The Top 50 TVTimes Genre Icons of the 1970s: The Final Chapter

This is it. The final furlong. Soon it will be over, and we’ll have to think up another way of writing about television, without writing about current television programmes. But first, an advert for electronic organs, fronted by Tommy Cooper:

On with the listings:

The ITV Van

What a fantastic concept – it’s the ITV van. Every time an outside broadcast unit is needed a little van, containing a cameraman and an interviewer, pootles off, allowing the First Tuesday team to get the jump on doorsteping a member of the public about suicide.

“Take that, Panorama! Have you got a Panorama van? Have you? No, you haven’t. We have. And as long as World In Action aren’t using it, we can go wherever we want in it!” It’s inter-broadcaster exchanges like this that saw the 1981 unveiling of the Dimblemobile, y’know. Admittedly, it was an old Bedford van with a big ‘D’ pointed crudely on the side, but it served a purpose.

I am Questo-man. Look out for my nemesis, Interrobang-Face

Don’t know about you, but if we’d ever met someone with a huge question mark for a face, it’d certainly stick in our collective memory. If any members if the BBC Three demographic are in, this is what clip shows used to be like. Much drier, a little more boring, but without all the intercutting clips of Radio One disc jockeys and Mock The Week-issue standups humming the theme tunes.

Bed-Ridden Bolam/Bowles Bedlam

And now on Southern, thirty minutes of Chappel-penned chicanery, with an episode centred on a man who has a face. We used to like Only When I Laugh as a tot, though we genuinely felt distressed that they never seemed to recover. In this modern era of high-concept sitcoms (Peep Show, No Heroics, Moving Wallpaper, all those Comedy Lab pilots that were never going to make it), it seems no-one would dare commission a long-running situation comedy centred on such unspoken bleakness. Why are they in the hospital? Are they dying? Why do they never show any signs of illness? Why has Richard Wilson only seemed to get ten years older between 1979 and now?

Sadly, the opportunity to allay these concerns by having the jesters wearing stethoscopes was missed. Bah.

Not Pictured: Dom Joly, Aged 7, Furiously Taking Notes

Two people taken aback upon being confronted by the world’s biggest telephone. Just how does that receiver balance on top of it? Does the presenter need a ladder each time it rings? Does he need to rope in Dave Prowse or Geoff Capes to dial the numbers for him? Also – six presenters? What is this, American telly?

What The Papers Were Saying

Ah, the universe’s longest-running television programme, having technically being broadcast since 1874. The icon recounts the days when broadsheets were the size of tents, and free inflatable quotation marks were often given away as marketing incentives. Also: we’re furiously treading icon-based water right about now. This is very much the nadir of the entire project.

In Germany It’s Called “The, Monster, The”

It’s the late night weekend film, with a scary werewolf, and the twisted face of either a victim of acid chucking, or a badly drawn heroine. Is this a good place to make a weak joke about the time we bought a large building in which to store and distribute items that we were selling, only for to transpire that every full moon said building went off and started killing people? And that it turns out we’d bought a werehouse? It isn’t? Oh dear, what an insipid end to GenreIconMania.

But Wait, That’s Not All. Shall we round off the whole thing with some Icon Bloopers? Oh hells, yeah.

Icon Blooper One

What’s going on here!? A record of the time Peter Sissons turned invisible after being confronted by the floating heads of two bald men? Erm, no, the grey didn’t print out on that page.

Icon Blooper Two

Those oblong blocks on the left? They’re meant to be arms. Arms that would ordinarily end with four applauding hands. The ‘sad’ drama mask has just watched them being cut off by the ‘happy’ drama mask. Brr. Alternatively, the grey didn’t print out on that page, either.

And so, that’s it. That’s the end of final update we will ever do about TV Times Genre Icons Of The 1970s. Almost definitely about two updates too late, but timing never was our strong poi. Nt. If anyone’s still reading this, you can tell our regular readers to come back into the room now. It’s finally over. The TV Times 1970s genre icon teat is now bone dry, and continuing to suck it just causes massive discomfort, plus a prolonged stingy sensation.

We’ll leave you with the best possible reminder of the era: a scanned picture of David Frost’s front room.

NEXT WEEK: The Top 250 Radio Times Genre Icons Of The 1960s: Part One.

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The Top 50 TVTimes Genre Icons of the 1970s - Part Four

Time for another update on this. There’s a whole stack of these from 1975 to get through, so on with it we shall crack:

The Saturday Simian Whip-Cracky Run Away Movie

“I hate every chimp I see / from chimpan-ay to chimpan-zee / no, you’ll never make a monkey out of me…” This would be the perfect place to bung in that embedded YouTube link to Newstopia’s first report from Pilger Heston, if only YouTube hadn’t removed it. The humourless twonks.

Clowny Clown Clown Clowning Hour

Slightly disturbing clowns tumbling pseudo-comically. Giant men with big shoes. Seals and beach balls. Skinny men with big hats standing on horses. Roy Hudd. That’s what every circus really should be like.

Alarming Comedy Semi-Hour

Aaaargh! What is wrong with their faces? Kill them! They are practically begging to be put out of their wide-gobbed misery, it’s the only humane thing to do. In the name of all that is holy, do it!

Big Clock News

And now, the 12.55pm News. Bong! Giant inaccurate clock claims time is 10 O'clock. Bong! Television website inaccurately uses ‘bong’ cliché despite fact that said device was only ever used on News At Ten, which this isn’t. Bong!

The Manchester-Based Menaces Of Coronation Street

At long last, it’s the long heralded Coronation Street icon. Three menacing figures lurking in an alleyway. Coshes not pictured. And while we were too busy at this time not even being ready for rusks yet, we’re sure gas-powered streetlamps had long since been phased out on the streets of Wetherfield. If only to stop Eddie Yates from siphoning off all the gas to use in his cooker.

It’s ITV’s Sabbath Agri-Obligation Segment!

The BBC have recently announced that Country File is being moved to a prime-time slot. Now, as it’s probably going to be up against Corrie, it’s not that big a story, but even so we’re pretty damn sure there won’t be any specials based on The Fat Stock Marketing Corporation.

Afternoon Birdy Mock Slot

Children can be right bastards sometimes. See how they mock that portly bird. It is clearly suffering from chronically low self-esteem, which is probably why it feels the need to go out and pilfer shiny objects, and yet here come a triplet of kids, primed for mockery. “Ha ha! Fatty stupid thief bird!” “Idiot monochromed sticky-beak!” “You call that plumage? You’re shit-aah!” Tsk.

But hang on. Is the bird fighting back a mockery-induced tear, or is that a scowl we see upon it’s feathered visage? A closer look will reveal:

The scowl! The feathery rascal is up to something, we suspect. Why, come the morning, there’ll be three little children in the village wondering just who’d pecked their eyes out overnight. Oh, magpie, you beaky sociopath.

And Now, The News For The Elderly

“What was that? Speak up young man. Now, where did I put my ear trumpet?”

Down On Demented Farm

Was the mule-based problem that it kept thinking it was a sheep? Or just that it didn’t really look that much like a mule? Does Jack end up shooting the mule or something? Is that how he solved the problem? Didn’t he have enough to worry about with the six-foot radius snowflakes dropping down everywhere? Don’t leave us hanging, this is far too surreal a show to be putting out at 3.55pm.

Anglia’s Quid Win Telly Time

An improvement on the earlier placard debacle, but just why would a giant pound sign be trying to win all that stuff? We knew the economy wasn’t going that well in 1975, but we’d no idea it had sunk as low as this.

White Ringer T-Shirts From The Future

A rarity here, with only our second sighting of a quasi-realistic depiction of the actors in question (after, as you’ll remember, The Sweeney). We’ve never actually seen Space 1999, so maybe that chap’s right shoulder blade really was a lot wider than his left, and that lady did have hair that huge. The thought of having Rumpole as a character called ‘Companion’ is quite tantalising, though.

Hey, Where The Buggering Flip Did These Cubes Come From?

Does what you want it to, this one. Squares, or at least cubes, splattered with one nought and two crosses, topped with silhouetted figures wondering just what the jiggery toss is going on. And look at that textbook line-up: Sir Lord Bob on hosting duties, a great big camp-off between Danny La Rue and John Inman, Arthur Mullard being brusque, Willie Rushton being wry, and Kenny Everett doing the voiceover. Despite the quite obvious trick of having Everett in the centre square, you couldn’t have asked for more at 4.50pm on a weekend, you really couldn’t.

Nothing To Do With Revisions Of Email Programmes From The Far-Flung Future After All

Whizz! Bang! Boom! You’d have expected a picture playing up Anderson’s wonderful marionettes, or at least a close-up of a scheming Brains, but Icon Bloke is wilier than we’d thought. Rockets! Explosions! Nary a string in sight.

Refreshingly Multicultural God-Pray Hour

It’s worth noting two things here. Firstly, what’s with the line up of choirboy clones? Is that the way the church operated in the mid-70s? Every time some TV cameras are due round to film some songs, mimes and games, open up the secret subterranean lab, and release the clones from their pods? Positively shocking. 

It’s not all bad though. Icon Bloke has chosen to depict a black vicar. This may not seem like much, but the mid-1970s were a time of racial intolerance, Love Thy Neighbour was still a popular show, Enoch “Rivers Of Blood” Powell had only just left the Conservative Party, Bernard Manning was still a regular fixture on prime-time telly. It was a different, less tolerant age, and through the medium of programme genre icons, the TV Times icon bloke was something of a pioneer, striking an early blow for equality. Much as TVT readers may have feared members of an ethnic minority taking up such positions would prove a blow to their traditional British sensibilities, the vicar depicted here displays more calm serenity than you could possibly have imagined from a simple oval shape on a yellowing page in a listings mag. Hopefully the three million readers of TVTimes would pick up on this way of thinking, and the latter half of the 1970s would be a fundamentally sound and politically groovy place to be. Hurrah for Icon Bloke!

Hat Slash Cane Wrongness Knocking Hour

Oh, fucking hell.

Next time: A jarring whizz-pan to 1979. It’ll soon be over.

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The Top 50 TVTimes Genre Icons of the 1970s - Part Three

Firstly, a link to MediaGuardian’s tribute to Arena magazine, which is to close. A shame, as Arena magazine is/was good, except when they were being nice about George Lamb. We hope the three short articles by BrokenTV’s Mark X on their website aren’t somehow to blame. 

But enough about the past, let’s move on to, erm, even further in the past, with the next installment of TTFTVTGIOT70s.

YOUR BIG EAST

One interesting thing to note (and your definition of ‘interesting’ may vary) about analogue TV transmitters is that freak weather conditions like storm clouds could cause each transmitter’s output to reach far further afield than could otherwise be expected. This is quite unlike today, where it only takes one distant crackle of thunder for everyone’s Sky boxes to go into a bluescreen huff. We can attest to the phenomena of Wandering-Broadcast-Radius; one time in the early 1980s, a tiny BrokenTV once picked up a crackly Day By Day – ITV Southern’s regional news, when we were expecting the more local ATV News. Events such as this had a clear impact on one franchise’s local round-up, with it being given a deliberately vague moniker of ‘About Anglia’.

(Reader’s voice: “What a stupidly long build-up for a shit joke. I’m taking this site off my favourites list.”)

Sorry. Anyway, look at what’s going on here. A scary cave with a striking miner hiding in it. Man with big hand leaves jammy thumbprint on wall behind landscape picture of the Phil and Grant Mitchell. Policeman’s eyes, nose and mouth stolen. It was all going on back in those days.

SORRY, NOT THE ONE WITH BEA SMITH AND VINEGAR TITS, IT’S THE LESS GOOD BRITISH ONE

Now, we don’t know that much about Within These Walls, other than the one episode Granada repeated in the early 1990s once Prisoner Cell Block H went stellar. What we do know is that (a) it wasn’t anywhere near as good as the mighty Prisoner Cell Block H (Triv Attack! It was simply known as ‘Prisoner’ in Australia, but renamed for the UK to avoid confusing people into wondering when Number Six would wander into shot), and (b) Stone Park Prison probably didn’t have a policy of keeping the cell keys dangling ju-u-ust out of reach from the criminals. Otherwise, 70% of plots would have involved unravelling wire coat hangers.

LADY/TEACUP/FLOWER TIME

It might be the 1970s, but Anglia know the value of branding. Here their “About [Region or Subject]” approach to programme titling was applied to a show about the gentler sex. What will the show involve? “TEA AND FLOWERS, THEN GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN.” It is possible Gene Hunt was Director of Programming at Anglia around this time. Director: A Bloke. Producer: Seemingly A Lady, But Could Be A Frenchman.

WRESTLING, OR THAT BIT FROM WOMEN IN LOVE

Crikey, those two look really keen to read the listing for the programme they represent. Or maybe once of them has just popped a contact lens.

SWITCH OFF SOMETHING (OR JUST SIT CLOSER TO THE TELLY AND USE THAT FOR WARMTH)

This is what we want! It’s disappointingly rare to see a ‘Schedule B’ even when there’s a World Cup on these days, so to have a constant menu of alternate programming for weeks on end during the Switch Off Something era must have been a tantalising glimpse at a promised land. A promised land of Having A Bit More Telly To Watch. 

Between January and March 1974, the Heath-led campaign to conserve electricity meant that TV programming had to end by 10.30pm. This led to things like the midweek football highlights being cut back to a half-hour, in an early slot of 9.30pm, making way for The Candlelit News At Ten, and Sandy Gall telling you all to go to bed. Just to rub your nose in it a little bit more, a little box in the corner would be included, telling you that if the Three Day Week was over, you could stay up later to watch a whole hour of football, and then round it off with the European Figure Skating Championships (ice-skating being, implausibly, really popular at the time). No wonder the Conservatives lost the election a few months later.

As for the never-to-be-seen schedule up above, just look at that. A cartoon at 7.30pm! Why not just let Val Doonican sing an extra song. He could’ve had Richard Stilgoe pop in to drop some wry English about the current goings on. 

Interesting information that probably isn’t on the internet yet: The first edition of the TVTimes from The National Emergency (as they call it) to include this “look at what you could be watching if only it weren’t for that Heath/those miners” panel was: January 24, 1974. It says so in the TVTalk panel on page two, where they also apologise to their readers, whilst “not forgetting the news-agents who serve them so faithfully throughout the year”. 

Back to the National Emergency, the ITV schedulers seemed to buy into the whole austerity thing, too. In the crisis-riddled 8.30pm timeslot on January 30th of that year, Anglia viewers looking for a bit of escapism from the few hours of gogglebox afforded to them were treated with that light entertainment favourite… The World At War. It’s possible the intention was to remind folk that people had put up with far worse in the not-too-distant past, and if missing out on the occasional episode of Russell Harty Plus was as bad as things got, then they should be counting their blessings. The alternate schedule box did reveal that were someone else running the country, they’d be watching Des O’Connor Entertains instead.

WEAK FOLLOW UP JOKE TO PREVIOUS SENTENCE ALERT

“Des O’Connor Entertains? Quick! Evacuate the planet!”

(Reader’s voice: “Right, that’s it. I’m calling the police.”)

Oh, hush.

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The Top 50 TVTimes Genre Icons of the 1970s - Part Two

Firstly, anyone hankering for the days when we did proper updates instead of this tosh might like to pay a visit to Arena Magazine's excellent website, where we've contributed a short piece about swearing on telly, and how there really should be more of it. Expect a more comprehensive version of the same piece on here in the near-ish future. But for now, we present:

The Top 50 TVTimes Genre Icons of the 1970s - Part Two: 1974 (Part One)

Well, it's the year of our birth, so why not split it into two parts, confusing subheading or not, eh?

Spooky Gawp Camera Action Time

Cyril and Edmond soon regretted moving into the flat with the massively oversized keyhole in the front door. That voyeuristic cameraman looks utterly delighted by his actions, doesn't he? So much so that he's completely forgotten about the 'candid' part of the programme title. 'Glaringly Obvious Camera' would be a more accurate title for what is going on here.

Leader Choosey-Time Night

Ah, one of the many General Elections of the 1970s. Going by our knowledge of the period, pieced together as it is from the many documentary clip shows on BBC Four, the UK held general elections on a monthly basis in 1974, with Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan, Harold Wilson, Lulu, Chelsea striker Peter Osgood and animated patriarch Father Flump all spending varying amounts of time in office at Number Ten. The political turmoil of the age is represented here by an Avant-garde representation of the voting process; a car wearing a bow-tie on a stick (representing the finery of the Conservative Party), some novelty clothes pegs (representing the Labour Party's earthy grittiness), and a bloke doing his pools coupon (which the Liberal Party's Jeremy Thorpe had plenty of time to do. A-ha-ha-ha).

After-Dark Stubble-Strewn Epic Time

"I know what you're thinking, Large Jake. Will you be able to draw your pistol before my pardner, the great big floating orb from The Prisoner envelopes you with his eerily floaty torso? I'm saying... no."

The Gallivanting Gastro

Graham is making a kedgeree that is so very unusual. The ingredients include - as shown in the picture - some boiled question marks and various fungi larger in size than a turkey. For added unusual points, he has also pressed Scrabble letters into the mixing bowl that spell out the names of everyone who has wronged him since grammar school. Oh Graham!

Ha Ha! They've Used The Wrong Picture For This Progra... [Checks Wikipedia] ...Oh.

Still, adopt, adapt and improve, as Graham Chapman's Colonel character used to say. Are those three handlebar-moustachioed men in bowler hats and shoelace neckties firing guns at us, or holding bunches of flowers? If it's the former, why wasn't there a Western all about them? It would have been brilliant. "We're the Hedgepeth Triplets, who the hell are you? What did you say about our matching hats and moustaches? Right, outside!" [STOMPING FEET MOVING FROM CREAKY FLOORBOARDS TO DUSTY EXTERIOR, FOLLOWED BY SOUND OF GUNFIRE x 3] Just imagine a scene where the three of them are twirling their handlebar moustaches wickedly. It would be brilliant.



MORE ICON-BASED HALF-CENTURY JOLLITY THE TIME AFTER NEXT TIME, READERS!

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Top 50 TVTimes Genre Icons of the 1970s - Part One

Yeah, don't say we didn't warn you. We've sourced a load of TVTimes from the 1970s, and we're utterly determined to run this idea into the ground. With any luck, we'll scare away at least 90% of our regular audience, then we can be as self-indulgent as we like. A month from now, it'll be nothing but graphs, gushing praise about low-rated Adult Swim shows, and graphs about low-rated Adult Swim shows around here. Bliss. We can just imagine it. "Ah, but if you consider the overnights for episodes seven and eight of Squidbillies, you'll see something quite interesting happens."

The rundown is in (approximate) chronological order, meaning they aren't all sorted by merit. However, to make things that bit more exciting and Jack Bauer-y (in a slightly tragic way), we've only actually found another forty genre icons so far. That means, as soon as we click the 'Publish Post' button, the race is on for us to uncover another ten of them. How enthralling is that, eh? (Reader's voice: "not very.") Let battle commence!

Part One: 1973

The Academia-Quizzery Half-Hour (Aug 17th)

At our graduation ceremony in Chester Cathedral earlier this year, we got to wear a mortar board for the first time in our lives. Sadly, our head isn't even remotely compatible with such an object, meaning two things. Firstly, we had to use one hand to keep it on our head while walking up on stage in front of everyone, which meant we were unable to pay full attention when BBC Sport's Sharron Davies handed us our diploma, and our reaction to her light-hearted quip may have seemed a little insincere. Secondly, this means we're genetically incompatible with obtaining any of that there fancy learnin'. It just ain't for the likes of us.

But anyway. Why would Bambi be wearing a mortar board? We wouldn't be able to see his ginger perm. Meanwhile, we're willing to bet actual cash money that the current-day TVTimes no longer asks questions about African rivers next to the listing for University Challenge.

Jocko Time! (Aug 17th)

Ah, this truly is the 1970s. The word 'Scotch' being used as an acceptable substitute for the word 'Scottish' (a crime which is now punishable by at least four Scotsmen leaving grumpy comments about your use of the word, even though you'd clearly used it ironically), but just look at that icon! St Andrews Cross fluttering in the chilly east-coast wind, burly bloke tossing a caber, a thistle, and some people doing a sword dance (swords not pictured). If this icon tells us anything, it's that we won't need to look at the listing to learn that our expections are unlikely to be confounded any time soon.

Clearly, if such a programme were transmitted now, the icon would contain deep-fried Mars bars, a World Cup qualifying campaign coming undone in the final group game, and a heroin addict getting a fix of OH COME ON WE'RE BEING IRONIC.

Yet Another News Icon (Aug 17th)

It's another ITN icon, though sadly not quite as demented as the previous one. We do like the old-school representation of a weather forecast. In fact, here's a screen-nab from Southern's Day By Day, circa 1979, with which to better illustrate our point:

A gentler age. You can keep your autocuties, we'll take avuncular blokes in ill-fitting suits playing with fridge magnets every time.

Late-Night Yikesfest (Dec 8th)

Don't open the door! There are loads of scary eyes behind that door! Gah, too late. For people in our particular age demographic, this icon reminds us of excellent scenes in Dangermouse. The main difference being, as everyone knows, such scenes would normally end with Penfold rushing off, leaving DM's sole functioning eye alone in the centre of the room, surrounded by beasties. Sadly, to the best of our knowledge, no Vincent Price film actually included such a scene, unless you're really widening the scope to episodes of the Price-introed Count Duckula, where Cosgrove-Hall may well have re-used said gambit.

Animated Mayhem Segment (Aug 17th)

Oh, now this marker positively screams "anything can happen in the following ten minutes". Flying mice (not neccessarily Mighty Mouse, as he was on BBC-1, and in any case, wasn't any good until John Kricfalusi got his mitts on the show), men in hats using all five legs to run away really quickly, what could either be rapidly unspooling cine film or a rope ladder, poorly-scrawled hounds, or two plasticine men doing heaven knows what. Come on TVTimes Icon Bloke. Just because the programme in question is only on for ten minutes, it doesn't mean you only need to spend that long considering, planning, drafting and drawing your icon for the slot! As we shall see, these icons are giong to be used repeatedly over the following nine years.

Nine long years.


NEXT TIME: 1974.

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"A Comedic Misinterpretation Adventure Playground" (TVTimes Icons III: Back In Training)

To the undoubted chagrin of at at least 80% of BrokenTV's audience, it's time for the third part of our 768 part series taking a look at programme genre icons from 1970s copies of TV Times. We can assure you, the remaining 20% of the audience all fall within our target demographic of embittered ident fetishists, and this is the sort of thing they really go for, so we're determined to carry this on for as long as possible. To the naysayers, we can assure you that today's offering is almost certainly going to convert you to the cause. If not, there's a splendid bit of YouTube clippery at the end, so stay tuned.

With eternal thanks to TV Cream's Steve Williams* (who we notice Amazon haven't listed as co-author on the paperwork edition of the book he co-authored, for some reason. You should go and buy The Encyclopedia of Classic Saturday Night Telly from Alibris instead), we've got some more TV Times genre icons for you. Due to the way our brains are like a gigantic Excel 2007 spreadsheet (the 2007 version because it's got a really annoying interface and it keeps crashing when we try to make it do anything interesting), we've been compelled to rank them in ascending order, as per usual. There are only three of them, but they're all really good. All killer, no filler, if you will.

(*And his mate Alex's scanner.)

3. Political Discourse With Posh Men In Fusty Suits Hour

This is like a comedic misinterpretation adventure playground! While the chap in the middle is speaking, it looks like the bloke on the left is yawning. Meanwhile, it certainly looks like the fellow on the right has taken out a bottle of Teachers in a brown paper bag, and is about to neck it. Man, that must be one dull speech on overseas affairs (or energy). On closer inspection, it's clear that the fellow on the right is meant to be clapping the speech on energy (or overseas affairs) enthusiastically, but the bloke on the left only has one hand visible, so he's clearly not applauding. The smaller grey blob is undoubtedly his tie, after all. Is he gasping with Conservative astonishment at the controversial approach to North Sea oil being proposed by the speaker?

Alternatively, have we missed out at the clever political nature of the icon? The man on the left is also on the political left, and as such is taken aback by the right-wing policy being advocated by the speaker. The man on the right, is (as you've guessed) taking the opposite approach, and is lapping up the "unlimited free biscuits for South African PM Balthazar Johannes Vorster" proposal. The clever thing about this approach is that one week later, as the Labour Party Conference swings into Blackpool, the icon can simply be reversed, meaning the clever political subtext remains intact. Why, it's almost as if the position of TVTimes Icon Bloke (a position we're now prepared to liken to the rota of Top Gear Stigs) was being filled this week by a young R. Bremner.

2. Big Coat Man Wallop / Semi Realistic Depiction Hour

Whoa! A revelation in TVT Iconography, as Icon Bloke pulls out several stops. A parked police car - good. One little icon bloke walloping another one in the face - brilliant. An actual attempt at drawing an actual character from the specific programme in question: off the chuffing scale. It's like when a band brings out a Greatest Hits set, and they've tacked on a 'new single' as the final track so that the fans who've already got all the other albums will go out and buy it, only against all logic the new track is really, really good. That's what is going on here. If this icon was an album, it'd be Pet Shop Boys' Discography, and the John Thaw sketch would be new track 'Was It Worth It?'. So, was this worth it? Undoubtedly. Today's third icon must certainly be going some to top this.

1. The Really Quite Disturbing News

Re-sult! What the ruddiest of hells is going on here, then? It's the news, but not as we've seen it before. The newsreader in the centre is absolutely textbook. Leave him there on his own, with lashings of white space either side, and it's job done. It's the news. That would positively scream "commentators and camera teams on-the-spot bring you the latest reports". But no, icon bloke won't rest on his laurels like that. He won the Rose d'Or (Programme Icon category) in 1975 and 1976, and he can do what he damn well likes. And if he wants to include four people of mixed ethnicity waving at the camera during a news report, he's damn well going to include four people of mixed ethnicity waving at the camera during a news report, no matter what Dave Lanning might say about it in the canteen. "He's losing it Lesley, have you seen his latest graphic for the 5.5 ITN News?" Screw you, Lanning! Golden Roses in 1975 and 1976... and that silver in 1973.

Quite what the intention here is, we're almost frightened to speculate. We're too young to remember any ITN broadcasts from around this time, so maybe ITN policy at the time actually did include a bunch of people waving at the viewer, so as to distract them from the antics of the Provisional IRA, Donald Neilson, Postmaster General John Stonehouse and Princess Margaret. Or maybe it was to try and deflect attention from the fact the full title of the programme is "Independent Television News News". Possibly on-the-scene reporters ended each report with a cheery wave, so pleased were they at not being just a photograph of a person on the phone next to a map, and this is reflected here. It could even be that ITN's relaxed security often allowed the newsreader's mates from the pub to wander on set at the end of the late bulletins. That certainly sounds like something the modern-day ITV News could re-introduce in order to boost audiences. Let's face it, it wouldn't be any more appalling than concentrating largely on the feelings of grieving family members, like they do now. "So, you've just witnessed your entire family splatting fierily into the tarmac of a runway. How do you feel?" It's quite lucky there isn't an icon bloke at TVTimes these days. It could even be that a sort of "Lesbians Invade The Six O'Clock News" thing is going on, but by people who are just really pleased to get on telly.

In summary: staggering. That makes up three different icons for the ITN News for the three times we've seen them used. It's almost as if Icon Bloke has got one eye on the 2009 eBay second-hand copy of TVTimes from the late 1970s market. He knows that all he has to do is come up with lots of different graphics for the news bulletins (as regular readers will remember, 'The Plasticine News With Morph and Chas', and 'The Dogme95 News Typed Live In Front Of Your Very Eyes' have previously been shown here), buy lots of copies of the TVTimes on publication, and wait 30 years for berks like us to wander along with £4.99 sitting in our PayPal accounts. Buy each copy for 13p, sell it for £4.99, and that's before the surreptitious mark-up on postage. That must beat inflation. Ker-ching.

The Icons Have Finished, You Can Come Out Now

Welcome back, iconophobes. So, time for that YouTube clip. And, in reference to a text link a couple of paragraphs ago, it's the scene where lesbians protesting against Clause 28 invaded the BBC News studio in 1988. However, quite thrillingly, this clip also includes audio from the production gallery. It simply has to be heard.



"On the air... oh fucking hell, we've got nothing [dialogue indecipherable]. Get them out!" Can anyone help here with the muffled bit of director anger?

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"Damn you, FACTU!" (TV Times Icons from 1978: Part Two)

(Part one: here.)

By semi-popular demand, it's time to kick off another look at some TVTimes programme icons from 1978. If you want to play along at home, this batch are all from the June 3rd-June 9th 1978 edition. ATV region, Lee Remick and Rock Hudson on the cover. But before we kick off, there's just time for an advert. Specifically, an advert for that most 1978 of household items, the rented telly. Note the frenzied attempt to tie it in with the World Cup, much like every single company tries to do nowadays:

Even now, spending that much a month would surely bag you a reasonably sized high definition LCD set on credit. Anyway, just feast your eyes on that space-age remote control. Two buttons!

Channel up, and channel down. And this in an age when there were only three channels to choose from. Surely they could have put on an extra button, so you could switch directly to each channel? Or give the option of adjusting the volume? We just don't realise how lucky we are in Space Age 2009, with our dedicated buttons for adjusting the aspect ratio and the like.

Onto the icons, then. Just the nine to choose from, and in a break from tradition (if something you've only done once before counts as 'tradition'), we're going to show you the best icon first, and leaving you to guess which programme it's for. The answer will be at the end of the list.

Quite a good one, isn't it, but what is it for? Those people seem to be carrying placards, so surely it's for a discussion programme based on the striking unions. Maybe it's a Union protest against invisible people with side partings. Or maybe the presence of some kind of panel suggests it's for a consumer affairs show. ITV have probably made at least one stab at recreating That's Life, and this could be it. Could it be that the people on the right are supposed to be opening ceremony standard bearers, as you might find in the opening ceremony of the Olympics? Only it was a World Cup year, so maybe it's for the Commonwealth Games?

All will revealed later on. On with the rundown, beginning with, as the copy of TVT we've found only has so many icons not included in our original update, number nine.

9. Child-Based Programming

Some childish scrawls to get us going. Fairly standard stuff, meaning we can't even think of anything suitably acerbic to say about it. Wonder what the postman's unusual present was.

8. It's the World Cup (and The Derby)

Such is the paucity of HOT NEW ICON ACTION in this edition of TVT, we've included one that doesn't quite fit into the kitschy icon canon that we're trying to cultivate. But, as it's related to the 1978 World Cup, we've decided to include it, and we're not even going to mention Joe Jordan's handball cruelly depriving Wales from taking part in the thing.

Oh. Anyhoo, we like the way ITP Ltd have co-opted the official FIFA logo for Argentina '78 (pictured on the right somewhere), and chucked in the World Of Sport logo. It's the kind of thing that companies could get away with around that age - see also the BBC-1 globe 'borrowing' from the heavily copyrighted IOC logo for the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. All this from an age where the phrase 'brand identity' would possibly have had more to do with a portly astomoner's passport (yeah, weak reference there, sorry everyone) than splashing a corporate identity over any bit of 4:3 safe zone that isn't nailed down.

What we also like about this listing: two completely disparate sporting events lumped together in the same listing. Hate football, but love racing? Well, you're probably going to need to sit through the highlights of Mexico vs West Germany if you really want to be sure of getting the latest odds. It's things like this, and the demented way programmes could be listed as starting at 6.57pm that make us wish we'd paid more attention to television when all this was going on. Instead of, well, eating rusks and deficating in our pants, which is what we were probably doing at the time. And that was just the teachers! No, hang on, we've got that punchline wrong somewhere.

7. Antipodean Wartime Recurring Drama

Going by Wikipedia, who we're quite sure would never lie to us outside of a Big Brother launch night, The Sullivans was "an Australian made drama television series produced by Crawford Productions which ran from 1976 until 1983 [which] told the story of an average middle-class Melbourne family and the effect World War II had on their lives." As far as we were concerned it was a hugely annoying blight on our post-nursery television viewing, as it meant we'd have to wait another twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes for another instalment of Charlton And The Wheelies, and it had a bloody depressing sepia title sequence. And anyway Mum, Choc-a-bloc's on the other side, aww mum, come on, Fred Harris is on it this week... gah.

Oh right, the icon. Well, it's pretty generic stuff, which could just as easily be used for any television drama ever. Note how it's the black heart that is the one breaking, which might suggest the tear is more to do with a blocked artery than any emotional turmoil it's owner is going through at the same time. Or maybe the bloke's just dumped the woman for having a really pointy chin and no fingers, the bloody body fascist.

As for The Sullivans, as we grew older it momentarily got 0.02% more interesting when we realised Mrs Mangel was in it, but that didn't last very long.

6. Week-Centred Factcasting

Man with a microphone. A silhouetted city of London. A giant, but not very specific calendar. There aren't even any days of the week on there, let alone the month, uplifting tidbits of information like "it's more important to be right, than to be seen to be proved right", or even pointless trivia like "Feb 6th 1910: The first Monopoly set goes on sale". Whether this is down to shoddy standards on the part of the calendar makers, or just that the calendar firm's team of fact-gatherers were on a union-led strike again ("Damn you, FACTU! We can't afford a 20% raise, and that's that!"), or just that TVT's Icon Bloke was in a hurry for this space filler, we can't be sure. Either way, this a certainly a good example of a programme-specific icon.

5. Chair-Originated Gobshitery

"Look, Mr Amorphous-Blob-in-a-Suit, I happen to think you're completely wrong about the Baader-Meinhof Group." "As I've said repeatedly, Mr Amorphous-Blob-not-in-a-Suit, you're fully entitled to your opinion, it's just that I thought their second album was rubbish". Ah, seat-based discourse, you can't beat it. We can't help but feel a little disappointed that Brian Walden isn't the same at the top of the billing, though. Meanwhile, "a stimulating and entertaining half-hour about people, places and issues"? A little bit presumptive, isn't it?

BACK TO THE EARLIER POSER!

What could it be? We shouldn't need to be Clive Doig to work it out. Possibly they aren't placards at all, they're huge fish-slices. Or, really tiny people holding regular-sized fish-slices. And they're being exploited in the chip shops of 1978 Britain, and a panel have been invited to discuss the matter. Or maybe, the tiny people are carrying huge fly swats, and they're going to belt the two side-parting men and the big haired woman about the face with them? Ooh, It's A Knockout! Oh, wrong channel. Tsk. The answer in a moment!

4. Chair-Originated Gobshitery: Lady Edition

Ladies' Night. A programme for, by and about, ladies. Director: A bloke. Producer: Another bloke. But who will get to sit in the MYSTERY CHAIR?

3. Surprisingly Early Afternoon News

We love this. It's News at One - hour an hour earlier. As such, they've somewhat been caught on the hop, and Sybil the secretary is still working on the script, just off-camera. Oh noes! Will she be able to keep pumping out the stories quickly enough to get them straight to Peter Sissons? With the added pressure, will she make any rudimentary typing errors, such as accidentally listing the Secretary of State for Social Services as "David Anals"? Why, all of this could make for a brilliant Typing Of The Dead-style videogame.

2. Programming For Those In School

Quick everyone, into the hall, where the school's only television is! Yes, we had to kill the first seventeen minutes of the lesson with pointless banter, because 'What Should We Do?' doesn't start until 9.47, but at least now the class wag can make themselves the centre of attention by pretending to eat the disappearing pips on the countdown clock while teacher isn't looking. For this listing TVT's Icon Bloke has employed the style of his famed Crossroads icon, and just filled an oblong with any school-based doodles that come to mind. A blackboard! An attentive pupil behind a desk! Some test-tubes, because they're piss easy to draw! A, er, gramophone? This is the sort of demented artistry that makes us want to get on eBay and pointlessly waste another few Paypalled fivers on aged listings magazines. And surely, surely, all of these old schools programmes should be somewhere in the public domain by now? They were usually shot on film, so they must exist somewhere, surely? We really want to see that episode of Looking At Television. Oh, it's meant to be a microscope!



Well, it's time to reveal the identity of the mysterious programme icon from earlier in the update. Consumer show? Political discussion show? Tiny people with spatulas? Well, it turns out you were miles off, as it was in fact...

Yep, the Nickel-Arsed Parsons, and The Quiz Of The Week! What the bloody hell? What on earth does that have to do with... oh, to hell with it.

More confusingly inaccurate late-1970s TV Times genre-icon japery soon, readers!

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