Steve Williams wrote:
......There are plenty of examples of the host being in vision to introduce the bands, and also plenty of evidence that the show was shot in real time....
Steve - your whole post sounds like discussion of a piece of history in which historians have to deduce stuff from what they see. But actually, all you have to do is ask appropriate questions, and the people who were there can tell you. I know hordes of people who worked on TOTP, Dr Who, and all the other things people discuss here. Buy them a drink, and set the recorder going.....
ray lomas wrote:
I remember once reading somewhere (very probably the old version of this forum) that this was also at least partly due to the fact that Tomorrow's World was notorious for under-running and was the result of a sort of gentleman's agreement between the producers of both shows and Pres - the sort of thing that I imagine wouldn't/couldn't happen nowadays.
I don't know about gentlemen's agreement (actually more likely ladies agreement) - it was more about coping with the problem of running between two fixed points and taking advantage of whatever adjustments were available. Once again - if anyone is actually doing formal research, I'm in contact with a good number of the people who did that stuff. Buy us a drink, run the recorder.....
Bernie wrote:Steve - your whole post sounds like discussion of a piece of history in which historians have to deduce stuff from what they see. But actually, all you have to do is ask appropriate questions, and the people who were there can tell you. I know hordes of people who worked on TOTP, Dr Who, and all the other things people discuss here. Buy them a drink, and set the recorder going.....
I know - I was just pointing Mike in the direction of examples of how the links clearly weren't done in one session, as he suggested, which can be seen by just watching the programme. I'm not studying each frame with a jeweller's eyepiece. And of course, as you have mentioned yourself in the past, in most cases there was no grand idea behind how and why Pops did things in a certain way, they just went ahead and did it.
Mark wrote:The Sky menu description of this weeks edition, said 'includes strong language'....did I miss something?
That Who film looked a bit tatty, as well.
BBC iPlayer has a similar warning - presumably due to said clip featuring a prominent "fuck" from Roger Daltrey; it's expurgated from the vocal soundtrack but his lips are very easy to read. John Entwistle also says something which sounds very much like "shit" shortly before.
Ah right.!..thanks for that, too busy looking at the quality of the film to notice, with the jumps and scratches.
Mark wrote:The Sky menu description of this weeks edition, said 'includes strong language'....did I miss something?
That Who film looked a bit tatty, as well.
BBC iPlayer has a similar warning - presumably due to said clip featuring a prominent "fuck" from Roger Daltrey; it's expurgated from the vocal soundtrack but his lips are very easy to read. John Entwistle also says something which sounds very much like "shit" shortly before.
Ah right.!..thanks for that, too busy looking at the quality of the film to notice, with the jumps and scratches.
It'll be interesting to see what the Sky Planner makes of Greased Lightning's appearance on Top of the Pops. Although it wasn't one of the bigger hits from the sound track it was much played on TV and radio and no one seemed bothered by the use of a four letter slang word for excrement, a three letter word starting and ending with "t" referencing female breasts or mention of a vehicle pertaining to cats.
It appears as though the problems with Grease go beyond a few dodgy lyrics. Throughout the Number 1 run of You're the One That I Want they've edited in the same Legs and Co dance routine instead of showing the film clip that was used at the time. Presumably Summer Nights will get the same treatment assuming they have a dance routine for it, and Sandy, Hopelessly Devoted to You and Greased Lightning which didn't get to Number 1 might well be removed altogether unless they did per chance do a routine for any of them.
Yes - the problem with 'Grease' is that the clips cost more to clear than the BBC are prepared to pay.
As far as I can see 'Greased Lightning' only appeared on on TOTP once and that edition was hosted by Savile so that's academic in any case.
Both 'Sandy' and 'Hopelessly Devoted to You' were danced to by Legs & Co for at least one of their appearances so they should be OK.
'Summer Nights' is a bit trickier but Legs & Co did dance to it on the Christmas Show so in theory they could splice that in. It might look a bit odd though as presumably everything will be festooned with Christmas decorations.
John Williams wrote:'Summer Nights' is a bit trickier but Legs & Co did dance to it on the Christmas Show so in theory they could splice that in. It might look a bit odd though as presumably everything will be festooned with Christmas decorations.
It's OK, because as with evrything on that Christmas show, the presentation is utterly unfestive.
I feel sorry for the poor person who had to splice the Legs and Co routine in every week, the tempo of the sound is different than the actual clip itself, so always seems to slow down a bit when it plays.
I don't think I understand that. Sound and vision come off the same bit of tape, so very difficult to get them at different speeds, even if you wanted to.
Bernie wrote:I don't think I understand that. Sound and vision come off the same bit of tape, so very difficult to get them at different speeds, even if you wanted to.
The context here is that they're splicing in the dance routine for You're The One That I Want where the video was in the original show. As we know, film from the US runs faster (or did in 1978) because of standards conversions so the song itself is faster in the video. But because they faded up the sound from the video before they faded up the vision on the original show, there's now a clunky edit when we hear the opening bars of the (fast) video version behind the presenter and then immediately drop a few BPM as we switch to the (slow) record version backing Legs & Co.
A couple of observations from the continuing 1978 run. ThreeTimes a Lady is complete drivel and whoever decided that The Stranglers should record Walk On By is a pillock.
SgtPepper wrote:A couple of observations from the continuing 1978 run. ThreeTimes a Lady is complete drivel and whoever decided that The Stranglers should record Walk On By is a pillock.
absolute nonsense about the stranglers and walk on by.their version is great and they still do it live these days.
To shift to a different subject, I'm puzzled by the big gaps currently occurring between editions. I know the Saville and DLT ones have been shelved, but that surely can't account for all of the missing weeks, especially since Saville was being eased out by this stage. I thought the archive at this point is pretty much intact?
It's just the Savile and DLT editions but that accounts for quite a few this year. Three out of the next five episodes will be dropped for example. The fact that The Sky at Night takes up one of the slots each month has helped to keep things on track. This week's episode was 7/9/78 so the repeats are just about a week ahead - it should just about balance out by the end of the year.
I've just checked 1979 and Savile hosts eight episodes to DLT's 10. What with 18 shows between them that's quite a hefty chunk missing but with 12 episodes of The Sky at Night to show BBC4 should still fit them in the schedule reasonably well - assuming that is they continue with the repeats.
They should see the year out, it's if they carry on with 79.?
There are two books out next year, one for "TOTP" 50th, and another for Pans People, maybe that would act as a spur for BBC Four to continue. hopefully.
I don't know how far ahead BBC4 plan their schedules but if DLT is innocent we might get some of his episodes assuming the trial takes place in the first half of next year.
John Williams wrote:'Summer Nights' is a bit trickier but Legs & Co did dance to it on the Christmas Show so in theory they could splice that in. It might look a bit odd though as presumably everything will be festooned with Christmas decorations.
It's OK, because as with evrything on that Christmas show, the presentation is utterly unfestive.
I see the episode this week is the one where Summer Nights first puts in an appearance. It'll be interesting to see if they do splice in the Christmas Legs & Co dance or cut it out altogether. After that there'll be another four appearances with it at Number 1 so they presumably won't cut those out without a replacement of some sort.
On another note. How the hell did Dreadlock Holiday get to Number 1? On the plus side it seems that it brought to an end the tedious stream of 10cc hit singles.
billo wrote:yeah but that's only your blinkered self opinonated view...NOT FACT isn't it...?
If by that you mean that anything I write which is subjective is only my opinion then yes, that's rather obvious. As with anyone else who expresses an opinion on anything my opinion is the only one I'm able to express, and is obviously not factual. :-)
It's surely a fact that 10cc's name is a bit rude, though. Anyone else remember those tiresome "revelations" from fellow youngsters who reckoned they were the first with the news?
Yes, I've lost count of how many people have told me this, but I always thought the amount was a little excessive!
Fortunately next week's show (28-9-78) that will be obviously skipped by BBC4 because it was hosted by DLT was previously repeated on UK Gold, so I'm sure it will be available to be seen somewhere out there! :)
They removed Summer Nights from it's first appearance on the re-run. It then goes to Number 1 for seven weeks, three of which will be missed out. I've now watched the Christmas 78 show Legs & Co version and it's cut short before the "It turned colder that's where it ends" line.
John Williams wrote:'Summer Nights' is a bit trickier but Legs & Co did dance to it on the Christmas Show so in theory they could splice that in. It might look a bit odd though as presumably everything will be festooned with Christmas decorations.
It's OK, because as with evrything on that Christmas show, the presentation is utterly unfestive.
I see the episode this week is the one where Summer Nights first puts in an appearance. It'll be interesting to see if they do splice in the Christmas Legs & Co dance or cut it out altogether. After that there'll be another four appearances with it at Number 1 so they presumably won't cut those out without a replacement of some sort.
On another note. How the hell did Dreadlock Holiday get to Number 1? On the plus side it seems that it brought to an end the tedious stream of 10cc hit singles.
Oh, thank god, I thought it was only me who couldn't stand them. One of the very few bands from that decade that I couldn't abide.
