, it nevertheless instantly caught the eye of anyone watching. BLUE PETER showed it once, PICTURE BOX several dozen times. Immensely memorable all the same. Produced by Charles and Ray Eames, it was originally an animated film which started with a (real-life action) shot of a boy rowing over a lake. The picture freezes, and the camera "zooms" (you see?) in on the boy's hand, sitting on which is a mosquito. We go past the mosquito and under the skin, right through the blood vessels and into the atomic structure. Then we slow down and come back out the other way. But the reverse-zoom doesn't end with the lake, it goes on further, showing the whole of England, the globe, the Earth as a planet within the solar system until we see the Milky Way. Then we stop again and zoom back in until we're back at the boy on the lake. Then it melts back into live action and the boy carries on rowing, blissfully unaware of the mind-altering hallucinogenic experience the rest of us have just undergone. Indeed.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THE END. BUT WAIT, WHO'S THIS, DESPERATE AS EVER TO HAVE THE LAST WORD?
FITTINGLY ENOUGH, here's Noel to bid us all farewell. This was the genesis of SWAP SHOP, he tells us, in the shape of a weekly half-hour live phone-in discussion for kids every Wednesday throughout June and July of 1975, concentrating on a different topic each week. They were: Appearance, Friends, Parents, Pocket Money, School, Fears, Fashions, Brothers & Sisters, Pets, and, er, Friends again. Already with an eye for a recyclable format, the man Edmonds was soon fashioning the chattiness and discussion elements into a "What's your question for Toyah?" and "What have you got to swap?" agenda. Cheers Noel!
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...THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT
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