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 Tiswas © 1974 ATV Network Limited, © 2004 Granada Media . This is a non-profit site intended for education about the British televison series Tiswas. This site acknowledges all copyrights and presents material under the 'Fair Use' clause of international copyright law, for the purpose of review. . |
Tis familiar A look at some television shows that are somehow related to Tiswas. Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow It seems that every time a popular Saturday morning show is launched, there is a a tendency to label it 'the new Tiswas', simply for being noticable. It occured with SM:TV, and now it's being applied to Dick And Dom In Da Bungalow. Is it fair? Well, yes, definitely. It may not have any official connections to Tiswas, but this is the closest show in spirit to Tiswas - ever. Sally James, however, does not agree with me. Back in early 2005, TiswasOnline members took part in a radio interview about her time on Tiswas, and I brought up the subject of Dick And Dom. She said it wasn't 'the new Tiswas', nothing would come close, although it must be pointed out that she had only watched a few minutes of it. (Dick and Dom fared better than their ITV rivals - Ministry Of Mayhem - of whom Sally had never heard of!) Right, Da Bungalow is recommended viewing for Tiswas fans because it has chaos and unpredictability. It has lots of mess, and a healthy mocking of celebrity. The humour is surreal and there are plenty of nods to any adults watching. What could be closer to Tiswas than this? Okay, the lack of music videos and a fairly sized audience take a few things away, but the concept has been refreshingly celeb-free (save for the final series), which has been a shot in the arm for Saturday morning telly, having endured years of dull pop stars coming on to shows purely to plug whatever single they have out in the shops this week. The shows' hosts, Richard McCourt and Dominic Wood, are not afraid of making themselves look silly. They preside over a contest where six children have to gain points in a series of very ridiculous games. The contest runs throughout the show, at several points can get very messy indeed. The highlight of it all must be 'Creamy Muck Muck' - (the word 'gunge' is not used here, oh no) which is a substance strangely akin to real actual custard, and it is hurled liberally at just about anyone. Add in jokes about farts and snot, and you see why a Tory MP asked questions about this show in Parliament. There's only one other Saturday morning show that the Establishment frowned upon - so I feel justified in labelling this show as the new Tiswas. Still not convinced? Well, in December 2005, this very website managed to get Tiswas' singing rabbit Matthew Lewis onto the show, doing a rendition of Bright Eyes - and was subsequently praised by both Dick and Dom who recognised the act from Tiswas. It was a good piece of timing too - a tabloid newspaper had recently made a (false) claim that Dick and Dom were quitting the BBC in order to resurrect Tiswas on ITV. Absolute cobblers, but what a great idea! With Matthew on the show, they had the chance to rebuke the silly story live on air. Fantastic, and I helped out as a glorified extra on the day. The show is produced by Steven Ryde - who, in his youth, took part on a Tiswas-esque childrens show in the 1980s - 'Your Mother Wouldn't Like It' - one of the best things Central put out on ITV (other than Tiswas of course). Another performer from that show - Ian Kirkby - is involved with Dick And Dom. Ian plays various comedy characters on the show, notably Raymond Newsreader and DC Harry Batt. A John Gorman for the 21st Century perhaps? As a tribute to their roots, one of Dick and Dom wore a Tiswas t-shirt on one show. Saturday Stayback Relations between Chris Tarrant and new ITV midlands franchise Central Television were strained after the demise of Chris' 1982 project O.T.T.. Being bold and experimental are welcome virtues in television, but they do not always work out for the best, and the complaints about the lewd sex-related shenanigans going out live on the ITV network did ensure O.T.T. went to an early grave. However, Central didn't lose all faith in Chris, and decided they wanted him continuing a Tiswas-esque formula on late night ITV, but under a more strict control. The first compromise was the show couldn't go out live any more, it had to be recorded and shown to Central management to avoid the media criticism that O.T.T. got in 1982. The second compromise was a huge slash in the budget. Central wouldn't even give them a studio for the show, leaving Chris to come up with something. Chris, being Chris, came up with the ideal solution - a pub. Yes, an actual real pub. This made the show - the concept was built around it. The idea was that you the viewer, having got back from your own local, could switch on the telly and see Chris and his mates having a laugh at a supposedly illegal lock-in at a midlands pub. (Let's not forget 11pm chucking-out time was only thrown out in 2005!) It wouldn't be fair to call this the sequel to O.T.T.. The recorded format already made a huge difference. Also, the show was almost entirely comedy sketches, musical performances (mostly Thin Lizzy and theme-tune writer Roy Wood) and cabaret acts, all in front of an audience, most of whom had a drink in their hand. Overall, this was a far step away from O.T.T., and an even further distance from Tiswas. Other differences were notable. Chris Tarrant, Bob Carolgees and Helen Atkinson-Wood were seen on screen, but other ex-O.T.T. personnel like Lenny Henry (already doing well on BBC's '3 Of A Kind' comedy sketch show), John Gorman was absent. However, John was still there in spirit, helping write some of the show. Although there were no obvious references to either Tiswas or O.T.T., there were some subtle signs to the legacy of Tiswas. A regular comic performer was Trevor James, who had been a semi-regular on the final series of Tiswas (the only series without Chris' involvement). Also, one show had Sally James on as a guest in a magician box scene, reuniting Chris and Sally. The tone of the show was less adult than O.T.T., and actually improved because of it. Gone was the irritating nudge-nudge wink-wink atmosphere, and there were some interesting and amusing sketches, mostly fitting the rise of alternative comedy. Making an early TV appearance on the show was a chap called Phil Cool, who used his soon-to-be-legendary Rolf Harris as a good party-piece. Tony Slattery also appeared most weeks. One sketch took a pot-shot at an earlier failure - a character played by Tony talked only in initials throughout the sketch. Chris accused him of being O.T.T. - "I don't know what you mean" responded Tony. In summary, a lot more pleasant than the O.T.T. debacle. Shame it only lasted six episodes. Ten On Saturday Literally, this has a pretty damned strong Tiswas connection - it actually contained Tiswas! Due to 1970s era ITV being very much a patchwork of regional companies with fierce devotion to their own productions, there were many different offerings on any one mid-1970s Saturday morning across the country. Various companies would try having a go at doing their own shows, usually consisting of the staple diet of cartoons, movie clips and pop videos, just like Tiswas pioneered. Or in most cases, they'd just churn out a load of films and cartoons with the obligatory continuity link. (ATV did this a lot in the summer.) In 1977, over in HTV Land (which was Wales, and a fair bit of the Bristol and Bath area), they didn't bother making a full Saturday morning show as such, they decided to take advantage of the ITV network by taking little pieces of other regions' offerings and putting them all together as a compendium called 'Ten On Saturday'. It would be made up of ten items, and the controllers at HTV would go over to Tiswas, live, about once or twice for a segment. The whole thing was apparently linked by HTV odd-job-man Alan Taylor from a cheap looking spaceship set, presumably to give some credence to dipping in and out of other TV stations' broadcasts. There was also an alien puppet called Chester accompanying Alan, and later on, the show would be renamed to Orbit. This was the first time Tiswas had been emitted from transmitters outside of ATV. April 2nd, 1977 - make a note of that historic date! Sure, this wasn't proper Tiswas - they'd only be getting a short segment of it, but it was better than nothing! "HTV are leaving us now!" would be a common utterance by Sally James in 1977 to Tiswas viewers. Purely HTV and ATV viewers knew of the Tiswas secret, until Sept 10th 1977, when both Anglia and Border got in on the act. Your Mother Wouldnt Like It It won a BAFTA and featured rebellious comedy, but the chances are you were probably tuning into 'Mysterious Cities Of Gold' on the other side back in 1986. For those of us loyal to Children's ITV however, this was a real treat. It's probably the most Tiswas-y thing Central Television have ever made (apart from Tiswas itself). Okay, it wasn't a live Saturday morning show. It was flung out in a weekday childrens' slot in the late afternoon, and was a comedy sketch show, with all the performers being children, recruited from a local initiative set up by Central - the Central Junior Television Workshop (you had to be aged under 16 and live in Nottingham or Birmingham to join). The writers were adults, but the subject matter was aimed at the child viewer, particularly the cynical child viewer. With a light sprinkling of satire, parodying of products and TV shows aimed at children and teens were rife - He Man became Twee Man, and Grange Hill became, with the addition of some attempts at Royal impersonation, Palace Hill. Although it wasn't exactly 'Brass Eye', it was highly refreshing to see this kind of stuff on children's telly, which was usually more patronising to its audience. It could be argued that a lot of the humour was due to the rise of alternative comedy in this period. Your Mother Wouldn't Like It wasn't exactly an original idea. It's believed that Thames TV producer Roger Price, having created a sketch show for children performed by children in the late 70s ('You Must Be Joking'), could be indirectly credited with the success of Your Mother Wouldn't Like It. Roger left the UK and set up shop in Canada, launching another childrens' show - 'You Can't Do That On Television', which was also a comedy sketch show performed by kids, although with an increased presence of slapstick humour. (It's believed this introduced 'gunge' - in the form of green 'slime' - to North America, and consequently the USA syndicator of the show - Nickelodeon - adopted 'slime' as a unique motif). With the success of You Can't Do That... (it ran for over a decade), it's arguable that TV producers over here wanted to replicate that success. Your Mother Wouldn't Like It ran for three series, and its regular Palace Hill sketch became a show in its own right, quite possibly eclipsing the popularity of its predecessor. Over 30 children were involved on screen in any one series. A handful of them went on to stay on in TV. Ian Kirkby, who played many characters on the show, is now playing, er, many characters, on Dick And Dom In Da Bungalow. Karen Murden went on to become Beverly Grice in Crossroads. Steven Ryde maintained a presence on CITV by becoming its announcer in the 1990s, and now produces Dick And Dom. James Hooton is in Emmerdale, and we believe Simon Schatzberger had a small role in Channel Four sitcom Black Books. O.T.T. A direct spin-off from Tiswas. It owes its existence from the rather more adult fun the team got up to on their Four Bucketeer tours of universities and theatres in 1980 and 1981. Commonly referred to as "an adult version of Tiswas", although participant Bob Carolgees corrected me when I used that term - it was, apparantly, just a "late night" version. The first viewers got to know of the shows' existence, was on Chris Tarrant's final stint on Tiswas - 28th March 1981 (the last show of series 7, and also marking a departure for Lenny Henry, Bob Carolgees and John Gorman). In a desk-based link, Chris mentioned that Tiswas would return later in the year with Sally and "some new faces", and that he had been working on a late night version of Tiswas to be shown in the new year. It was provisionally entitled 'The Big Tis', although a chance remark from Michael Palin inspired Chris to retitle it as Over The Top. However, the acronym found more favour as the official title. With Sally James left to control the final series of Tiswas on Saturday mornings, Chris had personally recruited some new faces alongside his former Tiswas colleagues. Alexei Sayle, enjoying his first national TV exposure, would deliver a mad ranting monologue every week, much in the same way he would do to greater fame on BBC's 'The Young Ones' (as members of the Bolowski family). The Sally-shaped hole was filled by rising comedian Helen Atkinson-Wood, who would also go onto more exposure through a BBC sitcom (playing Mrs Miggins in Blackadder III). Was it more of the same? Well, from the start, Chris intended the show to be outrageous. It was one of the first networked productions from new ITV franchise Central Television, and it utilised the tried-and-tested elements made famous by Tiswas, although in a much more risque way. Cartoons were there in the form of Bob Godfrey's animated shorts for adults dealing with sexual subjects like fetishes and nudity. These had previously only been shown as filler in adult cinemas. "All those years of presenting Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker, eh?" remarked a grinning Chris Tarrant on an early show. Messy slapstick was also present. The first few shows had a game slot where contestants would be randomly gunged and/or dropped into a tank of foam. Also adding to the mayhem were random flannings and soakings of audience members. We didn't miss out on music videos either. Although final-series Tiswas may have been embracing the current pop output, highlighting the new romantic movement, over on O.T.T. the clock had been turned back for its more mature audience, and thus it was common to see old live footage of bands like the Kinks, the Who or the Beatles. Current stars from the world of music did show up. Gillan did a good performance and Terry Hall's post-Specials outfit the Fun Boy Three did a turn, among many other acts. These studio-based performances usually ran at the end of the show as the credits scrolled, another Tiswas tradition. Comedy sketches were in abundance, although not many of them made a mark, despite using some writers from Tiswas, alongside other writing newcomers (such as Angus Deayton). Tiswas characters from the team found a home - plenty of Algernon Razzamatazz, and the odd showing of Gorman's PC Plod. The sketches tended to deal with controversial and adult subjects. Many were an excuse to show a naked bottom, and there were one or two involving racism (although it must be stressed that the target of comedy was racism, and not a condoning of it). Alexei Sayle eventually left the show towards the end of its 13 edition run, frustrated when Chris decided to give some airtime to controversial comedian Bernard Manning. The overall impression is of a show that was all too willing to be anarchic in the Tiswas sense, and go as extreme as Central would allow them to, but the sum of these parts didn't produce a worthy asset to television. It came across like a halfway-house between 'Not The Nine O'Clock' News' (highlighting the then-new 'alternative comedy' movement) and 'The Comedians' (old school comedy aimed at cabaret circuits). It was a daring and experimental move to undertake, especially for a new name to the ITV network that was treading in ATV's shadow. Ultimately, the show was a turn off for viewers, including Lenny Henry's own family who found it an embarrassment. The flak Chris Tarrant got from the media and various conservative viewers was immense. It was enough to ensure that O.T.T. got canned permanently by the time the last show went out. Although there was no second series of O.T.T., Chris would return to the airwaves with some former Tiswas personnel the following year with 'Saturday Stayback', which was like a neutered O.T.T.. Mersey Pirate An almost worthy contender for a Saturday morning TV crown back in 1979. Major ITV heavyweight Granada concocted this, making usage of a familar landmark in the north-west region - the River Mersey. Tiswas had been established in much of the ITV network by this time, and ruled the roost in the winter months. However, Granada noticed that no-one had decided to make a Saturday morning show for summer months. For 1979 and 1980, they had a go at bridging the gap. The idea was that the show was a pirate television channel broadcast from a boat in the Mersey. Viewers didn't have to suspect disbelief all that much, as the rather fragile set-up involved in producing such a concept surrendered to the elements on more than one occasion. With a Granada crew man on the ground pointing signal-receiving equipment to the moving boat, this ensured quite a few technical mishaps. The Tiswas connection here is that a few of the presenters were old school comedians, thanks to Granada re-employing past performers from its 1970s hit show 'The Comedians'. Tiswas jester Frank Carson would tell his "crackers" to kids on the Mersey Pirate. Alongside jokes, live musical acts were another staple of the show. So, not a bad try at Saturday morning telly. It ain't Tiswas, but it has some of the ingredients. Mersey Pirate eventually sunk without warning. In August 1979, ITV staff downed tools and the network went off air for a few months (except in the Channel Islands). ITV eventually returned in November, which of course was Tiswas' domain. Rather than decide to issue a second series of the Mersey Pirate, replete with technical problems, Granada opted for a studio-bound affair - the Fun Factory. Number 73 TVS (Television South) were new to the ITV network in 1982, and having taken the place of children's TV stalwart Southern, they wanted to make a quick impression that they could do just as well as their much beloved predecessor. In its second day on air, and its first Saturday morning, viewers in the south east were 'treated' to the first series of local production 'Number 73'. It wasn't networked at all, and while most of the nation were enjoying Tiswas, the flan fans across Kent, Hampshire, Sussex, etc, had to put up with Sandi Toksvig pretending she lived in a house filled with wacky characters. Unhappy at the new TV station pulling Tiswas off the air for their own attempt at Saturday morning glory, Tiswas fans wrote loads of letters to TVS, and at one stage even picketed the TVS studios. Eventually TVS got the message, and prematurely ended Number 73 after just six episodes, putting Tiswas back on the airwaves in the south east, although Tiswas itself only had another eight programmes to go. It was only because TVS hadn't proper circuit access to the network in those days, that Number 73 was a local-only affair. The technology soon became available later on to smaller ITV broadcasters, although had it been available from the off, there could well have been other regions opting into Number 73 instead of Tiswas. After Tiswas' demise, TVS brought back 'Number 73' for the summer for a second TVS-only series, which was more sucessful now it wasn't conflicting with valuable flan time. It wouldn't be until April 1983 that the rest of the nation would see the goings on from the strange house. This, the third series, was networked across all of ITV (possibly the first Saturday morning show on ITV to have done so), but knowing that the vast majority of viewers had never heard of the show before, it had a 'year zero' welcome on the first edition, with 'Ethel' (Sandi Toksvig) welcoming viewers around the set. All the presenters (bar the vet David Taylor) were characters, although they were quite bland, one wonders why this conceit was upheld with, and why the presenters couldn't be themselves. David Taylor was the resident vet, so TVS had obviously seen Tiswas' 'Creature Feature' and saw an easy way to introduce educational content to satisfy the IBA. Musical guests would perform in the basement at the end of the show each week, and cartoon shorts acted as filler. Not too far from Tiswas at all really, but not a patch on it. Number 73 lasted about as long as Tiswas did, with a similar series span. The early days of being confined to its own region showed another parallel to Tiswas. Sadly, another similarity was the radical changes made to the final series which weren't for the better. The show was renamed in a cringeworthy 80s ways to '7T3' and the house concept was abandoned in favour of an outdoor set - a cowboy theme park. Like the end of Tiswas, this too died out, being the final nail in the coffin for the long-running series. However, the similarities would continue for makers TVS, who, like their counter parts in the midlands had done before, established a grip on Saturday morning TV, and went for the generic Saturday morning show format when it came to following up their first and most fondly remembered concept of the genre. Get Fresh A strange thing happened to ITV Saturday mornings in 1986. They went out on the road. This was an idea pioneered by the other side with 'Sw*p Sh*p', but the reasons for ITV doing this was so that medium and minor broadcasters such as Anglia and Ulster could have a go at producing live television for the network, something they rarely did due to the dominance of the 'big five' (Thames, LWT, Central, Granada and Yorkshire). Each week the show would come from a different location, as it would be handed round these ITV regions. Usually it would be a notable landmark of the region, although on many occasions cash-strapped Border used to have it transmit from their studios car park. The show used the device of a spaceship to travel across the nation, or rather a large articulated lorry disguised as one. The conceit was in the opening titles, which was to show the 'spaceship' landing on whichever town it was in that week, something which only Tyne Tees appeared to get right. We can only assume the space was the theme because of the main cartoon (by these days, Saturday morning shows would usually feature a 20 minute long American cartoon, which may as well have been an advert for whatever action figure was the rage), which was Centurions. Power extreme, eh? Gunge was introduced in a pre-recorded game show slot for the second and third series, produced by Anglia. However, one show in the first series pre-empted all this when Tiswas veterans John Gorman and Clive Webb appeared on the show when it arrived by the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle. Gorman and Webb had already got a gungey game show called 'How Dare You' being made at the Tyne Tees studios in Newcastle, and so their appearance on Get Fresh had them as referees of physical games where children played and got wet or messy depending on their performance. At the end of the show, they went crazy and attempted to gunge the watching crowds as the credits rolled. That particular edition of Get Fresh was the closest thing to Tiswas in a long time. However, despite that one-off reprise of Tiswasian anarchy, the catchy electro hip-hop theme music (produced by former Clash legend Mick Jones), the never-ending Milliganesque surrealism from puppet Gilber the Alien and the zeitgeist of producer Janet Street-Porter, the show was rather tame really. A lot of the companies involved were inexperienced at producing live television let alone live childrens televison, so the shows tended to have the feel of a local fete. Full marks to enthusiastic presenter Gaz 'Gareth Jones' Top (recently throwing himself into a Tiswas cage soaking on the Ministry Of Mayhem's ITV50 celebrations) and his colleague Charlotte Hindle, as it was an experiment in late 80s Saturday morning telly that actually worked well. Among the collection of ITV companies making it, Tyne-Tees was pretty much 'leader of the pack' - managing the show's mail, the titles and many inserts. Border also threw itself into the project, presumably to up their network quota, and even came up with a studio-bound Sunday edition of the show (locked in a secret part of the spaceship, we were told). TVS only made one edition of the show, as they had Number 73 to look after for the summer. When Gaz called it quits, the show was finished, although the companies involved carried on with a roadshow format, using a different conceit - a travelling ghost train, for a show called, er, 'Ghost Train'. Saturday Scene Tiswas wasn't the first Saturday morning show for kids. This London-based effort beat Tiswas to such a title by a matter of mere weeks, according to Sally James, who is of course known for her role on Tiswas, but began her Saturday morning career on this show, which concentrated mainly on pop music. The folks at ATV poached Sally James in the middle of 1977, and had her drive up to the midlands to be flanned, drenched and gunged for the increasing Tiswas audience. I think you know the rest! Sally recorded a tie-in album with this show, and recently, TiswasOnline's Lee Bannister played one of her musical efforts to her live on the radio, much to her embarrassment. Saturday Show, The [Central] The first post-Tiswas Saturday morning show on ITV, which obviously had a big shadow to fill. We don't think it succeeded all that well. People were expecting a ninth series of Tiswas in this slot, as the last show of the eighth series came across as rather ambiguous about its demise (Sally confirmed she it was her last show, Gordon mounted a "save Tiswas" campaign and viewers were left confused). In the late summer, the publicity started for a new Saturday morning show across youth TV magazine Look In. 'Big Daddy's Saturday Show' was the name, and would be hosted by the familiar "good guy" character from televised wrestling matches. So Big Daddy wasn't a stranger to Saturday television, and had made at least three appearances on Tiswas itself. Co-host was to be Isla St Clair, who had made a guest appearance on one of the last few Tiswas editions, and had indulged in the spirit of the show in a really good way, much like Big Daddy had. Perfect hosts? Well, in the week leading up to the very first show, Big Daddy had confessed to a Central crew member in a bar, that he couldn't go through with it. Nerves had got the better of him, and he wasn't looking forward to spending the next half a year of Saturday mornings in front of kids (he was rumoured to swear like a trooper). The spin doctors at Central decided to put out the news that he was pulling out on "health reasons" (although why this supposedly sounds better than the truth, I don't know, and how come he'd continue his wrestling career?). Children's TV veteran Tommy Boyd was drafted in, and all was saved. The show itself continued in the vein of the final series of Tiswas, probably heading further into its direction, as it committed itself to a child audience even more than the last series of its predecessor. However, this wasn't simply Tiswas with a just change of name and presenters, gone were the pies, water and other mess, in favour of a more controlled atmosphere. The show was largely generic, and had little to offer for any adults tuning in hoping to hear the odd innuendo to pick up on as they may have done back in the heyday of Chris Tarrant. It wasn't a complete wiping of the slate. The majority of the production crew had worked on Tiswas, and it showed. Graphic artist Chris Wroe helped design a lot of this show, although in a less anarchic style. The same TV studio was used, and a tried-and-tested ingredients like Warner Bros cartoons were present. Tiswas writer David McKellar was on board, in a more senior role. Indeed, it was him and Tiswas producer Glyn Edwards who came up with concept of this show, although they intended it as a live weekday show in a late afternoon slot. Central's management, seemingly eager to replace as many ATV hangovers as possible, looked at the idea and decided it would be Tiswas' replacement. The arrival of the show to almost every region on the network caused TSW to rename their own 'Saturday Show' (which had been going since late January 1982) to 'Freeze Frame'. Notable items: A make-your-dreams-come-true slot which shamelessly ripped off BBC's 'Jim'll Fix It' (one boy wanted to appear in a Bugsy Malone recreation, so Central's crew at least got the chance to do a post-Tiswas pie-fight); Demolition Derby involving toy trucks round an assault course; Yours Truly - a pre-Dave-Gorman 'diary' slot by a girl called Truly looking for any other girls out there with her name, and of course Jeremy Beadle dropped in to play pranks on children's parents, most of which were a similar ilk to what he was doing at the time on LWT's 'Game For A Laugh'. The Saturday Show lasted for two series, and helped cement Central's reputation as a producer of children's television for the network. This was probably helped by Lewis Rudd, a Tiswas-hating executive who had made the jump from handling children's television at Southern Television, to Central as the 1982 newcomers settled in. MotorMouth From the ashes of 'Number 73' came 'MotorMouth' - where all pretense of characters had been ditched, in favour of a big studio-based generic Saturday morning show. The only reason the name was chosen, was because of a 20 foot prop mouth in the corner of the studio. Very much like the idea behind the 'Saturday Banana' almost a decade earlier. Another link back to the Saturday Banana, and indeed Number 73, was presenter Neil Buchanan, who guested as a musician back in the days of the Banana, and played an artist character called, er, 'Neil' on Number 73. Also having made the route from Ethel's house was Andrea Arnold. Newcomers were Tony Gregory, Julian Ballantyne, and Caroline Hanson. The first series wasn't particularly significant - TVS planned the show as being trendy and cool, which was a big step away from the comfy and silly format of Number 73. It had the look of Channel Four's ground-breaking 'Network 7' show, but not much of the desperately needed street cred. I doubt this effort was a blip on the BBC's radar. By the second series, Julian and Caroline were dumped in favour of Steve Johnson and the then unknown Gaby Roslin. In this second series, gunge had made its way down south, due to Steve's role on the show, running kids game slots - 'It's Torture' and 'Gunge Em In The Dungeon' (where losers where left locked up in a cage with buckets of gunge thrown at them, does that sound familiar?). Both these game slots were themed on medieval torture, and just about every contestant (bar the winner) faced gungey consequences. For the third series, the gunge was ditched, as was the black studio and even the giant mouth. We were thrown into a white limbo, and were given a familar new presenter - Andy Crane, having jumped ship from the BBC. The programme went on for a fourth series (1991-92), and then was cancelled. TVS, having lost its franchise for a place in a post-1992 ITV network, got together with Scottish Television and formed a new Saturday morning show from the same studios called 'What's Up Doc?'. Fun Factory After the premature demise of the Mersey Pirate, Granada once again came up with an idea to bridge the gap for the Tiswas-less summer. It was 1980, and rather than attempt an ambitious (and transmission-error prone) outside broadcast, the people at Quay Street played it safe in a studio environment, with a rather generic Saturday morning show. The Fun Factory was helmed by a pre-famous Jeremy Beadle, a pre-semi-famous Gary Crowley and local celebrity Billy Butler. Lots of cartoons and live musical acts, but not a patch on what ATV could do in the winter. Saturday Starship 'The Saturday Show' was a mixed bag for Central, having to tread in the footsteps of predecessor Tiswas. Playgrounds of the 1970s may have been polarized by allegiances to Tiswas and the BBC's 'Sw*p Sh*p', but by this time, the BBC were running on full steam with 'Saturday SuperStore' (ironically not as highly rated as Noel Edmonds' effort), with viewers preferring the Beeb's offering as opposed to the blandly generic effort on the other side. Having witnessed the BBC's success at a Saturday morning show lightly based on a conceit (the idea was that Mike Reid were running the show from a supermarket), Central took the opportunity to replace the Saturday Show with 'Saturday Starship' - hey, we're all in space, right? Well, science fiction films hit a boom in the 1980s, and were popular with children. The facilities in Central's studio 3 had equipped both Tiswas and the Saturday Show with the opportunity to use a blue-screen special effect, so it was kind of natural to go down this route. Besides, future Saturday morning shows 'Get Fresh' and 'Parallel 9' would also use the spaceship setting (as did little-remembered HTV effort 'Orbit'), although on a much grander scale. Not that the spaceship setting made too much difference. It was mostly a generic Saturday morning show, and the presenters would often mess up the whole conceit - "joining us here in the studio, er, starship...". The vague Tiswas connection here is that Fogwell Flax would sometimes guest on it. He may be unhappy with his time on Tiswas, but his ties with Central would still remain, as he provided voices on 'Spitting Image'. This show only lasted the one series, and Central decided to bury this failure by having the presenters admit it was all in a studio (like we were surprised), and destroy the set on the last show. This would be the last effort at a full Saturday morning show from Central until the 1990s. TX You knew where you were in the 1980s with ITV Saturday morning output. The early 1980s would have Central doing the prized winter slots, while TVS would be producing 'Number 73' for the summer months. In the late 1980s, TVS has established itself so well with 'Number 73', that it and TVS' subsequent efforts had won the much coveted winter slot, while Central had long given up trying to find a post-Tiswas show that won over viewers, and instead, a consortium of medium and minor ITV broadcasters would do a 'roadshow' effort ('Get Fresh' and 'Ghost Train'). Bridging the gap between this all, in 1985, was TX, a rather generic Saturday morning show from Manchester, presented by Tony Slattery (new to kids TV, and pretty much TV in general), Granada favourite Sue Robbie and 'Archers' mainstay Alison Dowling. Whether this one-off series was intended to serve as the opportunity for Number 73 to take to the winter months immediately in 1986, we don't know, but this was a fine effort all round really, with the specially commissioned 'Watt The Devil' cartoon shorts acting as break bumpers, the semi-regular appearances of papier-mache headed Frank Sidebottom (already established on Number 73), and Central's own contribution to the show - the final Saturday morning output from the former Tiswas studios - Knock Your Block Off - a game show played by kids, with the objective being to bashing down giant bricks that were part of walls in the studio. Saturday Banana We wouldn't have minded Saturday Banana, really, we wouldn't. It began in the Tiswas-free part of the year that some folk like to call "summer". Fine. I'm fine with that. However, it then encroached on Tiswas territory - the autumn months. Normally, not a big problem, as any TV region who had a scheduler whose IQ ran into at least double figures could see that Tiswas was hitting its peak, and would shove that on. Not so in the Southern region. Hardly surprising, seeing as they produced it live from their Southampton studios each week. I suppose they were keen to keep some local production going. But what's the excuse for Anglia, Border, HTV, LWT, STV, Southern and Yorkshire who decided the Banana was better than Tiswas? As an Anglia dweller in 1978, I discovered Tiswas earlier that year, and looked forward to Saturday mornings until this show came on instead. It had a Goodie (Bill Oddie presented the show), but the rather slow pace of this generic Saturday morning show made it a Baddie. Some fun was injected with the inclusion of a specially-made Saturday version of Southern's hit kids gameshow Runaround, and the ethos of the show, according to Bill Oddie, was to go against the grain - "I do feel that most 'children's television' - shows done specially for children - are very bland and very safe. I do object to that - they do all have that in common; play safe, avoid controversial subjects, and don't for heaven's sake ever make adults look as though they're vulnerable" - all very well and good, and a definite showing of Tiswas spirit there, but if you had to sit through Saturday Banana, you'd end up playing with the brightness and contrast controls on the telly in order to make it more interesting. Our Show Another generic Saturday morning show put out in various ITV regions, although one unique difference is that it was presented almost entirely by children. During its time in the winters of 1976 and 1977, the unlucky viewers were those living in the LWT, Southern and Anglia regions, as this show was the default Saturday morning offering there, rather than Tiswas. Orbit HTV had been relying on the output of other regions' Saturday morning shows in order to make 'Ten On Saturday' - a compendium of various bits coming out from various shows, including a segment or two from Tiswas. This was linked together by Alan Taylor. In the later years, with ATV, Granada, LWT and Southern battling it out to win Saturday supremacy across the network, HTV thought it should up its original content quota and revamp 'Ten On Saturday' by using more of Alan Taylor's linking device, consequently basing the show around it. The name was changed to Orbit to reflect the spaceship setting of the links (a concept that would be later used by other Saturday morning shows such as Parallel 9 and Get Fresh). Hugely parochial, and subject to visits by local football teams, such as Bristol Rovers FC. This being the late 70s, seeing such an effort on Saturday mornings by a relatively small company was quite unusual. Saturday Show, The [TSW] The year was 1982, Tiswas was putting out its final shows, under Central Television, a new name to the ITV network in those days. Not the only new name either, TVS had taken over from Southern, and down in Devon and Cornwall, the humble name of Westward had disappeared for TSW - Television South West. While Central continued on with Tiswas (and without doing that, the show would have ended back in 1981, as it was 'inherited' by Central from predecessors ATV), the other newcomers decided to do something very silly. They made their own Saturday morning output, and put it on in their respective regions, blocking out any chance of Tiswas being seen. The other regions, knew Tiswas was the outright winner, and were already showing it by late 1981, giving it the biggest potential audience it ever had. Eventually TVS saw the light and canned their first series of 'Number 73' so that the final few shows of Tiswas got an airing. For unfortunate viewers in the south west, TSW didn't show much for its first few Saturday mornings on air (The Incredible Hulk and University Challenge are better than Tiswas?), but in late January came up with a generic Saturday morning show that was so generic, the feeble name of 'The Saturday Show' was used for it. This continued through to the summer, after Tiswas had breathed its last. It used tiered seating for the audience (an idea pioneered by Tiswas), and one such typical guest was the guy who had a novelty hit single by impersonating tennis player John McEnroe and his catchphrase "you cannot be serious". Viewers in the Channel Islands also had to put up with this poor effort, hosted by Plymouth DJ Ian Calvert. Back in this era, Channel Television's main connection to the ITV network was a transmitter link with the south west ITV region. They could relay whatever TSW were showing, or use their own production. Being the tiniest station of the network, they certainly didn't choose the latter. We don't want any angry flan-lovers directing all their venom at TSW though. TSW's predecessor Westward used to show Tiswas in its last few years, and so the option was there for Channel engineers to show the messy mayhem to Jersey and Guernsey. Central came back to Saturday mornings in late 1982 for its first post-Tiswas effort - 'Big Daddy's Saturday Show' - although its wrestling host pulled out a few days before the first show, and so was retitled 'The Saturday Show'. As almost every other region was taking Central's output for Saturday mornings, having realised the midlands could do this sort of thing pretty well, TSW waved the white flag, albeit partially - it changed the name of its own 'Saturday Show' to 'Freeze Frame'. It didn't get any better. Freeze Frame The same thing as TSW's 'Saturday Show' (see entry), just that it changed name when Central started producing a show of the same name, which was broadcast to almost every ITV region. Ghost Train Whereas 'Get Fresh' was a lorry disguised as a spaceship travelling the confines of a region belonging to a small ITV company each week, 'Ghost Train', its sucessor, would be a lorry disguised as a, er, ghost train, travelling the confines of a region belong to a small ITV company each week. Well, the fence wasn't broken... Thing is, Ghost Train wasn't all that good due to the higher demands of the conceit. The presenters had to remain in character most of the time, whereas at least Get Fresh's Gaz Top and Charlotte Hindle could be themselves. This show was an attempt at drama, the main storyline focussing on hiding away from a bad guy called Barry Mafia who apparently wanted the Ghost Train for his evil deeds. All the usual show items had to be weaved around this daft conceit. Whereas 'Number 73' managed it, this show came off more like 'Saturday Starship', with live mistakes from the presenters giving away the show's secret. It appears the "ghost train" idea was based around the main cartoon - a 1990s revival of Scooby Doo. This seemed to be the case with the predecessor - Centurions and the spaceship setting going well together. In later series, a gungey game show was introduced (inevitably), and appears to have been somewhat influenced by one of the show's animated shorts (the wonderfully witty and surreal 'Trap Door'). The first part of the game had a child and a presenter jump into a pool of 'scunge' (coloured water) to find plastic skulls for points, while other children fired gunge guns at them. The second part was practically a game of Blind Man's Buff, with the amount of opponents present being dependent on how well they played the first part of the game. Pretty poor stuff. Saturday Morning Show While some ITV regions saw sense to reintroduce Tiswas to the screens in early 1979 to replace the Saturday Banana, the abscence of pie-throwing chaos for viewers in the LWT, Anglia and Southern region went on, because somebody somewhere thought this rather dull show, hosted by Steve Jones (fronting just about every LWT show at the time) would be the right thing to have on. It was simply a man in a chair, introducing film clips from an empty studio. Although, let's be fair here, this is pretty much how the first series of Tiswas began. Well, not quite. The first series of Tiswas may have been primitive, but there were cartoons, jokes and more than one on-screen person in the studio. This abomination continued across Norfolk to Kent until April. |
  
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