LOCAL HEROES
A station-by-station grab-bag of oddly memorable regional trailers for carpet warehouses, theme parks, kitchen retailers, whatever.
ANGLIA
My all-time favourite was an
ad for a health and fitness studio in Norwich. We're
talking really localised here - as far as I know it was never on
TV, and the only place I used to see it was at Cinema City,
Norwich's groovy art-house Piccy Palace. I can't even remember
the name of the place, but I shall carry to my grave the memory
of the cheesy mid-80s-pop-style soundtrack (so obviously library
music, and badly done at that) and the image of bubble-permed
young housewifes with - get this - pink eyeshadow, arsing about
on rowing machines and the like.
- Adrian Clark
ASSOCIATED/CENTRAL
Well, it didn't get much better than Don Amott's Caravan Kingdom in the Midlands of the late '70s. The ad had a very bad (even for the time) cartoon lion in crown and kingly sash (or something) leaning on a caravan and singing the top tuneless ditty - "Don Amott, King of caravans! The price is right, and the choice is yours!" Marvellous.
"Buy, buy... groceries!"
"Buy, buy... meat 'n' fish!" And, until recently, buy,
buy remaindered Saint And Greavsie videos for a quid. ANd also,
to the tune of I DO Like To Be Beside the Seaside, Oh I Do Like
To Shop Around the Bull Ring, which ended "... and we'll
take home some market food for teeeeeee, Park the car without a
fuss, Take the train or catch a bus! The Bull ring centre's-
the place for me!" Or worse still, to a Calypso rhythm -"At de Bullring shoppin centre, deres
a smile on every face. From de moment dat you enter you know its
a special place,,," Admit it, you
miss the Bull Ring Shopping Centre already.
- Duncan, The Green Goblin
Later on, Central "Why can't all towns be like" Milton Keynes offered "Shopping as it should bee-ee-ee". Both were sung to dreadful chirpy '80s barren-musical-middleground-twixt-Buck's-Fizz-and-Radio 2-jingle songs.
Quick roll call of local theme
parks -
West Midlands Safari Park, on the A456 between
Kidderminster and Bewdley.
Drayton Manor Park and Zoo, Fazeley, near Tamworth,
Staffs.
Wicksteed Park (uuurgh...)
Ha ha ha hee hee hee, Gulliver's
Kingdom, hee hee hee!
- Simon Charndon
A furniture store in the
centre of Birmingham on Broad Street called Lee Longlands had the
most godawful jingle which is of course why I remember it so
vividly. It went - "Leave it (quietly) Leave it, leave it to
Lee, leave it to Lee, Longlands (quietly) Longlands, leave it,
naturally, something else-ly, da dah da dahhhh, leave it to
Leeeeeeeeeee Longlands", but the totally bizzare thing about
the ad apart from the jingle was, as memory serves, whilst the
music was playing, the ad showed you pictures of the outside of
the building and nothing at all to do with the furniture inside...
- Toby Riding
Bristol Street Motors,
at Long Acre, Meachells, Stratford Road, Shirley, Mackerdown Lane,
Garret's Green and Bristol Street, Birmingham (of course!)
- Sally Collis
Those car dealer ads with Sam
'But the pants stay on' Fox. Bearded twat called Wally (who
drives about in an old Morris Traveller or something) Sees Maria
(in tight-fitting t-shirt of course) - "That's a nice new
car!" Sam: "Yes, Wally! It's a Yugo! Got it from Swithland
Motors!" (you can imagine how bad the delivery was).
Catchphrase - don't be a wally! go to Swithland Motors! Later
version had a 'cliffhanger': "Find out why Wally fainted!"
Was it because of Sam's breasts?! No, it was over the cheapness
of the cars. Again.
- Tom Pinkett
The tagline, if I recall
correctly, was "Follow the Fox to Swithland".
- Simon Powell
Always during the
break during Star Soccer on a Sunday you'd get the Alton Towers
ad ("Between Leek and Uttoxeter") with the Van Der Valk
theme before it became Van Der Valk ...and you would always get the beer ad too."
Beer at home means Davenports thats the beer, lots of cheer...(then
another verse I can't remember but promised to deliver or
something like that) ...because beer at home is Davenports"...then
some bloke with cheesy grin appears and goes "Cheers"
in a most un-Midlands posh accent. Finally there were the
Ellerman Sunflight ads. Deadly Doug from Aston Villa I believe.
- Tony Roe
DFS are all over the place now
- even down here in London - but around 1983, the first ones in
the Central region opened, and the places stick in my mind.
The closing line of each ad was "Darley Dale, near
Matlock and Tamworth Road, Measham" spoken by serious but
slightly excited voice-over, no doubt looking forward to the
endless sales there would be. As soon as it was Boxing Day in the
Central region, ITV used to bombard us with adverts for DFS.
Despite the fact that no one in the Midlands has a clue what the
acronym stands for (a feature that was actually used to market
the store one year). Later it expanded to "DFS at Darleydale,
Measham, Droitwich, Grantham, Northampton, Cannock, Fenton,
Shrewsbury and now the Potteries Centre, Hanley".
- Ian McDougall
In the summer holidays in the
late 1980s it wasn't unusual to witness Lenny Henry in -
Commander Henry Plays The Day Out In Dudley Time Interface Game -
basically a wacky way of showing all the stuff you could do in
Dudley - mainly the Black Country Museum, seeing shire horses,
doing that 'walking on the sides of the tunnel' thing on a canal
barge ("Look at this! Leggy Henry!"), drinking a pint
of real ale ("That is bostin'!") and glass blowing
("Tricky or what!?!?!?") etc. Also noteworthy for Lenny
affecting a mock "over the top" Dudley accent despite
actually being from the town anyway.
- Paul Newton
BORDER
Lowther Park! The children
would love to go!
Lowther Park! To a circus show!
Lowther Park! Acres of parkland, so...
Lowther! Near Penrith!
For some reason, "near Penrith" was always said in a
really smug voice. I used to work there for £1:80 an hour,
selling souvenirs that had nothing to do with the place at all.
When I was little, Tucker Jenkins (as he was then) opened the
mini train track but the train keeled over with lots of kids
sitting on it. Growing up in Penrith I never had any illusions
about the place, but my boyfriend got taken in by the advert
whilst on holiday in Cumbria as a child, and has never quite got
over the disappointment.
- Victoria Dutchman-Smith
GRAMPIAN
GRANADA
Oyston Estate Agents:
fairly ubiquitous throughout the 80s, these ads featured
notoriously flamboyant estate agent Owen Oyston, falling
backwards into a swimming pool (a la opening titles of Neighbours)
with tedious monotony. In hat, beard and white suit, Oyston
looked a bit like a cross between the Man from Del Monte and
Terry Pratchett, although he had designs on becoming a
Granadaland version of Richard Branson, with his stakes in
Blackpool FC and crappy Red Rose Radio. Fortunately, Oyston's
present residence is at her majesty's pleasure for reasons best
not delved into here. See also clicky-gate commercial for rival
Whitegates agency.
- Chris Hughes
"Tommy Ball's"
shoe place and "Winfields of Haslingden"
carpet warehouse. Neither ads were memorable. Used stills of
"attractive" folk in catalogue type poses, smiling as
they were seemingly impressed with the 1000s of bargains. "Ladies
fashion shoes from 1.99!".
- Bette Davis
Ian Skelly Motors:
huge used and new car dealership forever advertised on Granada
during the 80s, memorable for pseudo-Douglas Adams locational
tagline: "At The End Of The M62." What, in the middle
of the road? The Skellmeister frequently vied for primetime
attention with less-exciting A+B Motors.
- Chris Hughes
Fade up still picture of Wigan
market. Caption - "Wigan market". Voiceover -
"Come to Wigan Market!" Fade out. Perfect. Similar
technique employed for the still extant "Wright's pies are
outstanding!" Advertising agencies in the north west regard
anything more fancy than the above as "getting a bit peas
above sticks".
- Bill Harkleroad
BOC Cars, (the name stood for something
like Bolton/Oldham/Cleveleys) on Hyde Road in
Manchester. Hosted by the one and only Sir Bernard Manning, he
was engaged as local celebrity type media clown for the purpose
of advertising dodgy Arfur Daley stroke Frank Butcher car sales
pitch, himself dressed up resplendently in ermine cloak, staff
and regal crown, straddling his Rolls Royce: "BOC, better
people to buy from! Come and see! We're the Earls Court of the North!"" went the jingle.
- Helen Hughes, Jon Leigh
My particular favourite was
the advert for Skegness tourist board, definitely shown
on Granada and probably everywhere else. It had an very oddly
animated fisherman type skipping across the beach, but it was
just so WEIRD, the way he moved and his eyes, and the pipe
jutting from his mouth. Scared the living crap out of me...
- James Wood
Around the mid-80's, I think
it was, there was only one question on people's lips. "Who
is Eileen Bilton?" Seem to remember that it arose from an
advert for Warrington/Runcorn New Town, which ended with the
immortal "Ring Eileen Bilton on ........" Unfortunately,
it wasn't so good that I remembered the number. I always had a
vision of some poor woman sitting at a desk with a multitude of
phones around her, trying to pick them all up at once. Oh, how I
wish I'd rung her. She's probably dead now, through overwork.
Bless.
- Pete Ramsdale
HARLECH
Sigma 3: Appalling
South Walian kitchen design company hired Welsh ex-snooker champ
Terry Griffiths (target of one of John Virgo's oh-so-hilarious
"impressions") to, um, pot a snooker ball in slightly
amateurish effort to flog hideous beige units formica to Cardiff
yuppies (if such a thing existed).
- Chris Hughes
'Visit Sunnyhaven and
Blazers caravans, Port Talbot...' - a still slide with the
continuity announcer doing the voiceover live.
- Ben Hayes
Modplan: no expense
spent ads for Wales and west country double glazing firm featured
boiler-suited window-installing bloke arriving at nasty 70s Elm
Lodge Housing Estate-type semi. Memorable to anyone who's ever
seen it for hilariously nervy performance from starring housewife:
"Ask the man from Modplan" she said, in a trembling
voice, and fooling no-one.
- Chris Hughes
Arthur Llewellyn Jenkins:
Don't know if it counts, as it still pops up to this day, but it
starred Captain Peacock (yes, really him) as furniture store
manager fending off invisible customers at opening of shop's sale.
Really bad. Largely replaced these days by gormless couple "arguing"
for comedic effect: "Bed! Settee! Bed! Settee! Bed *and*
settee!" See also ever-present terrible cheap ads for Leeke's
"The Out Of Town Department Store - Llantrisant, Cross Hands
and Tonypandy!" and "George! Street! Furn-ishers!"
- Chris Hughes
HTV West must be (along with
Anglia, even as late as the early 90s) in the running for the
highest proportion of low-budget local ads. They always seemed
less common on Yorkshire, apart from the carpet warehouses (branches
in Northallerton, Brigg, Thorpe Arch and Hull, or whatever).
- Adrian Clark
Sunny Haven Caravan Park:
Dickie Briers did the honours for rock bottom oh-so-simple card
and voiceover commercial for top-notch holiday destination
somewhere in West Wales (I forget where)
- Chris Hughes
LONDON WEEKEND/THAMES
Remember Capitalcard? A sort of combined tube/train/bus travelcard in the early '80s, advertised with a pinball table (the ball symbolised the busy traveller) and also a plug, with each of the three pins replaced by a train, tube train, and bus coming out of it. Weird.
"Visit the Saudi exhibition at Olympia!" Dennis Waterman with a parrot on his shoulder.
"Going on a Blue Sky
holiday this year?" Ultra-cheap one-take scene of Eric Sykes
superimposed on some film of clouds, playing darts and being
interrupted by the announcer.
- Paul Mavvin
To the tune of "Deck the Halls" - "Fa, lalalala, la la, lalalala, it's Capital this Christmas" sung by Kenny Everett. Usually accompanied by that long, depressing ad for Capital's Christmas Helpline thing for the old/homeless/desperate.
"There's no better way
than QUEENSWAY!" Sub-Woolies high street store
trailed by sub-Rainbow soft metal.
- Sue Menelik
"Anita Harris
says Chessington Zoo is Great!" Voice over (probably
David 'Diddy' Hamilton) and slide featuring a grinning lovely
Anita. Aired in the London region, early seventies. Cost about £1
15s. Another one was in a choo-choo double-cadence
annoying (but memorable, oh God, memorable) neanderthal beat -
"Chessington Zoo.Chessington Zoo. Chessington, Chessington,
Chessington Zoo... " et-bloody-cetera.
-John E Norris.
"What would you do if London flooded?"* Remember the shadow of fear we lived under in pre flood barrier London? Chilling adverts reminding us all the time of imminent disaster (which we could prevent just how, exactly?). A child's rag doll bobbing forlornly across the screen. Can't remember just who was Scaremonger General responsible for these (GLC? Thames Water?). Have we got any sandbags, Mum...?
"Come to Colindale Volkswagen" urged proprieter-cum-frontman Ray Thacker for North London based VW dealership. Despite being more wooden than a log cabin, persevered with increasingly wacky hard sell, parachuting in to back projected forecourt at one point. Even merited spot-on piss-take on eighties sketch show (forget which one - KYTV perhaps) Phil Pope daring to fill Thacker's immaculately shining shoes.
Two bored kids, Dad (er, Tony McHale, bit-parts and Eastenders scripts a speciality?) reading the paper in the garden. "what shall we do, Daddy?" Instead of the probable "Push off and ask your Mum, I'm busy", cue rehashed fifties classic "Let's go to the (hop) Zoo" "...Meet a slimy salamander/Get acquainted with a panda /At the zoo!(ba baaa ba)/ooooooooooooooooh/Let's go to the zoo/Down to London Zoo (oh baby)..." Accompanied, Animal Magic style, by various flapping birds, yawning seals, etc.
Was this one regional, or did
it blight screens nationwide? "As you walk through the door/Your
pound's worth more/At Williams...where else?" Or,
as the playground version went, you fell through the floor.
Either way, we didn't buy any furniture there. Mind you, neither
did anyone else.
- Steve Yately
* smartarse retorts du jour were either "the backstroke" (Nigel Rees' Grafitti vol 3) or the more succint "drown" (Not The Nine O'Clock News).
STV/SCOTTISH
STV had a selection
of continuity announcers ranging from local radio DJs, (most having
the perfect radio face) to others whose breathy, wheezy
delivery only just got them through their thirty second
pieces ( whilst simultaneously stripping yet another fresh layer
of paint from the table in front of them.)
Their favourite
trick was to have the poor idiot viewer think that the audio
section of his telly had just died, by reading their twenty or
thirty second piece to camera, and with just a few seconds left,lean
down and switch their mic on.Very equitable for deaf / lip
reading viewers - so perhaps they were ahead of their time. I remember,though
not yet in my teens,being mortified by their ads for
some local dodgy cheapskate dry cleaning outfit which consisted
of a few rostrum boards in sequence,accompanied by a pre recorded
voice over.Occasionally, the boards were the right way up. The voice
over used was invariably one of the in-house con-announcers, (Clem
Ashby ?) whilst their in-house copywriters seemed to have spent
too little time in - house, and judging by some of their work ,too
much time in the boozer next door. "Whoop-de-do.It's another
spring saving spectacular at Bows furniture store this weekend.
Come early to avoid disapointment etc.....
- Francis
Davidson
TV GUIDE - long before TV Times took over the world...well, the ITV network anyway ... Roy Thomson got The Scotsman to print a tatty broadsheet with the programmes in it. The commercial (which was shown until 1960) had the catchy jingle... "TV Guide only fourpence TV Guide full of gen All the news and information on stars and programmes on channel ten TV Guide only fourpence TV Guide." (Want to guess how much it cost....?)
ROBERTSON STREET WALLPAPER AND PAINT used a slide and announcer voiceover (usually me) who always ended the 7.5 second read with the words "Halfway down Robertson Street, Halfway down Robertson Street...." The radio version aded echo and faded out on the third repetition of the phrase. I still go there for paint by the way. No, I don't get it free.
CLYDESDALE - a chain of not
very upmarket stores flogging "brown" and "white"
goods. I was persuaded to do the end tag which had the
singers doing "Come on in to Clydesdale......" with my
most sincere spoken "You're a VIP" at the end.
Ran for bloody years and - like FRESH 'N' LO MILK ("Dairy
fresh daily") haunted me for years afterwards. People
at parties would ask me to "do the VIP thing".
When it ended, the ad agency got me to do a very funny internat
tape which we labelled "V.I.P. - R.I.P."
- Tony Currie
GLENS HUTCHISONS ROBERTSONS
and STEPEK (cue dada-da dah dah punchy music). STV (latterly the
too-self-important SCOTTISH) Not the name of one mega electrical
goods retailer, but rather four sad ones who had obviously
pitched-in together to get their high octane ads for ITT tellies
and Ferguson music "centres" onto central belt telly in
the late 70s and throughout the 80s. Died out for a while, but
returned in the late 90s with an electronic version of dada-da
dah dah. Still shite and annoying.
DCS.STV 70s. "Carpet's capital at DCS !".
- Stephen Kavanagh
SOUTHERN/TVS
A particularly spectacular
advert seen for many years in cinemas on the Isle of Wight
featured the chemists Gibbs and Gurnell, the "island
stockist for all your Este Lauder products" (said above the
typical generic plinky-plonky musak). It showed a very amateur,
lope-sided photo of the said chemists, plus the most
extraordinarily large pile of dog-shit on the pavement outside.
Maybe you had to be there but it kept us amused for years...
- Tim Johnston
Yeovil Sheepskin. Consisted of
the continuity announcer desperately trying to sound excitied
about sheepskins and leathers while a series of slides of models
in same garments rapidly flashed by on screen. Aired periodically
to the mid 1980s. Picture the
scene: Saturday night, Mum & Dad return from the British
Legion annual skittles and ploughman's "do",babysitters
gone home with her copy of "My Guy".Dad crawls upstairs for
a close chat to the toilet.Mum lies comatose from the effects of
one too many Campari & cokes.You seize your chance.Late night
T.V. Remember these were the times before crappy sitcoms
from the U.S patrolled our screens,and Dutch football on channel
5 was still light years away. What a treat night time T.V.You could learn about
checking for I.D at the door,the dangers of putting a rug on a
polished floor and why you shouldn't push your boat
too close to powerlines(?!?) . Amongst all of this in "Southern/TVS"
country was an advert of strange and perplexing nature. "The Yeovil
sheepskin shop",proclaimed the mystery voice proudly.This
was accompanied by photographs of poor down-on their-luck
models wearing what can only be described as tat.This ad was
quick and to the point, but had a lasting effect on all who saw
it.It also made its way to local cinemas in the region. Now when I meet
people from the Yeovil area they seem to have no idea of the
establishment of which I'm talking about. Perhaps it has a
strange and mysterious tale that people do not talk about, or its
a shop with "Mr Benn" type qualities. I would imagine
it went bankrupt after trying to peddle a load of crappy coats
and spending bucket loads of cash on poor quality adverts that
have haunted me for years.
- Robert Woolley, PC
TYNE-TEES
Against a shifting pattern of
remarkably unexciting stills, the following jingle played and
this has insinuated itself into the brain of generations;
"Shepherds of Gateshead/The biggest and the best store/Shepherds
of Gateshead/They've got what you're looking for/There's so much
to see/And the car park is free/Come shopping at Shepherds/For
the whole fam-il-ee!"
Of course, those of us from Sunderland reckoned our very own
Joplings was in fact the biggest and the best store, but they
didn't advertise, so the damage was done.
- Mike Spedding
ULSTER
Jim Megaw, the marketing director of Crazy Prices (local supermarket chain, when big names like Tesco's & Sainsbury's wouldn't come here for fear of being bombed!) always presented their TV adverts, which would be fine and dandy if he wasn't a nervous wooden statue in front of a camera. He always clearly read from idiot boards and never got any better at it. The best ones were when the supermarket gave away a brand new car each week and Jim went round Daz-style to their house to surprise them. While prizewinners went ape over their win, you could always see Jim in shot blinking nervously and sweating profusely with a get-me-away-from-here awkwardness. He was on their adverts for going on 10 years up until approx. 1992? You only had to mention Crazy Prices adverts and everyone knew what you were on about. The man was a legend!
Growing up in the UTV region
we were regularly subject to bizarre farming related
advertisements.. usually on Sunday mornings during a local
farming show complete with farming weather (why farmers where
expected to be sitting at home in front of the tv on sundays I
have never been able to figure out) Things like...
Richardsons Two Sward.. some kind of fertilizer product... small
child listens to wise old grandfather whilst walking around
beautiful farmland before parroting corporate chant/slogan "Richardsons
Gets Results"
Ivomec... a scary ad that detailed all the revolting parasites
that could infect cattle, swine and sheep... lungworm for example..
and then provided a quantam of solace by explaining how all of
these could be dealt with by various injections, baths and
something called a bolous? I've just discovered the company
responsible has a website.. http://www.merial.com/index.html Not for the faint of heart.
Systemex (or systemax) I vaguely recall was another company that
told the horrific tale of animal infestation.. and may be the
reason I have been a vegetarian for fifteen years... Was it just
us, or did other networks in rural economies inflict these
nightmares on the unsuspecting?
- Kelsey
WESTWARD/TSW
"A lovely day out for all
the family - Cricket St Thomas, near Chard"
- Adrian Clark
There was a long runnign ad
for Paignton Zoo, "Putting the ooooo back in Zoo!"
featuring a beetroot-faced pensioner who looked like he was
having a coronary. All tourist attractions were previewed with an
info-mercial "What's on and where to go" - with the
announcer announcing "What's on and where to go, here are a
few holiday ideas" - followed by ads for places like
Dobwalls American Themepark (somewhere off the A30).
- Michael Bailey
A stupendous (or should
that be stupefying) ad for a children's clothes store (I think it
was in Yeovil) called "Tots and Teens". A
selection of their (dodgy-looking) merchandise was displayed, but
the real killer was the music to go with it, which basically
consisted of the words "Tots and Teens" repeated over
and over again by a very uninterested-sounding group of, well,
Teens...
- Michael Couch
YORKSHIRE
My favorite was shown a couple
of times on tv but mostly at the cinema and basically was a very
plush advert with cyclist belting down various improbable tracks
from various camera angles with a high speed metal track behind
it, and then at the end there was a large crack in the sound as
someone threw a bit of card in front of a camera annoucing,
"Cyril Sands - Bike Shop, Halifax" (I'm sure
each town had it's local variation)
- Clive Shaw
"Northern Upholstery - at
Carr Croft, Brigg, Thorp Arch and Hull", since rendered shit
by needless addition of Bradford and somewhere else.
- Paul Carpenter
"It's grand to find a
comfortable chair, when you're getting on a bit, or've got
arthritis. My niece got this from Shackletons. First she sent for
their brochure, then went to their showroom. They'd over a
hundred chairs to choose from. I never thought it'd be so easy to
get in and out of. The Shackleton Highseat chair - it's
lovely!" ......piped trumpet-based music while lady OAP
("unaware" of camera) demonstrates said apparatus.
- Jez Butler, Adam Readman
"Clover - next to Makro
on the Leeds ring road!!" I can't remember what Clover
was, but cheers to them for giving Makro a free ad...or there's
Madeleys... Madeleys... Madeleys for all your decorating needs -
run by ex Leeds united star Paul Madeley
- Isabel Turner
Super-hero clad man
in the late '70's urged us to visit Williams (Furniture/carpet
shop, I think) with the rousing chorus of : 'As you walk through
the door Your pound's worth more At Williams!....... WHERE ELSE!!!?'
Super-hero clad man appeared to have massive tackle and as a
result attracted riotous laughter in our house.
- Mike Spooner
Cleethorpes is
nominally a holiday resort; but the only people who ever holiday
there are from south Yorkshire - out-of-work miners from
Mexborough, petrol pump attendants from Doncaster, etc. Hence the
perennial New Year ads for the resort's holiday camp thingy
Beacholme, across the Yorkshire TV region: "Beacholme!
Cleethorpes! Reet good value!" - cue for much hangover-recovery
mirth at the 'Yorkie' accent from the very-much-Lincolnshire-ta
people of Cleethorpes. Whose accent isn't that dissimilar really,
once you move away.
-Pete Green
Skegness tourist board had a
very oddly animated fisherman type skipping across the beach, but
it was just so WEIRD, the way he moved and his eyes, and the pipe
jutting from his mouth. Scared the living crap out of me...
- James Wood
Mikes Carpets! -
shouted at you by the "oh so lovely" Mike himself,
looking all the world like a reject from Black Lace "agadoo
-doo-doo" The usual promises of rock bottom prices for roll
ends, "we buy by the mile, you save by the yard" type
tosh spouted in one of those annoying twangy Leeds accents (a la
Liz Dawn, a.k.a. Vera Duckworth - Coronation Street). "Showrooms in
Batley & Armley, Leeds" (I've seen it - its about 400
yards from the prison).
-Micky Parker
Yorkshire TV had their own
chairty line. The radio-style jingle went something like
this - "Ring YTV's Christmas Line On Leeds Double-Four eight
one nine Five!" They stopped running the jingle in the mid
90s and a playground of kids mourned...
-Mollari