How We Used To List: 23rd FEBRUARY – 1st MARCH 2002

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What we were watching this week 20 years ago, as recorded in the back-issues of TV Cream’s weekly ‘e-mag’, Creamguide…

(We still send out Creamguides every week via email. If you’d like to receive it – it’s free, there are no ads, we don’t sell on your address, you can unsubscribe whenever; we’re basically soppy like that – then fill in your details below.)

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TV CREAM TIMES
23rd February – 1st March 2002
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Saturday 23rd February

BBC1

21.00 Only Fools and Horses
Bloody hell, BBC, this was last on in June! However, in the past week it’s beaten Footballers’ Wives and, interestingly, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, so time to do something about that, we feel. Incidentally, how pissed off must Parky be that he’s been shunted to 22.15 to make way for this?

BBC2

21.00 Class of 1980
Well, Creamguide quite enjoyed this last week, partly because it’s got a Guess The Theme Tune round, partly because it includes a round which includes showing chart rundowns taken off Top Of The Pops, and partly because there was a round based on showing the whole process of giving out Best British Female at the BPI (never Brits, Zoe) Awards, including Mike Smith reading out facts about the nominees over the clips with scrolling text running along the screen (“KIM WILDE WON THIS AWARD IN 1982… THE SECOND TIME IS MOST PLAYED SONG ON AMERICAN RADIO”). However extensive research shows that this was actually from the 1985 awards, but they honoured the stars of 1984 so we’ll give them that. Though not Limahl singing Too Shy, which came from 1983. Anyway, always the chance of something interesting, so worth a look, we feel.

21.45 The Paul Calf Video Diary
We include this because a) it’s good, and b) it’s now eight years old and hasn’t been on for a good few years. Although, fact fans, the cast list in the Radio Times comes from Pauline Calf’s Video Diary, so make of that what you will.

ITV

22.00 The Streakers
No chance of perhaps moving The Premiership forwards then, ITV? Instead here’s a repeat for this not especially great documentary, first shown in Euro 2000.

CHANNEL 4

06.10 The Magic Roundabout

11.25 The John Charles Story
Well, this was included here two weeks ago, but seemingly didn’t go out, perhaps for Princess Margaret-related reasons. Of course the oddest thing about that day was Ray and Lawro wearing suits and black ties on Football Focus, which was all wrong.

12.50 Little House On The Prairie
They’ve started unspooling these a lot recently, as you’ll see.

21.00 Heroes of Comedy
Last week’s Mike Yarwood documentary was quite good fun, apart from Jimmy Savile suggesting that he was replaced by “swearing and alternative comedy” – yeah, that’s all you get on BBC1 at eight o’clock, isn’t it? Anyway, tonight it’s Sid James, and we’d like to take this opportunity to ask Channel Four to repeat Bless This House, because when it was repeated in 1988 we really enjoyed it. Mind you, we also enjoyed Cannon and Ball at that point.

22.00 Kings Of Black Comedy
Ooh, nice scheduling, C4. This is a new series which features profiles of legendary, mostly decased comedic figures, unlike the programme preceding it which features profiles of legendary… and so on. Sammy Davis Jr up first, so we should get clips from the demented Sammy and Bruce, which we’d like to see the whole of. Interestingly, despite punditry from Jerry Lewis and Whoopi Goldberg, it’s a British series.

23.05 Top Ten Easy Listening
And if that isn’t enough archive footage for you, here’s Andy Williams with profiles of some of Sammy’s mates, plus Burt Bacharach, Dusty Springfield and the rest. Oh, and to stop you wondering who the familiar-sounding narrator is all the way through the show, we can confirm it’s Ian McShane.

CHANNEL 5

04.15 Sons and Daughters
Why not put this on at 5pm and Baby’s Day Out here?

Sunday 24th February

BBC1

16.20 Best Of British
Looks like every channel’s getting it’s tribute slots out this weekend, as BBC1’s half-arsed version returns in this half-arsed slot. Leslie Phillips is the subject, who we’ve always found a likeable fella, so there might be some fun clips.

02.00 Olympic Grandstand
Obviously the only bits of the Winter Olympics we’re interested in, chance of a medal or not, are those commentated on by Barry Davies, which is why we feature the closing ceremony. Baz’s performance at the closing ceremony of the Sydney games was fantastic, including “The athletes will be entertained by the group Savage Garden, with their hit song, Affirmation”, and his summary of the career of Kylie Minogue. And the way he kept on interrupting the bands to say who was in them. Presumably Donny Osmond’ll be involved somewhere, too.

BBC2

11.20 Stingray
If you live up north, Super League returns to this slot, so if you’re a fan of this, let’s hope for your sakes it’s the final show.

ITV

17.20 Their Worst Nightmares – Sports Commentators
This is an interesting one. This show is basically It Shouldn’t Happen To A Commentator, and first went out, under the name “What Am I Saying?”, on the day of the World Cup Final in 1998, where Bob Wilson did all the links on ITV that day, which was great fun. About nine months later, it was repeated, though sneakily given the meaningless new name of “Their Worst Nightmares” to pretend it was a new show. Now here it is again, with another (slightly) different name, and re-edited to fifteen minutes to cut the slack after the Worthington Cup Final. Weird, huh?

CHANNEL 4

06.10 The Magic Roundabout

Monday 25th February

BBC1

13.45 Neighbours
Erk! Not only have they messed about with the theme tune yet again, they’ve now also changed the typeface in the credits so it isn’t in the squiggly font anymore. No wonder we don’t watch it anymore.

17.00 Blue Peter
Have to mention last Friday’s BP here, which featured a guest appearance from Mark Lawrenson in tracksuit and Sport Relief T-shirt, launching a competition to appear in the title sequence for the BBC’s World Cup coverage. Obviously they can expect a few entries from TVC Towers to arrive.

23.05 Johnny Vaughan Tonight
A patchy week on the show last week, we feel – for a start, there was the ever-useless Ricky Grover, and we still don’t understand the point of his act, then a not-very-good interview with the clueless Heidi Klum. But they did have Britain’s Tallest Man on, just sitting around.

BBC2

08.35 Postman Pat
This seems the ideal opportunity to mention the Postman Pat ride in the food court at Euston station (bear with us), which rather than playing the signature tune in full, simply repeats the first line over and over again. The seven-inch version was about three minutes long! Couldn’t the manufacturers get copyright of the rest?

18.20 Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Today’s the day The Simpsons goes five days a week – rather unfortunately timed the week it’s just been announced it’ll be moving to another channel soon – and it was greeted by some people as if they were dropping episodes of Panorama or Newsnight to fit it in. In fact, most of the other programmes – including The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air – still carry on, as you can see.

21.00 Never Mind The Buzzcocks
Not a great guest list tonight – June Sarpong’s on it, for a start – but so’s Paul Young. “Has he done a cover of How Does It Feel To Be The Mother Of A Thousand Dead by Crass?”

21.30 Shooting Stars
We weren’t sure about the first episode of this new series last week, it all seemed a bit half-arsed, and ominously for a new regular, all of Will Self’s bits appeared to be cut out. Still, time for it to pick up, and Larry Hagman guests tonight. We like the way Matt Lucas said he thought this was a bit of a scoop, until they realised he’d been on every other programme in the world as well.

22.00 Room 101
Seemingly everyone thinks this show is better since Paul Merton took over, but we think he’s a rubbish host and he’s turned what used to be a consistently funny programme – albeit with the guest as practically a bystander sometimes – into a dreary chat show which is only any good when the guest is outstanding. The chance of that tonight, with Johnny Vegas, but there’ll probably also be a bit of children’s TV taken out of context and sneered at, which we don’t like at all.

ITV

16.20 How 2
HOW lazy is it to schedule a repeat run straight after a new series?

03.55 ITV Sport Classics
Go to http://www.channel4.com/greatest for your chance to vote for the forthcoming 100 Greatest World Cup Moments, which could be great, as long as they include some of the actual TV coverage rather than take it off the official films and newsreel as they normally do on those sorts of shows. We want Martin Tyler’s premature “Goa…no!” from 1986, please.

CHANNEL 4

09.00 Bewitched
Thankfully Meego’s finished, much to the relief of Creamguide subscriber Jeff Westcott who wrote to us this week and told us how rotten it was. It is “utterly compelling though – as if a cheap Mike and Angelo wouldn’t be!” Not that we’ll be able to see that for ourselves, as Samantha’s back.

13.20 Little House On The Prairie
Another double bill, so bad luck if you’re following this series and you work during the week. That’s if they’re showing them in the right order, of course.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm
Brian mustn’t be alarmed if he gets some e-mails from people from Glasgow asking to meet him in a pub within the next few weeks.

11.00 TJ Hooker
We’re out of ideas for these billings, so we’re reduced to – Why did Captain Kirk’s girlfriend dump him? Because William Shatner. Sorry.

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IT’S TIME TO READ… TV CREAM HEROES WEEKLY
It’s a giant welly scooping up the best bits of telly

#5 Barbara Knox, as seen in CORONATION STREET, whenever it’s on next week, ITV and CLASSIC CORONATION STREET, weekdays 18.30, Granada Plus

OK, Creamguide promises that next week’s Hero won’t come from a soap, but when we tell you that this week we drove past Barbara Knox’s house you’ll realise why we had to include her in TVCHW’s Ladies’ Week. (So we could tell you we drove past her house, of course). Anyway: “Barbara Knox threw her head back and laughed before exclaiming, I seem to remember you screaming pretty darn loud when Bobby shoved that monster into your …” *isn’t* a quote about the flame-haired tragi-queen of Weatherfield (we think), but it is the first thing our seconded researcher brought back to us when we tossed Barbara Knox’s face – plucked from our extensive index file of TVC Heroes – across the table at her and told her to fact-find. Alas, we’re not sure what that quote’s about because the website it was taken from required credit card details to access more information. (Tch! And let me tell you, that researcher’s secondment is being cut short! The Creamguide Ed is on the phone at the moment to Drew at Princess Productions telling him so).

But what do we really know about Barbara “Rita” Knox? Now, listen lady! She was born in 1938, and first appeared in CORONATION STREET as an exotic dancer in 1964. She returned in 1972 and has stayed ever since. Our best Rita moments (judging by our “Our Best Rita Moments” board here in the office) include her “give over Mavis, I’m only having a laff” badinage, the bit when she ran across the tramline (not so much cos of the story, but just really cos of her “elderly person” running), her doomed marriage to Ian Chesterton, the bits when she sings and tries to be sort of racy and, of course, when we drove past her house earlier this week. She holds the crown as being the person most confused with Elsie Tanner (second place – that Denise one who didn’t really last) and for having the most “old lady” hands on telly. Well done, Barbara and let us show you to your special “Fort Knox” room in the TVCHW “Old Lady Hands” Annexe.

In the meantime, over to Tim Lawton who’s got an amusing wife. Note: all exclamation marks in the following have been inserted by us. Tim wrote to tell us: “Oh Creamguide, you keep picking on one of my favourite shows, Eldordodo[!]. And this time you nabbed the king of the show, Jessie Birdstall[!]. Now, I really think you should of included his performance as weirdo comicbook art collector in ‘the started out pretty good until they got rid of the Triumph Herald’ Anna Lee. Not to be confused with the cake, Sara Lee, as the wife kept calling it[!]”

Thanks for the mail, Tim! This bit of Creamguide welcomes all correspondence from readers, whether you want to nominate your own TVCHW (remember, they must currently be appearing on TV), tell us about your wife, let us know where we’ve gone wrong or simply have us insert exclamation marks around your funny bits. B’bye.
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Tuesday 26th February

BBC2

06.30 What Have The Seventies Ever Done For Us?
Odd slot for this odd half-hour edition of the odd Rock’n’Science Years from the OU.

08.35 Postman Pat
At least they could alternate it with Ted Glen’s Handyman Song.

19.05 TOTP2
The series returns in it’s odd new slot, which involves two 25 minute episodes a week, at this time on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This means that we get an extra five minutes a week, which is good, and we won’t have to rush home to see it (should have put it on Thursday, shouldn’t they?) but presumably also means we get two crappy new country playouts a week rather than one. Anyway, The Cure are promised, and also “new music” from Nick Lowe, it says, but we remember this week a few years back they showed a great clip of him doing I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass, and his whole band pissing themselves laughing throughout, and given that this show’s first port of call for research is what they did this time last year, maybe we’ll get that.

ITV

16.20 How 2
HOW unintelligible was that last sentence?

03.15 ITV Sport Classics
We’d also like to nominate the bit from 1986 when Bobby Robson did a big rant about “so-called experts” slagging off England, and then Bob Wilson turned to Emlyn Hughes and said “Comments there directed… er, at you, Emlyn”.

CHANNEL 4

06.00 The Magic Roundabout

09.00 Bewitched

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

Wednesday 27th February

BBC1

17.00 Blue Peter
Thankfully, last week’s edition recorded in front of a live audience appeared to be a one-off – so it’s back to the sofas and the post-film cat-stroking, which is how we like it.

21.00 The Boy Can’t Help It
First of all, we’re very sorry. However, if you were in school in 1989, you’ll remember the legendary QED documentary John’s Not Mad, about a boy called John Davidson who suffered from Tourette’s syndrome. Hopefully we’re now mature enough to watch this documentary about what he’s doing now without sniggering throughout.

BBC2

08.35 Postman Pat
How confused must kids be when Tubbies, Tweenies and Playdays seem to change time every other week?

16.00 Yes Minister
So this repeat run, despite being only five episodes old, has now been in timeslots ranging from 15.30 to 20.30 – but now they don’t have the Winter Olympics, they may actually make a better go of it.

19.05 TOTP2
Second show of the week (dunno what they’re going to do on Saturdays, we presume an omnibus, however that’s going to work) is a look ahead to the Grammy Awards, boringly enough, which have absolutely no relevance to British music whatsoever – so a bit like the Brit awards then. Still, might be some old clips as Queen are up for one, somehow.

ITV

16.20 How 2
HOW shit is ITV’s daytime line-up getting now they’re screening Cruises From Hell there?

CHANNEL 4

06.00 The Magic Roundabout

09.00 Bewitched

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

Thursday 28th February

BBC1

20.30 This Is Your Life
Turns out we were right last week when NHS Day was commemorated by screening an edition of this with two consultants – and the seats were arranged so that they sat in between their wives, interestingly – although we were hoping for Doctor Robert out of the Blow Monkeys. Anyway, normally after an unfamous person, there’s someone very famous the following week.

BBC2

08.35 Postman Pat

21.50 Trouble At The Top
So what actually is the difference between Trouble At The Top and Blood On The Carpet, then? Anyway, the Bucks Fizz episode was great, but this could be even better as at long last we get the inside story of Eldorado. Ah, golden days – of course there was Wogan’s Teldorado to kick the whole thing off, Tel arriving in Los Barcas clutching a straw donkey and wearing what we know in the Creamguide Office as “That Madonna Shirt”. Then of course the first episode hinged entirely on the excitement of seeing Bunny and Fizz show up right at the end, despite the fact we all knew Bunny was played by Roger Walker and Fizz was on the cover of that week’s Radio Times. Thus enthralling the section of the audience that had spent the previous six weeks in a cave, with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears. It was all downhill from there, of course, and six weeks in it was rating lower than Panorama. Plenty of opportunity for hilarity here, then, as long as Blair doesn’t appear.

ITV

16.20 How 2
HOW long til we get The Story Of Castles, then?

CHANNEL 4

06.05 The Magic Roundabout

09.00 Bewitched

22.30 Banzai
Of course our favourite bit about this programme is the soundtrack, as it’s the only place in the world you can still hear Love Is Like Oxygen by The Sweet.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

14.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford
Clive James is getting back togather with his old sparring partner Pete Atkin to go on the road, and they guest on the show today. As Creamguide copies everything Clive does, of course, apart from hosting dreary chat shows, expect to see us and Richard Digance performing wry songs about school and ITV regional variations 1988-93 in a civic hall near you soon.

Friday 1st March

BBC1

17.00 Blue Peter
Matt and Konnie enter a ploughing competition, so we hope they practice for it by going to Matt’s house, because we want to know how he lives his life.

17.20 Newsround Extra
Postponed from last week, for some reason, so here’s last week’s billing again – “A report on fanatical fans, which they seem to do every single year. “It’s just a gimmick, innit? You can’t go round like The Osmonds, with the American flag on your hand, that just looks stupid, dunnit?””

22.35 The Real Vicars Of Dibley
There are lots of these programmes in the pipeline, one of which is The Real Victor Meldrews which we specifically want to see for one reason. Anyway, the reason we trail this is not because of the clips of the series, nor the interview with Richard Curtis, nor those ha-ha-hilarious stories of real life Geraldines, but because it promises “a potted history of the priesthood on TV”. So that’ll be one clip of All Gas And Gaiters, then.

BBC2

08.15 Bill and Ben
Repeated at 13.00, of course.

08.35 Postman Pat

21.50 BBC4 – A Place To Think
Of course last year all of us in the Creamguide Office suggested that BBC4 was never going to be the actual name for this channel, because it doesn’t mean anything to the public at all – especially as it’d be starting before BBC3. And here we are, with just one day to go, and we appear to have been quite wrong. Anyway, tomorrow the whole opening night is simulcast on BBC2, and here’s what’s going to be on it. This is also on BBC Knowledge loads this week as well, but you’d expect that.

ITV

16.20 How 2
HOW come they seemed to have stopped doing big long previews of the new seasons on TV channels, by the way? We used to really like them.

CHANNEL 4

06.05 The Magic Roundabout

09.00 Bewitched

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

04.00 Sons and Daughters
C5 start and end the week in their own inimitable style.

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DIGI-CREAMGUIDE
We’ve only just realised what a rotten name this is.

BBC CHOICE
Sunday, 21.00, 23.45, Tuesday, 22.30, Wednesday, 21.30, Friday, 23.00
Shooting Stars – Alright, the series hasn’t finished on Choice after all, here’s another new one with Craig Cash and erstwhile Record Breakers fave and Britain’s Tallest Man Until The Other Day Chris Greener on the panel.

BBC KNOWLEDGE
Saturday, 19.55, 20.45, 21.45, 22.55, Sunday, 20.00, 20.50, 21.45
Jackanory – It’s Children’s Book, er, Weekend on Knowledge, which involves dusting off a few old episodes of this series where Alan Bennett reads Alice Through The Looking Glass. Though we’re not really that bothered if it isn’t George’s Marvellous Medicine.

Saturday, 23.05, 22.55
An Awfully Big Adventure – Also included is the entire series of the show looking at the lives of children’s authors. A great double bill on Saturday with Dr Seuss (23.05) and Roald Dahl (23.55), while on Sunday it’s rather more sedate – E Nesbit (22.55), Kenneth Grahame (23.45) and Arthur Ransome (00.35).

Friday, 19.00, 19.40, 20.20
Inside Knowledge – And so, after two and a half years of the channel, it’s all over. And we sort of suspect not many people noticed it had actually started. In any case, before it becomes BBC4, here’s a look back at the best bits from 1st June 1999 to now, which we hope will include a K Club revival.

CBBC
Sunday, 18.00
The Official UK Top 40 – So we saw this last week, and it was, er, interesting – Konnie admitted the whole thing was under-rehearsed, big guest Victoria Beckham didn’t turn up, the lead news story was H and Claire becoming a duo, which was announced about a month ago, and of the five videos played before the as-live top 3 only one was a new entry. But Goodiebags was on live doing the countdown, but from the same angle as on Popstars, and as the number one was simulcast the show was forced to end a few minutes before 7pm. And how come the Top 40 show finishes at about ten to seven now anyway?

E4
Friday, 22.00, 01.05
Top Ten X-Rated – Well, if John Lydon’s immensley irritating presentation didn’t piss you off enough last week when this show was on C4, here it is again. But be warned.

GRANADA PLUS
Sunday, 17.00, Thursday, 22.30, 01.30
Bullseye – Hooray, it’s a double bill on Sunday! On to the postbag, and a funny story from Kathryn Hudson; “Did you know that Bullseye was in fact directly responsible for the formation of family favourites The Prodigy? I remember reading in some interview with Liam that the reason he took up music at an early age was so that he could walk into a pub of his choosing, sit down at the piano and whack out the Bullseye theme to the amazement and joy of everyone there. And I think you can see a heavy Jim Bowen influence in Keith’s performance style too of course!” Kathryn also nominates as her favourite bit “Any time Grotbags appeared on the celebrity shows”. Meanwhile we also have the second appearance of the week from Tim Lawton – although this time it has nothing to do with his amusing wife. “My all time favourite Bullseye moment has to be when Jim, faced with a woman darts player on the prize board, changed his little ditty, “You get nothing in this game for two in a bed” to the rather quaint “You get nothing in this game for two in a . . red”. Blink and you miss it, but it’s a superb moment, and cheered me up for days after seeing it on Granada Plus the other month.”

Friday, 01.30
The Wheeltappers’ And Shunters’ Social Club – We sincerely hope that this scheduling is for one week only to make way for the Sweeney pilot earlier in the evening, as it’s too god to waste on insomniac Sky Digital viewers. As Chris Diamond makes clear – “So the Wheeltappers continued its run of top flight entertainment with another triumph deluxe of variety. First up were the shimmering blue female singing duo The Caravelles, then we got Comedians veteran and almost impenetrably Scouse accented Eddie Flanagan whose gentle Kirby musings had many women in the audience (and Bernard Manning) in tears, doubled up with laughter. After the break came speciality act Judy Moxon who opened her turn by juggling a gold spangled badminton racket between two drumsticks to the sound of Sweet Georgie Brown. How do you follow that? Well, you get on your back and balance, flip and toss a door decorated with harlequin colours and hearts to the music of Autumn Leaves, that’s how. Then you finish your act by tumbling and juggling with a big white and gold barrel to the inevitable Roll Out The Barrel. Class.”

PARAMOUNT
Monday-Thursday, 23.00
The Frank Skinner Show – Michael Palin on Tuesday, Thora Hird on Wednesday, and on Thursday, Chesterfield FC prior to their 1997 FA Cup Quarter Final with Wrexham, an interview which got in the Wrexham Evening Leader when Frank said ‘Best of luck, because you’re here and they’re not.” Boo.

UK GOLD
Thursday, 23.00
The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin – It’s been two years now since BBC2 reran the first series of this and then left us all witing for the other two (we’re obviously not counting The Legacy Of…). They still haven’t got round to it, and UK Gold are showing the first series again, the idiots.
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All times correct at time of writing and refer to England except where stated. All programmes subject to cancellation, shifting, editing, ITV’s ineptitude, etc.
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YOUNG, FREE AND BEST SINGLE
Creamguide’s certainly been mingling with the stars this week – we’ve spoken to Ray Stubbs on the phone for ten seconds, we saw Ted Robbins reading a copy of Private Eye and Nigel Planer looking dead knackered. Plus we might see Gordon Burns next week. But the most important people in our lives are (points at camera) you, so please keep writing, and keep subscribing to The TV Cream Update, at http://tv.cream.org
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Best British Group – Chris Diamond, Chris Hughes, Ian Jones, Graham Kibble-White, Phil Norman, Simon Tyers