The Mausoleum Club Forum

Sir Uppity Frost recites pretty much the same thing in a pre-launch TV-AM broadcast to advertisers in 1983 (which can be found at the usual place 4:41 in). I'd always presumed it was a bit of Tony Jay business that had been recycled since the Video Arts days... who knows?

Richly superb (superbly rich?) pickings here, in a thread I started but neglected to revisit! Lots of ready-made content begging to be harvested by a passing blogger. A few more, though I'm not sure deliberate pastiche/parodies of existing shows really count in the meta universe I originally intende...

I can remember checking the Radio Times each week for news of a second series of The Day Today . Someone eventually wrote in with RT replying, “Good news, yes there will be a new series of The Day Today next year.” Hopes were dashed the following week in a correction, with RT explaining they’d mista...

Just trawling through various random clips of classic BBC TV pres from the 70s-90s on YouTube and it's interesting how noisy and compressed the audio often is. I can remember as a viewer (and anorak) at the time noticing occasional distant whirs and hums when the announcer's mic was live, or the odd...

The BBC One O'Clock News set from c. 1987 as featured in this YT clip (in particular, 2:24 and 2:31): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5IcnXjoF-M Forgive my naivety, but it's only just occured to me that the sort of large flat panel displays that began cropping up on studio sets around this time, mu...

A short rant about whatever broadcast audio "standards" exist nowadays, which might ignite debate between the venerable old pros on here... I'll start in time-honoured fashion: Is it just me..? C4 screened a progamme on Monday called Lookalikes. I didn't see it live, but have just watched it on thei...

This is a timely and useful discussion for me as I'm in the process of pitching a programme idea (fingers crossed, eh?) that lives or dies by having "the LWT look". Perhaps showing my age, I'd assumed that the shorthand I used, "It needs that LWT LE look of the 80s/90s - think Blind Date, Game For A...

Didn't EastEnders running US-style credits over the first 30" or so of a few episodes in the '90s? In fact, wasn't there a brief vogue for this on several UK productions around the same time? My memory could be playing tricks of course, but I seem to remember thinking how odd it looked. Such a stran...

Reading through the "TV on TV" thread got me thinking: it might be fun (!) for us to remember some of the many fictional TV shows that have been referenced - or even glimpsed - over the years, within other TV shows. That were fictional (the imagined shows). Not the shows that featured them (which ex...

I can only think of examples where we see protagonists watching real programmes (or "real" programmes) as deliberate, sign-posted devices in order to move the plot forward, e.g. Jim Hacker switching on his set moments before Robert Dougall or Moira Stuart deliver the BBC News item of interest, then ...

If you approach EDC in the right frame of mind, you'll hopefully agree that it's one of the finest British sitcoms of the 1980s. It might take a while for it to click, but once you've "got it", you'll find yourself re-watching it, just to enjoy the subtle nuances and attention to detail that's cramm...

That's fascinating. Are VEI taking a gamble here, or have they somehow determined there's a profitable return for them? For many years, Equalizer fans (such as I) were repeatedly told that there was insufficient demand to warrant commercial release of the entire series, and the way we were subsequen...

Hardly worth my chipping-in now that hoary old "iconic fictional TV characters refer to each other by their real names in adverts" device has already been discussed at length (stay tuned, though) but two that have stuck in my mind over the years: Paul/Jim and Derek/Bernard from Yes, Minister enjoyin...

Coogan/Brydon fan or not, if you can't enjoy the bit of Parkinson whimsy from last week's show, I think that says a lot about your sense of humour :-)

Here it is (officially) in isolation (well, most of it) - give it a try! It's great fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5oVR6vYSIA

They say you shouldn't meet your heroes... (Incidentally, full credit for the clip should go to the kindly benefactor (see his blog here: http://vhistory.wordpress.com) whom I easily persuaded into uploading said historical document.) Yes, as a fan of VLS's radio work at the height of his limited fa...

Glad that my original post wasn't shot down in flames with, "awww give 'em a chance!" and "who are you to judge?"-type reactions. I'm aware that becoming ringleader to a gang of cyber-bullies, all standing around pointing (some circling), cackling (others (also) snickering) at this channel's (myriad...

As several readers of the Evening Standard will vaguely recall, London's new local TV service launched recently. Or something. There was a thing about it, I think. "London Live" is now in permanent residence, occupying a prestigious and covetedly-visible Freeview/Sky/Virgin EPG slot, gifted by the g...

Just what I was hoping for - as expected from such seasoned pros - lots of entertaining anecdotes recalling ingenious solutions and frustrating failures! To all those with experience of holding an entire broadcast network in their hands (especially those who did/do it on a daily basis) singularly re...

Stating the obvious here perhaps, but ever since the thought first occured to me many years ago, I've admired the fact that broadcast schedules are routinely successfully back-timed to hit set junctions. I must have become aware of this mathematical miracle at some point in the early 80s (at a tende...

Just to chip in with a bit of vaguely on-topic wibble.. Was the Breakfast Time clock the first of its kind on British TV? I mean, in terms of a permanently on-screen, real-time updated graphic? I wonder if TV-am were planning to use their own clock before seeing Breakfast Time, or hurriedly cobbled ...

Would Challenge have to wait to be offered them by ITV (I'm PRESUMING again that they're not for sale until they're digitised) or would Challenge approach ITV with a view to purchase? The latter, usually. Sales aren't predicated on the material already having been transferred to a modern format. If...

Apologies for my earlier derailment of this thread (while causing confusion) with talk of the Comic Relief BB spoof. I do seem to have a knack for it. I love it too. Did Rotten do any BBs? (Strokes chin.) "For the love of Mike, don't encourage him." For my next trick (and in a rare display of strate...

Glad to be in the company of someone else who recognises this for what it is - and you've clearly watched it lots, as analysis of the (almost certainly deliberately unsettling) audience aspect only occurs after repeated viewings (for me, anyway!) It's just another wonderfully baffling layer and a cl...

I don't know whether Peter Serafinowicz's twisted pastiche of Blankety Blank is well-known (around here or otherwise) but it's a must-watch. Try searching for "Blankety Blank Comic Relief" in the usual place. There's a chance that purists among you will instantly hate it, but it's so multi-layered, ...

I've always understood it to be the case that commercials featuring recognisable actors (either appearing in person or on V/O duty) are prohibited from being scheduled within and around the programmes they also appear in, or have an established connection to. Were this indeed once the case, the rule...

I'm surprised you got any answer at all, because my memory is that there would only be people on the other end of the line from about an hour before the TX time of a show that solicited callers. At other times, the number would just ring endlessly. That "hour before TX" thing was the bit of "secret...

Slightly off-topic interjection from me again, but with talk of that 01 811 8055 phone number, I couldn't resist sharing my first memory of calling it. I suppose I first became aware of it around 1980, aged about 6, given that Noel's iconic Swap Shop desk was emblazoned with it each weekend. (I ador...

Ulp. Apologies if my layman musings caused any offence/annoyance. I was just so enthralled by the whole thing; I suppose I was expecting a "How Do They Do That?" style explanation. Oh well, I *think* I now get how it was made. What a shame, though. Long gone are the days when a sizeable proportion o...

Gosh, that is clever isn't it? The way the objects bounce from foreground to background around the upscrolling credits makes it look like the credits were rendered along with the objects as part of the "scene". Even if that were possible in 1989, it would have been completely impractical because (1)...

Having just splattered some off-topic drivel all over a thread relating to Bob Says Opportunity Knocks (apologies for that) I'm now wondering about the many game shows that used to litter my TV screen as a youngster, and how tedious they must have been to make. Thinking about it, surely the futurist...