Hello, you.
Well, I'm slowly recovering from the 'flu. Still feeling ropey, but I need to make the effort to move, eat and breathe. Seems reasonable, no?
Are you feeling Christmassy yet? If not, watch this.
Horrific enough for you? Perhaps you'll realise how horrific when you learn what I learned last night. The Good Morning Britain theme was composed by Jeff Wayne. Yep, the Jeff Wayne most famous for War of the Worlds. Unbelievable. I'm surprised that they didn't get Richard Burton's voiced dubbed onto it. It would've given Mike Morris some extra gravitas. Not that he needed it.
So, that's what I would have woken up to on Xmas day back in the mid-80s, possibly on the morning I had Jetfire, my first 'expensive' Transformer. He would have been twenty-five quid at the time, and is many multiples of that nowadays. If only most of my Transformers hadn't gone missing when my parents moved house in the mid-90s. I'd have been sitting on a fortune, one which I would only reluctantly part with. I've amassed a larger collection since, and that's going nowhere. I've discovered the importance of nostalgia and sentimentality in my advanced years.
I took advantage of a subscription offer the other day, which I intend to exploit enormously. I bought a copy of the Radio Times a couple of weeks ago, which contained a card advertising six issues of the mag for a quid. That's a quid for all six issues together, not each. If you let the subscription continue, it's roughly 26 quid for the same amount of issues or something, but if you let them know by the time you receive the fourth issue that you want to stop, the subscription is cancelled, but you still receive all six issues. Brilliant. I got my first issue in the post on Monday, and it was only the bloody Xmas issue. The massive 2-week issue, covering all of Xmas and a bit into the new year, retailing for £2.20. The only trade-off is that I didn't get the Dalek cover. Ah well.
(Time for a quick Xmas kids TV injection, to help the mood along)
Xmas morning for kids, then. What do the terrestrial channels offer? Precious little on BBC1. Breakfast with Bill Turnbull from 6am to 9.15, then Ingenious, a "Drama about three kids who find a genie", followed by Christmas Day Eucharist, live from Chester Cathedral. For an hour. I know it's probably against the meaning of the season, but there's nothing worse than religious programming on Xmas morning. Or indeed, any time of the year. Then, at 11.15am, The Sarah Jane Adventures: both parts of The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, featuring David Tennant as the Doctor. So, one thing worth watching on the flagship channel. In fact, it's absolutely essential viewing.
BBC2... Bob the Builder, The CBeebies Pantomime: Oh Yes It Is!, Inside Life (about frigate birds), Gimme a Break (whatever that is), Wainwright Walks ("Julia Bradbury heads off for Helvellyn summit"), Great Railway Journeys ("Nick Hancock travels through Cuba by rail"), Heidi (the 2005 remake), and Star of Bethlehem ("Scientists discover whether the three wise men could have followed a real astronomical event"). So, precious nothing on BBC2, then.
ITV1... Captain Mack, Paz, Captain Mack (again), Morning News, The Fluffy Club, Toonattik, Christmas Cooks Challenge (with Merrilees Parker and Brian Turner, a 'revised repeat'), Creature Comforts, Santa Claus: The Movie. It was the one thing that ITV used to get right, Xmas Day morning. Now, we have loads of un-festive repeats of cartoons, a sodding cookery programme with Brian Fucking Turner, and a 24-year-old mediocre Dudley Moore vehicle. Aside from the illogic of having a cookery programme when quite a lot of families will already have their turkeys in the oven, which is staggeringly un-Spock-like, it's lazy scheduling to get such a poor film on. I don't care if it's about Santa. It's appalling.
Channel 4 then. Yo Gabba Gabba! (I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it's truly terrifying...), Little Wolf's Book of Badness, Wilde Stories ("Adaptation of The Devoted Friend"), Olive the Other Reindeer, The Simpsons (at last! Something worth watching, albeit an un-festive episode), Friends (again, two non-Xmas episodes), The Simpsons again, Beyoncé: I Am... Yours, and Honey, I Blew Up The Kid. So, The Simpsons saves Xmas morning twice over, in an otherwise dreadful Xmas morning schedule for Channel 4.
Five is even worse. Sunrise, Fireman Sam Christmas Special (at least they've scheduled an Xmas special for the kids), The Milkshake Show Christmas Special, Noddy Saves Christmas, Peppa Pig, Thomas & Friends, Roary the Racing Car, Little Princess, The Mr Men Show (the fucking awful 'new' version with that dreadful Cartoon Network/Nickelodeon angular/heavy outline style that's pervading everything nowadays, from Star Wars: Clone Wars to Batman: The Brave and the Bold), Hana's Helpline, Olivia, Animal Rescue Squad ("A look at the world's largest free-flight dome"), Michala's Zoo Babies ("The birth of a Przewalski's Horse at Highland Wildlife Park causes excitement"), and Polar Bear Adventure with Nigel Marven (like a gimmicky David Attenborough with no charisma). A truly bad line-up (if you were expecting any less from this channel), but at least they've made a token effort with Xmas specials.
Was it really so much better in the 80s? Not if this repressed memory from Xmas 1988 is anything to go by:
That's a bad example. It did used to be better. Honest. It seems nowadays, broadcasters spend their entire budget on the primetime part of the schedule, not bothering with the mornings. Probably because the kids will be watching DVDs or playing a new game they've just received. It's a sign of the times, I suppose.
Gone are the days when you get random Xmas cartoon specials of mixed quality, which, if nothing else, created a lovely Xmas morning atmosphere. Stuff like Christmas Comes to Pac-Land:
And yes, Mrs Pac-Man really does call her husband that. If they ever showed this nowadays, her lines would be heavily edited.
Perhaps the fact that I'm not a kid anymore makes me see things in a different light. I mean, I've never been religious (I'll tell you a tale of why on another occasion), but Xmas is an altogether different matter. Being a father of two now, I do feel sorry for my kids not having decent atmospheric telly to veg out to on the 25th whilst they're opening their pressies.
I've just realised... no Raymond Briggs animations on Xmas morning! Possibly the first time ever that The Snowman hasn't been on Xmas Day. Blimey.
I'll be covering the rest of the schedules over the next couple of days, and get a sidebar sorted out with stuff you absolutely must watch over Xmas.
More festive cheer to come, though I will draw the line at putting sprigs of holly or snow on the logo. Unless you ask nicely. Stay tuned. :)
Posts
Ian , very interesting and clever as are all your blogs. But you were born when everything had already been accomplished. You would not remember a time without tv, holidays abroad, central heating, toys that moved. sorry , i had a doll that walked once if I positioned and moved her legs the right way.
ReplyDeletebut most of all, however much you put Xmas , you are only expressing your non belief and not the real reason for the day, it's is CHRISTMAS, and whether you believe or not, it will always be so for an ever decreasing minority in this greedy , selfish, and decaying world.
nag, nag, from Nana xxx
I don't know where to find my url????so am going to comment as anonymous, but you know who I am :)
True. I was born in '77; I remember watching Thatch getting into power on the telly two years later. It probably had a great deal to do with my Xmas experiences since.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you can sign up for a Google account to get your name attached to your posts. Thanks for posting, Nana-in-Law. :) x
Ha Ha! I can't get over the underwhelmed approach of Anne & Nick (I should have remembered!) Just because they had to go into work Christmas Day they wanted us all to be miserable as well - God, they were an awful patronising pompous pair. Anne, particularly, I remember for being an assumed right wing twat when she verbally attacked Denis Healy many years ago. And look at the band, acting as if they were marching into their next world war!!!
ReplyDeletePast telly is great for bringing up old hilarities and groans of dismay. You must have come across some wonderful websites outlining past TV, eg, 'TV Cream', though I'm sure many of the offerings were well before your time! It has changed since I last saw it, so I shall take a better look!
I've been almost tempted to take on the Radio Times subscription (bargain) but have never got around to it! It's such a pity that the best that's on offer is what you've quoted above, (!) still, don't forget, you might have enough socks and hankies and other delights to keep you entertained all day, you won't need to glance at the box.
I gather that you get all your clips from YouTube - so useful. I must do a search soon for Tiswas, my preferred viewing on Saturday mornings!! '74-'82 The nonsense and the anarchy was a joy. I used to be slightly envious of the parents being put into cages and pelted with muck! My daughters were also born in 1977. I don't want the cage now!!!
I do hope that you & your family are on the mend
Cheers, Stella, we're getting there. :)
ReplyDeleteYep, most of the clips I find are on YouTube, simply because they're easy to embed on here. There are some things I've looked for and can't find anywhere.
When I first got on the interwebz back in the early 2000s, I used to spend a hell of a lot of time on TV Cream and its ilk. I knew most of the stuff; some of the clips were regional idents I'd never seen before, some of it was from before I was born, but had been repeated ad nauseum during my own childhood. Other clips still managed to drag a sense of nostalgia out of me, just because of the film quality. I'm a strange man in many, many ways.