I’m old enough to remember ITV coming along in 1955. My uncle, who had learned about electronics in the war, had a sideline in supplying and servicing TVs and radios and got us our Bush TV for the coronation in 1953. When a valve went, round he would come to replace it. So….when ITV came along he fitted a new control knob on the outside to enable us to switch from 1 (BBC, obviously) to the new fangled channel 9 with commercials. I can still recall the clunk, clunk of the switch as you turned it round.
Anyway, I digress. Here is a list of 70 shows, one from each year of ITV. I can’t help thinking there is another list of 70 – a list of shame if you will – but these are the highlights. Probably just me, but I watched a whole lot more of the earlier shows than the later ones on this list.
Lots of memories in that list. I remember going down Petticoat Lane as a teenager and seeing a sign on a stall saying “As seen on Police 5”.
Took a further six years for ITV to reach Aberdeen – Grampian Television.
All we could talk about at school were the adverts.. and the cartoons, especially The Flintstones
Put down that decades-past-its-sell-by-date tube of
Gibbs SR toothbaste @NigelT and change the thread
title to 70 years of ITV?
Ha! Posted in haste!!
Really surprised to see the usually pursed lipped Grauniad bigging up On The Buses, especially given its relatively recent article about how Fawlty Towers isn’t acceptable or funny any more.
My own highlights on that list however would be Cracker and possibly Minder. Great stories with terrific acting, even if they’d probably be a little bit slow paced for modern tastes.
Well, the headline does say “unforgettable and unforgivable”…guess “On The Buses” is in the latter category.
Looking at the same Wikipedia page that I suspect Mark Lawson did, 1969 clearly wasn’t a great year for ITV. While the BBC was debuting the likes of The Liver Birds, The Clangers, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Play for Today etc, ITV had Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Hadleigh and Bobby Bennett’s Junior Showtime. I was too young for Big Breadwinner Hog but that’s probably the only one I’d want to watch now.
That said, On the Buses may be way out of line with contemporary sensibilties but I can remember every one one of those characters even if I can’t remember any of the plots.
OTB had a very sad after-story when, unable to get acting work as a result of being typecast as Jack, the “ cheeky chappy” conductor, Bob Grant topped himself.
Watched BBH on YT a year or so back. Denounced as a harbinger of the end of Days back in the late 60s, the violence in it now seems almost genteel
For a moment there, I thought there was a ‘Going Straight’-style sequel to ‘On the Buses with a very bleak storyline. The reality is much sadder.
Barry Davies of Mind Your Language and various Doctor series had an even stickier demise. He ended up driving a taxi and getting murdered – still unsolved as of a couple of years ago
Evans
Above
Applause! 👏🏼
@salwarpe I recently discovered that there was an attempt to resurrect On The Buses in 1990. I believe a pilot was made with the originals, who would now be running their own private Bus company. Obviously the pilot did not persuade any TV controller that it was a good idea.
At the time the cast joined Reg Varney on Wogan for a triumphalist “we’re back” interview
That crystal set anecdote was worthy of one of the OTBs episodes.
Here’s a clip of him discussing his mental health struggles, shortly before they finally overwhelmed him. Heartbreaking.
Source: Facebook https://share.google/TE0EJW3RtqFIdCDy4
I hate you Butler
Years later I saw Stephen Lewis paying a Blakey-like ARP warden in Peter Medak’s The Krays. Believe he ended up in Summer wine
There was a sort of follow on from OTB called Don’t Drink the Water. Blakey moves to Spain with his sister, played by Celebrity Squares favourite Pat Coombs. Hilarity failed to ensue.
I ‘ate you, @davebigpicture
I remember that! I thought it was just Stephen Lewis acting rather than him reprising Blakey.
On the other hand Reg Varney was in the underrated but depressing 70s seaside comedy,”The Best Pair of Legs in the Business” (As Jarvis Cocker once said, it starts like a Carry On film but ends up like a Chekhov play).
Coincidentally, here’s the new single from the Bluetones…
Not on the list, but I think should be:
Tiswas – took a while to be picked up by all the regions I believe.
Don’t think it made it to Tyne Tees until the last series in 1982.
Anglia TV had it from about 1980 I think.
It was created as a regional programme by continuity announcer Peter Tomlinson, who is my sister’s husband’s step-father.
It was first broadcast only in it’s home ATV region. Living in the Welsh valleys there were issues receiving TV signals over the air without huge aerials so we had a kind of primitive cable TV (piped) that was broadcast on the VHF band. For some reason we got English Midlands regions instead of Welsh content so I was in from the start. The first series or so was nothing like what it became, just
soberly introducing cartoons and
suchlike from a regular TV studio
I remember that cable service. I have family near Tonypandy and as a child, I was mystified by it as it didn’t seem to turn off. The family just turned the tv volume down I think.
On social media, Tommy Cannon of Cannon and Ball is upset about being overlooked by ITV (not the Guardian). They were not my cup of tea at all, but they were part of the 80s/90s line-up, and I feel a bit sorry for him.
@pessoa There were other ITV double acts – Mike and Bernie Winters, Hall & Pace. Even Morecambe and Wise started and ended their TV careers there.
Don’t think Cannon & Ball really stand out from the crowd.
And Cheese & Onion – a club act who were touted as the next big thing, but who disappeared as soon as they appeared. They had one series on ITV, named Funnybone, which they shared with other forgotten comedy acts. As the show went out on ITV in the early evening slot on Saturdays during the summer holidays, it obviously wasn’t that good. They split soon after.
Hinge and Bracket, Hale and Pace, Randall and Hopkirk, The Thompson Twins.
Wood & Walters
Hope & Keen
Dennis & Gee
Tim Curry & Tim Rice
or “The Two Tims” *
*(Jasper Carrott joke)
A sizeable list of double acts with one seemingly insignificant omission…
If you’re thinking of Little & Large, I think they were BBC. Also the Two Ronnies.
Not sure if ITV’s Ant & Dec count but I guess they should.
Holly & Phil?
MItchell & Webb, Fish & Cushion
Had a quick shufty at TPTV the other day and they were running the movie version of Nearest and Dearest – the 10 minutes of it I watched were surprisingly funny
Oddly enough I remember Cheese and Onion, mainly because when I worked at the Art College one of the students was using some newspaper and chanced upon the name of Barry Cheese.
Much hilarity ensued and if anyone needed a cheer up or relief from a drop in energy then the name Barry Cheese was there as a pick you up.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/features/comedy_chronicles/cheese-and-onion/
I remember 1976 (and to a slightly lesser extent 1977) being dominated by Rock Follies. The Guardian says it was something called Bill Brand, which I’ve never heard of. Perhaps the grown-ups were watching it? Rock Follies looks crap now, but it spawned “two of the best albums ever made”, according to the AW intelligentsia.
Bill Brand was about a Labour MP and I remember it as being pretty good. Not sure how well it has worn, but might be worth a look on YT to see if it’s there
@jaygee I did rewatch Bill Brand on DVD during lockdown. It felt like it could have been written this decade, the issues about tensions in the various arms of the Labour Party are still very similar. Nice cameo as well from Arthur Lowe as a Wilson like PM. Highly recommended.
It’s all upon YT – maybe my next rowing machine watch/reeatch after I finish Ideal
Never Mind the Bollocks and “The Clash”?
Dangermouse
The pick of the rodent based kids TV (alongside Roland Rat, Kevin The Gerbil, Errol The Hamster)
Maybe it was only on Yorkshire TV but I remember Michael Bentine’s Potty Time being a great, and slightly unhinged, half hour of kids’ TV. From half a century’s distance it feels like it was a hallucination. Anyone else see it?
I enjoyed his previous series It’s a Square World with the invisible assailants on scale models, some produced by Professor Bruce Lacey.
By the time Potty Time started I was probably a tad too old.
Yes, I do, and it heloed that my parents were Goons generation and so were happy to watch it with me
ITV did a lot of dystopian drama on ITV, some of it kids-based, like “Noah’s Castle” and “King of the Castle”, but also the big-budget Quatermass finale: it’s not the best of the series (it’s no “Quatermass and the Pit”), but it has memorably strange imagery, like hippies rising in the air and exploding. And in contrast to “Bill Brand”, another 1970s trend was right-wing, anti-socialist drama like “1990” (Edward Woodward helping people escape a British police state to the USA). Honorary mention to the spy drama “Sandbaggers”, which is good, if (unsurprisingly) markedly anti-communist and damning of 1970s détente sympathies.
Is Bouquet of Barbed Wire on there? That was a biggie, I recall.
Remember reading somewhere that the novel apparently sold zilch when it came out and the series only got made because a TV producer chanced upon a copy in a second-hand bookshop.
Hope for all of us here who’ve written books only to see them
Sink without trace
Was listening to a lengthy interview with Mick Herron, who mentioned that Slow Horses was published ten years before it really got any attention. The original publisher dropped him because it wasn’t selling. It was another 3 years before Dead Lions got published and that one also didn’t sell, though the publisher stuck with him. It was only when Real Tigers was published in 2016 that he started to get noticed. Another 4 years and 3 more books in the series before he became well-known.
And a signed first edition of Slow Horses from 2010 is now yours for not far south of £2500.
There is a channel on ITVX that is streaming 70 years of “highlights”. Courtesy of my VPN I checked it out last night and watched an episode of The New Statesman, don’t think it has aged particularly well
Watched the first episode of The Persuaders thanks to @chrisf‘s tip over on the Thunderbirds thread..
.. wait a second – is that the prototype of the Sportsnight theme from 3.50 onward..?
I was reminded last night of Arthur Haynes. A name from way back in ITV’s antiquity, with regular appearances of Dermot Kelly and a young Nicholas Parsons. Great vintage sketch comedy.
The lengthy YouTube clip that I watched also featured Patricia Hayes and Rita Webb.
“Up to me neck in muck and bullets!”
Huge star in the 60s who despite looking ancient
Was only in his mid 50s when he died
Rita “Old Ratbag”:Webb was a fabulous actress
In my last year at junior school we had a school trip and stay over in that there London. We went to the radio recording of the Arthur Haynes show, I suppose because tickets were free though I’m not sure if we were the best audience for it.
A couple on there I would have sworn we’re BBC eg Brideshead. No mention of Rising Damp, for me up there as one of the greatest sit coms and certainly the best ITV produced – no doubt non pc these days but boy was it funny.
Rising Damp – still as funny, the writing, the delivery and the performance see to that.
OK it may not be 21st Century compliant, but does come with a trigger warning
Was “The Beiderbecke Affair”an ITV program ? I have fond memories of watching it back in the day (mid 80s ?) but haven’t gone back and revisited it, so not sure how it holds up.
ITV and it’s still excellent.
We have the box set of all of them and we binged them all a while ago – still holds up remarkably well. The scripting and performances were even better than in my memory.
The difficulty with comedy ITV has alway had is the ad break. While BBC can work as a single “one act” story, ITV’s are in 2 halves, needing a middle punchline & enough interest to have the audience returning for part 2 – it changes the pacing.
For drama, however, it can work very well, a dramatic scene finishes with a climax & then 2 minutes to process it. Taggart used to be very good at this, 2 smaller cliff hangers, then a biggie “you can’t leave it there” moment at the end.
Inspector Morse set the template for the 2 hour drama, the scenes & pacing were theatre like in their use of the breaks.
Sadly, itv upped the number of breaks years ago & the rhythm has been lost
Good points. I always thought ITV struggled with sitcoms relatively.