This edition, originally broadcast on 29th February 1992, covers the year 1965. The full programmes for the night were The Saint, The Woody Allen Show, The Human Jungle and Tempo.
TV Heaven episode 5
This edition, originally broadcast on 7th March 1992, covers the year 1971. The full programmes broadcast on the evening were episodes of Six Dates with Barker, Upstairs Downstairs and The Persuaders.
TV Heaven episode 6
This edition, originally broadcast on 14th March 1992, captures the signals from 1978. The beginning of the episode isn’t recorded so sadly we are missing the usual opening montage of events of the year, but all the other regulars are there.
The full programmes on the evening were episodes of Edward & Mrs Simpson, The South Bank Show and Rumpole of the Bailey.
Handily the box contains a couple of torn clippings from the Radio Times.
This edition, originally broadcast on 21st March 1992, covers the year 1970. The full programmes for the night were an edition of the sitcom On The Buses plus The Tribe That Hides From Man and Manhunt.
TV Heaven episode 8
This edition, originally broadcast on 28th March 1992, loots the television treasures of 1960. The full programmes broadcast on the evening were Police Surgeon, Living for Kicks (a Daniel Farson documentary), Armchair Theatre and The Strange World of Gurney Slade.
TV Heaven episode 9
This edition was originally broadcast on 4th April 1992 and celebrates the programmes of 1969. The full programmes on the evening were the Galton & Simpson comedy An Extra Bunch of Daffodils, the first episode of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Johnny Cash in San Quentin.
This edition, originally broadcast on 11th April 1992, covers the year 1976. The full programmes for the night were an edition of the sitcom The Fosters, Jack Rosenthal’s Ready When You Are, Mr McGill and episodes of drama Bouquet of Barbed Wire and arts programme Aquarius.
TV Heaven episode 11
This edition, originally broadcast on 18th April 1992, brings a feast of entertainment from the 1950’s. A bumper crop of full programmes on the evening were:
Oh Boy! (1959)
The Bob Monkhouse Hour (1959)
Double Your Money (1955)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1957)
Dial 999 (1957)
TV Heaven episode 12
This penultimate edition was originally broadcast on 25th April 1992 and celebrates the programmes of 1966. The full programmes on the evening were the opening episode of the sitcom George & The Dragon; Dare I Weep, Dare I Mourn; and an episode of Danger Man.
An interesting cast, it looks good but nearly thirty years on I still haven’t got round to watching it. With face masks standard apparellel in the “new normal” Oxford Street of 2020, Malcolm McLaren loses a lot of his intended menacing appearance.
Bigfoot and the Hendersons A BBC1 showing.
Telly Addicts – Celebrity Christmas Special (Genome)
BBC v ITV, shown on Boxing day. From Radio Times:
“A BBC team takes on an ITV quartet in a special edition of the television knowledge quiz. Les Dawson captains the BBC team, with Carmen Silvera (Edith in ‘Allo ‘Allo), Mike Reid (Frank Butcher in EastEnders) and weather forecaster Suzanne Charlton. You Bet‘s Matthew Kelly is the ITV captain, with Sarah Kennedy (from Busman’s Holiday), Bob Holness (of Blockbusters) and Best of Magic‘s Geoffrey Durham. Hosted by Noel Edmonds.”
The credits tally 3x “thanks” for the clips used…
…which is less than half the number of “copyright violation” claimants I got when I tried to upload it to YouTube. For those who have asked me why I don’t make this material available for viewing online, that’s your answer.
“Various TV Programmes 1991” is what the label claims the tape contains, and so it does…
A Postcard from Sydney
Survival
Jason Donovan
Advert
Top Of The Pops
Excerpt from The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
The Holiday Programme
Four Mations
Excerpt from Eastenders
Top Of The Pops 1973
Two episodes of King of the Rocket Men
Varied indeed.
Clive James Postcard from Sydney(Genome) 30 May 1991
Survival Hedgehogs
Good Morning Britain Jason Donovan video for his cover version of “Happy Together”, broadcast by TV-AM at 7:53. Apparently it reached #10 in the charts in 1991. Available on YouTube, sans clock, if you’re interested.
A popular street vendor of kebabs in Bristol is the Jason Donervan. I thought this was a good place to impart that information.
Advertisement: Barclays Bank.
Partly filmed in Red Lion Street, Midhurst. Church Hill the location of the Ford Fiesta ad on tape 5, runs parallel to this street and filming for Foyle’s War has also taken place here.
Promotions for the evening’s viewing
before going into the first of them…
Top Of The Pops
The opening titles has the TOTP logo morphing into a pumpkin, conveniently dating this epsiode as 31 Oct 1991. Further confirmed by the unseen and unidentified presenter introducing “this spooky edition”.
Having seen Jason earlier on the tape we now have Kylie, inexplicably singing her latest offering in an old gasworks … which appears to have given her a headache.
The programme ends abruptly after 20 minutes immediately following the “exclusive” Genesis performance of “No Son of Mine”.
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. “Why do you think Windsor Castle is ringed with Chinese restaurants?”
Uncle Jimmy tries to recuit Reggie into his secret army to fight the “wreckers of law and order. Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, neo-Trotskyists, crypto-Trotskyists, union leaders, Communist union leaders, atheists, agnostics, long-haired weirdos, short-haired weirdos…”
A wonderfully crafted piece of writing performed brilliantly by Geoffrey Palmer and Leonard Rossiter. Available on YouTube.
Segment. The opening seconds of a John Thaw vehicle…
Followed by a short piece from Wish YouWere Here…?
John Carter is on the Côte d’Azur, lucky him.
Four Mations: Bzig.
A documentary in the Channel 4 animation strand following Polish film maker Zbigniew Rybczynski (IMDB) creating his most recent work The Orchestra. Some of Zbig’s work are on his YouTube channel: ZbigVision
Eastenders. (Fragment)
Tension in the Queen Vic while Arthur goes mad at home.
Top Of The Pops 1973
Noel Edmonds and Tony Blackburn in a repeat showing of the 1973 Christmas TOTP, an episode highly unlikely to be broadcast again in its entirety.
The final two chapters (11 & 12) of this 1949 serial.
Which concludes the previously documented contents. Along the way there have been some “ends and fragments” – trailers and continuity – including (rather too much) of a 1991 episode of Home & Away and a brief glimpse of cricketer Fred Trueman in his Yorkshire home.
So I was half way through tape 77 in May 2016 when I decided to take a little break for the summer. It lasted longer than I thought but never mind … here we are again. So what’s left?
In theory, 77 tapes.
In practice, 77 tapes in the ownership of someone who has completely forgotten all the processes for transferring them to digital format. Also currently AWOL is the folder of notes and clippings and my ability to drive WordPress, which seems to have changed substaintially in the last 4 years.
Somewhere there is a stack of VHS players, DVD recorders, scart cables and blank discs (I hope blank discs, are they still obtainable?).
The caricaturist Gerald Scarfe (local lad and husband of Jane Asher) in the company of a puppet snake and a rhinoceros, embarks on a mission to determine if the BBC’s guidelines need updating.
Broadcast 2 May 1991, one of a number of programmes by Scarfe in the genre that Louis Theroux later made his own.
The first episode of a Channel 4 series called Classic Cars covered the “The world’s largest autojumble sale at Beaulieu, England”. Broadcast 1 Sept 1991
This is a 30 minute segment from Channel 4’s arts series Without Walls.
“A film tribute to the long-running cult 1960’s spy adventure series, starring Patrick Macnee. With contributions from its stars and creators.”
Being the original broadcast, on 14 Jan 1992, it contains a contribution from writer Leonard White which was removed at his request from the later DVD release.
Fragments
Some lingering temporary recordings, mostly TVS, including a continuity caption for snooker and half an episode of Home and Away.
Nature Watch – All For The Elephant
I can’t find out much about this Julian Pettifer fronted series, made by Central and shown on Channel 4. This particular episode focuses on the work of artist David Shepherd as he attempts to raise £1million for elephant conservation. His painting “The Ivory is Theirs” raised a great deal of that amount through the sale of prints, one of which has hung on my living room since the time of this programme.
Genesis – I Can’t Dance
The video for Genesis’s 1991 hit.
Wish You Were Here?
Nick Owen in Corfu, recorded and kept for no better reason than I had been there.
Election ’92
…and finally. The tape is filled with late night coverage of the 1992 election, with its twists and turns (well some of them). Familiar faces, some looking a lot younger and others now gone (where is John Cole these days?). The recording is mostly BBC but switches occasionally to ITV.
Jon Snow in charge of driving the graphics, of course. A particularly ironic comment from Chris Patten early in the proceedings, clearly not anticipating losing his own seat.
Hold tight, I’m going to race through these next few. More in the set of black & white British feature films recorded from BBC2 and Channel4 between 1990 and 1993. I’ll point out anything else that has lingered on the tapes.
81. Oliver Twist
David Lean’s 1948 classic starring Alec Guinness and Robert Newton.
After some Channel 4 trailers and adverts this is followed by the start of To The Moon, Alice – a short American feature about homelessness.
It cuts out after about 15 minutes to golf coverage, presumably run on after a previous late night film.
82. The Man in the White Suit / The Smallest Show on Earth
Recorded in Nov 91 and Feb 92 respectively.
The tape ends with some C4 trailers, continuity and a caption for the next programme, the World Cinema offering: La Cage Aux Folles; then we launch into an advert break starting with Rolf Harris recommending KFC and continuing with Brian Clough with his Shredded Wheat; a trailer for The Camomile Lawn and the opening minutes of the foreign film.
83. Boys Will be Boys / Where’s There’s a Will
Two Will Hay films, recorded 28/05/1990 and 23/07/1990 from BBC2. I must have forgotten I had them as I recorded them again 3 years later (tape 179 and tape 123).
Following on the tape is an episode from the US series Faerie Tale Theatre, of which I know nothing at all. I have, though, extracted from it a Channel4 advert break with a couple of interesting celebrity appearances…
84. Oh Mr. Porter / Ask A Policeman
Two more Will Hay films, recorded on 24 and 25/07/1990. Memory fade evident again as I previously recorded these films 6 years earlier (tapes 7 and 9).
Each of the films is preceded by a repeat of an old Mastermind episode, the last few minutes of which are caught on these early morning BBC2 recordings.
At the end of the tape is some continuity and the opening minutes of the following film, a Laurel & Hardy classic Fraternally Yours.
This tape had visible mould and took some effort to unstick.
85. School for Scoundrels / Hue and Cry
Two unique recordings this time, the first from Channel 4 and the second BBC2 on 2 Jan 1993.
The tape continues on with a repeat of a documentary, first shown on 11/11/91, about the sculptor Arthur Dooley and his work Joseph and Child (Genome)
86. The Long Arm / Passport to Pimlico
The first has been mislabelled as “The Long Arm of the Law” and is a rather good police drama from 1956 starring Jack Hawkins.
The tapes.
And finally the cassettes themselves, everything from a Dixon’s own to a Scotch EXG+
They’re all the same in the skip, landfill is a great leveller.
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