Good King Memorex - The BBC VT department Christmas tape 1979. There's about 50 minutes worth and its not safe for work. The first C word comes in at 1 minute 45 seconds and Sue Lawley says "fuck" at about 2 minutes 10. :-)
Chinny, I thought for a second we were going to get Attenborough uttering a 'fuck', but it didn't happen. Shame.
Back in the day seeing "Uncle" Frank Bough swear would have been shocking enough. Now of course we know as soon as the jumper came off he was wearing bondage gear and snorting coke.
#I watched all of that christmas tape thingy, and was amazed at how much effort went into it..
You have to remember what a large and well resourced organisation the BBC was at this time. For many genres the 70's was a peak they've never topped.
I used to know one of the guys who appears in the video at one stage (in the Jimmy Saville scene). He told me that much of it was done out of hours as it wasn't a 24 hour operation back then. Because VT was such a large department it only took so many people lending a hand for a small amount of time to get it made.\
That said management got wind and the Christmas tapes were curtailed severely from 1980 onwards. 1979 was the last of the big ones. 1978's is also worth a look.
Also its interesting to see what performers also leant a hand. You've even got Suzi Quattro performing one of her songs in rehearsal for Top Of The Pops with alternate words provided by the VT department.
This video shows the winner of 2009's " Ukraine 's Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.
The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about $75,000.
She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.
It is replaced by a woman's face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman's face appears.
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.
This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.
In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.
The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine , resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.
An art critic said:"I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there's surely no bigger compliment."
Remember TV listings when you were a kid? You'd see the bit at the bottom of the ITV listing that listed the regional variations and "TSW: 5.25 - Gus Honeybun"
Who was Gus Honeybun? Was he perhaps the presenter of a 5 minute local interview show shown before Blockbusters?
No.... he was a stuffed rabbit that gave birthday hops to kids.
BTW: This is worth watching for the cameos of 80's snacks.
Yes it's shit but it does reflect a localness and a focus on the audience that ITV have certainly abandoned. Poor old Gus will be turning in his grave at the current tat.
I grew up with Gus as a child, and he was at a show I went to once. Also, I attacked his ship in Eve, it ended a failure on my part as he had a shieldboosted Ferox, and I couldn't cap him out.
I want to like these as they are pretty funny. But a) I recognise which episodes most of clips are taken from which is distracting, b) the edits jump seasons so there's no continuity on things like uniforms and c) I'm a sad, old Trekkie. d) Help me.