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Razzmatazz


COMMERCIAL CHIP off the CHEGGERS block. Best remembered for “Rah! Rah! Rah!” theme and LISA STANSFIELD debuting as juvenile presenter. Other culprits included sub-DLT bearded compere ALISTAIR “BMX BEAT” PIRRIE, and BREAKFAST TIME Teenage Correspondent ZOE “OLD MAN OF HOY” BROWN. Recurrent irritant – the Peggy Babcock game, wherein ver kids would have to say this tongue twister three times in order to win a copy of Into The Gap by The Thompson Twins and Grandstand Firefox.

10 Comments

10 Comments

  1. Droogie

    September 9, 2018 at 10:08 pm

    Alistair Pirrie was one of the most annoying TV presenters ever – like a younger Christopher Biggins with the same silly glasses but with an even more irritating nervous laugh. He guest appeared on an episode of SuperGran around the same time I recall.

  2. Glenn Aylett

    June 16, 2019 at 3:25 pm

    Looks like a young Patsy Kensit trying to get Eighth Wonder noticed. I can’t think of any other hits they had, apart from that Pet Shop Boys cover, with Patsy in a mini skirt on TOTP. She also did a passable South African accent.

    • Andrew

      March 28, 2022 at 7:03 am

      Well, there was the follow up to I’m Not Scared, Cross My Heart, which made the UK Top 20.

      After that, no other big hits.

  3. Mark Boyle

    September 21, 2020 at 6:06 pm

    About the only ones who benefitted from the show was the Toy Dolls, when asked to redo the theme tune in 1985 and provide music for the Chartbuster section – they got paid enough to get to Japan and earn some real money for the next few decades on the back of it.

    Those who actually appeared on the show, not so much.

  4. richardpd

    September 21, 2020 at 10:53 pm

    This was one music show that managed to pass me by in the 1980s.

    I presume it was one when something I like to watch was on.

    Apart from Ready Steady Go! and Lift Off With Ayshea I can’t think to too many serious challengers ITV had to Top Of The Pops.

  5. Glenn Aylett

    September 23, 2020 at 4:18 pm

    It was a teatime pop show, rather than a competitor to TOTP, and came from Tyne Tees, who really did make a name for themselves with music programming in the eighties.
    I reckon the best challenger to TOTP came from Channel 4 when they had the The Chart Show. Wall to wall videos for an hour, no presenters, specialist charts and little facts about the acts appearing on the screen. TOTP suddenly looked old fashioned when this launched in 1986.

    • Richardpd

      September 23, 2020 at 11:22 pm

      Tyne Tees did a good job with The Tube for Channel 4, which made The Old Grey Whistle Test seem old fashioned & stuck in the 1970s by comparison.

      The Chart Show was on ITV, by concentrating on videos and on screen displays it was very much a product of it’s time, but was good enough to keep going for over a decade.

  6. Glenn Aylett

    September 26, 2020 at 1:23 pm

    The Chart Show was originally on Channel 4, it followed The Tube through the spring and summer. Then it moved to Saturday lunchtimes on ITV and was just as good, with most of the original features.
    The Old Grey Whistle Test did try and reinvent itself for the eighties with a shorter name and pensioning off Bob Harris, and giving prog rock and AOR bands so beloved of Bob and his followers the heave ho, but it was never as good as the shows on Channel 4. The Tube was the obvious big success, but specialised shows like Soul Train and ECT( for metallists) were worth watching.

    • richardpd

      September 26, 2020 at 2:59 pm

      I didn’t realise The Chart Show started on Channel 4.

      I knew The Old Grey Whistle Test was given a make-over becoming Whistle Test and concentrating on the more experimental 1980s music.

      I didn’t know there was a British version of Soul Train, I see it only lasted one season in 1985 in spite of the “Brit Soul” scene becoming big at that time.

  7. Glenn Aylett

    May 2, 2022 at 3:19 pm

    Lisa Stansfield, presenter of Razzmatazz and one of the biggest singers of the late eighties and early nineties, told a Radio 1 interviewer in 1990 that she enjoyed going back to Rochdale to watch the Coronation St omnibus with her granny. While Madonna was doing videos that were being banned by the BBC and producing top shelf books, our biggest female singer was probably catching up on a soap opera. Also she punched Shane Macgowan for calling her a silly cow, which got Lisa brownie points from me.

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