Tiswas (1st-ever theme tune)

[markmcm]

In the series' ATV-only days the theme tune was 'Atomic Butterfly' by Barry Stoller. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I ask because I have the track on a library disc, and it would be a nice addition to this very promising site!

[Lee Bannister]

Hi Mark,

Smashing to see you here! At the risk of starting a mutual appreciation society, I love TV-Ark... I've been popping along there since around 1999 (it was going then wasn't it?).

You're spot on with Atomic Butterfly. I work in radio, and following a bit of research I came to that very conclusion. My thought is that it was used from the beginning in 1974 until around 1978.

Jason Robertson at SubTV sent an MP3 of an off-air recording (via microphones by the sound of it), featuring the ATV Zoom 2 ident going backwards at the start! From that I edited a version from the library track to match it. That file is on the Yahoo! Group here: http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/matthewbutlerstiswasgroup

Plus check out my mini-page about a couple of the themes: http://www.geocities.com/leewcr/downloads/atomicbutterfly.html

We've plans to create an audio section, so it'll be in there!

[markmcm]

Edited by Lee:
Sorry Mark, I seem to have deleted your post by mistake...
Really sorry...
See below...

[Lee Bannister]

This is what Mark wrote...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lee Bannister wrote:
Hi Mark,

Smashing to see you here! At the risk of starting a mutual appreciation society, I love TV-Ark... I've been popping along there since around 1999 (it was going then wasn't it?).

Thanks. It's nice to be here! TV ARK did indeed launch in 1999 - and a one-man operation it was back then with just Steve Hackett in charge. Now there's a team of 10 regularly updating and maintaining the site.

Lee Bannister wrote:
You're spot on with Atomic Butterfly. I work in radio, and following a bit of research I came to that very conclusion. My thought is that it was used from the beginning in 1974 until around 1978.

Jason Robertson at SubTV sent an MP3 of an off-air recording (via microphones by the sound of it), featuring the ATV Zoom 2 ident going backwards at the start! From that I edited a version from the library track to match it. That file is on the Yahoo! Group here: http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/matthe ... iswasgroup

Plus check out my mini-page about a couple of the themes: http://www.geocities.com/leewcr/downloa ... erfly.html

Thanks for those links! You seem to have missed out the theme with the blowing whistle, which was used sometime in the mid-70s. The titles consisted of Tarrant, James and some other bloke looking sideways at one another.

I think the theme tune order went something like this:

1. Atomic Butterfly (ATV-only era)
2. 'The One With The Whistle' (mid-70s)
3. 'Dixieland' (mid to late-70s)
4. Saturday Is Tiswas Day v1 (late 70s-1981)
5. Saturday Is Tiswas Day v2 (1981-1982)

I've also the Phantom Flan Flinger Challenge music (in full) as an MP3.

[Lee Bannister]

And this was my reply... (I'm going for a lie down when I've stopped messing this lot up!)

Thanks for those links! You seem to have missed out the theme with the blowing whistle, which was used sometime in the mid-70s. The titles consisted of Tarrant, James and some other bloke looking sideways at one another.

Ah! Now that rings a rather large bell! Was that featured in the 100 Greatest Kids TV Shows? That other bloke would be Trevor East, and it would probably have come from the 1977-78 series.

As for the themes, I'd go with that list... the only small change I'd make would be:

1. Atomic Butterfly (ATV-only era)
2. 'The One With The Whistle' (mid-70s)
3. 'Dixieland' (mid to late-70s)
4. Saturday Is Tiswas Day v1 (1980-1981 series only)
5. Saturday Is Tiswas Day v2 (1981-1982)

I've also the Phantom Flan Flinger Challenge music (in full) as an MP3.

How very interesting... I don't suppose I could trouble you... no surely not... my email's in my profile!

Actually, I know you have some Tiswas clips on TV Ark. Would you be prepared to contribute some clips or anything to this site? I'm sure Pete would be only too happy to hear from you, or indeed anyone looking at this who'd like to help.

Cheers! And so sorry about messing up your post... no idea what I did...

[markmcm]

Ah! Now that rings a rather large bell! Was that featured in the 100 Greatest Kids TV Shows? That other bloke would be Trevor East, and it would probably have come from the 1977-78 series.

Yes, a clip of those titles were featured in the 100 Greatest Kids TV shows.

How very interesting... I don't suppose I could trouble you... no surely not... my email's in my profile! .

Yes, no problem. I'll email you with a link to download the MP3 shortly. I've also found the music that was occasionally played over the competition pieces. It's a Francis Monkman track - not sure of it's name though...

Actually, I know you have some Tiswas clips on TV Ark. Would you be prepared to contribute some clips or anything to this site? I'm sure Pete would be only too happy to hear from you, or indeed anyone looking at this who'd like to help.

Ah yes, those clips have been taken from the 14th March 1981 edition. It's the one with the full Lenny Henry 'This Is Your Life' sketch (the one on the commercial VHS has chunks of the sketch edited out).

[Peter Thomas]

First of all, Mark, I never knew you ran TV Ark - well done, that's an excellent website, and as TV Cream said of it, we're all envious of that Tiswas clip!

I would have contacted you, but as my site here isn't fully ready, I'm deliberately keeping quiet about it at the mo!

Ah! Now that rings a rather large bell! Was that featured in the 100 Greatest Kids TV Shows? That other bloke would be Trevor East, and it would probably have come from the 1977-78 series.

Yes, a clip of those titles were featured in the 100 Greatest Kids TV shows.

That'd be the one with the cartoon bird, and I described it as fast-paced reggae-esque music back over on Matthew Butler's group!

How very interesting... I don't suppose I could trouble you... no surely not... my email's in my profile! .

Yes, no problem. I'll email you with a link to download the MP3 shortly. I've also found the music that was occasionally played over the competition pieces. It's a Francis Monkman track - not sure of it's name though...

Mark, I'll be e-mailing you later with some FTP settings for you to upload your mp3s to, they sound very good, and of course, you'll be credited for your contributions!

Actually, I know you have some Tiswas clips on TV Ark. Would you be prepared to contribute some clips or anything to this site? I'm sure Pete would be only too happy to hear from you, or indeed anyone looking at this who'd like to help.

Ah yes, those clips have been taken from the 14th March 1981 edition.

I worked this out last week when I was studying them intensely. It's because I'm working on the 21st Mar 1981 edition as a DVD, and there's a spot in there where Sally says "last week we had the How! team in", and on the TV-Ark clip, you can clearly see Fred Dinenage and Robin Colville.

It's the one with the full Lenny Henry 'This Is Your Life' sketch (the one on the commercial VHS has chunks of the sketch edited out).

I've only seen it on the commercial VHS tape, and I suppose it was cut for some of the non-PC jokes. Mind you, there are already a lot of non-PC jokes intact there anyway.

The 28th Mar 1981 edition has the final ever Compost Corner ("Final ever Compost Corner!"), and that has a dodgy racial joke, cracked by Lenny, surprisingly, which is edited out of the commercial VHS version.

We would love to see the 14th Mar 1981 edition in full. I'm the owner of just a meagre three full episodes at the moment...
21st Mar 81 (Chris' penultimate show)
28th Mar 81 (Chris' final show)
9th Sep 81 (The Astley series, with the Phantoms on strike)

I'm (slowly) working on converting these to DVD, and can easily make VHS copies of them.

Lee has the same episodes too and a few more, IIRC.

[markmcm]

Mark, I'll be e-mailing you later with some FTP settings for you to upload your mp3s to, they sound very good, and of course, you'll be credited for your contributions!

Thanks for that. I'll upload some tracks later.

It's the one with the full Lenny Henry 'This Is Your Life' sketch (the one on the commercial VHS has chunks of the sketch edited out).

I've only seen it on the commercial VHS tape, and I suppose it was cut for some of the non-PC jokes. Mind you, there are already a lot of non-PC jokes intact there anyway.

Apart from some extended clips, one of the biggest edits feature Trevor McDonald. ATV have a live link-up to the ITN studios where Sir Trev asks Frank Carson to throw 2 buckets of water over Lenny. The edit is easily visible on the commercial VHS, just before Len's mum comes on. One minute Lenny is bone dry, the next he's covered in water.

We would love to see the 14th Mar 1981 edition in full. I'm the owner of just a meagre three full episodes at the moment...
21st Mar 81 (Chris' penultimate show)
28th Mar 81 (Chris' final show)
9th Sep 81 (The Astley series, with the Phantoms on strike)

I have the facility to convert VHS to DVD-R, so a copy could be arranged. I also have the 21/03/81 and 28/03/81 editions, but they're both pretty ropey in quality (look like 3rd/4th gen recordings). I don't have the 09/09/81 edition, but do have the 81/82 animated opening titles in pretty good quality.

[Peter Thomas]

Thanks for that. I'll upload some tracks later.

Cheers. Let me know if you'd like to be a moderator here too!

Apart from some extended clips, one of the biggest edits feature Trevor McDonald. ATV have a live link-up to the ITN studios where Sir Trev asks Frank Carson to throw 2 buckets of water over Lenny. The edit is easily visible on the commercial VHS, just before Len's mum comes on. One minute Lenny is bone dry, the next he's covered in water.

Hmm, possibly because of rights issues there, as ITN would probably say "we 'produced' that segment". Or something. Well, it's my theory behind the disappearance of Fame, Jungle Book, etc, in the opening titles for the commercial releases. (Oh, and the Laurel and Hardy pie-fights snipped in the flanning-montage backed by Jonathan King's cover of 'One For You')

Interesting info nonetheless, and something to be of use when we write the episode guides!

We would love to see the 14th Mar 1981 edition in full. I'm the owner of just a meagre three full episodes at the moment...
21st Mar 81 (Chris' penultimate show)
28th Mar 81 (Chris' final show)
9th Sep 81 (The Astley series, with the Phantoms on strike)

I have the facility to convert VHS to DVD-R, so a copy could be arranged.

Same here, although my obstacle at the moment is that my secondary hard-drive (which I use for DVD producing) is around 40gb. Tiswas 21/03/81 is sitting on it, waiting to be compressed, but I want to improve the quality of it first.

But, rest assured, I'm going to produce 3 DVDs of what I've got, 3 more DVDs of the commercial compilations, and any more DVDs of stuff people get to me!

I also have the 21/03/81 and 28/03/81 editions, but they're both pretty ropey in quality (look like 3rd/4th gen recordings).

Sounds exactly like mine (and Lee's). From the south-west bias of some of the adverts, and the hexagon break-bumper, it's recorded from inside the Westward region. I'd say the quality is watchable, definitely, but strong colours do suffer a bit.

I don't have the 09/09/81 edition,

Well, thankfully, it's in very good quality. Mine is 2nd gen recording, but the picture is so stable it may as well be 1st gen! Just a few picture jumps at the very start (on Watch It! ident and the ATV ident), that's it. And after Tiswas, there's the first 10 mins of that night's edition of PunchLines, which is a strange bonus - sourced from the LWT region (has a brief bit of start up sequence too)

but do have the 81/82 animated opening titles in pretty good quality.

I heard that's one of the few things left in the official archives. Central made sure to keep hold of the inserts.

Whatever you have, Tiswas Online will be grateful for it! Thank you, Mark!

[markmcm]

Hmm, possibly because of rights issues there, as ITN would probably say "we 'produced' that segment". Or something. Well, it's my theory behind the disappearance of Fame, Jungle Book, etc, in the opening titles for the commercial releases. (Oh, and the Laurel and Hardy pie-fights snipped in the flanning-montage backed by Jonathan King's cover of 'One For You')

Rights could be a potential explanation. Lenny's cameo appearance in the film 'Zulu' has also been edited out - that's definitely a rights issue.

Same here, although my obstacle at the moment is that my secondary hard-drive (which I use for DVD producing) is around 40gb. Tiswas 21/03/81 is sitting on it, waiting to be compressed, but I want to improve the quality of it first.

But, rest assured, I'm going to produce 3 DVDs of what I've got, 3 more DVDs of the commercial compilations, and any more DVDs of stuff people get to me!

The PC doesn't even get a look in when I'm putting together DVDs. My lovely Panasonic DVD recorder does all the hard work for me.

Well, thankfully, it's in very good quality. Mine is 2nd gen recording, but the picture is so stable it may as well be 1st gen! Just a few picture jumps at the very start (on Watch It! ident and the ATV ident), that's it. And after Tiswas, there's the first 10 mins of that night's edition of PunchLines, which is a strange bonus - sourced from the LWT region (has a brief bit of start up sequence too)

I'd love a copy of that! In return I can send you the Tiswas 14/03/81 edition on DVD-R. If you could email me your address I can start work on it.

Thanks,
Mark McM.

[Peter Thomas]

Same here, although my obstacle at the moment is that my secondary hard-drive (which I use for DVD producing) is around 40gb. Tiswas 21/03/81 is sitting on it, waiting to be compressed, but I want to improve the quality of it first.
But, rest assured, I'm going to produce 3 DVDs of what I've got, 3 more DVDs of the commercial compilations, and any more DVDs of stuff people get to me!

The PC doesn't even get a look in when I'm putting together DVDs. My lovely Panasonic DVD recorder does all the hard work for me.

As someone with a background in DVD authoring/production/design for commercial clients (about 14 DVDs out on the shelves at the moment), I'm biased to a computer-based approach, which is obviously slower, but I like the control!

Well, thankfully, it's in very good quality. Mine is 2nd gen recording, but the picture is so stable it may as well be 1st gen! Just a few picture jumps at the very start (on Watch It! ident and the ATV ident), that's it. And after Tiswas, there's the first 10 mins of that night's edition of PunchLines, which is a strange bonus - sourced from the LWT region (has a brief bit of start up sequence too)

I'd love a copy of that! In return I can send you the Tiswas 14/03/81 edition on DVD-R. If you could email me your address I can start work on it.

Well, I'll be honest with you... I can get a VHS copy knocked up tomorrow, dead easy, all from the digital copy I made of the recording, so hardly any loss.

DVD-R, as I've stated, is a bit trickier. I'm going to need to shift the AVI of the current episode (21/03/81) off my hard-drive into chunks, onto about 5 DVD-Rs, so I can play around with it later. My aim is to replace all the footage on that episode, that is also on the Best Bits/More.../Comedy Capers stuff, because that's obviously better quality. Oh, and to do a nice DVD menu and chaptering.

I can drop all the fancy menu/chapters stuff and do a quick bare-bones DVD-R of the show, and that would take me about a week from now, bearing in mind all the current work I've got on, the hard-disk defragging, etc.

Y'know, it's at times like this when I realise a standalone DVD recorder would make sense!

[jedikiah]

Hi Mark,

Jason Robertson at SubTV sent an MP3 of an off-air recording (via microphones by the sound of it), featuring the ATV Zoom 2 ident going backwards at the start!

I strongly suspect that this is a copy of one of my recordings and it dates from late January 1975. The ident was played backwards (and upside down) for a very short time. After letters asking why they didn't do it any more the reply basically was that they weren't allowed to, but had received permission to show it like that one more time. Which they did.

Here's the Postal Tricky Test Time from a different episode in the same month. I'm afraid it is nearly 30 years too late to win a Tiswas Token for solving it:

"John has a clock that strikes every hour and gains one minute in every hour but though it strikes all the hours it never strikes 12. If at noon on Saturday it strikes 8 (*) how many will it strike at noon on the following Thursday?"

(* - which would cause a lot of trouble in a well-known tavern next to the studio apparently)

[625]

Quote from above...
1. Atomic Butterfly (ATV-only era)
2. 'The One With The Whistle' (mid-70s)
3. 'Dixieland' (mid to late-70s)
4. Saturday Is Tiswas Day v1 (1980-1981 series only)
5. Saturday Is Tiswas Day v2 (1981-1982)

I've just listened to the Atomic Butterfly mix at Yahoo. The version used on the programme Tiswas began with a big drum solo, during which time they would slap a giant T over the top of the ATV logo.

You also missed a theme! Atomic Butterlfy was followed by a sung theme with a black man (?) at a piano "Tiswas! Tiswas! Saturday is here again... Lots of fun for everyone.", which ended with a big finish: "Today is Saturday" repeated over and over and finally "Today is Saturday - Watch and Smile" now imagine an electric guitar being picked in a rock and roll finish. I hated it at the time.

The one with the whistle, as I recall, signalled the start of the Sally James era and the zig-zag logo. It also saw the geometric bird graphic introduced and new BACK SOON animated break bumpers (which the bird would fly across).

And then there was what you refer to as Dixieland. To me it sounded like a 1930s B&W comedy film theme with lots of sound effects, someone calling "Timber!". Tagged on the end were tolling bells and a hysterical voiceover from Tarrant saying "Please no more, I can't take anymore" over a clip of the Incredible Hulk (although this clip changed in a later/earlier series). The titles to go with this had Paul Hardin in and others carrying individual letters from the Tiswas zig-zag logo and one of the cast (Hardin, I think) gets an arrow shot between his ears (complete with sound effect).

[staplingmachine]

There was another theme that doesn't appear to be listed. It sounded like a 1930s comedy theme with lots of sound effects, someone calling "Timber!" and ended with bells ringing and Tarrant saying "Please no more, I can't take anymore" over a clip of the Incredible Hulk (although this changed in a later series).

I might be wrong, but the guy shouting "Please no more" etc, sounds like Jasper Carrott, one time semi-regular presenter. Would love to see an edition that he appeared in.

Andrew

[Spike Nesmith]

Y'know, it's at times like this when I realise a standalone DVD recorder would make sense!

Noo no nooo... it would drive a man like you nuts. I bought a DVD-R deck after christmas last year and took it back the next day. It's nothing but a glorified VCR. I was expecting something with at least a sconche of editing flexibility comparable with minidisc, which is perfectly adequate for basic stuff. What I got was something more like a CD-R deck, where if you want a track stop, you have to hit pause - and you have to get it right first time or you've snookered your whole disc.

Take it from me, an industry co-worker and fellow perfectionist; stick with the computer.