61. More pilots than British Airways

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Also:  It's Saturday Night 2. An autograph before you go 3. A new kind of game show 4. A rising exasperation with the quantity of dirt 5. The whole thing suddenly fell apart 6. Synthetic propensity 7. It was destined to be an anti-climax 8. This is your show now 9. The awesome scale of our wastefulness 10. Hands up those who couldn't care less 11. Together We’ll Be Ok 12. Decide the shape of ITV in the 1980s 13. Alan is too commercial 14. It worked like a dream 15. Older men, doing school boy tricks 16. Killing the Golden Goose 17. People love us to be sexy 18. The manure is worth more than the cattle 19. They were big in the States and we noted that 20. I’m still aggressive and I’m still handing out the insults 21. A new style of lunatic humour 22. The Habitat-bean-bag-hessian-wallpaper brigade 23. Thoroughly sinful 24. All carrots should be scraped, sliced and cooked 25. Back then it was radical stuff 26. Whatever they do, we can do it better 27. You'll have to take us as you find us 28. Entertainment that keeps on the move 29. It's the public that has to pay 30. The last we saw of either of them was their sad faces 31. Just shoot the bastard 32. Britain could clearly be facing its darkest hour 33. Any enthusiasm we may have had for continuing discussions is waning 34. It was considered by LWT and then put in a bottom drawer 35. Watch the redoubtable Terry take off 36. I thought it might be terrible and I wouldn’t enjoy it at all 37. Kamikaze Mastermind 38. We haven’t moved into luxury 39. We are investing in people 40. Delivered impeccably 41. He has to allow you to do your bit 42. All the anticipation of the great emotive point 43. If you want Russ Abbot to do it, then you have to accept me and my ideas 44. Let’s get straight into this 45. Unedifying Greed 46. We’ve got the fucking lot! 47. Scope for humour and danger 48. Pure Megablast 49. There’s lots of killing, but not much else 50. I wanted to make sure it was going to be disastrous 51. Oh dear – Auntie’s playing bingo! 52. A Shrivelled Little Thing 53. I shouldn’t have accepted it 54. We would be the spoilsports 55. The Most Sexless Person In Television 56. They’d have strung me up if I hadn’t chosen him 57. Is there some way to play with the internal constituent parts? 58. The most important entertainment programme of my time 59. The plumply pretty female duo 60. The audience just sort of started to freeze on him 61. More pilots than British Airways 62. There's going to come a time when you'll have to go to the BBC 63. A slightly pretentious manifesto 64. Things Look Very Precarious 65. It’s no good doing all the same old people all the time 66. That’s just not funny Bobby, it's corny - just don’t do that 67. Well bottom’s not funny 68. We Are The Funnymen 69. The powers that be listened to Denis 70. Stretchers never go up stairs 71. I was in obscurity until this series 72. I don’t care if he doesn’t like me 73. There’s such a passion for nostalgia right now 74. I Heard A Seat In The Stalls Go ‘Gerdonk!' 75. This is your show, folks, and I do mean you 76. There’s good news for perplexed fans of 3-2-1! 77. Taking on Blind Date would be a real challenge 78. You wanna bet on it? 79. The yarns worked their tried and tested magic 80. The Charge-And-Shout Brigade 81. I sat for a moment in silence, then turned in my chair and left the stage 82. We just weren't allowed into UK terrestrial television 83. Beadle’s A Prick 84. The interviewer always has to know when it's best to keep his or her mouth shut 85. Can you come up with a good solution for the Murder Weekend mystery? 86. He's not a goody- goody hero 87. The Sexism, The Dolly Birds, The Catchphrases 88. The feel of Saturday night 89. 1990 Who would employ an ex-alky with lowered self-esteem 90. It were a right smack in the face 91. Look Straight Into My Eyes And Everything Will Be Alright, That's A Promise 92. That's the last thing I was expecting, Jim 93. The characters and situations are real 94. Oh Man, There Go All My Women Fans 95. A Double Order of Talent 96. If there is an air of spontaneity about it, it’ll be genuine 97. NTV brings you ... empty rooms! 98. You’re BBC, you shouldn’t be here 99. If this doesn’t work out, we’re both snookered! 100. The humour of Beadle comes through humiliating people! 101. To allow such bilge on TV is an insult to the audience 102. Like a cup of cold sick 103. A litre of gin, ecstasy and crack cocaine 104. A reliable tent pole for Saturday evenings 105. It is in the cutlery drawer 106. Welcome to the new Saturday night 107. Congratulations, you have got the fucking Gen Game 108. The programme has done extremely badly and will be dropped after this series 109. Building the excitement and tension to a crescendo 110. He gives us our spirit of unity; we’d all like to strangle him 111. The worst programme currently on terrestrial television 112. I award the city state of Milton Keynes 100 credits! 113. There’s nothing that makes people scream, ‘Did you see that?’ 114. It was of a standard frankly well below what the public would want 115. Waxing An Ape Is My Ambition 116. Don’t Get Mad, Get Even 117. The penalty shoot-out is the greatest ever endgame 118. 200 black boxes are strapped to the back of a cross-section of the nation 119. Better For You, Better For All Of Us 120. I mean who on earth thought that was a good idea? 121. I’m sure the tune was in there somewhere 122. This Time, You Decide 123. King of trash, that’s me 124. It’s about rejection now 125. They lost what Popstars was all about 126. Win the ads 127. A name in search of a series 128. Getting grief from the papers 129. I’m so pleased to be back on television 130. Saturday nights haven't been this interesting for 10 years 131. It’s the Usual Nonsense 132. The trip of a lifetime Epilogue: Why Haven't You Written a Series of Articles on Tuesday Night Telly?

While LWT was busy furnishing British entertainment with new, alternative comedians, the station’s dedication towards mainstream acts remained undimmed, and as if to counterbalance the pioneering spirit and anarchy of Saturday Live, in ¹⁹⁸⁵LWT also produced Copy Cats. Entirely typical of primetime British comedy to that point, Copy Cats was a re-working of LWT’s own hit 1970s series Who Do You Do? and 1984’s Go For It (comedian Aiden J Harvey appeared in all three). Fast-paced, straightforward and populated with often highly exaggerated caricatures of real people, there was also a touch of Russ Abbot’s Madhouse about Copy Cats.

Like Saturday Live, Copy Cats looked as if it was to be the making of those who appeared on it. Scottish comedian Allan Stewart, while attaining widespread popularity in his homeland, had never quite managed to breakthrough to the rest of Britain. An appearance on a 1972 edition of Sunday Night At The London Palladium and series like 1979’s The Allan Stewart Tapes had brought him briefly to the attentions of the public at large and a nascent music career had provided him with a minor hit record (“The Opening Night”), but he failed to make a significant impact. Consequently, he had high hopes for his regular appearances on Copy Cats. “People have said to me that I have had more pilots than British Airways, which is a bit cruel, but it is also quite true,” remarked Stewart somewhat ruefully in 1985. “I still haven’t quite made the breakthrough to being a household name … I’ve done every kind of television under the sun – all the guest spots – but it is amazing how much television you have to do to become very well-known … I was really bubbling under between 1971 and 1975, then things levelled off – but I have made myself an incredible living. Now I would like to become as well-known outside of Scotland as I am here”. Stewart went on from Copy Cats to appear in series such as Laugh Attack and Patter Merchants.

Others too would find that Copy Cats would fail to propel them to the next level of celebrity status. Comedian Aiden J Harvey had won New Faces in 1974 and appeared on a number of ensemble comedy shows including ATV’s 1975 The Summer Show (which featured a number of New Faceswinners), the BBC’s The Main Attraction (1984) and Thames Television’s 1985 series The Funny Side. His career after Copy Cats attained a similar trajectory and Harvey continued to work the clubs of northern England and appear at corporate functions.

Still, Copy Cats did act as good grounding for some entertainers. “I call myself an impressionist rather than an impersonator,” explained Gary Wilmot to readers of TV Times in 1985. “I try to create an illusion – like an artist”. Another New Faces winner, for Wilmot, Copy Cats was a step along a road that would lead him to success and acclaim in musicals such as Me and My Girl and Carmen Jones. Jessica Martin too would go on to achieve success on the stage after Copy Cats, as well as make regular appearances on TVS’ 1986 series Bobby Davro On The Box. Of course Davro himself achieved star billing on the first series of Copy Catsby virtue of his previous appearances on Go For It and The Krankies Klub and of all the entertainers who appeared over the course of Copy Cats’ three series, Davro has been the most prolific in terms of subsequent television appearances: making a number of series for TVS including Bobby Davro’s TV Annual in 1986, Bobby Davro’s TV Weekly in 1987 and Davro’s Sketch Pad in 1989, before switching to the BBC in the early 1990s to find some success in 1993 with Bobby Davro: Rock With Laughter.

Copy Cats did well for LWT with its second programme achieving 12.9 million viewers. A second series followed in 1986, adding Andrew O’Connor to the mix. Again ratings were good peaking at 12.7 million viewers. The series inevitably evolved over time, but viewed today even the later episodes look archaic. The original title sequence and theme tune underscore the programme’s central premise in an unsubtle way (the theme tune features electronic meow sounds just to ensure the point has been driven home). Many of the sketches feature impressions, not of other celebrities, but of fictional comedy characters (such as Rik Mayall’s Kevin Turvey and Russ Abbot’s Jimmy McJimmy), which irked some commentators. “Of course, I’m actually doing an impression of someone doing an impression,” remarked Allan Stewart. “It isn’t more difficult – just a little bit weird”. Weird was one way to describe it, but others felt it was plagiarism.

Perhaps Copy Cats is best remembered today for is closing titles. Here the performers would group together on bar stools and sing a song, pausing now and then for a quick gag or impression. Somehow this sequence managed to evoke everything about old school entertainment that Saturday Live was in the process of systematically dismantling. However, Copy Cats’ third and final series in 1987 retained a sizeable audience (albeit peaking this time at only 11.6 million viewers), suggesting that non-threatening, mainstream comedy still had its place. As the massively popular Russ Abbot’s Madhouse drew to a close after five hugely successful years (the final run attracted 12.6 million viewers), Copy Catsserved an important role, bringing to the fore a number of new mainstream entertainers who would crop up again and again on Saturday nights. Copy Cats also established a breezy, fast moving template for sketch show comedy that would be exploited by ITV throughout the rest of the decade.

So, as we passed the mid-point of the 1980s, it was evident that – while new ideas and new notions of what could be deemed as acceptable Saturday night television were forming all the time – traditional entertainers still held sway. As 1985 turned into 1986, Michael Barrymore, Les Dennis, Bobby Davro, Cilla Black, Noel Edmonds, Russ Abbot and Jeremy Beadle looked unlikely to be deposed anytime soon by Ben Elton or any of the other members of the alternative comedy scene.

Next Monday: There’s going to come a time when you’ll have to go to the BBC