O
1/2
Click to find your programme:
OBJECT Z to THE OPTIMIST
THE ORGANISATION to THE OXFORD ROAD SHOW
O |
Click to find your programme: | |
OBJECT Z
(1966)
ASSOCIATED-REDIFFUSION
A MYSTERY entity is on collision course with the Earth. The only thing that stands between total worldwide destruction and safety is Professor Ramsay, Diana Winters and TREVOR "ARE YOU BEING" BANNISTER. Best get started on that DIY fall-out shelter...
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THERE WAS A SEQUEL, OBJECT Z RETURNS, WHICH IMPLIED TREV AND CO WEREN'T THAT SUCCESSFUL FIRST TIME ROUND
TOM O'CONNOR
(1970s/80s)
THAMES/BBC
WE'VE BEEN treated to a succession of vehicles for Scouse stand-up and self-styled "Mr Clean" Tom O'Connor down the years, following the man's graduation from maths teacher via OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS to THE COMEDIANS. First off was THE TOM O'CONNOR SHOW (1976-7) for Thames, which was yer bog-standard frilly-shirted patter. Then came TOM O'CONNOR (1984-87) in which Tom promised to "take the lid off life" in a succession of "quickfire sketches" featuring DEREK GRIFFITHS, MIKE "BLUE RIBAND" BERRY, CHRIS "321" EMMETT and CHERRY "HOT SHOE SHOW" GILLESPIE. Best of all, though, was travelling lunchtime entertainment showcase THE TOM O'CONNOR ROADSHOW (1987), in the slot vacated by DOMESDAY DETECTIVES. This entailed O'Connor and 'Mill-level guests pitching up at some dismal provincial outpost for a week, meeting "the local characters" and attempting to entertain the few busfuls of pensioners who showed up thinking it was Des O'Connor. Highlight was The Accumulator Game, in which three contestants' scores were symbolised by cardboard buses trundling across the screen. Still on telly, mostly in Dictionary Corner, but there's no reason at all why this most genial of gents shouldn't be, say, hosting the Lottery or The One Show. Fact.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."I WAS IN THE PUB THE OTHER DAY"
THANKFULLY FORGOTTEN but still rotten comedy with JOSEPHINE "NO APPOINTMENT" TEWSON as the boss of a sweet factory encountering long-lost brother JOHN INMAN - who's gay! Except he's not! He's just very, er, festive! PETER BUTTERWORTH was in it, with a catchphrase that went "How's your rock, cock?"
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...PRODUCED BY GERALD "CARRY ON" THOMAS, UNSURPRISINGLY
PAUL DANIELS haunted this grim quiz where contestants had to say what was the odd one out (see?) of four things. When contestant accidentally buzzed in when only one thing was revealed, and identified it correctly as odd one out but had to say what linked the other three unseen items, "hilarity" ensued.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...FONDUE SETS AND GARDEN GNOMES LOOMED LARGE AS OBLIGATORY RECURRING COMEDY PRIZES
THE ODDBALL COUPLE
(1975)
DEPATIE-FRELENG
SPIFFY, A fastidious cat, shares a flat with Fleabag, a slobby dog. JACK LEMMON and WALTER MATTHAU most definitely did NOT do the voices.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."THE ODDBALL COUPLE/THEY'RE A COUPLE/YES, A COUPLE OF ODDBALLS/THE ODDBALL COUPLE/THEY'RE A COUPLE, YES A COUPLE OF SCREWBALLS"...AFTER ALL THAT, WHY BOTHER WATCHING?
OH NO, IT'S SELWYN FROGGIT!
(1974-78)
YORKSHIRE
BILL MAYNARD was your hapless odd-job man, bequeathing the nation (including a pint-sized prepubsecent Andrew Collins) a national catchphrase in the shape of "Magic, our Maurice!" with Macca-esque thumbs aloft. LYNDA BARON, RAY MORT and HAROLD GOODWIN were among those trying to dodge the old buffer's tumbling paint pots, rusty nails and misplace spirit levels. Final series, titled simply SELWYN, saw our man wash up as Entertainments Officer at Paradise Valley holiday camp, and was rubbish.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WASTED ON HEARTBEAT
PLANS FOR a new airport in a northern province are opposed by HARRY WORTH and...his brass band. Yes, that's right. The deadly Perry-Croft DAD'S ARMY duo sneaked this clunker out when no-one was looking.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NOBODY LOOKED IN, EITHER
OIL STRIKE NORTH
(1976)
BBC/TCF (THEY OF DIGBY FAME)
DRAMATISED DIVERSIONS of the go-ahead blokes on the then new and exciting recession-beating world of North Sea Oil rigs. Starred NIGEL DAVENPORT, but to no avail.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."OIL BE DAMNED!"
THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST
(1971-88)
BBC
PRIDED ITSELF on being the only place on television you'd be likely to see the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, which was probably a good thing too. PETER PURVES's favourite programme. BOB HARRIS claims chief association with the thing, but it was actually started with IAN WHITCOMB and RICHARD WILLIAMS calling, or rather mumbling, the shots. Despite the noise, it always felt like you had to watch it in silence. Flourished during the years when "a pop song" could be 20 hours long. ELP, Yes and ELO turned up every week, either in the studio or "on film, midway through their latest rekkerd-breaking world tour". Then punk came along and Sir Bob looked a little lost, so ANNIE NIGHTINGALE, DAVID HEPWORTH, MARK ELLEN, RICHARD SKINNER and ANDY KERSHAW took over, perching on monitors to introduce Gang of Four and Spizz Oil. The whole gang got put in charge of Live Aid, because they were the only people who the Beeb thought "knew how to introduce live music" - hence footage of Ellen, Skinner and co beaming their way into the homes of millions of bemused Duran Duran fans.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...HARMONICA-LED THEME PLUS POINTY LIGHTBULB-OUTLINED MAN MIMING CROWN GREEN BOWLING SET A SUITABLY GNOMIC TONE
THE OLD MEN AT THE ZOO
(1982)
BBC
ROOM FOR one more scaremongering nuclear fearathon on top? 'Course! This was a cut above the rest, though, thanks to a deft adaption by Troy Kennedy Martin of the Angus Wilson original. Now position that door at approximately 30 degrees from the wall...
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...MARTIN DID IT ALL AGAIN IN EDGE OF DARKNESS
CHIEFLY REMEMBERED for having starred LOUISE "DICKIE DAVIES HAIR" JAMESON fresh from DR WHO as leather-clad inarticulate Leela, this BBC psychic drama revolved around JAMES HAZELDINE, who played a journalist sent to cover a story about a clairvoyant. Unwittingly he begins to display signs of his own psychic power and comes to the attention of an obscure govt department called Department 7, set up to study the paranormal, in the shape of Jameson, JOHN CARLISLE and the intriguingly named BROWN DERBY. Lots of "Can I trust the government? Are they doing experiments on me or being my friends?" paranoia ensues, with rather silly stories all shot on video with loads of over-the-top synth music and sound effects.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WAS RUSSELL T DAVIES WATCHING?
INSIPID CARDBOARD jungle-set mincing with the rotund campmeister's rotund campmeister, CHRISTOPHER BIGGINS. The actual content is thankfully lost in the mists of time, but early appearance of the dread kiddieslandword "gunge" heralded the swamp round, with contestants making their way over the surface of a huge studio tank of orange-green lasagne via stepping stones that may be solid... o-ho-hore not!!! Forsythean catchphrase: "Safari... sogoody!" Female number two in the proceedings was pre-Enders GILLIAN TAYLFORTH! Always ended: Biggins - "Say goodbye Gillian". Taylforth - "Goodbye Gillian".
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."MY, THAT IS A BIG GIRAFFE!"
SINGLE-HANDEDLY KEPT ITV in business in the early 70s, so this endlessly-mocked transportation-tweaking torpitude has got to count for something. All the critics loathed it, naturally, but fifty thousand billion viewers watched its 74,000 episodes, not to mention the (count 'em!) three film spin-offs. Roll call: REG VARNEY was the cheeky bus driver with an eye for the ladies; BOB "EDDIE" GRANT was the cheeky clippie with an eye etc; MICHAEL ROBBINS and ANNA KAREN were the comedically dire couple with a motorbike and sidecar; STEPHEN "DON'T DRINK" LEWIS was Blakey, the miserable inspector with an annoying donkey-style voice. Franchise travelled the world. Unlike the buses.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THE THEME RECKONED "YOU CAN GET IT ON THE BUSES/UPSTAIRS OR DOWN INSIDE." CHEERS.
BOB HOSKINS is an illiterate removals man, driving a van with arrow on the side. En route to somewhere or other he learns how to spell "furniture". Adult education for Sunday teatimes, its rousing message laid out in the theme tune: "On the Move/On the Move/ So much to see again...Life is an open book!"
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."DEAR BARRY TOOK. WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS PROGRAMME?"
TYNE-TEES SATIRISES itself with a kids' series about a regional-as-hell TV station broadcasting from a lighthouse to no-one. ARTHUR MULLARD and CRACKERJACK's PIP HINTON man the studio.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...ALSO FEATURED AN EARLY APPEARANCE FROM WARREN "DIM OFF CLOCKWORK ORANGE" CLARKE
FROM THE prolific pen of BOB (THE GOOD LIFE/GET SOME IN/EVER DECREASING CIRCLES) LARBEY, ON THE UP was a pretty typical BBC sitcom, albeit one broadcast at the fag end of the Corporation's love for conventional 2.4 set ups. Here the sit involved rough-diamond-made-good Tony (DENNIS WATERMAN) and his various and tedious run-ins with "'er indoors", namely his wife Ruth, (JUDY BUXTON). All the while sidekick extraordinaires SAM KELLY and JOAN SIMS were wasting their immaculate comedy timing on material that was never better than average. Sadly, ON THE UP was pretty much completely forgettable. It wasn't even sufficiently of-its-time (unlike series such as THERE'S NO PLACE AT HOME or JOINT ACCOUNT) to latterly gain a retrospective museum-piece curiosity value. Eminently unmemorable.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...IT'S DORA BRYAN, SAM KELLY, JOAN SIMS AND DENNIS WATERMAN, BUT IT'S COMPLETELY FORGETTABLE - DOES NOT COMPUTE!
ON THE WATERFRONT
(1987-88)
BBC
"LARD! LOTS of lovely lard!" Above average summer Saturday morning pantheon hailing from the short-lived Beeb studio at Brunswick Dock, Liverpool, herded into existence by its script editor, one RUSSELL T DAVIES. Offered up a Fab Four for the filofax generation: "small but perfectly formed" BERNIE NOLAN, leggy woman in mad glasses KATE COPSTICK, large-foreheaded ANDREW O'CONNOR and TERRY "the other one" RANDALL. Pitched itself way above the heads of your average Cheerio-munching primary schooler, courtesy of sketches such as purposefully-craply-drawn still-frame-animation Lantern Jaw ("Lan-tern-Jawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"), the Lardy Brothers, THE FLASHING BLADE overdubbed with FERDINAND DE BARGOS-style "new" "comedy" dialogue, and celebrities interviewed about roof hatches in their cars. Theme tune optimistically stated "the party starts right here, yeah!"
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...QUICK! SCOUR THE ARCHIVE TAPES FOR REFERENCES TO MR SAXON!
ONCE UPON A TIME...
(1984)
ITV
PETER DAVIDSON'S first gig after getting smothered to death by Peri's breastage in DR WHO. Here he turned his pleasant, open face and sort of reckless innocence to a JACKANORY-plus-nursery-rhyme gubbins, leavened with shadow puppetry off of BUTTON MOON, Oscar the Rabbit and others. Occasionally deputised for by MARK WINTER, big star of the 60s and an even bigger star of the, er, ahem. Each episode started with the presenter making a picture on a "tree trunk" using cut out geometric shapes. The shape was invariably "a magic teapot" or similar which would then turn up in the tale.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."LET'S HAVE ANOTHER LOOK AT THE PICTURES IN TODAY'S STORY"
ONCE UPON A TIME...LIFE
(LATE 1970s)
ENDLESSLY REPEATED French animation epic purporting to make plain the workings of the human body through cheery-faced cartoonery. In shocking defiance of all known physiological findings, the brain was revealed to contain a thousand white-coated bug-eyed blokes operating a thousand computers (with big reels of tape and flashing lights), watched over by a gaffer with a giant white beard prone to falling asleep. In fact pretty much everything in the entire body was revealed to have a face, including red blood cells (here depicted as gung-ho proto-warrior upstarts), platelets (St John Ambulance emergency tykes) and white blood cells (crack troops a la the Desert Rats), while muscles and bones were built and maintained by cloth-capped working class hordes. Hugely entertaining and shockingly vivid, especially the very last episode where the gaffer fell asleep for ever and, yup, the "body" died.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...ENGLISH OVERDUBS UP TO THE USUAL DOGTANIAN STANDARD
ONCE UPON A TIME...MAN
(LATE 1970s)
EQUALLY WELL-REMEMBERED if similarly pretentiously-titled Gallic sequel to the above, aiming to go one better by encapsulating all of human history in now-serious, now-jokey cartoon form. Once again the educational value was somewhat in doubt, as regular characters throughout time, according to this show, included a hyperactive monkey, an old bloke with a white beard that covered his entire body, and a calendar with limbs and eyes. Boasted officially the scariest title sequence of all children's television, as, to the cheery sounds of Bach's doom-laden Toccata and Fugue, the evolution of life was squeezed into 60 terrifying seconds beginning with amoebas in the dust and ending with - aaaargh! - a man running for his life to climb into a space rocket and escape the full-blown fuck-off total destruction of earth.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."I SEE YOU HAVE DISCOVERED LUTHERISM!" "YES!"
ROB "WHO?" HEYLAND starred as stupidly named "zoo vet" practicing in 1960s backwater of Britain where no-one had seen an elephant before. Initially hyped as latest Sunday-night ratings beater, series succeeded in clearing the stage for grim HEARTBEAT and PEAK PRACTICE domination a decade down the line. Later episodes rubbished Noah-sentiments of the title still further by moving to, erk, a safari park.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BIZARRELY GIVEN ACRES OF COMIC STRIP TREATMENT IN OTHERWISE SEMINAL IN-HOUSE FOR-THE-KIDS "BEEB" MAGAZINE
ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF TELEVISION
(1988)
ALL CHANNELS
THE BRITISH Film Institute's attempt to get a snapshot of What We Watch, and an absolutely stunning one at that. Genius premise: anyone and everyone gets invited to keep a diary of what TV they saw on Tuesday 1st November 1988, including telly professionals and bigwigs. Meanwhile cameras follow life at all the main networks, film shoots and studios around the UK. The result: an achingly of-the-moment account in words and pictures of the state of the crystal bucket. ANNE DIAMOND crossing a picket line. JEREMY PAXMAN on a bike. GORDON HONEYCOMBE slagging off NICHOLAS WITCHELL ("Twatchell!"). The wrong guest turning up on BREAKFAST TIME. "I do wish CAROL DOOLEY wouldn't block the South-East corner of the UK with her body and dangling objects." People on OPEN AIR complaining about the previous night's PAUL DANIELS Halloween special. CHERYL BAKER eating "some pernicious-looking green balls". "LUCKY LADDERS is a game show that is cheap television at its worst, but watchable." FIONA ARMSTRONG singing the virtues of Border Television's NEW COUNTRY. NIGEL HAWTHORNE moaning about being filmed rehearsing YES PRIME MINISTER. STEPHEN FRY throwing up. "I think we are talking about THE GENERATION GAME". ESTHER RANTZEN brainstorming ideas for HEARTS OF GOLD. Meerkats. "WHAT'S YOUR STORY was good and I phoned up about 50 times but didn't get through". MIKE NEVILLE giggling. Cliff singing 'Wired For Sound' on WOGAN. "It is good to see that NOEL EDMONDS has bounced back." MARTYN LEWIS singing JOHN BIRT's praises. "I was a bit disappointed with the pullover of question master DAVID COLEMAN." And GARY WILMOT celebrating his 8th wedding anniversary.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."I SUSPECT THAT WOMEN WHO DISLIKE ANNE DIAMOND ARE EITHER JEALOUS OR HAVE VICTORIAN MORAL STANDARDS..."
MIDWEEK MELODRAMA about a whiskery bloke who sets up a company designing Dungeons And Dragons games. His partner (PATRICK MALAHIDE) promptly goes mad, spends years in an asylum, breaks out and then sets up his own huge elaborate contesst. Never clear if the characters met were actors hired by Malahide to further the game or not. Intensely popular with black T-shirted Games Workshop-populating voice-half-breaking teens. But no-one else.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THROW SIX TO CHANGE CHANNELS IMMEDIATELY
ONE MAN AND HIS DOG
(1976-DATE)
BBC
CANINE AND company for the wind-hewn, welly-bound well-to-do. While bunking off from Television Centre one day, BBC producer Philip Gilbert decided to spend a day attending a pissing-it-down agricultural show in Northumberland. Inspired, it seems, by the sight of an authentic sheepdog trial, he became gripped with the desire to put the whole thing on telly, despite the rituals of the handlers and their faithful Border Collies boasting less dynamism than a still life painting. So ONE MAN AND HIS DOG was born, with presenting duties handled by bluff, hang-the-bastards countryman Phil Drabble and learned boffin Eric Halsall. Buried in the traditionally healthy slot of early Sunday evenings the show flourished and ran for ages. The team mutated through a line-up that included RAY OLLERENSHAW, 12-year Chairman of the International Sheep Dog Society, and GUS DEMODY. Drabble relinquished his role after a marathon 18 years, giving way to latterday anti-licence fee campaigner ROBIN PAGE. It was MARK THOMPSON, in one of his last acts as BBC2 Controller, who called time on the whole ridiculous roustabout, prompting the inevitable hysterical outrage and the ever-reliable wheeze of questions being asked in Parliament. For a time it was rumoured Sky One was ostensibly considering launching its own version, titled, inevitably, "Sky One Man and His Dog". Dermody fumed: "I have had complaints from farmers who have said they could not watch it on a Saturday afternoon because they are working," perhaps somewhat overlooking the ubiquity of the everyday video recorder. Nonetheless, one-off specials still turn up unexpectedly, like a pile of horse shit in a field.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."OH, NO, NO, NO, HE'S LOST THEM NOW!"
ONE STEP BEYOND
(1961-63)
ASSOCIATED-REDIFFUSION
ESP-BASED SELF-CONTAINED yarns with people travelling back to Krakatoa or the holocaust and forward into the future by means of juddery-camera visions.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...FEATURING ANTON RODGERS, DONALD PLEASANCE, PETER "DEPT." WYNGARDE, MICHAEL CRAWFORD, KENNETH "MARTY" COPE, ROGER "MASTER" DELGADO, MARTIN "VOGON" BENSON, CHRISTOPHER LEE AND GRAHAM "INSPECTOR!" STARK
WILLY RUSSELL-PENNED did-you-see-that-on-the-telly-last-night? playground-bothering Channel 4 play about two scouse kids Billy and Icky (DAVID MORRISSEY, SPENCER LEIGH) running off to go camping in Wales, only to be befriended by a shifty school teacher. Awkward developing relationship between the protagonists leads to much jealously and swearing, culminating in a spot of road rage on a narrow bridge.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...PLUS A QUEASY SCENE WHERE THE KIDS FEED MARS BARS TO SOME BABY SPARROWS THEREBY KILLING THEM
TITANIC NAUTICAL saga which steamed through BBC1 Sunday nights for nigh on a decade. PETER GILMORE was your Cap'n and head of the family; ANNE STALLYBRASS his missus; BRIAN RAWLINSON (who regenerated into JAMES GARBUTT), JESSICA BENTON, MARY WEBSTER and JILL GASCOINE were other offshoots. Much Victorian vapours and 19th century ne'er-do-wells, with endless marriages, betrothals, betrayals, betrayed betrothals and kelp. WARREN CLARKE, FREDERICK JAEGER, JANE SEYMOUR and KEN HUTCHINSON helped weigh anchor. Swaggering theme was from the opera Spartacus by the composer Khachaturyan.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SALTY
SKITS AND spoofery adapted from STEPHEN POTTER's 1950s titular "guides" to modern living, brought to screen by BARRY "DEAR BBC" TOOK and performed by RICHARD BRIERS and PETER JONES. INSTANT SUNSHINE leant their well-polished pipes to the theme and a number of, naturally, topical songs.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...FORERUNNER TO M*A*S*H AS STAPLE OF MIDWEEK BBC2 NIGHTS
ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES
(1981-2003)
BBC
"BUSH, BUSH, BUSH, BUSH, BUSH, BUSH, BUSH". Still your best chance of getting a glimpse of a branch of Supercigs or Spud-U-Like, JOHN SULLIVAN's uber-com - originally to be titled READIES - is alternately great and woeful. In the great bracket: "It's Barratt's!", the Peckham Pouncer, "Cwying!", 'The Longest Night' (best episode ever) and - yeah - we'll say it: the Batman and Robin bit. And as for the woeful? 'If They Could See Us Now' (worst episode ever), Raquel, that one with the bottled water, all the Omen stuff and the clunky pop cultural references ("Have you ever spent a night with Trigger? It's like holding a seance with Mr Bean"). But, to be fair, anything up until Cassandra arrives is top, and a different opening and closing theme is bonus points in anyone's book - particularly when there's the none-more-eighties line: "Ball games, gold chains, whassa-names, and at a push, some Trevor Francis tracksuits".
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WHEN DAVID JASON NEARLY QUIT IN '86, LYNDHURST WAS EARMARKED FOR SPIN-OFF TITLED HOT ROD. THANK GOD DAVE HAD A CHANGE OF MIND
ONLY WHEN I LAUGH
(1979-82)
YORKSHIRE
"I'M H. A. P. P. Y..." Three patients spend four years in hospital even though there's absolutely nothing bloody well wrong with them. The stars were socialist worker Roy Figgis (JAMES BOLAM) and snobbo dandy Archie Glover (PETER BOWLES), roping in neutral feebling Norman Binns (CHRISTOPHER STRAULI) into their "capers". Pre-'Grave RICHARD WILSON was the doctor, hospital orderly Guptah was a restrained racial caricature for the time. Last episode, when they all left and ended up in the same restaurant, set new standards for baked bean endings.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."I'M SORRY FIGGIS, IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'LL HAVE TO HAVE GLOVER'S BLOOD AFTER ALL"
YOU'RE OFF school - again - with an upset tummy. You've seen that episode of HOW WE USED TO LIVE at least three times. YOU AND ME no longer excites. And Channel 4 doesn't even kick off until after lunch. Where else to seek solace but in the ever-welcoming portals of BBC Manchester's Palace Of Glittering Delights, thrown open to all and sundry for an hour ever morning to let the green-biro brigade sound off about last night's telly. At the helm, the thinking man's Pat Butcher PATTIE COLDWELL, BOB WELLINGS and an early incarnation of EAMONN HOLMES. Guaranteed regulars: MICHAEL GRADE or BILL COTTON jovially brushing aside complaints about THE LIVES AND LOVES OF A SHE-DEVIL; "big name stars" from the latest all-action blockbuster drama hitting BBC1 screens tonight, usually RAY BROOKS; behind-the-scenes "exclusives" from the set of NO PLACE LIKE HOME; and someone moaning about too much swearing before 9pm.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...THEME TUNE WAS THE AURAL EQUIVALENT OF A RUBIK CUBE UNRAVELLING
TIGHT-ARSED STUTTERING grocercom rendered watchable by RONNIE "TWO" BARKER's saucer-eyed suffering performance. Playing second fiddle: DAVID JASON as the world's oldest Hungarian errand boy and LYNDA BARON as "pneumatic" Nurse Gladys. Knackered till, knackered bike, "bit o' supper", "dangler", "ter-ter-treacle ter-ter-toffee", trying to get off with the milkwoman etc. all present.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."IT'S BEEN A FUNNY OLD DAY..."
OPEN COLLEGE
(1986-89)
CHANNEL 4
BASICALLY, THE Open University for anyone not predispoed to a particle accelerator. Catered shamelessly for the "life skills" constituency, i.e. mature students, thick students, students used to working with their hands, and lazy bastards. Programmes divvied up between lunchtime slots on Channel 4 and - erk - early morning outings on weekend TV-am. FRED HARRIS was deeply involved. Younger types with big hair promised factsheets on how to replace a fan belt. Disappeared, for some reason, shortly before every single college in the country got the right to call itself a university.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."NOW, YOU MIGHT THINK THAT'S A BIT TOO COMPLICATED..."
OPEN UNIVERSITY
(1969-DATE)
BBC
HAROLD WILSON'S "University Of The Air" put down roots in the overspill tundra of Milton Keynes and quickly spread across Sunday mornings in a riot of impenetrable symbols, magnetic boards with graphs on them, beards, lapels and that avant garde trumpetty theme. Professors of the less than telegenic likes of ALAN SOLOMON, MIKE PENTZ, JOY MANNERS and the legendary STUART FREAKE became household faces, and two decades of easy cultural laughs began. Still, a Sunday morning in with the OU, though often well nigh impenetrable, compared favourably with the offerings on the other two channels (MORNING WORSHIP, GETTING ON, LE JOURNAL FRANCAIS).
Your TVC OU course handbook:
The Arts and Humanities - Most often someone stood in front of a modernist painting, talking about it. Quite often the same painting for the entire half-hour (though the Old Masters and Florentine architecture were often served up, too, their antiquity signified by a blast of crumhorn-led Early Music). Sometimes Clement Greenberg, the Lester Bangs of the art-crit set, was interviewed about Pollock while smoking like it was going out of fashion. Speaking of which, 70s fashions were kept in the background in these shows, which means the OU felt they can still get away with screening them as late as 1998 without too many twentysomethings pissing themselves.
Sociology - In terms of unfair "that's not a proper subject" cheap gags, sociology was to the 70s what media studies is these days. The OU, needless to say, got some in. One course in particular made no attempt to hide its political agenda. Over an animated proto-HIGNFY title sequence, a Tom Robinson type plaintively warbled, "We socialise and we vandalise/We lock the sane away/Politicians' policies/Keep changing every day..." It's stuff like this that led Margaret Thatcher to rage: "The OU? They're all a bunch of Marxists, and anyone with an O-level in Divinity can get a degree."
Mathematics - Now we're talking. The backbone of the OU weekend schedules, these programmes provided the definitive beard-in-front-of-equations cliche that kept Jasper Carrott in back-up routines for decades. And, truth be told, the no-nonsense presentation did, for the most part, look like that. A bit of Radiophonic musique concrete heralded Block IV, Module 2 of Graphs, Networks and Design, and you were straight into the animated diagrams, old BBC weather forecast-style stick-on magnetic sums, and quiet, unmodulated vocal delivery. Sometimes they jazzed it up with a location shoot, a bit of chumminess (cue the OU's very own Ian McCaskill, Alan Solomon - "well, I don't know about you, but working that lot out seems rather daunting!") or some weird chromakey-related concept (eg. presenters shrunk to BACKYARD SAFARI size to play about with enormous models of conic sections). Solomon and US chum Mike Pentz spent many a happy Saturday mid-morning together using trigonometry to work out where a chopped down fir tree would fall (well, there were very few public amenities in MK at the time). Sunday lunchtime saga Mathematical Models and Methods even cribbed the GREAT EGG RACE format, though two teams using calculus to work out where best to fit a lamp on a bicycle was pure bewilderment for audiences switching over from BLIZZARD'S WONDERFUL WOODEN TOYS.
Science - As with maths, really, but with added gravity (in the literal sense, at least). The optics course was one programme that stood out, as it came with a 'home experiment kit', delivered to the student's door in a huge crate, and full of hi-tech goodies ("I bet the first thing you unpacked was the laser!" drooled the lecturer). At the other end of the scale, dated forays into the world of IT ("the House of Fraser's computer covers 500 square feet, and can store up to one 'mega-byte' of pricing information") and examinations of the bizarre, boxy solar-heated houses and wind turbines that were MK's initial stock-in-trade, provided a bit of anachronistic amusement before they were noticed and replaced. Stuart 'Super' Freake was the presenter to watch out for.
Odds and sods - Open Advice was a rather dull general queries programme, often presented by Howard 'Teacher' Stableford, detailing the drab-looking "summer schools" during which students would actually all meet up in MK, drink cheap red wine and attend seminars, just like a real college. An odd programme that seemed to be on all the time involved a bloke dressed up as a fairground owner explaining the perils of running a small business while riding a rollercoaster. What course was that, exactly? In the 90s, as The Learning Zone heralded a makeover and the '78-vintage shows were mostly replaced with newer, fresher programmes, a few oddities still managed to get through - the famous Hotel Hilbert : a comic, dramatised exploration of infinity with Susannah 'Dead Donkey' Doyle checks in at Patrick 'Brent' Barlow's infinite hotel; Traps, and How to Get Out of Them: a truly odd programme consisting of Carol 'Playschool' Leader and some bloke acting out circular discussions about how to get out of a room, whether she fancies him and, finally, whether the programme itself has been any good or not, all to what educational purpose we can but guess; and of course those perennial midnight schedule fillers, What Have the '60s/'70s/'80s Ever Done For Us? and Bach : 48 Preludes and Fugues, both of which occasionally rear up if there's nothing from BBC4 to show instead.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BOWED OUT ON BBC2 IN 2007, SADLY, TO CONTINUE IN ONLINE FORM ONLY
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS
(1956-78)
ASSOCIATED-REDIFFUSION/ABC/THAMES
FANFARE FOR the common man, woman, child, four-piece close-harmony crooners, assorted domestic pets and muscle-bound mincers. The personal fiefdom of HUGHIE GREEN, who in-between trying to save the nation from socialist revolution and conceiving PAULA YATES, considered it his duty to scour the country's highways and byways in order to serve up a generation of variety entertainment bar none. Instead what he found was PAM "OI WISH OI'D LOOKED ARFTER ME TEETH!" AYRES, LITTLE AND LARGE, FREDDIE "PARROT FACE" DAVIES, LENA ZAVARONI, MARY HOPKIN, TOM O'CONNOR and PETERS AND LEE. Ever-present Clapometer would "register" audience approval, then viewers were invited to write in (no expense spared here) to nominate their favourite from among each week's most popular artistes. Winner would be "revealed" the following week, when they'd go up against the latest batch of jesters, and so on. SU POLLARD was beaten by a singing dog, so at least the country had some sense. Revived by BOB MONKHOUSE in 1987 as BOB SAYS OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS ("The door's always open for you!") or Bob Knox as he preferred to call it, the world's first ever phone-in talent show with proper candidate lists in Radio Times and everything.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."AND I MEAN THAT MOST SINCERELY"
THE OPTIMIST
(1983-85)
CHANNEL 4
REALLY, REALLY shitcom with the ubiquitous failiure ENN REITEL (cf MOG - no, don't) as a bird-crazy fool in an entirely silent series (see also CANNED LAUGHTER). No fucking use at all.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...MUH
O |
Click to find your programme: | |