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
31st August – 6th September 2002
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Movies, movies, RTs –
Chris Diamond, Phil Norman, Graham Kibble-White
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WHAT THE PAPERS SAY ABOUT CREAMGUIDE
“answer your moby cock piece”
– Matthew Knowles, Mail on Sunday
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Saturday 31st August
BBC1
17.50 Only Fools and Horses
Used to be that the new season was marked by a load of films on a Saturday night and a two-part mini-series on ITV on Sunday and Monday. Nowadays we get Britain’s Sexiest, a show so bad even the Daily Star are slagging it off. Here, it’s not Miami, it’s not the wine bar, and it’s not the birth, so it must be the blow-up dolls.
BBC2
13.10 Columbo
14.40 Quincy
15.25 Perry Mason
I tell you BBC2, we don’t like this one bit.
17.05 Hi-De-Hi!
This is hardly any better. David Croft, by the way, was interviewed by the Radio Times a few years back and bemoaned the fact that the Beeb only repeated Dad’s Army of his many sitcoms, adding that “The audience love my stuff, but the BBC don’t”. We’re not so sure about that, Dave.
CHANNEL 4
06.05 The Magic Roundabout
There’s not much on today, is there?
CHANNEL 5
08.00 James The Cat
Ah, C5 won’t let us down. This is the sort of thing that won it Channel Of The Year, y’know, although shamefully it’s only on once this week.
01.10 Lifeforce
So summer ends, and, at the risk of annoying long-term readers with our standard whinge, what a poor summer it’s been for films. Usually the schedules sing with the delights of ancient comedies, misguided vanity flops, bizarre lost treasures and creaky Askwith romps, but this summer’s been pretty much devoid of anything interesting, so it’s with heavy heart that we formally wind up Operation Alf’s Button. We naively thought we could make a difference in the big wide world of weekday afternoon/midweek small hours old film scheduling. We were wrong. Too sentimental, perhaps – maybe Operation Get Sky to Nick the Cricket Rights Off Channel Four, or Operation Tell BBC2 that Norman Wisdom Just Isn’t Funny, would’ve been better ideas. Oh, and this is that silly space vampire thing with Peter Firth that Tobe Hooper all but finished his career off with.
03.05 Dilemma
And Channel Four are showing mediocre westerns all week, as if to heartlessly rub it in. And practically everything else is a war film, too! Right, moan over. Oh, this space-filling Brit murder mystery features Peter ‘A for Andromeda’ Halliday.
05.10 Sons and Daughters
They certainly didn’t win Channel of the Year for their arts shows, cos how ‘brave’ is it to just get some bloke to stand next to a painting and rabbit on for a bit? And it’s nothing like the rest of the schedules, just a tokenistic attempt to appease the regulators. Never forget they show Magnum PI five times a week. And this, and on Fridays too.
Sunday 1st September
BBC1
13.15 The Three Musketeers
The Salkind brothers made this 1973 version starring Michael ‘Logan’ York as D’Artagnan, Richard ‘Island Son’ Chamberlain as Aramis, Frank ‘turkeys’ Finlay as Porthos and Oliver ‘The Rebel’ Reed as Athos so it was always going to be a biiiiig picture. It also stars Charlton ‘NRA’ Heston as Cardinal Richelieu as a right horrible old bastard who gets his comeupance in the end, so a bit of a cameo role for him, then. What we’ve always wondered about in the Three Musketeers is why they always looked down on people who used guns and not swords when they were ‘musket-eers’ (at least they did in Dogtanain and the Muskehounds). I mean, are we missing something? Anyway, the things that save this film from itself may be listed thus; Roy Kinnear, Spike Milligan, Rodney Bewes, Gretchen Franklin, Francis de Wolff and Frank Thornton.
18.20 Antiques Roadshow 25 Years On
“This week we’re in – wait for it – Kent!” It seems to be an anniversary every week on the BBC these days, and this week it’s time for Asp and his gang of cravatted knick-knack know-alls to take their turn in the spotlight. This could be fun, as long as we get Arthur Negus, a bit about the experts “dressing down” for the kids’ specials, and the Reeves and Mortimer parody. It’s never had a catchphrase this, has it? Unless you count ‘for insurance purposes only, of course’.
BBC2
07.10 Looney Tunes
Not sure what’s going on here – it says ‘cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, yada yada yada’, but are these new cartoons with the characters, or the original cinema shorts? And don’t ITV have the rights to them anyway? Still, worth a look if only to see if they include Duck Amuck, the best cartoon ever made – “This is a close-up? A close-up you jerk, a close-up!” Used to love that when we were eight.
22.00 This Is… Daley Thompson
First of a series of profiles of ‘contemporary black celebrities’ – dunno who the others are – this week celebrating the life of the man who in 1996 was voted greatest sportsman of the 20th Century in the Channel Four series, The Greatest. A series whose consultant was one D. Thompson, and whose spin-off book was written by saidsame D. Thompson.
22.40 Dave Gorman’s Important Astrology Experiment
We billed the last series purely to wind up SOTCAA, but enough of that, because it was great anyway, and this looks set to be equally excellent. Note that Danny Wallace is included in Broadcast magazine’s annual Hotshots feature (aka Bastards who are younger than us and have flashy jobs in telly), which we like to think is in part down to the nice letter he sent Creamguide when we wrote to Comedy Review magazine in 1996 asking for a job. He said no, by the way.
ITV
20.00 Miss World After They Were Famous
Let’s hope this isn’t too sniggery about the contest bearing in mind that an hour after it ends ITV screens the final of Britain’s Sexiest, which on Wednesday night was part of a mind-numbing Kerry McFadden Hour that pushed The Premiership back to 11.35pm. That’s a programme fronted by someone who left the BBC because it sometimes put his show on at around 10.45pm which was ‘too late’, and that was on a weekend. Ahem. Anyway, this could be the best one of the series, because Miss Puerto Rico 1975 is in it, and so, henceforth, is Brucie.
23.20 Smash!
So this was billed as a six-part series, this is the sixth part, and the title sequence features six bands, the only one of whom we haven’t seen so far is Culture Club. So obviously this week it’s, er, Spandau Ballet. Still, should be fun, despite threatening Robert Elms as a pundit. If they play Instinction we won’t mind.
01.20 The Dance Years
This hardly qualifies as nostalgia anymore, does it? Damgerous Dave and the hits of 1996.
CHANNEL 4
06.00 Bagpuss
Come on, Channel Four!
CHANNEL 5
10.30 The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams
Actually considering this is a new series, it’s hardly worth mentioning this, is it? Unless you want to hear the Den Hegarty joke again.
Monday 2nd September
BBC1
14.35 Murder She Wrote
And here’s the start of the autumn daytime schedules, including new episodes of Kilroy, Doctors and Bargain Hunt. But still this musty old rubbish, every day at this time.
17.00 Blue Peter
More Blue Peter Flies The World for a bit while the gang take a break after the summer. This week it’s two shows following Simon around Italy.
19.30 This Is Your Life
Given the amount of clues they give on the show now – a ‘coming up’ sequence, for God’s sake – it doesn’t really matter if they give away the subject in advance anymore. A repeat, and a crap one at that – Shaun Williamson off EastEnders. We want the Fern Britton one again!
BBC2
13.15 The Prince and the Pauper
Rather spookily this 1977 model of the Twain novel has an awful lot in common with the above Musketeers; Ilya Salkind produced, George Macdonald Fraser wrote – as above – and Oliver Reed and Charlton Heston star. Actually, this is our favourite version of the film; David Hemmings is dead nasty in a pathetic kind of way, George C Scott is splendidly moody as The Ruffer and the rest of the cast include Dudley ‘CFF’ Sutton, Ruth Madoc, Graham ‘did I ever tell you I knew Peter Sellers’ Stark and Don ‘Paradise Club’ Henderson. What is becoming apparent is that we’re getting fewer films this week but this has been taken into account by cramming the ones that are being shown with Cream names.
22.00 Room 101
Repeat of the Michael Grade episode, of which the best bit was reading Doctor Who newsgroups after it went out and seeing loads of people going “The audience were split! Paul Merton didn’t look very convinced! There were boos!” In fact, the best bit is Mike discussing the BBC1 Christmas globe from 1984, explaining how it had to feature both snowmen and women.
ITV
17.30 Family Fortunes
Introduced by Andrew Collins! Yes, those days on Telly Addicts gave him the taste for the quiz, and so he steps into Les’ shoes in front of Mr Babbage to… oh, hang on, it’s *Andy* Collins, a fairly unlikeable cockney bloke off of C5 filler programmes. Obviously, now it’s on every day of the week, the budget’s been cut, so contestants may long for that murder mystery weekend in Harrogate.
03.00 The New Addams Family
Bloooody hell. And with sign language too, so even the deaf don’t escape.
03.20 The Entertainers
Another irregular screening leads to another part of our irregular investigation as to what it actually is. So far we’ve discovered it’s presented by Angela Rippon, the theme tune’s by Jonathan Cohen, and it was shown on Yorkshire Television in 1992. So this week’s Nigel Havers profile may not include his current work, but then if it means we don’t have to see any more of Manchild, that’s OK.
CHANNEL 4
09.00 Little House On The Prairie
That’ll be the holidays over then. Every day at this time.
23.15 The Joy Of Sex
Congratulations to Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps this week for being the thousandth sitcom to include the ‘Is that his beard or… oh’ joke. Here’s a rerun of the documentary about the book, that really should have been called The Joy Of The Joy Of Sex.
04.10 Passage Home
Peter ‘mad as hell’ Finch stars as a drunk, lecherous captain in a right cheery number also starring Patrick ‘turned down Bond’ McGoohan, Sam ‘Orlando’ Kydd, Hugh ‘*I’ve* got an Oscar, boyo’ Griffith, Gordon ‘Savings Bank’ Jackson, Bryan ‘you see, Nannette Newman was his wife’ Forbes and Cyril ‘451’ Cusack. If they’d wanted shenannigans on a boat they could have put on Murder Ahoy!…
05.55 Ivor The Engine
CHANNEL 5
06.30 Dappledown Farm
Also coming up on C5 is a new drama from Tony Garnett. You may recall his last series was Attachments. This is on every day at this time.
11.00 Magnum PI
As is this old toss, after The Wright Stuff.
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RT REVIEW – “Galling!”
>>THE COVER
Hmm, doesn’t really do it for us, and that headline “The Monarch Effect”? Is that a pun? What is that?
>>EDITOR’S LETTER:
“I know I don’t look anything like Meryl Streep” is the conceit that kicks off Gill Hudson’s effort. (Perhaps because Streep has never been photographed pushing her tongue into her lower lip, doing that “d’uh!” thing we explained the other week). Alongside this, another word that should never be used in a RT editorial – “wow”.
>>LETTERS ENTERTAIN YOU
And of course our favourite this week is the one from the po-faced teenager. It’s an enduring genre of RT letter, really – the youngster who writes in attempting to appear as middle-aged as possible. This time around, Nick Reeve (aged 16) hopes that Child Of Our Time will be ruined by the participants deciding to pull out of the project. Sweet 16, eh Nick? Keep grasping at life and wringing every inch out of it!
>>HOLBY CITY WATCH
This time on page 10, Luisa Bradshaw-White off Holby City tells how she doesn’t like backless dresses.
>>WE NORMALLY SKIP THIS BIT …
… Because the flirt-factor is so variable. However as Andrew Duncan is speaking to Lorraine Heggessey this week we decided to stop, look and read. First impressions: Much like her previous appearance in RT, she appears to be wearing a poncho or something. Second impression: Actually, we did start skipping bits towards the end.
>>AC
Having another moan this week – but we have to make it clear, we think that’s a *good* thing.
>>WHERE ARE THE QUIZZES?!
DEF I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S isn’t even a quiz! And Brain Gym – “shake up your brain circuits by using your non-usual hand for a day” – is just a hopeless suggestion from the top of some fella’s head. We hope to have comment from David “The Thinktank” J Bodycombe next week in definitive reaction to these startling changes to the RT’s quiz section.
>>GOLDEN GRAHAMS
Alison Graham feels the need to intercede and defend – wouldn’t you know it? – Holby City against criticism from the BSC. And on the same page, uh oh, a contentious Dr Who related statement wherein she quotes Sam West as appearing in “the last ever episode of Doctor Who”! Damn that woman! Any fule knows that “Dimensions in Time” (the 3D Children In Need special from 1993 which featured West) isn’t considered canon! And where does that leave the Paul McGann Dr Who film (1996)?
>>OUR FAVOURITE BILLING
“8.00 Nigel Ogden With The Organist Entertains”, Radio 2, Tuesday
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Tuesday 3rd September
BBC2
11.05 Captain Scarlett
Richard Greene buckles swash across post-Napoleonic France in much the same manner he did when this was last shown by BBC2: Saturday 15th June. Blimey.
18.20 TOTP2
A great pair of programmes last week, including a double bill of medleys; Beach Boy Gold by Gidea Park and the fantastic Caribbean Disco Show by Lobo. It’s not a show, guys, it’s a record. This week we start the countdown to next week’s 2000th show – although we reckon it’s about number 2010 – with four programmes playing the number one from every hundredth show; which they also did for the 1700th show back in 1996, but that’s by the by. Tonight Queen, Stevie Wonder and the Stones are featured.
22.00 Porridge
Don’t worry, it’s coming up soon.
ITV
22.30 TV’s Naughtiest Blunders
Dunno what happened to the new episode of this series that was scheduled the other week; it just didn’t appear, and a bizarre trailer (with the billing being scribbled out and ‘TV Nightmares 8’ being written in) didn’t explain much. This isn’t that scheduled episode but, seemingly, one of the previous editions (number one, by the looks of it) re-edited into half an hour. They’d better keep in ‘Are you ready, Bobby?’
CHANNEL 4
06.00 The Magic Roundabout
13.25 I Was Monty’s Double
Another war film. At least this is a good ‘un. Fact is stranger than fiction in this story of how General Montgoonery is shielded by having a double sent in the opposite driection thereby confusing the enemy. Clifton James is that man and Monty – thereby saving the producers a wage packet for another actor and uncovering the real reason they made this particular story – and John Mills, Michael Hordern and Leslie Phillips are amongst the rest of the cast appearing with nice fresh uniforms and freshly starched upper lips.
22.00 Jimmy Hill: Football’s First Revolutionary
‘Chinny, chin-chin-chinny, you know, all that!’ Looking forward to this because there’s the possibility of some great archive footage plus punditry from Motty, Dickie Davies and D*s Lyn*m. Hope it also includes our favourite Jim moment – during the Opening Ceremony of the 1998 World Cup when a shot of a ‘We hate Jimmy Hill, he’s a poof’ banner was transmitted around the world to an audience of two billion people.
CHANNEL 5
15.35 The West Point Story
James ‘Yankee Doodle’ Cagney is a down at heel producer forced to go to West Point military academy to put on a show cos he’s skint and also to sign up a new starlet. With Doris Day, Gordon Macrae and some other singy, tappy people.
Wednesday 4th September
BBC1
17.00 Blue Peter
More from Si in Italy. In the meantime, check out http://www.tv.cream.org/bp/bp_appeal.html
BBC2
10.55 A Gift for Heidi
Crumbs, what a week. Well… Heidi – and that’s yer actual Heidi, up a mountain and all that – learns the true meanings of faith, hope and charity through the gift of three woodcarvings. We wonder what she would have learnt the meaning of if she’d been given a Stretch Armstrong, Crossfire and Tin Can Alley.
12.05 The Phil Silvers Show
Make the most of it before Look and Read returns.
18.20 TOTP2
Also last week we had Love Games by Belle and the Devotions, as well as the fantastic Whenever God Shines His Light by Van’n’Cliff – that’s the sort of Christian music you should be doing, Delirious? Working through the list today, we reach Cliff again, as well as the Bay City Rollers and the band whose name Wright wankily promounces as ‘Doo-ran Doo-ran’. Grr.
01.50 What Have The Eighties Ever Done For Us?
If these are for taping, wouldn’t it make more sense to put them at the same time every week?
ITV
01.45 Forever
Great scheduling by ITV Night Time, then, as here’s the second retrospective about 1996 in four days. Mind you, the Spice Girls are in this, and we’d recommend everyone goes out and buys their video An Hour Of Girl Power, because it’s brilliant. And should only cost you about 49p these days.
CHANNEL 4
10.00 This Happy Breed
David Lean directs and Noel Coward writes and produces this allegory of English society during wartime starring Robert Newton, Celia Johnson and John Mills. If it’s wartime stories they want they could have picked one starring the Crazy Gang called… oh, never mind.
01.25 The Night of the Living Dead
Good news – horror’s back! Bad news – this was last on at Christmas.
03.05 Hands of the Ripper
This is more like it. Stylish and odd late-period Hammer fare, with Angharad ‘Poldark’ Rees as the daughter of Springheel Jack, driven to replicating her old man’s gory ways in a state of delirium. Eric ‘Soames Forsyte’ Porter is the psychiatrist who tries to get to the bottom of it all. Dora Bryan, Lynda Baron and Molly Weir support.
CHANNEL 5
14.30 Open House with Gloria Hunniford
Glo’s back where she belongs, though we’d take issue over the description of Monday’s as ‘the first in a new series’ when it was a repeat of a previous show featuring Neil Diamond. Anyway, Norman Wisdom hasn’t been on in the afternoon for, ooh, about a week, so here he is on the sofa.
20.00 Kelly’s Heroes
Top World War II nonsense with Clint Eastwood as the eponymous Kelly, his Heroes including Donald Sutherland, Don ‘Hitler’s kid’ Rickles, Telly Savalas and Clint Walker, with Carol O’Connor shouting in the background as they trundle across France to nab some Nazi gold. Apparently, Sutherland’s part as ‘Oddball’ was originally supposed to be Clint Walker’s, but he wouldn’t do it as he said it would be an insult to his Native American people, so Sutherland was invited to take his place instead of just playing a bit part in the platoon. Success! Money! Stardom! Kate Bush videos all followed. Cheers, Clint.
Thursday 5th September
BBC1
14.05 Doctors
Return of the Creamy guest stars in this show; today Diana Coupland who, fact fans, only got her part in Triangle because one of the actresses had died suddenly, they needed a replacement in a hurry and she was married to the director.
23.55 Ashanti
Michael Caine stars with his missus in this story of a doctor whose wife is nabbed by slaver Peter Ustinov and taken to be sold to Omar Sharif but Caine tracks him across the desert and takes her back. That description is actually more exciting than the film and also benefits from not having a shitty soundtrack.
BBC2
10.55 Jack and the Beanstalk
Compounding our filmic misery even further, BBC2 replace our least favourite comedy film star with our least favourite comedy film double act – it’s Abbott and Costello!
13.45 Dangerous Moonlight
Flashback-heavy WWII tale with Anton ‘Red Shoes’ Walbrook as an ivory-tinkling Polish soldier who falls in love with a US reporter and composes the Warsaw Concerto. John ‘doooomed’ Laurie makes an appearance.
ITV
19.00 Soap Star Lives
Yet more screwing with the Emmerdale schedules sees another gap for this filler series, and Anne Charlston’s the subject. Hopefully the wretched Dossa and Joe won’t feature, but if they play a chorus of Let’s Have An Old-Fashioned Christmas, Creamguide may just shed a tear or two.
22.30 The John Thaw Story
This should be a bit more considered that the John Thaw Tribute Weekend they did shortly after his death, which was just a few old repeats bunged on indiscriminately. We’re particularly hoping for clips from Home to Roost, because we always though John was really good at comedy and should have done more. And it had the absolute textbook ‘sitcom dad’s living room’ set as well.
CHANNEL 4
10.00 Happy Days
The kids’ programmes are over but the schools programmes have yet to begin, so Potsie and co are drafted in to fill in the gap before the cricket. They don’t normally play Test Matches this late in the year, do they?
22.00 Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights
Bit concerned about Heat describing this episode as ‘moving into darker territory’ as it normally means that they’re not putting jokes in it anymore (cf The League of Gentlemen). But Paddy takes a leading role, and he’s our favourite character in it, for some reason. Along with Les, but that’s because of the ‘pig’s dick’ line.
CHANNEL 5
15.40 Flying Misfits
Feature-length pilot episode of obscure TV series Black Sheep Squadron, loosely based on a true story of a rag-tag WWII marine squadron made up of misfits and rejects. Sharon Gless features.
Friday 6th September
BBC2
13.10 King Kong
Oh, whoopee. This is the remake, of course, no chance the boring old black and white original would ever see the light on Two at this hour. Instead, Dino de Laurentiiiiiiiiiiiiiis rounds up Jessica Lange, Jeff Bridges, Rick Baker in an ape suit, a truly terrible full-size mechanical Kong, and that surefire indicator of a ‘Hey! We’re crap, but we *know* that we’re crap! And that somehow makes us great!” flop – unfunny ‘knowing’ quips, for an incredibly boring remake. But look at the colours, children!
19.30 The Good Life
And here it is! So we can all sleep soundly tonight, having yet again avoided a ravens/Tower of London-style scenario.
CHANNEL 4
10.00 Happy Days
>From the descriptions, these episodes do actually appear to come from the ‘jumping the shark’ era – so approach with caution.
23.05 Meet R*cky G*rv**s
Again?! This is the third time in two years C4 have shown this series which went down like a lead balloon first time round, not surprising given that at the time everyone – correctly – thought he was shit. And Jimmy Savile’s in it, and he’s had enough repeat fees from the thousand repeats of this and When Louis Met…, so don’t watch it. And Heat can shut up about his dire XFM show in their radio section, as their billing for it takes up half the bloody page and it’s the same every week, even when he’s not on, and lists all his idiot ‘posse’ like anyone cares about them. Or him. Grrrr.
00.00 Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights
We wish we’d started watching Noble and Silver, who follow this show, now because those that have seen it report being left open-mouthed at the sheer pointlessness of the whole thing. Though according to The Guardian Guide’s rubbish comedy section they’re the future of comedy, despite the fact William Cook calls everyone that and says everyone’s brilliant, when they’re clearly not. And stop referring to ‘Omid Djalili, star of Gladiator’! How long was he in it for, two minutes? It drives us mad, it really does. Er, where were we?
CHANNEL 5
00.50 Wait Until Dark
Audrey Hepburn goes after an academy award as a blind victim of a drug gang. Final Aud vs. mobsters showdown in her flat is justly famed slice of minimalist suspense.
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DIGI-CREAMGUIDE
* Creamguide’s disappointed Curb Your Enthusiasm is going to BBC4 because it means we probably won’t be able to see it, worse luck, and we were looking forward to it. Mind you, we’re like Seinfeld so much we’d be happy to see The Michael Richards Show, which surely no channel would ever buy, not even Channel Five. Meanwhile the channel which has recently acquired ‘a sense of humour’ screen Ton Stoppard’s 1977 TV play Professional Foul on Wednesday at 21.00, starring Peter Barkworth, followed at 22.20 by an interview with Stoppard himself.
* A schedule shuffle on Paramount sees Frank Skinner off our screens for, ooh, about a week, and the arrival of Dennis Pennis. His first compilation, Anyone For Pennis, was shown several hundred times on BBC2 a few years back, and that’ll no doubt be the case on this channel – the first is on Sunday at 22.05. Fry and Laurie are still hanging around, though only just – on Sunday at 01.00 and Friday at 00.20. And it’s the hundredth episode clip show of Seinfeld on Saturday and Sunday at 20.00 which we can justify because the clips date back from 1989 and the fashions from even earlier. Yes, got it in at last!
* Oh, and Bullseye’s on G+ (Sunday, 22.30), but then you knew that.
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“FUNKIN’ AMAZING!”
Well, Matthew Knowles, Journalist of the Year in the Scottish Press Awards, likes Creamguide, so much so he e-mailed us to say “answer your moby cock piece”. Admittedly he may have sent us that by accident, but, y’know. If you’ve got any more glowing testimonials, send ’em to Ask The Family, the TV Cream message board, by going to http://tv.cream.org and clicking the Long Shots button. Try and find space between the hundreds of repetitive ‘Why have you deleted this thread?’ threads.
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Spoiling their fun – Chris Hughes, Ian Jones, SImon Tyers
