TV Cream

Cream over Britain

Advent Calendar: December 5th

1982: As trailed by the natural face of experimental broadcasting, Arthur Mullard, although The Saturday Show found an ideal front”person” for the campaign the previous morning, and also advertised in TV Times, ITV ran a season of 3D programming that ended today. Actually, when we say “season” we mean “two shows” – TVS pop science show The Real World the previous week, and today UK TV’s first 3D film screening – Fort Ti is a 1952 Western only famous as the first 3D feature to be released in Technicolor by a major studio. Michael Rodd took us by the hand and gently led us into the future where 3D was going to save the movie industry, while ITV had to make a special still warning viewers not to try to watch the adverts with their glasses still on.

1986: If you’re not overawed by the cameo from the Channel 5 Home Video logo, get through the adverts for the start of The Tube (4:44 to go straight there), wisely cut off right before Rowland Rivron gets to do something. What’s going on with those titles and music?

1989: Fifty minutes of Good Morning Britain, unfortunately not the meaty bit of the morning but the opening news segment from 6am with Kathy Rochford. Sir Anthony Meyer’s challenge to Thatcher’s leadership led the bulletins – spoiler: he lost – with Ulrika Jonsson on weather duty and Russell Grant in his hang-on-to-your-hats finery.

1991: Anyone with a working knowledge of how Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty operated would have known that they’d have pulled out all the stops, or at least the stops that obliquely referenced the Illuminatus Trilogy, for a KLF Top Of The Pops appearance. For Justified & Ancient it was all hands to the pump, not just in the studio with a large group of people who can’t have really known what was going on but persuading Tammy Wynette to contribute via satellite. Pretty sure Bill and Jimmy are in the yellow rain macs towards the end.

1992: Sorry about the uploader’s formatting of this, but obviously almost anything from Going Live! gets a free pass from us. That’s especially the case when it’s something as esoteric as Trevor & Simon’s Sofa For 2 With 3, having to cram someone as equally opaque as Macho Man Randy Savage into the sketch. Imagine the green room conversation with fellow guest June Brown. That’s followed by an edition of the same with Betty Boo, but that was from an episode back in September. Still, it’s Christmas.

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. THX 1139

    December 5, 2018 at 9:58 pm

    That theme music for The Tube would be what Benny Hill could be chased around to if he’d revamped his show in 1986.

    I’d forgotten about the 80s rawk version of the Channel 4 theme. Still sounds great, guys!

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