TV Cream

How We Used To List

How We Used To List: 30th MARCH – 5th APRIL 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.)


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TV CREAM TIMES
30th March – 5th April 2002
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Overworked – Phil Norman
Underpaid – Graham Kibble-White
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Saturday 30th March

BBC1

17.35 Dazzling Bloomers
So Lorraine Heggessey’s really getting to work on those sacred cows, scrapping the globe and banishing the word ‘Auntie’, yet still she can’t be bothered doing something about On The Record. Or indeed, stopping these crappy repeats.

23.00 A Tribute To Dudley Moore
…is what they announced on the news last night, but we can’t tell you anything else about it, not even how long it lasts. Though we’re pretty sure it’ll feature the Tarzan sketch.

BBC2

11.25 Saturday Kitchen
A rare mention for this Saturday morning time killer in Creamguide, which is basically some new links around old cookery shows, because one of those old cookery shows is The Galloping Gourmet. We’d like it to be known we always confused Graham Kerr with Bob Monkhouse when we were young. Watch out, though, as the other show is The Naked Chef.

15.30 Donovan’s Reef
John ‘Guns’ Wayne and Lee ‘Boats’ Marvin muck about in Hawaii, with Jack ‘Crazy Like a Fox’ Warden and Cesar ‘Joker’ Romero.

17.40 Steptoe and Son
Why not this at peaktime and The Good Life flung about all over the schedules?

ITV

21.00 Denis Norden’s Seventh Laughter File
Another one! Despite the last few Alright On The Nights being a bit iffy, we still reckon Denis’ shows are a cut about the usual rubbish clip compilations. This will probably veer wildly from the sublime to the bloody awful, and there’s always too many old American women being ‘waspish’, but there’s bound to be something at least vaguely interesting in here.

22.00 After They Were Famous
A dreary opener to this series last week, but it is still written by Stuart Maconie so we must watch it and recommend it each week. And with Sally James and Barry Sheene on this week, it should perk up a bit. Don’t expect much in the way of unseen ‘was clips, though.

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Don’t forget to put you clocks forward at 1am. Don’t want to miss ‘Car Of Dreams’ at 7am, do we?
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02.30 (BST) What’s New, Pussycat?
Not the only union of Woody Allen, Peter Sellers and Peter O’Toole to be had this week (and for added Casino Royale fanboy laffs, this also briefly features Richard Burton). O’Toole is the inveterate philanderer who enlists Sellers’ greasy Richard III-wigged Austrian psychiatrist for help, who in turn is chasing after Capucine. Woody Allen and Ursula Andress also tag along. Sexual frustration, a few good one liners and a game of indoor cricket ensue. And never mind the Tom Jones theme song, we prefer Manfred Mann’s rendition of the corking Little Red Book during the party scene.

CHANNEL 4

12.50 Little House On The Prairie
Ironically the only time they’re not showing it on Monday is the one Monday when nobody’s working. But they are showing Fifteen To One at one o’clock, which is all wrong.

CHANNEL 5

22.55 The Choirboys
Dire Porkysesque fratcom with Blair ‘Molly Dodd’ Brown, Jim ‘Jock Ewing’ Davis and James Woods, its only claim to fame being the “inspiration” for the name of utterly forgotten late ’80s poodlerockers The Quireboys. Creamguide’s still looking forward to seeing 24 Hour Party People, despite everyone slagging it off at great length. However, we’d love to know how they decide which locations get the Coogan/Wilson “Prat” flyposter, while others are favoured with the more upfront “Twat”. Have they done a regional shockability survey or something?

02.10 (BST) Gorgo
Deep sea stop motion monster crock which used to suffer terribly in the ’80s when ITV interspersed it with the far superior ‘he’s eating everything in his path!’ Chewits ads. Bill ‘Born Free’ Travers and Martin ‘Vogon Captain’ Benson are on board for jerky fun.

04.25 Sons and Daughters
Today is Channel Five’s fith anniversary, and to celebrate this they’re showing two hours of Night fever, a programme that’s apparently on the brink of being axed. Plus this, which we don’t recall appearing on ‘This Is Five!’

Sunday 31st March

BBC1

13.15 Herbie Goes Bananas
More post-vintage Love Buggery (sorry), with Dean Jones out but Mel Brooks faves Harvey ‘Hedley’ Korman and Cloris ‘Blucher’ Leachman in.

17.40 That Was Life
At last! Some work for Adrian Mills! This sounds, at the very least, watchable, as for some reason BBC1 are devoting an hour to looking back at the history of That’s Life. Obviously lots of it will be devoted to the causes they championed, but we’re hoping for loads of stuff from Esther’s nancies, and some confirmation as to whether Cyril Fletcher is still alive. What we found interesting about That’s Life was that it seemed to be unlike any other programme in the world – for a start, it was on six months of the year, and even towards the end it was still using really old-fashioned-looking film stock and huge microphones and stuff. And various nancies used to disappear for years at a time, like Howard Leader, who pissed off for a couple of series and then came back near the end for one programme, as if he’d never been away. Not that they’ll adress any of this on the programme, of course, but we might get Joanna Munro.

20.25 Blackadder Back And Forth
What an odd night it is on BBC1. This is the ‘adder that was shown at the Millennium Dome, of course, and later repeated on Sky One a million times, but still most people probably haven’t seen it – we haven’t, at least – but from what we’ve heard it’s sort of alright. But then, we are talking about a Richard Curtis production here.

BBC2

11.10 Star Trek (not Northern England)
Never mind, Northerners, some great stuff later in the week.

13.30 Battlestar Galactica
What hope for Herbie when he’s up against this? Benedict, Hatch and Greene get searching for that shining planet. Also featuring Wilfrid Hyde-White, Jane Seymour, Ray Milland, the voice of Patrick Macnee and, if we recall correctly, the words “fuck off” written on one of the spaceships.

ITV

15.00 Goldfinger
“Do you expect me to show some new films?” “No, Mr. Liddiment, we expect your digital empire to die!” We got off scot free over Christmas, but here’s Bond again. You know the drill. Or rather, the great big laser.

CHANNEL 4

06.15 The Trap Door

15.15 The Mirror Crack’d
Angela Lansbury plays Miss Marple – no, no, we want the Margaret Rutherford ones! Tony Curtis, Edward Fox, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, Elizabeth Taylor, Charles Gray, Charles ‘Trigger’s dad’ Lloyd Pack and Dinah ‘Don’t Wait Up’ Sheridan fill out the requisite star studded cast.

CHANNEL 5

12.45 Daria the Movie: Is It Fall Yet?
Nothing to do with our beat, really, but we like Daria and this could be really good. Besides, if the Radio Times sees fit to count a Robbie Williams documentary as a bona fide film, we reckon we can do what we like. Although we shouldn’t get too mad at the RT, as their “new look” Peel column has a picture of him perched on a chrome stool, which you don’t see often enough these days. Oh, and James Woods, again, is in this, alongside one “David” Grohl.

Easter Monday

BBC1

09.00 ‘Allo ‘Allo
Heh, great scheduling, BBC1. What chance this instead of Kilroy every day?

09.25 Perry Mason: The Case Of The Silenced Singer
Hit after hit this morning, as you’ll see.

10.55 WarGames
“How do you get the computer to play itself?” “Mmnnyeeees, number of players nought!” No prizes for Easter film originality, but this is a pretty well unimpeachable choice anyway, and it’s not Flight of the Navigator, so who’s complaining? Spotlight on Creamguide’s favourite bratpacker, Ally Sheedy, of course.

BBC2

11.30 That’s Entertainment!
The old musical clipshow standby. Probably not featuring a scene we remember really liking, where a dancer (can’t remember who) is in the Oval Office pretending he’s the president, and ends up dancing with Washington and Lincoln, who “come to life” in pictures on the wall. Anyone know what film that was? It was great.

13.35 That’s Entertainment, Part II
He was giving an imaginary State of the Union address. “The state of each state is greeeeat!” he’d bellow, then he went into a chirpy song about everything being “bright and breezy”, then the tapdancing started. Can’t remember anything about the rest of the film, but we’d love to see that routine again.

15.35 Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?
We’d actually be happy watching BBC2 all day today.

16.05 The Robe
BBC2 brings the mood right down with a ponderous epic of dull dialogue and dodgy superimposition.

19.00 I Love The Muppets
It’s BBC Manchester Day! Three shows from the archive unit tonight, of which this looks to be the best. It’s all new, should include tons of brilliant clippage, and Debbie Harry and Julie Andrews are among those on talking head duties. No Muppet Babies, though, please.

21.00 I Love Morecambe and Wise
The best thing is, the only new British programme that doesn’t come from BBC Manchester tonight is University Challenge Reunited. Anyway, this will be less good than the above, as we’re back to the cobbled-together stuff. Still, Angela Rippons hosts, introducing first another showing (the third, we reckon) for the Omnibus (first time that’s ever been in an LE setting) documentary Bring Me Sunshine which tells the story of the life and death of Eric. Then at 22.20 is another programme called Bring Me Sunshine (it’s quite hard to think up names for Eric and Ern shows, isn’t it?) which is in fact a re-edit of the series which went out on Saturday nights in 1994, and actually got on the cover of Radio Times, even though it’s just clips with comments from people like Glenda Jackson stuck between them.

23.00 Class Of 1986
This slot would suggest the series isn’t doing very well on Saturday nights, especially as this week it’s shunted for a repeat of every episode of 24 so far. And yeah, it’s sort of bland, but there’s normally always at least one great clip – last week’s 1982 edition included Bucks Fizz doing an advert for Sun Million Pound Bingo, singing a rewritten version of D.I.S.C.O, and also the title sequence for Wogan when it first began on Tuesday nights for six weeks and was co-presented by Paula Yates. We’d never seen the title sequence before, and it was just lots of pictures of Tel pulling faces revolving, and it was brilliant. Although it was hopeless for the Guess The Theme Tune round because nobody remembers that incarnation of the series anyway. Basically, you’ll enjoy it if you’re in brain-switched-off mode, and 1986 was a brilliant year anyway so it should be good fun. So there.

23.45 The Phil Silvers Show
Why can’t BBC2 be this great every day?

ITV

11.15 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Incredibly slowly paced CS Lewis cartoon adaptation from the Children’s Television Workshop. We recall this being shown, with fantastic fanfare, in two parts at Christmas back in the ’70s, and managed about the first five minutes of each. Well, we got a Matchbox racetrack that year.

13.15 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
“What’s this, Q?” “It’s a chocolate bar that’s 20% bigger than usual. Careful, 007! It’s not a toy!” Great theme song. Great Bond girl. Shite Bond. “You pays your money and you takes your choice” – Barry Norman. Channel Five might be a better bet this afternoon.

20.00 TV Nightmares – You’ve Been Fooled
So last week’s Nightmares included, as we predicted, Pip Schofield closing down BBC1 by accident, which is always great to see, even though it was clearly taken off the old tape they made up for overseas sales – hence the huge ‘BBC1 CHILDREN’S PRESENTATION’ caption on it. Also we had John Sergeant in the studio, which is surely an LE appearance too far. Anyway, not content with ripping off one Denis Norden format, Penk’s ripped off another, as this includes “TV pranks and hoaxes”.

CHANNEL 4

07.00 Not The Big Breakfast
Whoopee! Instead for the next few weeks, some old tapes off the shelf, which is probably more original than the previous occupant of this slot has been for the last five years or so. Of note are episodes of Futurama at 08.30, because it’s obviously a children’s programme, and they’re repeats because it’s not as if they’ve got hundreds of new episodes on the shelf, is it? Especially not some that were originally scheduled to go out in September and mysteriously dropped.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm
Probably the only show from C5’s launch week still going on today.

11.00 TJ Hooker
C5 get right into the holiday spirit.

14.35 Casino Royale
“I am faster than he, in my Lotus Formula Three!” Creamguide veterans will now how much we love this oft-rubbished “unoffical” multi-directorial Bond mish-mash, so we’ll just say that, in its own bizarre way, it stays truer to the Fleming novels than many of the later “proper” Bonds, especially the ultra-shite Moonraker, which in book form contains loads of dense preamble, and even a bridge game between Bond and Drax complete with little diagrammatic bridge hands like you get in the backs of newspapers, but no great big dozy blokes with metal teeth. And The Look of Love is the best Bond song after Nobody Does It Better and the one that’s on ITV today.

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THIS IS TV CREAM HEROES WEEKLY, WEAR A SMILE
A potpourri (a mix-up, a general collection of things) of TV-related bonhomie

#10 Chris Tarrant, as seen on WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE, lots of days, ITV

Well, ushering Chris Tarrant into our TVCHW Hall of Corridors (which then eventually leads off into our TVCHW residential suites) caused a rare excitement not seen around these parts since, oh, about four weeks ago when Stephen Fry joined the ranks of the televisual top-notch (cf. The now highly collectable TV Cream Heroes Weekly #6 especially if you have the limited edition print-run with the mini-feature on Kazuko’s Karaoke Klub). Although it seems to be a given nowadays that Chris is annoying, we at Creamguide beg to differ.

Starting off his career as a DJ, Chris secured his booking in the TVCHW line-up in 1974, fronting Tiswas. We’ll say no more about that, other than we done this – http://www.tv.cream.org/arktos.htm – and this – www.tiswas.com – looks a lot like it. Eh? EH!? But our best Chris moments are probably culled from his stoic voice-over work on STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN – wherein Chris introduced school-children to things like pot-ash mining and erosion (both examples we just made up, but you get the picture).

Chris’ done some terrific game shows, and when you take into account the fact that ITV’s CLUEDO was hosted by James Bellini, then Chris and then Richard Madeley – well that’s a talent car-crash of epic proportions. Flanked by James and Richard, Chris is a sort of talent filling to a talent sandwich, only the bread is made of talent too. Look, they’re all very talented, OK? On http://www.qwertyuiop.co.uk/gs Chris is quoted as saying “I absolutely hated hosting Cluedo, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. It took forever to make the thing. We used to have to turn the studio audience over just to make sure they didn’t get any bed sores.” MAN O MAN (1996-1999) was worse though, wasn’t it? But as well as hosting a game show, Chris also turned the trick of guesting on one too, appearing on Telly Addicts’ 1989 special.

In 1992, he played the part of Clive James in TARRANT ON TV. We quite enjoy his current work on WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE, but that’s mainly because the Creamguide Ed here likes to sing the title phrase over the theme tune*. We welcome you now, Chris, with a buttery hand-shake into our TVCHW Portal of the Immortal.

* You may think our continual reference to the Creamguide Ed is the thin end of the wedge, but it’s not. Don’t worry, we have no plans to start up any tiresome running jokes wherein “Ed” continually butts in with comments and quips. (“Shurely Shome Mishtake?” – Ed)
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Tuesday 2nd April

BBC1

23.20 Papillon
Steve McQueen last escaped Devil’s Island at about this time six months ago, but he’s ready to try again, apparently. Put some different films on in this slot, BBC1!

02.40 When Louis Met Max Clifford
With signing, and the deaf probably get a better deal out of it because it means they can’t hear Declan Galbraith, who just coincidentally signed a million pound deal with EMI (the company that brought you Murray Lachlan Young, of course) the day after this programme went out.

BBC2

07.35 Blue Peter Unleashed
Just one BP this week, and it’s a pre-recorded show filmed on location in New Zealand too. To make up for it, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday we get the first analogue showings for this series from the CBBC Channel, which is basically just the adventure films expanded to fill a whole show. But we prefer Fan-tasy Island.

19.05 TOTP2
It’s the 250th show, er, tomorrow, we presume, and here’s the Top Twenty Pops Performances as chosen by you, from twenty to eleven. However you can’t fit ten tracks into a 25 minute programme, so you’ll probably get next to nothing of each clip. Still, if they’re all from between 1981 and 1987 we won’t mind much.

00.00 The Phil Silvers Show

ITV

10.50 Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World
See what we mean about “dependable” holiday film choices? We don’t think we’ve ever mentioned that the screenplay for this was written by Jon Pertwee’s brother Michael, adapted from a book by Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoonist Ted Key. Next time this is billed, we really won’t have anything left to say about it at all.

CHANNEL 4

06.05 The Trap Door
Not a clue when Rise is actually starting, but the huge gap is obviously because they don’t want it to be overshadowed by the last Big Breakfast. And not because they don’t know what they’re doing, oh no.

05.55 Bagpuss
There’s also a perfectly logical reason behind this scheduling.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

Wednesday 3rd April

BBC1

17.00 Blue Peter
As we said, this is the only proper BP on this week, which is just not on, and it’s also on tape so we won’t get anything as great as Matt’s brilliant cock-up at the end of last Friday’s show when he said that “on Monday we’ll be finding out about the woman who created Roger Rabbit… er, Peter Rabbit!” and then did the best comedy “Ooops!” face we’ve ever seen on television. You really should have seen it.

20.20 This Is Your Life
Well, at least it’s not on at twenty past. It’s on at an even stupider time.

22.35 When Muscles Ruled The World
Well done to George Wood on Teletext today who reviewed this programme despite it not being screened, nor indeed ever scheduled to be screened, last night. In any case this series has proven to be solid if unspectacular, and tonight’s instalment looks set to feature Rambo and the like, which we’re not really interested in. However we are getting a piece on Superstars, and if we don’t get David Vine commenting we’ll be very upset.

23.35 Rollerball
We said put some different films on! Though to be fair this is merely yet another postponement from two weeks ago. If anyone knows the reason films in this slot keep getting pushed back, do let us know, as it’s starting to get ridiculous. I mean, Congo’s on on Thursday and that’s been rescheduled twice this year already!

BBC2

11.15 Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown
The one where the gang go to summer camp, complete with raft racing, arm wrestling, and the dreaded queen snakes. In the early ’80s it was possible to watch the whole of this film in two minute chunks spread over three series of Screen Test.

19.05 TOTP2
Here’s the all-important top ten, and already we’re pissed off because Eva Cassidy’s mentioned and that wasn’t a Top Of The Pops performance, it was a video, so that doesn’t count. Still, the number one is, er, interesting, and we’re not sure why anybody’s chosen it – presumably they’ve got it mixed up with the video there as well.

20.00 The Good Life
This billing will appear in next week’s Private Eye.

22.00 Attachments
As will this one.

00.00 The Phil Silvers Show

ITV

10.50 Jules Verne’s Rocket to the Moon
Hmm. Barnum’s circus, apparently, organises a giant Welsh cannon-powered trip to the moon, but things inevitably go awry. Terry-Thomas, Klaus Kinski, Little Jimmy Clitheroe, Lionel Jeffries, Stratford Johns, Daliah ‘Casino Royale’ Lavi and Graham Stark blast off.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

15.40 Hellinger’s Law
Telly Savalas breaks free of the Kojak label once and for all with this TV movie turn as a maverick lawyer. Or not, as the case may be.

22.00 American Gigolo
Richard Gere shows his arse to the tune of Blondie’s Call Me. Speaking of which, has Union City been shown recently? We’d like to see that again, for, er, artistic reasons.

Thursday 4th April

BBC1

17.25 Newsround
Hooray! It’s Newsround’s thirtieth anniversary, and to celebrate today’s edition is going to be presented by John Craven. We hope they actually commission a version of the current title sequence with ‘John Craven’s…’ on it, for the hell of it. You may be interested to know that when the programme began in 1972, it was on just twice a week, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and in the first week the RT billed it as “News Round”, in the second week it was “Craven’s News Round”, which we like, and then in the third week it was billed as “John Craven’s News Round”. We like the way they were still ‘refining’ the name while it was on the air. We’d also like to point out that the 25th anniversary documentary they showed in 1997 had horrible background noise on it for about ten minutes, yet they never bothered repeating it, so time for a revised repeat, we think. Anyway, this is Creamguide’s… Pick Of The Week!

REGIONALIA!
22.35 The Perfect Player (North West only)
Everything on BBC1 from Winter Hill is pushed back half an hour – yes, including Congo – to fit in this Alan Hansen-fronted, Charles Lambert-produced documentary about the great man. Which is interesting, we think.

00.20 Carry On At Your Convenience
Unless you’re in the North West in which case it’s on at 00.50. Mind you, it might not be on at all if it’s on after Congo which is bound to be dropped again. Anyway, they seem to be showing every Carry On film this year apart from Cabby, which isn’t fair. And still nobody’s shown Alf’s Button Afloat.

BBC2

10.00 Andy Pandy
The reason Andy Pandy’s not on TV Cream is because we all find the programme stupendously dreary, and none of us are old enough to remember it being shown on Watch With Mother anyway. This new version also looks to be stupendously dreary, and like the annoying Bill and Ben, it’s annoyingly repeated at 13.00.

11.15 Africa Screams
On CBBC! Jungle-bound Abbott and Costello vehicle. A quick poll of Ask The Family reveals little admiration for the “who’s on first?” funsters, and none at all for the particular films showing this week. But their tall/short double act was ripped off by many hands, and was translated into cartoon form several times, notably the “official” Hanna-Barbera version, even more wretched than their Laurel and Hardy efforts, with lone survivor Bud Abbott pathetically paying the rent on voice duties (there are loads of others, but since Creamguide was bollocked on-air by Andrew ‘Teatime’ Collins this week – quite rightly – for showing off about knowing a Public Enemy sample, we’ll skip them). Plus we’re always seeing ads on the backs of magazines for a heritage-style box set of Bud and Lou videos, so someone out there still likes them. Meanwhile, can we get Alf’s Button Afloat on our Alba portable? Cuh!

00.00 The Phil Silvers Show

ITV

22.30 Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned
Followed by the Night and Day omnibus which, from next week, is the only way you’ll get to see it. It’s like Families all over again!

CHANNEL 4

06.05 The Clangers

13.15 The Elusive Pimpernel
David Niven is the militant fop in this Archers take on the tale, with Patrick Macnee (again) and Terence ‘Bergerac’ Alexander.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

15.35 Sherlock Holmes in New York
Roger Moore and Patrick Macnee (again!) are the detective and medic pair, transplanted to New York for, it would seem, a laugh. Charlotte ‘Porter’ Rampling and Jackie ‘Fester’ Coogan are there, too.

Friday 5th April

BBC1

21.30 Blackadder II
Making a change from the endless Dibley repeats, at least, and you don’t really need us to tell you this is the best series, do you? Well, it is, anyway.

22.35 Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
Another of the seemingly endless list of questions we ask after each edition of this programme is exactly why does the most interesting guest get the shortest interview each week? The other week Lenny Kravitz got about half an hour while Vic and Bob got five minutes, and that was the only interview on the whole show that was actually going anywhere. Then last week the same thing happened with the Pet Shop Boys. Only Hugh Jackman booked so far for tonight, and we don’t know who he is, either. What a thoroughly disappointing programme this is.

BBC2

11.20 Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd
Morecambe and Wise held them in veneration though, it seems, and even aped their delivery and schtick. Presumably the Plays What Ernie Wrote were partly inspired by the ‘A&C meet X Historical Figure’ films, of which this is a poor example, with Charles ‘Captain Bligh’ Laughton in the celebrity stooge role. And on the subject of The Crazy Gang, we all know about Flanagan and Allen, thanks mainly to Denis Norden and Bernie Winters’ ’70s Royal Variety tribute act, but what about the rest? What, for instance, was Nervo and Knox’s main schtick? And wither the odd man out, ‘Monsewer’ Eddie Gray? Did he do juggling, or something with a cane? All Crazy Correspondence to the usual address.

ITV

REGIONALIA!
23.30 That Tony Wilson (Granada only)
Told you there was some cracking programming up north this week. Here’s an hour-lonmg profile of the man and the legend that is Anthony H Wilson, and while you may be aware of him only as the boss of Factory Records and the host of Remote Control, in Granadaland he also did every single programme on television – Flying Start, The NeW, Soccer Brain… and, of course, Sex and Soap. Everyone in Granadaland has an Anthony H Wilson anecdote, ours is that our cousin once appeared on Flying Start – he didn’t win, but our auntie in the audience wore a huge orange dress so you could see her very easily indeed. We’re hopeful of some fantastic clips, and indeed Richard and Judy are billed as contributors, so Granada Reports must feature. This really should have been networked, actually.

CHANNEL 4

13.35 Support Your Local Gunfighter
Comedy western with the great James Garner, Harry ‘Colonel Potter’ Morgan, and Chuck ‘Tin Can Alley’ Connors.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

00.45 The Madwoman of Chaillot
Our regular chance to have a pop at Bryan Forbes always casting Nanette Newman in his films, here as a folk singer in an adaptation of a weird “fanciful comedy” French stage play, wherein out-of-it aristo Katharine Hepburn defends historic Paris from a bunch of oil prospectors. Yul ‘King’ Brynner, Richard ‘Kildare’ Chamberlain, Edith ‘gorn orf’ Evans and Donald ‘perfectly’ Pleasence act oddly.

04.05 Sons and Daughters
Slightly more action-packed than ITV Nightscreen.

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DIGI-CREAMGUIDE
It’s a good system, just give it a chance, that’s all I ask!

BBC CHOICE
Sunday, 22.45, 01.45, Monday, 23.30
The State We’re In – Another Choice oddity which could be worth a look – it’s a topical comedy show with Jeremy Vine. Could be great, could be shite, but let’s hope his brother’s involved.

BBC4
Sunday, 20.00, 00.15
Desert Island Discs: A Sixtieth Birthday Celebration – This is your chance to see what you heard on Radio 4 last week, and we can’t think of anything new to say about it, so here’s the Radio Cream Times billing again – “We can think of at least 60 better ways to celebrate such an occasion than this: a dreary three hour concert from the Royal Festival Hall, which means we’ll only be hearing classical music, so obviously all those thousands of pop/rock/jazz/blues etc. based “discs” chosen down the decades are considered irrelevant, likewise a history of the programme itself including Parky’s hapless tenure as presenter, ditto any anecdotage from the legions of castaways whatsoever. They’re even promoting the performance of a “new arrangement” of the theme tune like that’s something special, when we don’t want some stupid new version, we only ever want to hear the original. Grrr.” Exactly.

E4
Friday, 22.00, 01.30
Top Ten Pop Princesses – Blame the constant repeats for the fact Creamguide keeps repeating itself, but we really don’t like the way all the academics and pundits featured in this refer to “pop princesses” with a straight face as if it’s a proper and accepted genre of music. Which it bloody isn’t. Still, Betty Boo’s presenting.

GRANADA PLUS
Saturday, 19.30
The Kenny Everett Show – This is interesting, as last time we got repeats of Cuddly Ken they were on Paramount, and they were from the BBC, so could we perhaps assume that these might be from Thames? Let’s hope so. The fact they don’t bill it as either The Video Show or The Television Show obviously makes this sort of idle speculation a lot harder. And of course, an even better idea would be to dig out The Kenny Everett Explosion from 1970, but we’re not sure that exists anymore.

Sunday, 23.30
The Comedians – We’re assuming this isn’t either the 1979, 1985 or 1992 version, too. We’re a bit shit at digital telly, aren’t we? And we don’t intend to buy a digibox for a while, either, for obvious reasons, so it won’t get much better.

ITV SPORT
Saturday, 12.30, 18.30
The World Cup Years – This channel is staggering on long enough to repeat the 1990 edition again, which does include some Nick Owen, though not quite enough. Let’s hope it doesn’t go pop before the 1994 edition, because we really want to see Don Howe’s rap again.

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All times correct at time of writing and refer to England except where stated. All programmes subject to cancellation, shifting, and so on, but we’ve had to write the whole of Tuesday and Wednesday out twice because we accidentally deleted the original listings – what idiot put the shortcut key for ‘save’ right next to the one for ‘delete’, eh? – so we don’t really care.
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MEANWHILE…
TV Cream’s message board Ask The Family is still going strong, standing by to answer all your nostalgia queries. The record so far for supplying an answer is, we think, four minutes, though that may just have been a bit of luck. That Peter Firth query’s been up there unanswered for about six weeks now. Anyway, to bung us questions, observations and Creamguide suggestions go to http://tv.cream.org and click on Long Shots. And bloody subscribe to the TV Cream Update while you’re there! What’s the matter with you people?
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The Big Long List Of Credits – Chris Hughes, Ian Jones, Simon Tyers. Chris Diamond, Davros, GNC, Matt Jones

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. THX 1139

    March 30, 2022 at 12:58 pm

    I think Barry Sheene only had a few months to live, so they caught him just in time for After They Were Famous.

    Is this the last sighting of Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World on TV? Now it seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth, possibly for “problematic” humour (thanks, Spike!). Although I see the DVD is being sold for silly money on Amazon.

    I remember seeing the BBC Kenny Everett on an early digital channel, suspect it was Paramount Comedy, though.

  2. Glenn Aylett

    March 31, 2022 at 7:27 pm

    The Andy Pandy revival of 2002 was voiced by Tom Stoppard and my niece, who was five at the time, quite enjoyed it, as her mother and uncle would have done with repeats of the original in the seventies. The original wasn’t so much dreary, if you mean the 1950s black and white series, just very much of its time, narrator who spoke BBC English, singer who sung in the same way, and done on a budget of half of a crown as this was all Auntie could afford. However, Andy and his friends kept children entertained for decades, so something must have been right.

  3. Andrew Barton

    April 1, 2022 at 9:06 pm

    I don’t believe Blackadder or the That’s Life special aired, because this is where the schedules were ripped up after the Queen Mum died.

    Casualty went to BBC2, Jet Set (and the Lottery draw) did not air, although the draw took place offscreen. The Mel Gibson film Air America was replaced with the film Tony Rome. ITV didn’t air the usual Blind Date etc.

    As I mentioned already, the QM’s death was bad news for Nigel Lythgoe – BBC1 would turn the lunchtime slot containing his game show The Enemy Within (which had premiered 25th March, 5 days before the QM died) over to BBC News Specials most of the week. I believe also her funeral preempted the BBC1 daytime schedule (like ITV’s), so TEW would not air either that day.

    With that in mind, it ruined the momentum for the The Enemy Within to get an audience with the preemptions. It also meant Lythgoe couldn’t really promote the show either.

    Neighbours and Doctors also moved slots due to news coverage at one point, and the extended news meant an episode of Diagnosis Murder was replaced by a Keeping Up Appearances repeat.

    Crossroads, which was airing Mon -Thurs, was bumped on a day with a edition of Catchphrase replaced on Friday by the Crossroads episode meant to air Thursday.

  4. Richardpd

    April 1, 2022 at 10:33 pm

    I remember my Dad was a bit narked by the round the clock coverage, especially as Paul Gambaccini’s Radio 2 show was taken off the air.

    If he hadn’t pre-deceased Prince Philip by a few months, I’m sure my Dad would have been fuming over the excess coverage, probably saying “keep it on just one BBC channel & show us something else on the other!”

    Among all it’s other problems, the rivial of Crossroads was also effected by 9/11, with a few episodes taken off air or moved to ITV2.

  5. Applemask

    April 12, 2022 at 10:28 pm

    Asterix v Caesar was a mashup of Legionary and Gladiator for no very good reason. Why has Asterix been so hard to adapt? It should be relatively straightforward. Just use the BDs as a storyboard. And when it’s time to translate into English, always use Anthea Bell.

    • Richardpd

      April 12, 2022 at 10:55 pm

      The Asterix adaptations have been hit & miss over the years, certainly Asterix In Britain was one of the better ones as it stuck close to the book & had a good cast for the English version.

      I’m guessing translators Anthea Bell are a bit expensive for film dubs.

      The Tintin film adaptations over the years have also been wayward. At least the 1990s TV cartoons were fairly faithful to the books.

  6. Sidney Balmoral James

    April 12, 2022 at 11:54 pm

    Amusing ‘we’ve no idea who Hugh Jackman is’ comment here from twenty years ago.

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