And Here's Why ... >>
The 7 Ages of Parky >>
Dediddly-der-d-da >>
Pissing All Over Parky >>
The Nation Vs Parky >>

To do justice to a life spent poking a nose into everybody else's lives, an approach is required that not only matches Parky's capacity for self-delusion, but which is also inversely proportional to the amount of respect he wields within today's TV environment. Such an approach is best summed up, rather handily, by the title of this very feature, which is...

1: FROM LITTLE ACORNS
To kick off we spool right back to the 1960s, when "Mike Parkinson" stalked the Granada region with all traces of his Yorkshire accent mysteriously banished for the sake of gritty investigative reportage. Presenter, interviewer, anchorman - Parky was never one to pool his talents, preferring even then to spread them all-too thinly between numerous vocations. In one of those uncanny strokes of good fortune, he contrived to conveniently be on air the moment news came through of JFK's assassination, and inevitably seemed to win plaudits a-plenty for his sensitive yet firm coverage. He also began to associate himself with what would come to be the enduring motif of his entire future career: biting the hand that fed him, in this instance campaigning for Granada to cede territory to, what else, Yorkshire Television. Parkinson was sufficiently minted to buy his first house south of Watford in 1966 - a Victorian terrace worth £9500. But what worthy motivations did the man exercise in choosing said pile? "I was smoking in those days and thought it the height of luxury to have a fag machine around the corner. We had a walled garden that was entirely paved, which suited me as I'm not a gardener - I just like to look at them." If you have a garden you'd like Parky to view, or perhaps you're his old neighbour from whom Parky's cat used to nick pork chops and sausages before he sold the house in 1972 to a "young American pop musician", then we've a battered filing cabinet waiting to be filled with slanderous correspondence.

2: THE CALL OF ACADEMIA
We fast forward to the early '70s, just before Parky signed up with the Beeb and when he was in a period (one of many) marooned within a TV company, itching for more money and a chance to - obviously - flex his journalistic muscles. Lured to LWT on the pretence of an investigative sports series, but finding there wasn't enough cash left in the David Paradine coffers, the man decided on the only possible course of action: attempt to become Rector of Glasgow University. Up against "Red" Jimmy Reid, "Herr" Teddy Taylor and "Who?" Maggie Herbison, all sorts of shenanigans supposedly went on leading to Parky's application being thrown out, probably on grounds of excess petulance. Once out of the running, he naturally thundered, "Whoever is elected Rector will just be a paper figure," and promptly signed on Bill Cotton's dotted line. So began...

3: THE 1970S WHEN PARKINSON WAS SCHEDULED AFTER SPORTSCENE OR MATCH OF THE DAY ON BBC1, OFTEN AS LATE AS 11.00PM, AND THE MAN DIDN'T COMPLAIN ONCE
Our favourite incarnation: a cardboard cut-out opposite Kenny Everett.

4: "FLOATING ON A CLOUD OF BULLSHIT"
An inevitable choice, this, but an excusable one if only because it usefully highlights most of the man's enduring and particularly irritating characteristics. Yup, it's his year and a bit down at Eggcup Towers as part of the "Famous Five", which Mike spent providing a neat example of what "sexual chemistry" and a "mission to explain" are not, while seeming, once again, to make as much money as possible in the process. He then contrived to hang around TV-am far longer than his erstwhile colleagues, him and his missus chirping cosily on their sofa (only on weekends, mind) simultaneously parroting stories they'd spotted in the tabloids and talking about how the standards of journalism in Britain were slipping. Brilliantly, he hated Roland Rat; insisted on having his own desk in the office while everyone else had to share; and best of all once he'd legged it to Australia technicians "accidentally" aired a pilot of him losing it on set and storming off.

5: THE WILDERNESS YEARS
After bailing out of TV-am Parky embarked on what appeared to be a form of accelerated hibernation, returning to our screens a dozen or so months later looking as if he'd aged 20 years with a penchant for chewing the fat with creaky establishment glitterati on the likes of ALL-STAR SECRETS. Other notable incarnations during the man's lost weekend that was the 1980s include a brief period as one of the "LWT Entertainers", photographed with his bony forefinger glued to the side of his cheek; and an extended spell spent elbowing Lionel and Una aside to do his own personal mime at the close of particularly winsome editions of GIVE US A CLUE.

6: "...LIKE A TEDDY BEAR?"
The chance for reconciliation with the BBC presented itself in the somewhat unlikely shape of a shit-scary supernatural thriller. Mike's revelatory performance in 1992's GHOSTWATCH was largely down to a piece of inspired casting which saw him playing a weak-willed and hapless anchorman whose incompetence is exposed on a grand scale when he lets Sarah Greene get brutally killed in a basement and ends up possessed by a spirit called "Pipes". Such a testing role was obviously no problem for a professional journalist, and writer Stephen Volk ensured maximum authenticity by having the studio cameramen walk out near the end in protest at Parkinson's incompetence and amateurism. "There's cameras ... but ... I don't know which one's working ..." complained Parky - last week.

7: TWILIGHT TIME
We've always enjoyed the sight of Mike floundering in a format that made him look really undignified, and as such his seventh and final "age" collects together some of those lesser projects the Beeb tossed his way off the back of securing his chat show revival in 1998. There was the dreadful 2001 TO 1 millennium quiz, splendidly representative of Parky's will-host-crap-for-food attitude that surfaces whenever his career teeters on the edge of obscurity and a handful of pompous Telegraph sports columns. Then there was squirming in front of a hollow laughter track as host of GOING FOR A SONG - a role he subsequently bequeathed to, of all people, Anne Robinson. And we can't ignore his continuing weekly two-hour self-aggrandisement workout that is PARKINSON'S SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT on Radio 2, which aside from forming a useful bulwark in the schedule between Steve Wright and Elaine Paige ("the nation's most popular showtunes programme") takes responsibility for foisting some of the most insipid cabaret singers of the last few years upon the nation. We'll choose to remember Parky best from his participation in the BBC's 2002 Jubilee weekend coverage, where his sole involvement was a) in sound only and b) on a 30 second voiceover. A brief glimpse into a brighter, happier, world.