TV Cream

How We Used To List

How We Used To List: 19th – 25th 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.)


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TV CREAM TIMES
19th – 25th January 2002
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Without whom – Phil Norman
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THE ANNIVERSARY WALTZ (PART TWO)
“Announcing the TV Cream Guide – an update on Cream-related programmes and films being reshown on terrestrial (UK) TV this coming week. This will, hopefully, be a regularly updated feature.”

It was with those words that the mysteriously named “TV Cream Weekly” launched the first ever Creamguide – or, as it was then known, the Cream TV Guide, and also the TV Cream Guide, confusingly – back on January 21st, 2000. With its first ever billing – “14.10 Quincy, ME – Sam boils up some coffee on a bunsen burner again.”* – it established itself as the number one sarcastic Cream-related TV listings service around. And on the occasion of our second anniversary, we’re coming to you live this week from the Dorchester Hotel, for Creamguide’s Variety Club Birthday Dinner.

(* You note this was a Friday, as the first ever Creamguide ran Friday to Friday, fact fans.)

This week we’ll be hearing some good-humoured insults, in the great tradition of the comedy roast, from our friends and enemies. Of course, when Creamguide began it was TV Cream Times alone – the radio listings didn’t start for about six months or so – and so that’s why Radio Cream Times is still waiting at the door arguing with the bouncers. Over the last two years, TV Cream Times has been seen on the late lamented TV Cream Mailing List and the TV Cream website, before it span off onto its own mailing list back in August 2000 (which is our *official* birthday). It’s also been written by three writers – TV Cream Weekly, alias PPI, who did those first few months and also still writes the films to this day, Chris Hughes, who did it for one week in March 2000 and still writes most of the funny bits, and yours truly, who took it on after a short hiatus in June 2000. Together we’ve crafted billings like this…

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Saturday 19th January

BBC2

09.00 The Cat From Outer Space
Up bright and early for the first of a 1978 animal film double bill. First up, fun with the alien feline with the talking green collar, alongside Roddy MacDowell, Harry ‘M*A*S*H’ Morgan and Sorrell ‘Boss Hogg’ Brooke. Then, after See Hear! and some other stuff…

11.50 Watership Down
“All the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies…” The Beeb seem to’ve wrested this one away from ITV, where for a fair few years Easter Saturday morning wasn’t Easter Saturday morning without it. Martin ‘Plague Dogs’ Rosen grapples manfully with Richard Adams’ cotton-tailed allegory, enlisting the larynxes of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Sir Rich Ralphardson, Simon Cadell, Roy Kinnear (as Pipkin, of course), Denholm Elliott, Zero Mostel, Hannah Gordon, Nigel Hawthorne, Derek Griffiths, Michael Hordern and Joss Ackland. Oh, and Art Garfunkel.

14.45 Downhill Racer
Robert (Redford) Goes Skiing. It’s not even Sunday! Altogether now – “Da da dum! Da da dum! Da da dum!”

16.25 TOTP2
We’re pissed off with this programme, cos Paul Young was promised and we were hoping for Love Of The Common People, because we really love that song, only to find it was Tomb Of Memories, which is not only boring but sees his two lovely backing singers replaced by three blokes! And that’s after his two lovely backing singers didn’t appear on his recent This Is Your Life either. What a letdown. We also have Robert Palmer (looking like he was playing a journalist in an episode of Shoestring), Transvision Vamp, The Crusaders and an obituary catch-up with Rufus Thomas and The Skids.

21.00 I Love The Two Ronnies
The cobbled-together theme nights scale ever more bizarre heights, with this “evening” of programmes which is just the two halves of Two Ronnies Night but with new links by Mark and Lard. Still, it’s quite good fun, so it starts off with various celebrities picking their favourite sketches, including Bob Monkhouse being impossibly precise about explaining his favourite sketch and why it’s funny – saying stuff like “The first big laugh comes about a minute in” and so on – which convinces us that a show with Bob just talking about old comedy clips would be ace. Any chance of a TV version of The Monkhouse Archive then, Beeb?

Then at 21.50 it’s the round-table discussion between Ronnie B and Ronnie C, Barry Cryer, and a load of writers including Dick Vosburgh and David Renwick, sitting in big armchairs and doing loads of anecdotes, which is an incredibly old-fashioned concept for a programme, but perhaps that’s why it’s really good. And then that’s it, but we’d like to reminisce here about another re-edit of Two Ronnies Night which was part of the alternative schedules for a Sunday night during Euro 2000, which would have been two and a half hours long and included the whole of the night plus bits from another clip show they did in 1999 all bunged together. But they never showed it, worse luck.

22.40 Porridge
Why isn’t this part of I Love The Two Ronnies then?

ITV

13.45 The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
Rather grim, to say nothing of queasily garish, fairytale portmanteau film with Russ “Tom Thumb *again?* Just you wait ’till I get to play a creepy bearded doctor” Tamblyn, Jim “Oh, Waldo!” Backus, Terry-“absolute shower”-Thomas, and, straight from the world of TVC email signoffs, Cheerio Meredith.

21.30 It Shouldn’t Happen To A TV Reporter
We’ve given this unflattering billings for the last two weeks and on both occasions we’ve been wrong, as last week’s Performer show included the amazing story of Duggie Small, who won New Faces Of 86 (and we got to see clips of that, including Spaghetti Junction) and then went on Wogan, completely died on his arse, and never worked again. This week’s probably won’t be as good, but we’ve so far been pleasantly surprised by this run so you never know. Oh, and Duggie has the same agent as Rosser and Davies, fact fans – http://www.phillipsentertainments.com/comedy.html

CHANNEL 4

05.50 Trap Door
This should have been in last week’s Creamguide.

05.55 The Clangers
So should this.

21.00 The 100 Greatest Sporting Moments
Second part of the countdown, which was quite good fun last week, partly because Vinnie wasn’t on it much and left the serious business of the narration down to Dickie Davies. Unfortunately it somewhat suffers from a reluctance to use BBC footage (maybe they’re not allowed) so we got stuff like the 1978 Boat Race and the 1968 Challenge Cup Final covered by the use of newsreel, which is a bit crap. And the 1977 European Cup Final had BBC pictures, but commentary from Radio City by Elton Welsby. Oh, and Tyne Tees might like to not use Daft Punk tracks for the theme tunes of all these programmes, because much as we love the album (indeed we’ve got it on in the office right now), when you hear the same track every two minutes for two and a half hours, you get a bit sick of it.

01.25 Invasion
Low budget ’60s Brit-fi later adapted into the Pertwee Who story Spearhead from Space, with the good Doctor’s role filled by an alien escapee from, er, the planet Lysteria.

CHANNEL 5

17.00 The Moon-Spinners
’60 Cretan Hayley Mills adventure from Disney, with Joan Greenwood, John Le Mesurier, Sheila Hancock and Andr� ‘Quatermass’ Morell and, fresh from Dr Who, Ron Grainer on vibes.

23.10 The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Lange-Nicholson one, and no, they’re *not* doing it for real. Interestingly, when we put “postman always rings twice” into the IMDb, we were directed to an actors’ list of Harold Postman, Julie Always and Pandora Rings. But sadly no Vincent Twice.

03.40 The Best Of The Osmonds
Eh? We don’t know what this is, and neither does Channel Five, by the looks of things.

04.15 Sons and Daughters
We all know what this is.

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MARK LAWSON: “One thing an internet-based TV listings service tries to acheive is the art of the running joke, something that can be seen in Creamguide by its use of Marianne Stone to comic effect. It seems as if this person’s constant repetition is used by the writers almost as a metaphor – you can’t help but see the writers as the sort of children who always sat at the back of the class in school, making jokes about various names. This is obviously what they’ve done here. I know, because I’m Mark Lawson.”

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Sunday 20th January

BBC1

16.20 This Is Your Life
So we did check what this is, and it’s a repeat of the Friday episode. However we still can’t tell you who’s on it because of course we haven’t seen it yet. They just don’t think these things through, do they?

BBC2

19.00 Steptoe and Son
Incidentally, the best bit about the recent Top Ten TV Families was a shot of an issue of Broadcast from 1986 (which we could have actually seen for real if it wasn’t for Liverpool University Library Services, grrr) to show us what sort of ratings Brookside was getting when Bobby and Sheila were in their prime. The camera panned across the BBC1 ratings, and we noticed that the repeat run of Hancock’s Half Hour was getting a whopping sixteen million viewers. However they don’t show black and white on BBC1 anymore, so this goes on the minority channel.

ITV

01.10 Carry On Emmannuelle
Utter crap, lacking both the charm (we use the term relatively) of the Confessions films it was intended to rival, and the po-faced ludicrousness of the Katie Boyle-endorsed continental flicks it sought to parody. Featuring Suzanne Danielle, Beryl Reid, Henry McGee and, the nearest we get to a saving grace here, rival newsreaders Corbet Woodall and Tim Brinton. Meanwhile…

CHANNEL 4

15.05 Carry On Teacher
Today we go straight from pre- to decidedly post-classic ‘On in ten hours, bizarrely. Still finding its feet, this is the third ‘On, and pretty slight it is too, resorting to Joan Sims bending over whenever the pace slackens. Ted ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ Ray, Richard O’Sullivan and Carol ‘Cathy Come Home’ White augment the regulars. ‘Cabby’ can’t be far off…

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm
Oh, we learnt today that Milkshake FM is what used to be The Core, and contains all the teen-based shows, while normal Milkshake! is just kids stuff. Except normal Milkshake!, which is today, contains both Date That and Hercules, so how does that work?

17.15 Short Circuit
1986, and Steve Guttenberg helps Ally Sheedy make good on her early Brat Pack promise with a starring role in the feelgood comedy robot hit of the season, while Demi Moore languishes in crap like One Crazy Summer. What went wrong? Marcella Detroit contributes a grating theme song.

21.00 Poltergeist
Proving once again that there’s nothing ghosts hate more than a middle-aged woman with an annoying voice (cf. Ethel Meaker in Rentaghost).

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PETER KAY: “I remember my mum coming home from t’Friday big shop at t’supermarket with a copy of the first ever Creamguide! Tell you what I remember, the time during the fuel crisis in September 2000 when TV Cream Times couldn’t get hold of his normal edition of the Radio Times for a day, cos there weren’t any in the shops, and had to compile it from the Midlands edition! What was all that about, eh?”

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Monday 21st January

BBC1

14.10 Shoestring
So they’ve already started messing around with the scheduling here, because the Toyah/Biggins/Holton/Bellingham show we told you to watch out for on Thursday actually went out on Wednesday, and then tomorrow (ie Friday 18th) it isn’t on at all, as the unscheduled tennis means Ruby Wax’s rubbish series is shunted. Hopefully this’ll still be on five days from now.

17.00 Blue Peter
We got our BP Books down from the attic of the Creamguide Office this week, and one thing we marvelled at was the impossible nature of the competitions they used to have on the last page. So as early as book five, they asked you to guess what John, Pete and Val had enjoyed doing the most for Blue Peter that year, with the rider “Remember, it mustn’t be what you’ve enjoyed the most, but what you think Valerie, John and Peter have enjoyed”. So there.

BBC2

21.00 Never Mind The Buzzcocks
Cathy Dennis turned out to be great value on this show last week, but this week we’ve got Suzi Quatro, who appeared to be a bit “tired and emotional” on her last appearance. Still, Midge Ure and Adam Buxton also guest, as does Claudia Winkleman, for some reason, who we’ve never been entirely comfortable with because she looks exactly like an old flatmate of ours. Just thought you might want to know that.

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm
“Get in that cardboard box and row out to sea.”

14.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford
Glo’s back, sort of, as each show this week is devoted to “a star of stage and screen” – although this might possibly be compiled from previously shown footage, we don’t know. Anyway, Cliff’s the star today, talking about his career, and they might just possibly maybe show the video for Wired For Sound, so you’d better watch.

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STUART MACONIE: “Creamguide? Ha ha ha ha ha! I’m afraid I don’t have time to read it as I’m rehearsing for Lloyd Cole Knew My Father, which is at the ICA in London on the 8th, 9th and 10th February 2002. However, if I did, I’d be so pleased about all the free publicity that show was getting I’d certainly give them a load of free tickets. Ahem.”

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Tuesday 22nd January

BBC1

14.10 Shoestring
Which this week has included such top dialogue as “Well well – Mr. Bootlace”; “You know we can’t sail today because of *the strike*”; “If this is some kind of practical joke, you’ll be fired”; and best of all, the great station boss Don Stachley getting worried about scheduling matters: “They’ll all be switching over to Wogan soon”.

BBC2

22.00 Dad’s Army
It’s the first bizarrely-scheduled Christmas episode of the year, as we get “Turkey Dinner” again.

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm

14.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford
No surprises that today’s show is about David Cassidy, as it always seems to be. Hasn’t he got a home to go to? You’ll never guess who’s on later in the week…

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MANY TV CREAM CORRESPONDENTS: “WHY HASNT YOU SITE GOT CANON AND BALL ON I REMEBER WATCHING IT ON SATURDAY NIGHT”

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Wednesday 23rd January

BBC1

14.10 Shoestring
Which last week featured a copy of Look-In, a Speak and Spell and a primitive form of Etch-a-Sketch, so keep ’em peeled.

17.00 Blue Peter
By the seventies they’d got a bit less imaginative with their competitions (“We’ve removed Jill from this photo, where do you think she was?” indeed), but we particularly like the one in book thirteen, which is a crossword puzzle with several different solutions, and yours had to match the one that John, Pete and Lesley came up with. Forget about using your skill and judgement, that’s just guesswork, isn’t it? Those Blue Peter Parties must have been terribly undersubscribed.

BBC2

13.20 A Chump at Oxford
Across the land the debate rages. Which is best? The original Laurel and Hardy theme tune, the sparse and whimsical The Cuckoo, as heard in films such as this Peter Cushing-featuring classic, or the full-arrangement update One Together Is Two, as featured in the ’60s Laurel and Hardy cartoon series? Let us know of your preference, and we’ll publish the result soon in our forthcoming Creamguide special edition – “Tootlety-toot, Tootlety-toot: A Nation Decides”.

18.00 TOTP2
We wish the Radio Times would stop printing the entire running order, as we want it to be a surprise, which is why we cover up all the clocks in the office while we’re watching it, so we don’t know how many clips are left. But then, doesn’t everyone. Anyway, Althia and Donna, King, Tiffany and – yes! – Sigue Sigue Sputnik! “This could be number one next week – woooah!”

19.30 Yes Minister
Partly as a tribute to Nigel Hawthorne, and partly because it’s just great, here’s the first episode again, perhaps starting off another oddly scheduled rerun.

ITV

03.15 The Gentle Trap
The obligatory small hours small-time Britflick, this time with no erstwhile children’s TV presenters, but with Martin ‘Vogon captain’ Benson.

CHANNEL 4

06.00 Trap Door

12.55 Cheers
Of course we’re back on the very first series of this now, which includes the only episode ever shown on ITV – when back in April 1983 ITV devoted a whole evening to showcasing Channel Four programmes. Also included was P’tang Yang Kipperbang and a preview of Father’s Day, while C4 showed This Week. You don’t get this from TV Quick, do you?

13.30 On The Fiddle
Odd wartime comedy outing for Sean Connery in this Stanley Holloway-starring tale of conniving soldiery, with Wilfrid Hyde-White, Miriam ‘Clockwork Orange phallic sculpture victim’ Karlin, John Le Mesurier, Bill Owen, Lance Percival, Patsy Rowlands, Jack Smethurst, Graham Stark, Babs Windsor and Marianne Stone.

00.20 All Back To Mine
Hooray! Jo Whiley’s programme’s finished and she’s been off sick from her Radio One show all week to boot! Instead here’s this repeated show – although we don’t remember it the first time – looking through the record collection of Sir Peter Waterman.

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm

14.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford
It’s Julie Andrews today, but Graham Norton’s also on, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. Also good news in that C5 are showing The Cosby Mysteries every morning at 11.00 – “That show had limitless possibilities!”

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JANICE LONG: “Hiya. I was a bit late getting here because I had to help Blue with her homework – and if anyone can help us out with long divsion, give us a call – and then the taxi was late, and it had a loose spring in the seat which was protruding right up my bottom. I’ll show you the mark on the webcam in a minute. Here’s Eddy Grant.”

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Thursday 24th January

BBC1

14.10 Shoestring
Unfortunately Creamguide’s gran isn’t enjoying this series, she’s watching the reruns of Where The Heart Is on ITV. Although she’s also boycotting most daytime telly as a protest at them taking Wheel Of Fortune off.

20.00 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
“I am Adolf Hitler, you *will* obey me! Hmph!” A lengthy showcase for Michael ‘Bronson’ Sheard’s fourth on-screen outing as the great dictator (in the grounds of crumblin’ toff’s academy Stowe, Home Counties location fans). He’s played Himmler three times, too, plus sundry lower-ranking Nazis for the past forty-odd years. There’s some other stuff involving snakes and hats in here too, but don’t let that put you off.

23.35 The Great Waldo Pepper
William Goldman blamed the failiure of his flying circus epic on the ‘unorthodox’ death of leading lady Susan Sarandon halfway through, but really the whole picture amounts to little more than some brilliantly shot stunt scenes linked by a rather dull “last of his kind” character study. Redford, however, is made for the job.

BBC2

13.10 Viva Max!
Peter Ustinov does a comedy Mexican general in this intentionally zany Alamo update with Harry ‘M*A*S*H’ Morgan and Kenneth “two coats, one afternoon” Mars.

CHANNEL 4

06.00 Trap Door

12.55 Cheers
So this is on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, then, at this fairly unmemorable time. Lunchtimes on Four are full of imports these days, aren’t they? Something like Light Lunch – or, indeed, Light Lunch – could fit nicely in here.

13.30 Seven Days to Noon
Andr� ‘Quatermass’ Morell, Joan ‘Marple’ Hickson, Joss Ackland and Jean ‘Tenko’ Anderson feature in this vintage story of a pacifist nuclear scientist threatening London with the big one unless the UK disarms. Great to see this ’50s thriller again, and great to see Sam ‘Orlando’ Kydd and Marianne “back to twice weekly” Stone together again.

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm

14.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford
With, inevitably, Donny Osmond. You knew it was coming, didn’t you?

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SOME OF THE CORPSES ARE AMUSING: “Creamguide sums up everything that’s wrong with internet-based TV listings services today. First, it’s in Arial, when it should be in Times New Roman. That’s Jane Root’s fault. Then it’s not as funny as the first Williams-penned edition in June 2000 that only two people ever saw, but it was much better, because nobody’s seen it and so we can’t be proven wrong. That’s Sarah Smith’s fault. Then there’s too many references to SOTCAA previously being great before drifting into smug irrelevance, when it should of course be slagging off Charlie Brooker, Simon Pegg, Dave Gorman and Steve Berry because they looked at us a bit funny from across a room once. That’s Steve Berry’s fault.”

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Friday 25th January

BBC1

14.10 Shoestring
There’s also some curious editing in this run, most notably the other day when they kept in a pretty suggestive and lingering shot of Eddie’s landlady/girlfriend disrobing right in front of the camera. Not that we’re moaning.

17.00 Blue Peter
Without a doubt the eighties were the golden age for the Blue Peter Book competitions, as they went “guessing game” nuts. In various years, you were asked to guess the number of spots on Jill (book 18), guess the number of animals on Simon’s farm (book 22) and guess the number of feet Janet had fallen in all her parachute jumps put together (book 23). However our favourite is the competition in book 21 where you had to guess how many metres of cable there were in the Blue Peter studio, and the winner would be the person whose guess was the nearest to the correct total as supplied by Charles Paton, Controller, Resource Operations, TV. A world away from your 0891 competitions, eh?

19.00 This Is Your Life
Although surely that would depend on which studio they were using on each particular day, and if they’d brought in any special equipment for the show? So it could have varied depending on what day Charles Paton did his survey, which is a bit useless.

BBC2

08.15 Bill and Ben
Repeated at 13.00, for reasons we’ve never worked out. The See-Saw programmes were important when there was no other kids shows during the day, but now there’s two hours on BBC1, four hours on BBC2 and thirteen hours on BBC Choice, so is there really any need?

13.10 Hercules Unchained
Sandals. Togas. Wrestling scenes. Steve Reeves. Dubbing. Easy laughs on a Friday afternoon.

CHANNEL 4

12.55 Cheers

01.25 Vampire Circus
Adrienne ‘Clockwork Orange Singin’ in the Rain victim” Corri brings a sinister circus to a plague-stricken village in one of the better ’70s Hammer flicks. Lynne ‘Mrs. Sellers IV’ Frederick, Darth Prowse and a scary dwarf clown vamp feature.

CHANNEL 5

06.35 Dappledown Farm
Incidentally, Glo’s guest is Michael Ball today, so no need to give that a separate billing. Although it does get these two sentences.

21.00 Police Academy
Guttenberg again! Now that Kim Cattrall’s fully ensconced as an international taboo-breaking doyenne of sophisticated comedy, what better time to show this? Apparently that bloke who made the funny noises was originally a shoo-in for the role of Niles in Frasier. “Look Niles, this is utterly preposterous! How can you possibly deign to lecture me on the state of my relationships when you and Maris haven’t so much as spoken to each other since that Gore Vidal evening at the Tennenbaums’?” “Prrrrrkkkp! Frrrrit! Pyoyyyng! Awoowoowoowoowoo!”

02.25 Dreamchild
Largely forgotten (and buried on release) Dennis Potter imagining of a journey to ’30s New York by an ageing Alice Hargreaves, real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll (Ian Holm), intercut with childhood flashbacks and Jim Henson-assisted book dramatisations. Far from watertight but unmatchably bizarre, featuring Jane Asher and William ‘Porkins’ Hootkins, and, voicing the Wonderland creatures, Ken Campbell, Fulton Mackay, Alan Bennett, Julie Walters, Tony ‘Kinvig’ Haygarth and Frank ‘Dean of Baille College’ Middlemass.

04.00 Sons and Daughters
If you’re actually watching this, do let us know.

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DIGI-CREAMGUIDE
“Oh, and if anyone fancies doing a regular version of this for satellite/cable etc, please get in touch.” And a year later, that dream became a reality…

BBC CHOICE
Saturday, 23.00
Radio 1: Turn It Up Loud – This was shown as part of Choice’s Radio 1 Night a few months back, and we didn’t see it, but given that the night also included The Radio 1 Story, this probably won’t include much on the history of the station, as promised here, but no doubt will include lots of Westwood.

Sunday, 21.00, 00.30, Tuesday, 22.30, Wednesday, 21.30
Shooting Stars – We didn’t see this last week, so we don’t know if it’s any good, but they do seem to be getting a lot of their mates in – Paul Whitehouse tonight. This one might be worth catching for a bewildered Larry Hagamn, though. Oh, and congratualtions to Vic on his great comment in the Andrew Duncan Interview – “Pop Idol? What next, Gardening idol?” – which proves that if the comedy career ever goes tits up, he can replace Frank Fury on Teletext.

Friday, 21.00
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) – A well-deserved rerun for the last series, which we really enjoyed, as it happens. Though unlike the last rerun, it isn’t running concurrently on UK Gold.

E4
Friday, 22.00
Top Ten Eighties Soul – Richard Blackwood presents, alas, but this is quite a fun entry into the canon, as there’s a feature on Lynx, who you never really see on these sorts of shows, and that’s a shame cos Intuition was great. Also their feature on Imagination was better than I Love 1981’s feature on Imagination, as this one has a rugby-shirted Richard Skinner introducing them on Top of the Pops – “Body Talk there, and it dioesn’t leave much to the imagination…”

GRANADA PLUS
Saturday, 23.00, Friday, 22.30, 01.30
The Wheeltappers’ and Shunters’ Social Club – Dunno who’s on the Saturday solo show, but it’ll be a real mixed bag on Friday. Our Wheeltappers’ correspondent tells us that last week’s included the fantastic line-up of Terry Lightfoot and his Jazzmen, the extraordinary Wee Willie Harris and a stand up performance by Stu Francis! Yes!

Thursday, 22.30, 01.30
Bullseye – “Words we’d like, Sharon!” Of course though the doggerel on the prize board is great, we also like the wording of the questions, especially in our fave, the spelling category – “We all like to drink it, but can you spell it – champagne?”

ITV SPORT
Tuesday, 22.30, Wednesday, 19.00
Brits In Europe – Normally this show brushes past everything the featured teams did up til about five years ago and then just shows them in dreary Champions League group stages games, but they can’t do that this week as it’s Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa. But will we get “Hamburg … have won the European Cup!”?

Saturday, 18.30, Wednesday, 20.00
The World Cup Years – The 1966 episode on Saturday again, outrageously dubbing over the original commentary with Peter Brackley. Then on Wednesday it’s ITV’s most famous World Cup, 1970, so we must surely get some of the original presentation, but it will mean repeatedly showing a Sky presenter, Jimmy Hill, so maybe not. And also HTV West’s Roger Malone commentated for ITV in that World Cup, so maybe Brackers’ll be a welcome substitute. (And for more of this sort of stuff, why not subscribe to Creamguide’s sort-of sister publication Armchair Football, by going to http://www.btinternet.com/~upforgrabsnow , eh?)

PARAMOUNT
Monday-Thursday, 23.00
The Frank Skinner Show – Comedy and chat, comedy and chat, comedy and chat, comedy and chat. So no, we don’t know which episodes they are.

UK GOLD
Saturday-Friday, 11.00, 05.20
Eldorado – When we were moaning about UK Gold last week, we failed to notice it’s screening one copper-bottomed Creamy classic, so – thanks to the detective work of Creamguide subscriber Matthew Freake – here it is. Rest of the schedule’s shit, though.
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All times correct at time of writing and refer to England except where stated. All programmes subject to cancellation, shifting, editing, and general fannying about.
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… so, as Marianne Stone hands over the Sunshine Coach, it’s time for us to bid you a fond farewell from this glittering occasion. To leave you, though, we’d like you all to raise your glasses to TV Cream Times, Radio Cream Times, the TV Cream Update (subscribe at http://tv.cream.org), Ask The Family (no, we don’t know), and the rest of the TV Cream enterprises. A personal thanks, from me, to everyone in TVC Towers who has made one man’s dream of an internet-based TV listings service of a Creamy nature become the Fourth Most Popular Mailing List In The World. And all together now – two more years, two more years…
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A fine company, a very fine company – Chris Diamond, Matthew Freake, Chris Hughes, Ian Jones, Graham Kibble-White, Jack Kibble-White, Phil Norman, Ian Tomkinson, Simon Tyers, and all of you at home!

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. THX 1139

    January 19, 2022 at 1:12 pm

    Duggie Small had one good joke, his Superman impression over the back of a dining room chair, but you can’t build a TV show out of that. The Wogan interview was excruciating, but it’s weirdly stuck in the minds of all who saw it. I think he’s still performing, though.

    Adam Buxton still has nightmares about his Never Mind the Buzzcocks appearance, mostly because of the shame of having to go to the toilet halfway through. (He left the studio to do so, mind).

  2. THX 1139

    January 19, 2022 at 1:18 pm

    Incidentally, was Watership Down getting the masses of complaints back in 2002 that it does now every time Channel 5 show it at Easter? When did that begin? When I was a kid, the greatest peril it contained was that it would make you cry in front of your friends, ’cause it was emotional and that. Now it’s supposedly the equivalent of showing Cannibal Holocaust to the under 10s.

  3. Glenn Aylett

    January 21, 2022 at 7:57 pm

    I wonder who stayed up late enough to watch Carry On Emanuelle, always the most bizarre of the Carry On films and the last one they made. I always wonder what Carry On Confessions would have been like, as the Confessions films were closer to the bawdy humour of Carry On than trying to parody a controversial adult film. Also Robin Askwith would have been a welcome addition to the Carry On team

    • THX 1139

      January 21, 2022 at 11:10 pm

      Mr Askwith was in Carry On Girls just before getting the Confessions gig. Not a big role, though, he’s a photographer, but he can claim to have been in one of them. Carry On Emmannuelle is just horrible, though.

  4. Sidney Balmoral James

    January 22, 2022 at 9:20 am

    Emmannuelle is so sad – with poor Suzanne Danielle having to wander about in her knickers, amidst the remnants of the Carry On regulars, who had all aged terribly, and have it away with a succession of hideous men. There was controversy at the time with Barbara Windsor refusing to appear in it, and publicly calling it dirty. Did it make money from people going to see it expecting some indecency? The dirty mac brigade would have been deeply disappointed by scenes like Vic Maddern and Joan Sims getting it on in the launderette, although that’s one of the few scenes which send up the sex film genre quite well.

  5. Richardpd

    January 22, 2022 at 1:08 pm

    Not to mention Kenny’s bare bum, which an old previous TVC feature called the least dignified performance in a Carry On film.

  6. Glenn Aylett

    January 22, 2022 at 2:13 pm

    The Carry On franchise ran out of steam by the mid seventies. Some of the big names had left, audiences were dwindling and the scriptwriters were running out of jokes. Emmanuelle was just poor and made the Confessions films look like art. Yet for those who wanted a Carry On that was as near to the bone as the franchise would allow, Emmanuelle was the one.

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