Granada TV Christmas Tape: Date Unknown (to us, at least. Definitely before 1985, because if was after that it'd be a cert we'd see Fred Talbot up to something) (YouTube Link)
Ooh, cripes. We're off to a dodgy start, with someone doing a 'comedy African' voice whilst pretending to be from the 'Ugandan Meteorological Office'.
"Me been up on de roof, and it pissing down wid rain! Dat de end of de wedder forcast."Oof. Not the best of starts, we'll wager. Then, we're onto a clip of a stand-up comedian (no-one we recognise) tearing into Greenall's Local Bitter. Take that, The Man! Fortunately, we then get properly under way, with that old VT Department favourite, Local News Reporter Bloopers. Including someone falling down an embankment. Hurrah! A reporter with quite a plummy voice being disturbed by a dry-heaving monkey at a tea party. Double hurrah! And the legendary Bob Greaves wrestling with a female member of the VT Crowd. Hurrahs all round!
Then, we're on a trip to In-Joke City (population: eightly-plour. Eh, Dave P? Eh? Ha ha! Erm, sorry), with a country and western ditty about the in-house fines projectionists may incur for minor misdeeds ("For putting the Elmore Gate in back to front, and scraping all the emulsion off two rolls of Ectachrome original, £6.75"). And then...
...well, that's about it, really. It looks like there's only the last half of that tape online anywhere, which is a bit of a shame. Partly because it makes us look a bit unprofessional for bothering to cover it (of course, that ship sailed a long time ago, as the readers we'd annoyed with our Beta Crisp Review Special will attest), but mainly because it's the only Granada tape on there, and we'd so wanted to see more of Bob Greaves, Tony "Anthony H" Wilson, Charles Foster, Jim Pope and the gang.
So. Er. What else is up for grabs from the same YouTube benefactor?
This interesting slice of non-cockup Nortonalia (Denis, not Graham, of course. Presumably from The Laughter File). A well-regarded presenter on a US Christian network gets arrested in the middle of his show. Bullshit or not? Watch and decide.
Ten minutes of prime Tiswas, from 1980. Excellent stuff. This is, indeed, what we want. Although the 'Bright Eyes' kid doing his song we can pretty much do without. We hated it when we were five, and it hasn't improved with age.
An ITV and IBA joint scheduling meeting, seemingly from Granada's entertaining 1985 documentary series 'Television' (it's an Ian Holm voiceover that leads us to think this, though we're guessing this was one of the scenes removed to make way for extra Vegemite adverts in the Aussie broadcasts that we'd downloaded). It includes one bloke defending the use of 'adult themes' (specifically vasectomies) in a 7.15pm drama programme. There's John Birt (then of LWT) trying to come up with a Wogan-buster. The result: SEX AGAINST CHAT. This is the sort of thing we want to see on the internet (obscure clips about telly, not The Practice, obv).
So, in summary:
The late 1970s/early 1980s Granada TV Christmas Tape with about five seconds of Bob Greaves not making up for the appallingly racist joke at the start: ONE out of ten.
The remainder of Prisoner5's YouTube vids: EIGHT out of ten.
Almost a worthwhile update after all, then.
2 .:
That Ugandan weather report is actually lifted from John Bird's "Bulletins from Idi Amin" series, a comedy thing about everyone's favourite demented Africa dictator fo the day. It's not as bad as it sounds out of context.
My favourite episode is the one where he declares war on the US. Or possibly the one with the Soviet "advisors".
Gah. I should probably have realised that. You're right that it does sound rather dodgy out of context, mind.
And after all those times we've enjoyed Ugandan discussions. (Cough.)
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