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Good Morning Britain

Frostie's address book comes in useful yet again Michael Sheen, Patrick Kielty, Fred Housego, Linda McCartney and friends

“OH, I MUST say, Princess Diana looks really scrummy in that picture, don’t you think so Nick, really gorgeous.” Main, indeed for a time only, plank in ITV’s half-built semi-bodged creaking edifice of a breakfast television service, responsible for making household names of ANNE “TODAY’S NUMBERS ARE 3, 15, 26…” DIAMOND, NICK “…27, 33 and 45” OWEN, WINCEY “AND SO IS WINCEY WILLIS” WILLIS and a host of other day-glo undesirables. Whole thing almost sank with all hands after a mere two weeks on air thanks to original boss PETER JAY’s demented policy of ultra-earnest mithering, having the weather forecast at 7.52 and 13 seconds precisely, and letting fellow investor DAVID FROST do interviews that went on for five hours. Frostie was one of original “Famous Five” supposedly destined to piss all over rival [cref 3964 BREAKFAST TIME] business thanks to “sexual chemistry” of ANNA FORD, ANGELA RIPPON, MICHAEL PARKINSON and ROBERT KEE. Only chemistry evident on screen was that of rapidly combusting careers and evaporating viewers. GREG DYKE showed up to save the day, not before JONATHAN “HE LIED AND LIED AND LIED” AITKEN had sacked Anna and Angela (big news) and made Robert quit (nobody noticed). Parky hung about sulking for a year before pissing off. In came Anne, Nick (promoted from sports presenter), Wincey, ROLAND “RUN VT!” RAT, GYLES BRANDRETH, JIMMY GREAVES, CHRIS TARRANT, HENRY KELLY, JAYNE IRVING, MIKE MORRIS, RICHARD KEYS, ULRIKA JONSSON, LORRAINE KELLY and, over in the kids corner, TIMMY MALLETT, TOMMY BOYD and MICHAELA STRACHAN: basically your entire gamut of harmless mid-80s ITV faces who could hold their own on a shit-brown coloured sofa for as long as necessary going on about a) which members of the royal family were in the tabloids today b) the weather c) what happened on telly last night d) where they were going for their holidays e) Gyles’s knitted jumpers. And people watched in their millions. Genuinely ace opening titles had GOOD MORNING BRITAIN spelled out by pigeons in Trafalgar Square, crew of a Royal Navy ship, load of people on the Bristol Downs and so on. Loads of memorable stuff ensued: Rat On The Road, Tarrant going round the resorts, John Stapleton reporting on the Brighton bomb in a call box, industrial action every other week meaning endless repeats of FLIPPER and BATMAN, Anne quitting, Anne coming back, Anne quitting again, the eggcup copyright slide at the end of every programme, Mallett’s Mallet, After Nine, Mad Lizzie, Commander Philpott doing the weather, GORDON HONEYCOMBE doing the news… Party came to an end when Mrs Thatcher decided GMTV would do a better job of things, except she had second thoughts and wrote BRUCE GYNGELL a letter saying how sorry she was. Too late! Fell off the air on New Year’s Eve 1992 with Mike Morris blubbing to the sound of ‘Simply The Best’.

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Shut up, woman! John auditions Anne and Nick's summer stand-ins
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0 Comments

  1. Ray McKennon

    May 20, 2011 at 12:01 am

    On the Wide Awake Club featured the hilarious SACADAY(Sound Asleep Club} featured actor,writeradn comedian Neil Mullarky and Mike Myers(Waynes World and Austin Powers)

  2. Applemask

    March 3, 2014 at 1:54 pm

    IT’S BACK BITCHES. Nation shrugs as one. Awesome theme tune almost certainly won’t return.

  3. Glenn A

    May 30, 2015 at 7:30 pm

    @ Applemask, in name only, it’s the third attempt this decade for ITV to try and save their dying and utterly useless breakfast service. A shame as TV AM was actually quite good.

  4. Andrew

    April 20, 2016 at 2:07 am

    Did you know the original theme music was composed by Jeff Wayne?

  5. Andrew

    April 20, 2016 at 2:10 am

    Nice painting of the presenters. Who’s the guy at the back who looks like Clark Kent?

  6. Richard16378

    July 6, 2016 at 9:45 pm

    I think it’s Adrian Brown, or else John Stapleton very badly drawn.

  7. David Smith

    July 7, 2016 at 10:03 pm

    Looks more like Jonathan Dimbleby. Did he ever do TV-am?

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