TV Cream

A bit of business

Bring them back now

It’s TV Cream’s 10th birthday this month, and as part of the commemorations it’s chastening to take a look back at another one of the site’s doomed attempts to drum up a bit of extra, self-serving publicity.

In 2005, to tie in with the publication of TVC’s Ultimate Guide to 70s and 80s Pop Culture, we drew up a list of 20 things we’d liked to have seen revived for present-day enjoyment. The theory was this would generate a bit of media excitement to accompany the book’s launch and maybe land a few extra column inches in the press. The reality was, of course, nothing of the sort. There was no media interest whatsoever. There was precious little non-media interest as well.

Anyway, here’s that fateful list in full. How, two years on, are things looking?

20) Viewmaster
A perfect antidote to so-called “TV fakery”. Michael, it seems like a good idea for the time.

19) ‘Laughing all the way to the Leeds’
YouTube gruel.

18) Telex
There’s bound to be an email backlash soon, probably around the time Boris Johnson becomes leader of the Tory Party.

17) Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle
Like the housing market, those eBay prices can’t stay that high forever.

16) Sapphire and Steel
In no way is this currently being mooted by BBC Cardiff as its next big-budget drama.

15) Shouty punk operas
Does Jerry Springer: The Opera count?

14) Music and Movement
Jamie Oliver’s next mission, once he’s finished picking herbs from his garden like Geoff Hamilton.

13) Pipkins
It’s out on DVD. Seemingly all 2,000 episodes.

12) Action comic
James Brown’s next publishing venture.

11) In-vision announcers
As the Beeb slips further into its paranoid past, expect these on screen c. 2012.

10) Instant Sunshine
We found them. We met them. We salute them still.

9) Pebble Mill at One
Now that Neighbours is soon to be no more, there’s no excuse.

8) British wine
Why couldn’t Nigel Lythgoe have opened a vineyard over here?

7) ‘Stars on 45’
On its way in the form of a Joseph Megamix ’07. Probably.

6) The Adventure Game
Prospective employment for Matt Baker, Dominic Wood, Moira Stuart and Stefan Dennis.

5) Buzby
Well, there’s Digit Al. Plus the new Culture Secretary, James Purnell, recently described the digital switchover as “like doing decimalisation and the North Sea gas conversion at the same time”, which was a good sign.

4) The BBC Micro
They worked more often than the iPlayer.

3) The Green Shield Stamp
Due an Independent cover spread in the next six month. “Help break the supermarket cartel!”

2) Whizzer and Chips
A late night panel quiz game on either BBC4 (“wry” highbrow knockabout) or E4 (“wry” lowbrow shoutathon).

1) Nationwide
Success! Well, almost. The One Show is in a near-enough slot, has a similarly affable main host and purports to bring the regions together every night at teatime. It just needs to remember how to talk to interesting people with a story to tell. And find a decent “family” of BBC “faces”.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. flotsky

    August 7, 2007 at 8:29 am

    Hey, you missed the revival of the stunt cycle then. Firebox’s Evel Knievel Stunt Set

    Of course it doesn’t look quite right, but hey, it’s a start.

  2. bounder

    August 8, 2007 at 8:30 pm

  3. Andy Elms

    August 10, 2007 at 11:59 am

    Any possible Adventure Game revival sounds like a job for Ian Kirkby, following his Richard O’Brian impression on “The Crystal Muck”

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