TV Cream

How We Used To List

How We Used To List: 29th DECEMBER 2001 – 4th JANUARY 2002

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.)


CHRISTMAS CREAMGUIDE
WEEK TWO – 29th DECEMBER 2001 – 4th JANUARY 2002

It’s the second part of the bumper double Creamguide, concentrating on the rubbish part of the holiday where there’s about 360 days to go until Christmas, you’ve either got to go to a boring party or stay in and have
everyone asking why you’re staying in, and then you’ve got to go back to work. Boo. The telly might be alright, though.

———————————————–
CREAMGUIDE NEW YEAR NOTES

TV – Walking With Giant Killers (Friday, 22.35, BBC1)
Danny Baker completes his BBC rehabilitation, joining his mate Danny Kelly for what we hope is the first of a regular telly gig. In this programme they’re going to be looking at some of the great FA Cup shocks of the past, which should see some cracking archive clips as well as some great linking material from the Two Dans. Although actually the Bake hates the concept of the “underdog”, so we’re not sure what tone these links will take.

RADIO – Must We Throw This Filth At Our Pop Kids? (Wednesday, 22.00, Radio 2)
Yes yes! The series which Radio 2 were going to have to get round to making eventually is a fine, if predictable recommendation. In effect the station have probably just realised they already employ all the chief protagonists in this story (the history of the music press), so they might as well bung them together in one studio to keep prices down. It’s a safe guess all our favourites will be here – Quantick, Collins, Kelly, Baker – not least as it’s hosted by, of course, Master Maconie. Not sure that the series really deserves to be promoted as a tie-in with the 50th anniversary of the NME though; that’s a hollow half-century if ever there was one, and as the current occupants of Kings Reach Tower will assuredly cock it up we prefer to remember the fun-packed Moz-branded 40th birthday edition as a peerless example of an in-house tribute. Compulsory listening for the next four weeks.
———————————————–

And the rest …

Saturday 29th December

BBC1

21.00 Glittering Bloomers
A post-watershed slot for Tel, although don’t expect them to take advantage of it and show some unbleeped stuff. Auntie’s Bloomers… sorry, Bloomers has a website now, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bloomers, which we’ll have to take a look at at some point, because we don’t have a clue what might be on it.

BBC2

10.20 Pole To Pole
At this time every day until next Saturday, here’s Mike Palin’s follow-up craftily scheduled so you’ll probably be back in work and miss the last few parts.

11.10 Blotto
More L&H. We always liked the way the theme tune to the cartoon series was called “One Together Is Two”, presumably called that as you could sing those words along to the tune.

11.35 Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em
Frank gets a job as a despatch rider. Why did he never go for jobs where he’d just sit behind a desk?

14.00 The Slipper and the Rose
No Nanette in a Bryan Forbes film? Hmm. Musical version of Cinderella with Gemma Craven hoofing crystal boots at Prince Richard Chamberlain. Michael Hordern, Edith Evans, Annette Crosbie, Julian Orchard, Geoffrey Bayldon, Valentine Dyall, Andre Morell and a young Wayne Sleep are in there somewhere.

16.20 One Man And His Dog
Normally we wouldn’t recommend this at all, because it’s just been produced to shut the Daily Mail up, but this year it includes celebrity captains, one of whom is Matt Baker! And thus it becomes essential viewing.

19.55 John Betjeman: The Last Laugh
Funny how that, given he was poet laureate and lived until he was 77, the most famous lines he ever wrote were “Thank God for Mondays and Wednesdays, at 7.30 tonight I shall be in heaven” in his ode to Coronation Street. Obviously this was a golden age for poetry, if only because “Thank God for Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays and occasional Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays” isn’t quite as catchy. Oh, and this is a documentary about him.

23.35 I Love 1976
Best bit – The moment the last time BBC2 repeated this when they completely fell off the air for twenty minutes.

ITV

14.20 A Shot in the Dark Sequel to the not-that-brilliant original Pink Panther film, with Elke Sommer, nudist colony gags, Herbert Lom, Graham Stark, Martin Benson, Burt Kwouk and Bryan Forbes again.

21.45 It’ll Be Alright On The Night 13
It doesn’t say this is a repeat, but this originally went out in August, although now it’s been re-edited to 45 minutes. It’s odd how they used to do one of these every two years or so, but in the last twelve months there’s been three, as if they’re stockpiling them. And they’re not as good as they used to be, neither, as this will demonstrate.

23.45 Classic Albums
ITV are, of course, totally committed to the arts, so here’s the second episode of this new series just three months after the first, and again finishing well after midnight. A decent enough record to pick though – Elvis, by, er, Elvis.

CHANNEL 4

06.10 The Magic Roundabout

06.15 Bagpuss
No need to buy the DVD with C4 around.

06.30 The Clangers

12.00 The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
The festive treat for those who sit in the front row during physics lessons.

21.15 The 100 Greatest TV Treats Of The Year
This is a bit like what BBC1 did on New Year’s Eve last year, but it probably won’t be as much fun, as for a start Ricky Gervais is going to be on it. It’s a three hour compilation of all the “best” moments of telly in the last twelve months, which could be fun except they’re bound to pick a load of rubbish moments. Ali G’s promised for a start, with a clip you’ll have no doubt already have seen after a relative bought you the Ali G – Scraping The Barrel video.

01.20 Theatre of Death
Christopher Lee Acts out grisly murders – or is he really a cannibal? Probably.

CHANNEL 5

06.25 Dappledown Farm

Radio 2

08.05 Sounds Of The Sixties
Brian Matthew has to abandon most of his playlist thanks to an ill-advised decision to enlist John Grieve for some New Year’s poetry.

10.00 Mark Lamarr
It’s the holiday season so Jonathan Ross has buggered off and the supply DJ is in, and it’s advised to be wary because Lamarr usually brings in his own “sidekick” in the shape of Mr. Mark “Audrey Hepburn never had spunk in her hair!” Steel. Not even an exceptional line-up of guests can contend with that kind of observational humour.

13.00 The Monkhouse Archive
Bob interrupts his festive revelry to deliver another module in mirth. Pity there’s no musical element to this programme, though of course as we know the man’s always had trouble with instrumentalists – “‘There’s one on keyboard, one on bass, one on drums, two on cannabis and all three on probation,’ I immediately began. The audience was astonished and a little unnerved at this announcement.”

14.00 Pick Of The Pops
Dale gets his house in order and does 1988, which is just what we want. Cliff’ll be there, obviously, and we’ll all shout out the bit in ‘Mistletoe And Wine’ after the line “A time for hating and fighting to cease” where he used to yell “Happy Christmas!” when performing it on TOTP. Plus there’ll probably be Kylie and Jase clumsily tangoing through ‘Especially For You’; Angry Anderson, which you’ll be able to mention at that new year’s eve party; and maybe even New Order’s ‘Fine Time’, hearing which will be one of the highlights of the whole fortnight. Though we should point out there’s also a danger of an appearance from ‘Two Hearts’, the song John Nathan-Turner, Doctor Who producer, thought was about his time-travelling star.

20.00 The Complete Fluff – Not ‘Arf!
This’ll be “from Unique, the production company” since it’s introduced by Noel Edmonds, making his only appearance anywhere on British radio or TV this Christmas. It should still be pretty decent, and well-deserving, if a bit of a cheek to run it just a few hours after what was traditionally Alan’s old stamping ground. Plus we’ll get a load of bitter Radio 1 veterans, which is always nice to hear.

21.00 Stuart Maconie’s Critical List
Stuart reconvenes the Pools Panel Of Pop to review the whole year in music. Re-issues aren’t allowed.

Radio 4

17.30 Back Row
Presumably Andrew Collins will be doing the same here, and picking his top films of the last 12 months. And hopefully not following the example of the Record Of The Year on ITV and taking up loads of time telling us about stuff that’s coming out next year, which is of no concern to anyone at the minute.

20.00 The Archive Hour: Bing Crosby Meets
No doubt Garry Bushell would announce that Christmas without Bing is like a day without sun. He’d be wrong anyway, but here’s 60 minutes of Crosby revealing how on the button he was back in the 1930s in realizing how he could package the Bing brand as a multi-media platform.

21.00 The Thirty-Nine Steps
There’s no climax hanging from the face of Big Ben either.

Sunday 30th December

BBC1

16.40 The World’s Strongest Man
As we say every year, this was dropped by Michael Grade in 1984 for being “too old-fashioned”.

00.05 Ooh… You Are Awful
Dick Emery does all his dodgy characters in this plotless (he has to look at some women’s arses, is the extent of the concept) Britromp with Derren Nesbitt, Ronald Fraser, William Franklyn, Liza Goddard and Pat Coombs.

BBC2

11.10 Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em
Of course this was still on peak time BBC1 as recently as 1993.

14.05 Doctor Zhivago
More fake snow. This film is getting shown a lot of late.

21.00 Never Mind The Buzzcocks
We still think this show is funny, and the Christmas one normally includes some extra Creamy guests either on the panel or as part of the ID parade. And it includes two of the best guests of the year – Fish and Johnny Vegas – so it’s worth your while.

23.20 I Love 1976
Best bit – Kermit dancing over the end credits.

ITV

15.10 Gone with the Wind
Another two of those ‘difficult’ post-Christmas afternoon hours vanish, just like that. Second half tomorrow.

REGIONALIA!
17.40 Twenty Years Of Central News (Central only)
A new year does of course bring us another load of telly anniversaries to look forward to, although we’re not sure they’ll be much during 2002, except, of course, Channel Four’s twentieth in November. And of course Central’s celebrating on January 1st, although as it doesn’t technically exist under that name anymore, this is probably the only retrospective we’ll get. Hopefully it won’t be all, y’know, news, but instead loads of vox pops with John “Would you mind if I asked you what you wear in bed… oof!” Swallow, and perhaps the edition in 1988 which celebrated the 300th anniversary of the city of Birmingham, which included one of the presenters reading the news of 1588 in period costume.

CHANNEL 4

06.45 The Clangers

12.30 The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
Hollyoaks and Sir John Sulston – what a combination!

21.00 Viva La Diva
Thankfully not including Dana International, this extended documentary takes a look at which famous women would qualify as “divas”. Marc Almond, Grace Jones and the rest argue the toss over stars like Mae West, Whitney Houston and, unsurprisingly, Madonna.

22.35 Top Ten Pop Princesses
Fairly mediocre edition of the series, of which the best bit is the fact it’s presented by Betty Boo. It’s also interesting that all these American academics and psychologists refer to “pop princesses” with a straight face, as if it’s an accepted genre of music. Still, Kylie’s in there, so we don’t mind.

01.10 The Satanic Rites of Dracula
Lee versus Cushing for the fiftieth time in one of the last Hammer vampire pics, in which the count takes over the government and tries to spread plague over the world. Imagine if Dr Terrible had paid some attention to its source material, it really could have been quite good. Climactic bike chase a real winner. With William Franklyn, Freddie Jones, Joanna Lumley and Richard Vernon.

05.55 Bagpuss

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

17.00 Tarzan Goes to India
Title’s self-eplanatory, but apparently Peter Cook’s in here somewhere.

18.35 Behind The Music: Saturday Night Fever
John Travolta’s interviewed in this documentary about the film, which of course has two substantially different edits – one the 18 certificate original, the other the heavily cut PG version which Creamguide remembers being on the afternoon of January 2nd about ten years ago. Hopefully this’ll also include the Airplane parody, but probably not The Goodies parody.

21.00 St Ives
Heavily-screened Charles Bronson crock.

Radio 2

11.00 Parkinson’s Sunday Supplement
Parky concedes that, well, at least his house wasn’t flooded this year.

13.00 Desmond Carrington
Music to hoover pine needles to.

15.00 The Tony Bennett Christmas Show
This sounds like the sort of classic variety TV spectacular that was once the bedrock of Christmas schedules, and which Bruce Forsyth has lately been going on and on about trying to revive. In this case it’s Tone playing a few of his favourite seasonal songs and just reminiscing about, well, everything, which as far as we’re concerned is perfect Sunday afternoon listening.

16.00 Cliff Adams – His Life And Music
A tribute to the creator of Sing Something Simple and many a frightening medley of ‘Dixie’, ‘A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square’ and ‘MacArthur Park’, who sadly died earlier this year.

21.00 Your Hundred Best Tunes
Alan Keith looks back at yet another year on the air, choosing memorable tunes such as number 15, ‘I’ve One Foot In The Algonquin Hotel (The Other’s At The End Of My Leg)’, and number 83, ‘May The Wind At Your Back Always Be Your Own’.

23.00 The David Jacobs Collection
Another survivor makes it through the last 12 months with his graveyard shift intact. There’ll be plenty of gigs with ‘The Charleston Chasers’ in the New Year, Dave.

Radio 4

11.15 Desert Island Discs
Sue Lawley offends her guest Ewan McGregor by insisting his best work was in Dennis Potter’s ‘Lipstick On My Collar’.

19.45 This Sceptred Isle
This week, I Love 1948, and George Orwell giggles, “It was really very simple, I just swapped the numbers around.”

Radio 5

Not much today, we’re afraid – a profile of Emlyn Hughes at 12.30, and Presenters’ Any Sporting Questions at 17.30 where an invited audience get to squabble with four Beeb commentators about obscure match reports filed 17 years ago.

New Year’s Eve

BBC1

14.20 The World’s Strongest Man
Creamguide uncovered a load of old tapes from the mid-80s the other week, and Geoff Capes is all over them – guesting on Blankety Blank and presenting an appeal on behalf of the National Association of Victim Support Services. The winner of this won’t get that sort of exposure.

16.50 Blue Peter – Personal Best
Second part of the review of the year, and these days the show’s so great it justifies two. In this one the gang pick their own favourite moments of the films they made.

17.20 The World’s Strongest Man
Second episode of the day, just so they can fit the series in the only period of the year when they can get away with it.

21.30 Night Of A Thousand Shows
Re-edit of the programme shown last September, where Parky and that all-important celebrity audience recollect those magical moments that took place in Television Centre. Hopefully they’ll have left in the piece with Gary Lineker filling in on Grandstand after the Grand National bomb threat, and they’ll have removed the piece when Reeves and Mortimer “re-enact” that Morecambe and Wise Tom Jones sketch. Ronnie Barker (yeah, he came out of retirement yet again to appear) complained that this was insulting to Eric and Ern, and while we might not agree with that, it certainly isn’t very funny.

23.15 It’s Your New Year’s Eve Party
Jonathan Ross fronts BBC1’s Pretend-Live-But-Actually-Filmed-Three-Weeks-Ago New Year’s show. Last year we had Angus Deayton delivering a fantastic Danny Baker-penned script and showing some great clips of the year’s news, but we probably won’t get anything like that this year, partly as it’s produced by the Parky team. Instead this looks like a return to the original Angus incarnation of a bunch of mediocre comedians doing weak jokes about the year’s news, but maybe Jonathan will do a long monologue at the start like on the Comedy Awards and it’ll make it worth our while staying in.

00.20 Are You Being Served?
The one where they all go off to the Costa Plonka. Yes, the entire department staff, all together, no questions asked. Glyn Houston, Andrew Sachs, Derek Griffiths and Sheila Steafel augment the regulars.

BBC2

13.00 Steptoe and Son
BBC1 are rerunning My Hero every lunchtime, and in a choice of viewing on BBC television, the minority channel are showing something amusing.

21.00 I Love The Eighties
Last time BBC2 spent New Year’s Eve recollecting the eighties, it was, er, 1989. This time they haven’t got the excuse of evaluating the decade we’ve just had, it’s just arsing about. As you’ll have gathered, this is a compilation of the whole series, which we really enjoyed first time round – apart from 1989, that is – and if it was up to us most of it would just come from I Love 1986 which was perhaps the pinnacle of the genre. And maybe they’ll show the feature on American Football that was billed as being on I Love 1985, and indeed appeared in the quick “burst” at the start of the programme, but never actually turned up in the end. Repeated at 01.25, oddly.

CHANNEL 4

06.35 The Clangers
22.00 The Best Of Les Dawson
That Blankety Blank we mentioned above was absolutely textbook Les, as he did practically his whole act in it – Quasimodo, slagging off the panel, shouting at the audience for not laughing quickly enough – and proved just what a hopeless job Lily Savage is doing looking after it. We’re not actually sure what this programme is, though – the billing would suggest that it’s a repeat of Les Dawson’s Finest Hour, which is just a compilation of clips, but that was last repeated about three months ago. Worth putting the tape on, perhaps?

23.40 The Wicker Man
Ha! At last, what we came in for. Edward Woodward inspects shady goings-on in Christopher Lee’s unhinged community, and ends up helping a chicken with its enquiries. Britt Ekland, Ingrid Pitt, sketch show musician Peter Brewis and John ‘Mallens’ Hallam appear in what seems to be the recently-released director’s cut, so if you only tape one film over the fortnight, make it this one.

04.35 The Twentieth Century Garden
Decent scheduling here, we think, as the only people watching this will be just back from the pub, and might appreciate a profile of Percy Thrower.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

Radio 2

12.00 Jimmy Young’s Review Of The Year
And we’re hoping that the stand-ins will also be allowed to pick their best bits. After all they’ve done the show for more weeks than Jim this year.

20.00 Jools Holland’s New Year Special
Julian does his usual Hootenanny business only a few hours early and in sound form only, so all the gaffes can be edited out. Chris Difford is performing, and they’ll probably other “guests” including Roland Rivron sitting awkwardly at tables round the edge of the studio.

21.00 Sounds Of The Seventies New Year Special
Yikes. Steve Harley gets an additional 120 minutes to front a “party” edition setting to right atmosphere for the night ahead. So no room for Bowie’s ‘Low’ then.

23.00 All Singing, All Dancing, All Night
Now this is much better. Stuart Maconie opts out of his usual new year’s eve shindig frugging at the Wigan Casino to countdown his favourite 50 Northern Soul classics. There’ll still be a fumbled pause at 11.59pm, however, when the whole network tries to link up with Big Ben and it’s time to get all emotional about the passing of what is really, as Macca said, just another day.

Radio 4

13.30 Round Britain Quiz
They say this is the longest-running panel game, but it was taken off for ages a few years back, so how does that work?

18.30 Just A Minute
And here’s the return of the best ever panel game. Nicholas Parsons is of course still in charge, and we wish he welcomed his contestants the same way he did back on the early editions of Sale Of The Century, where he hoped each person’s occupation had provided them “with a lot of information to play the game.”

Radio 5
Stumbling back from your new year’s eve party what better way to clear your head then catching a profile of Dan Maskell at 04.00, followed by the beat of a hundred pop classics and sporting headlines from the year 1968 at 04.30?

New Year’s Day

BBC1

11.15 Bill and Ben
Not repeated at all, despite this surely being the day most people will miss it. This is the sort of thing Lorraine Heggessey just doesn’t consider.

13.30 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
P.O.S.H – posh! The best of today’s musicals, not that that’s too difficult.

19.30 The World’s Strongest Man
The hour-long grand final, not even opposite Coronation Street at the start! Is this 2002 or 1962?

BBC2

12.40 UK Confidential 2002
The first show of the year to include “2002” in the title, and perhaps the first to include “Copyright BBC MMII” at the end, which we always look out for. The actual programme? It features Peter Taylor, presumably not the Brighton manager, and Michael Portillo looking at the government files from 1971 that stopped being top secret at midnight.

23.00 I Love 1977
Best bit – er, actually we can’t remember much about this episode, to be honest. Sorry about that.

ITV

12.55 The Unmistakable Murray Walker
“I bet this car won’t crash now!” We never had much time for Walker in the Creamguide office, because we don’t reckon he was a particularly good commentator and it’s a boring sport anyway. And they sold his last race as if it was Murray’s Final Race (Oh, And The US Grand Prix). Still, despite all that, this may be worth a look, if only to see if they mention the times during the mid-80s when he used to do touring cars the day before the Grand Prix and had to overdub the commentary from a toilet in TV Centre while pretending he was in Brazil/Japan/Dallas etc.

13.55 Fiddler on the Roof
Topol was so called because he always used to sit “on topol” things, and was voiced by Nigel Plaskitt. Hang on, that’s not right.

17.30 Dick Whittington
It’s the ITV pantomime, now in its fourth year. A decent cast list is promised – Lee Mack, Harry Hill and Richard Wilson as the dame – but Hear’Say and a bunch of soapstars are in it as well. Getting them in practice for what they’ll be doing this time next year, obviously.

CHANNEL 4

09.00 Dr Dolittle
If Rex Harrison could sing, it would’nt be any less dull, we assure you.

23.40 Suspiria
Dario Argento’s De Quincyfied tale of occultish doings at a dance school is great (don’t forget to pick up the soundtrack by Goblin), but don’t share a house with an Argento buff, as a lot of his later ones don’t half go on.

05.55 The Magic Roundabout

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm
Up 6.30 sharp for Brian.

23.45 Rock Classics: Iron Maiden
It’s Britney Day on Channel Five, but they’ve also found time for this programme, which talks about the making of Number Of The Beast. Perhaps not an LP they’ll be covering on ITV’s Classic Albums in the future?

Radio 2

13.00 Pick Of The New Year Pops
Dale Winton’s sitting in for Steve Wright all this week, and for some reason has decided to turn one of the shows into a special POTP – featuring two years, 1967 and 1970, but still running to three whole hours. So what’s he going to do, play the whole Top 40? Heaven help us if he’s combining the rundown with the usual Wright “features”. Then there’s added confusion in not knowing whether he’ll be using charts ending the last week in December or first week in January – i.e. ‘Hello Goodbye’ or ‘Green Green Grass Of Home’? No doubt Dale will be doing his best to make it all appear much more complicated than it sounds. Like this entry in fact.

20.00 The Organist Entertains
Featuring “seasonal favourites”, no less. We were enjoying an old edition of Gambit in the office the other day, marvelling in the skill of Anglia TV’s resident organist in not only providing a question in the form of a name-that-tune style riddle, but looking side-on directly into camera and smiling as he played. And the same bloke did Sale Of The Century as well. How about a webcam for this show then?

20.30 Never Miss An Angle – The Real Walt Disney
Yet another programme on Uncle Walt and his true legacy; which like his films might just be a rehash of what went out under a different name last month.

22.00 Sounds Of The Seventies
Well it looks like this is a proper regular gig for Steve Harley now, so there’s no need for his new year’s wishlist of advertising companies this time round.

Radio 4

10.00 Desert Island Discs
One from the archives. Sue Lawley reminisces with John Mortimer about the time he dropped the penknife in a rock pool and it took four hours before they could enjoy a can of tuna and sweetcorn.

12.04 Humph At 80
Another repeat, this time for Graeme “Extra ‘E'” Garden’s tribute to the great H. Lyttelton. Make sure you don’t switch on at 12.03, cos that’ll be too early.

23.00 Fingers On The Buzzer
A contractual seasonal appearance from Tony Hawks, because if no actual panel game will want him then this recycled documentary on the history of panel games is Plan B.

23.30 Best Sellers: The Life And Times Of Peter Sellers
A fourth repeat of the day, and for a series that was on earlier in the year. It follows Pete’s career from before the Second World War through to the late 1970s, and is quite good fun when presenter Phill Jupitus doesn’t go on too long with anecdotes about how he wished he’d met the man but never did.

Radio 5

06.00 Motty’s Magic Matches
Wake up with John and his breakfast posse as they recall the heady days of 1993 when Manchester United played Blackburn Rovers to secure the championship, and Ace Of Base topped the charts around the world!

Wednesday 2nd January

BBC1

05.30 Benji
Third-division dog adventures for when nobody’s awake.

BBC2

18.00 TOTP2
The production team are still on their Christmas break, so this is a special edition which includes stars of the seventies performing new versions of their hits – ie, it’s a compilation of the specials they’ve had over the last year or so. Unsurprisingly, Donny Osmond and David Cassidy appear, as they must in all nostalgia programming, as do Status Quo, The Bee Gees and Roxy Music.

19.30 The Good Life
The second ever episode, presumably kicking off another lengthy rerun.

20.00 Funny Women
This is a bit odd – this profile of Patricia Routledge is billed as being “Postponed from 29th November”, but we saw it on, er, the 29th November. Maybe there was a great big technical fault somewhere and loads of people missed the middle, but it’s been on loads of times before anyway. Curiouser and curiouser.

23.50 I Love 1978
Best bit – “Tights! She wears tights! Get it down, Alan!”

CHANNEL 4

09.00 The 5000 Fingers of Dr T
Odd, hugely budgeted fantasy from Dr Seuss, whose books never really acheived much cultural penetration in this country, for some reason.

12.30 Swallows and Amazons
Creamguide hated this book as a child, as it was one of those books deemed ‘improving’, and we found it dull as hell. This film never grabbed us either, despite featuring Mike ‘Randall’ Pratt.

05.50 The Magic Roundabout

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm

Radio 2

22.00 Must We Fling This Filth At Our Pop Kids?
See Creamguide Choice.

Radio 4

20.45 Fireside Chat
A short programme charting the history of the way various former leaders used the radio to speak unto their people – a tradition heavily influential in the techniques and props used for the development of on-screen pop culture punditry.

23.30 Best Sellers: The Life And Times Of Peter Sellers
Onto the 1950s. “It was ones favourite programme of all time.” – Prince Charles. “Grovelling bastard” – Spike Milligan.

Thursday 3rd January

BBC1

11.15 Bill and Ben
CBBC continues on BBC1, but it’s a bloody work day! That’s not right.

13.45 The Love Bug
Yet another screening of the lacklustre ‘car with a mind of its own’ franchise starter.

17.00 The Blue Peter Quest
This adventure-story-cum-competition was the strangest, and also the best, thing BP have done for ages, and now here’s your opportunity to enjoy the whole thing again in a special omnibus edition. Of course, the best bit is the scene where Matt has to see a tattoo on Peter Duncan’s arse, and, helped by Liz Barker as a serving wench (which made some of the Creamguide office feel a bit funny), Matt attempts to get off with him by dressing up as a woman and miming to One Way Or Another by Blondie. Wouldn’t have got that with Biddy Baxter.

22.35 Still Cher
This is the authorised biography of Cher – unlike the unofficial half-arsed thing on C5 last week – and includes interviews with people like Peter Fonda and Robert Altman. And that clip of I Got You Babe will get it’s millionth airing, no doubt.

BBC2

19.30 To The Manor Born
The fairly unsatisfying final episode of the series. You can probably guess what happens at the end, but this didn’t stop 18 million people watching at the time. Where were they when Penelope Keith was doing Law and Disorder?

21.00 The Joy of Gardening
Celebrating fifty years of gardening on TV, and thus the second TV show in four days featuring Percy Thrower, this documentary features comments from, bizarrely, Dean Holdsworth.

22.00 Dad’s Army
Maybe this’ll be the year when they finally show the end of that episode flung on during the BBC power cut during Euro 2000? Come on, we’re on the edge of our seats.

23.20 I Love 1979
Best bit – Jonathan King saying that the Rubik’s Cube had “driven me absolutely mad”, but that’s probably been cut out so it’s Peter Kay remembering “Monkey Magic, and it were, weren’t it!” Now let us never see this series again.

ITV

02.10 Days Like These
A double episode, worse luck, so there’s never been a better time to get an early night and catch up on the sleep you missed on New Year’s Eve.

CHANNEL 4

10.25 20 Million Miles to Earth
Ray Harryhausen animates a space lizard fighting an elephant very well. Other things happen in the film, but who cares?

13.30 One Million Years BC
More Harryhausen, with added Welch.

00.15 Scanners
“I thought my head was going to explode! Like in that film!”

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm

11.00 The Streets Of San Francisco
Check the next Creamguide to see if this is about to take on Charlie’s Angels-style ubiquity.

Radio 2

21.00 Suzi Quatro
Back to her usual place in the schedules, and sticking with the usual format as well. Though it’s doubtful she’s been able to find too many “rockin” New Year themed classics.

Radio 4

23.30 Best Sellers: The Life And Times Of Peter Sellers
The 1960s tonight, and a choice period for examples of Pete’s distinctive attitude to filming two-handed dialogue scenes with Orson Welles (insisting on shooting everything separately then editing everything together) and set design (demolishing entire studios on the whim of spiritualists).

Radio 5

A couple more repeats from the vaults (because Five Live are seemingly unable to fill a whole two hours with e-mail list conversation): John Motson recalling the FA Cup Final replay between Manchester City and Spurs in 1981 at 20.30 (plus testing Tommy Hutchinson and Steve Perryman on the chart placing of Kate Bush’s ‘Sat In Your Lap’); and at 21.00 Jim White demanding Bobby George to admit how he’d like others to remember him once he’s dead.

Friday 4th January

BBC1

13.45 Romancing the Stone
So Eddy Grant did the theme to this, The Front Line, and (if we’re going to stretch a point) Fred Harris’ Electric Avenue, making him the most proliific reggae theme-writer we know, unless it turns out U-Roy was behind To The Manor Born.

21.30 Not Another… Game Show
Way back in June 1999, Angus Deayton and the Before They Were Famous gang presented a clip show about award ceremonies, which was one of the most consistently amusing clip shows we’ve ever seen – and we’ve seen a lot of them. Two and a half years later, they return with a follow-up, which will hopefully be as fun, and we hope that the dots in the title indicate this is the start of a series.

22.35 Walking With Giant Killers
See Creamguide Choice.

01.25 Up the Chastity Belt
Another bloody Howerd historical effort. It’s the Crusades, and here come Anne ‘Golden Shot’ Aston, Graham ‘Sun Trap’ Crowden, Bill ‘Giddie Game Show’ Fraser, Roy Hudd, Hugh ‘Pardon My Genie’ Paddick, Eartha Kitt, Lance Percival, Derek Griffiths, Frank ‘Peacock’ Thornton, Long John ‘Let The Heartaches Begin’ Baldry, Sam ‘Orlando’ Kydd, David ‘Road’ Prowse and Christopher ‘Small’ Timothy.

BBC2

13.05 The Phil Silvers Show

22.00 Dad’s Army
All we remember is that it had Fulton Mackay in it, and we’d never seen it before.

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm

11.00 The Streets Of San Francisco

00.00 Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Early (ie not just a load of badly-edited soft porn) Russ Meyer.

01.35 Don’t Talk to Strange Men Dandy Nichols stars in what sounds to us like some kind of Swinging London public information film.

04.05 Sons and Daughters
Eh? We remember Channel Five showing this back every day at 1998, but rather suprisingly, a twenty year old cheapo Australian soap didn’t really grab the daytime audience – rather that than Crossroads, though – and was quickly dropped. Now here it is in the Prisoner slot. Is this going to be a regular feature? Have they just started it from where they left off three years ago? Whatever, we won’t be watching.

Radio 2

19.00 Thanks For The Memory
Hubert Gregg with the amnesiac’s choice

21.15 Unreliable Memoirs
More from Clive J.’s journals – and a last word from Bob Monkhouse perhaps? “I said: ‘For sale: photo blow-up of Clive James and a set of darts.’ John Junkin’s boozier ripostes were often the most memorable.”

22.00 “You’re Sensational – the Cole Porter Story”
Nice how Radio 2’s series aren’t timed to fit in with the normal pattern of broadcasting seasons. So this trundles on blithely into the New Year, now turning to look in more detail at how Cole’s private life apparently influenced his music.

Radio 4

20.45 Letter From America
Al can’t help but noticing that Arthur C. Clarke had got it all wrong.

23.30 Best Sellers: The Life And Times Of Peter Sellers The final instalment – 1969 through to 1980. But what about the notorious posthumous “clips” based films?

Radio 5

22.00 Brian Hayes
Looking forward confidently to another 12 months worth of well-crafted, insightful billings at the very foot of Creamguide. Except this week.

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DIGI-CREAMGUIDE

CHALLENGE TV
Saturday, Sunday, 09.00
Interceptor – Hah! The other week, just as we were sending out our final torturously-written yellow memo around TVC Towers announcing the closure of the Challenge Offices, we got word that the channel were showing this cracking series. The best thing ever done by Chatsworth this has got the lot. The pace of Treasure Hunt (it takes 7 minutes before they actually start playing the game!), Annabelle Croft being more winsome than you remembered (‘jolly bad luck’), ace badinage between The Interceptor and Mikey, and those brilliant bits where he flips over a gate. As of yet the episode known as ‘the one where he dresses up as a farmer’ hasn’t been shown, so you’ve still got every chance of catching it! Go on! Find out what everyone was talking about in August 1989. Either that or download this http://www.interceptor.freeuk.com/int/movies/tractor_ambush.rm from here: http://www.interceptors-lair.com/. That’s it for now. The Challenge TV bit returns to fulfil the final clause on its contract in the upcoming Creamguide Review Of The Year, where we’ll be having a nostalgic walk around the Telly Addicts set, and speaking to a bloke we know who once shared a cab with KieronE.

SKY ONE
New Year’s Eve, 20.00-05.20
Music And Nostalgia Night – Some real imagination gone into that name, hasn’t there, Sky? And the cobbled-together feel permeates the whole of this “theme night”, which kicks off with repeats of Heartthrobs Of The Eighties – sounds good, probably isn’t – at 20.00 and Heartthrobs Of The Nineties – sounds rubbish, probably is – at 21.00. Then there’s a karaoke party for four hours which we won’t mention. At 02.00 is the highlight of the evening, I’ve Got The Music In Me, which looks at celebrities making pop records, and features Glenn And Chris recording Diamond Lights. At 02.50 there’s Heartthrobs Of The Seventies, rather oddly, followed by the 80s (03.40) and the 90s (04.30) shows again, this time, mysteriously, ten minutes shorter. Presumably they can’t sell any advertising space.

UK HORIZONS
New Year’s Eve, 14.00-02.25
I Love The Seventies Day – Oh, isn’t this getting a bit ridiculous now? The whole series in a row, then 1972 and 1974 again for some reasons. Why not just watch them on BBC2, they won’t have adverts in. Or just don’t watch them at all.
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And on that rather sour, resigned note, we say goodbye from this Double Creamguide. We hope you’ve all enjoyed our unique blend of poorly-thought-out billings, inaccuracies and weak gags over the last twelve months. We’re back to normal on January 3rd, but before that we’ll be live and direct from the Creamguide Office to present the Creamguide Review Of The Year, rounding up our heroes (Tony Currie) and zeroes (Gareth McLean) of 2001, unveiling some behind-the-scenes secrets, and basically letting our hair down. A bit like those pre-recorded editions of The Big Breakfast they used to do between Christmas and New Year where everyone wore pyjamas, sort of, only funny. It’ll be hitting your inbox around December 27th. Until then, we’d like to wish you all a very merry Christmas, and we mean that most sincerely.
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Santa’s elves – Chris Hughes, Graham Kibble-White, Simon Tyers

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. THX 1139

    December 31, 2021 at 10:34 am

    Looking forward to the revival of the Dan Haggerty/Den Heggarty joke.

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