This tape opens with the end of an episode of City Lights.

There’s an advert for the Radio Times. Other TV Listing Magazines are available.

Thenm The RKO Story – It’s All True. It looks at Orson Welles’ career at RKO, and opens with him apologizing for his infamous War of the Worlds broadcast. He looks so young (as, indeed, he was).

This is a very interesting documentary, helped by the access they have to the RKO archive. There’s a look at Welles’ innovations, as Linwood Dunn explains how he had to invent special effects shots to add to the footage already shot. Welles would have loved CGI.

The programme also looks at Welles’ famous lost film, It’s All True, which was supposed to be a film shot in South America, to promote Pan-American harmony now that the US was part of the second World War. But the studio didn’t like what Welles was shooting – and there’s some fairly racist memos sent about the film.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 24th July 1987 – 21:30

Recording switches, and there’s the end of Payment in Kind.

Then, Talking Heads Talking Video, in which David Byrne talks about some of his pop videos. It’s introduced by John Peel.

Here’s all the interview bits minus the actual videos (as they would probably get taken down by YouTube anyway).

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 5th August 1987 – 17:30

Then recording switches to the last episode in The RKO Story – Howard ‘s Way. This looks at the demise of the studio, following its purchase by millionaire arms manufacturer and inventor Howard Hughes. This whole episode is a frankly gob-smacking parade of actresses who were in some way abused by Hughes – whether it was assuming they would date him because he held their contracts, to refusing to let them make movies while under contract because they wouldn’t sleep with him.

There’s even a story told by Stewart Granger about when Hughes bought his wife Jean Simmons’ contract. “I suddenly realised that Howard Hughes, instead of wanting this lovely actress to make films for RKO, just wanted to screw her. It becomes such a thing that I said to Jean one night ‘This guy’s going to ruin our life, ruin our marriage, We’ve got to kill him.'” And then describes the way they planned to carry it out. Imagine how vile a person must be that a hugely famous actor is happy to admit that he considered killing him.

I would say that all this is astonishing, but the only astonishing thing is that somebody didn’t kill him. Woman after woman describes his behaviour towards her, and it’s always vile. But we know how millionaires behave now. And for all his supposed inventive genius, Hughes ran the studio into the ground.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 7th August 1987 – 21:30

After this, there’s a trailer for Citizen Kane, and then the start of Newsnight leading with a large drop in the Stock Market.

That recording stops, and underneath there’s an older recording, part of a movie, The Set-Up. The tape ends during this.

This tape opens with some slalom racing in the WInter Olympics.

There’s dramatic news from Manchester, as a fire in the studio has caused a recording of A Question of Sport to be cancelled.

After this, there’s a trailer for Review.

Then, we have Tutti Frutti – 6: A Wop Boppa Loo-Bop A Wop Bam Boom. I’ve looked at this episode on another recording – you can tell I liked this show by the fact I even recorded the repeats. And yes, I did watch this again. Well, it’s got Emma Thompson in it, how could I not?

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 27th February 1988 – 21:00

After this, we switch to later that same evening, for A Chinese Ghost Story. This is A frankly bonkers Hong Kong action movie, quite beautiful in places, with that very 80s/90s aesthetic – all heavy backlighting, blue filters, wind machines and so many flying leaves.

it tells the story of a young tax collector who stays in a haunted temple.

The swordsman defending the temple against ghosts.

There’s zombies of a sort

And beautiful ghost who’s creating the zombies at first, but she’s under the control of an evil power. The Tax Collector falls in love with her, and tries to break the spell.

This is a lot of fun, especially towards the end, there the battle against evil becomes rather epic, as our heroes are fighting against the giant tongue of the evil spirit.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 27th February 1988 – 22:10

There’s a look ahead at next week’s films.

Then BBC2 closes down.

Dear Reader,

I’d like you to imagine something. Imagine someone had been a Doctor Who viewer (and a passive fan – I don’t tend to join fan clubs, Dennis the Menace excepted) for as long as he could remember. In fact, further back – my earliest memory of Doctor Who is, I believe, from one of the lost Patrick Troughton Dalek stories. I properly fell in love with the show during the Pertwee era, and watched through most of Tom Baker’s reign. I even enjoyed a lot of Peter Davison’s stories.

Now imagine a world where there is no way of watching Doctor Who except when it’s shown on TV. No tapes to buy. My computer was a BBC Micro, which wasn’t really up to streaming video.

So, with this world in your mind, imagine how excited I was, because I had bought a video recorder, and there was a brand new series of Doctor Who starting soon after. What thrills. And I could tape it, and watch it as many times as I wanted. That kind of power could set me up amongst the Gods!

All this background should explain, especially to Who fans who know the show’s history, why this first outing for Doctor Who in this new recordable, rewatchable world was, frankly, a bit of a disappointment.

This is the first episode of Colin Baker’s first full season, but not his first story. That was The Twin Dilemma, shown as the last story in the previous season, and I would have been at University when that went out. I think I probably didn’t watch it, as I had no memory of it when I first watched the VHS. I told you I was a bad fan.

For me, the whole idea of having the Doctor behaving erratically, even dangerously, after regeneration, irreparably damaged Baker’s whole era. It was hard to like him, and with Peri seemingly hating every minute of being there (not without reason) there’s no real avenue for any empathy with the character. It’s really frustrating, especially in retrospect, knowing how much Baker loved playing the character and how hard he still works. And knowing how smart Nicola Bryant is, and what a good comic actress she could be, to see her wasted here as a miserable, cowering character whose sole function is to ask the Doctor what’s happening. Well, that’s clearly not her sole purpose in the show, but that’s another reason to dislike the production for being so basic.

But is there anything to enjoy about this story? Well possibly. For one thing, there’s Maurice Colbourne, returning as Commander Lytton, from a previous story, Resurrection of the Daleks. Here he’s planning a diamond heist.

One of his gang is Brian Glover, so that’s great too. In fact, this part of the story, as they’re getting ready for their heist, has the feel of one of those hard as nails 70s crime dramas. The effect is heightened by these scenes being shot on 16mm film rather than videotape, making them more ‘filmy’.

Another of his gang is played by Terry Molloy, who played Davros several times (including Resurrection).

Lytton has a peculiar machine, which sends a distress call, which is picked up by The Doctor.

One aspect of this story that is double-edged is the amount of references back to older stories. There’s Lytton, of course, then there’s this reference – the sign reads I.M. Foreman, 76 Totters Lane and refers to the junkyard where we first saw the Tardis in the show’s very first episode. It’s just a shame all they could manage was that tiny sign, and not the wooden gates the sign was originally painted on.

There’s also a running joke about the Doctor having tried to fix the Tardis’ chameleon circuit, so it keeps changing into other inappropriate things.

This story takes a very long time to get the Doctor actually into the story, so we get a lot of him and Peri walking up and down the same bit of street waving his signal detector, while Lytton and his gang bicker underground arguing about whether they are in the right place. And there’s a pair of odd looking policemen watching The Doctor and Peri.

Look! Canonical proof that the Tardis is controlled by a BBC Micro. That’s BBC Basic right there.

Another change for the Tardis

One of Lytton’s men is killed by an unseen assailant. In very low resolution.

Remember when Doctor Who came back in 2005? Russell T Davies said that one of his rules was to avoid a human pointing a gun at another human. Script Editor of this series, Eric Saward, who is claimed to be the uncredited co-writer of this episode, didn’t have this rule.

We finally get to the meat of the story, as Lytton and his men encounter the Cybermen. This shot is quite dramatic, despite being shot on video. And Lytton hands his gun to the Cyber Leader and gives himself up as a prisoner, which was clearly his plan all along. These episodes are 45 minutes long, but this is definitely structured as a cliffhanger point – albeit a weaker one because it’s harder to care about bad guys in danger.

Unfortunately, this is where the story starts getting a bit bogged down in its use of history. Lytton talks to the Cyber Leader to persuade him he’s on their side, and they talk about the Cyber Controller, and the fact he’s on Telos – all of this means plenty to long-time fans, but to the casual viewer (that was me at the time, certainly) it’s all a bit confusing. But it lets the episode cut to the planet Telos itself, where a gang of apparent humans are working on a chain gang. There’s an escape attempt, and some violent Cyberman beheading.

The escapees want to get into the Cybermen’s HQ, which is where the Cyber Controller is – you can tell he’s important by the lump on his head, and his lack of handles. He’s played by Michael Kilgarrif, who first played the Cyber Controller in Tomb of the Cybermen, a Patrick Troughton story generally believed (at this time) to be one of the greatest ever stories, but which was lost from the archive. It was actually recovered, quite surprisingly, in the 90s, although strangely, having it available to watch has slightly tarnished its legendary reputation. You know how fans are.

More violence, as the Doctor stabs a Cyberman with his sonic lance. They didn’t mind this Doctor getting his hands very dirty.

The Cybermen do like crushing people. When Brian Glover makes a quip (one of the few actual jokes in this rather dour story) the Cyber Leader squashes his head to punish him.

Lytton tells the Cybermen that it’s the Doctor who’s after them – being familiar with him from the previous story. So now they want to capture the Tardis. They must have moved fast because the Doctor, Peri and Russell, one of Lytton’s men who turns out to be an undercover police officer, are all outside the Cyberman HQ, heading back to the Tardis, but when they get there, there are Cybermen already inside (I guess when your Tardis is shaped like a pipe organ there’s no keyhole to lock it).

Another quite shocking moment of violence, as Russell shoots a Cyberman point blank in the face. This isn’t particularly a new thing, though. Back in 1983 for The Five Doctors there’s an infamous scene of a troop of Cybermen being destroyed similarly violently, so I guess that’s just what you do with Cybermen. But still, point blank.

Then we get the actual cliffhanger to this episode, and rightly, it’s Peri who’s about to be killed – the standard cliffhanger setup for when you can’t think of anything original.

BBC Genome: BBC One – 5th January 1985 – 17:20

Into the next episode, and the Doctor stops Peri being killed by shouting “Wait!” Then he sets a countdown which will self destruct the Tardis. That BBC Micro bitmap font is unmistakable. The script of my teenage years.

Meanwhile, on Telos, the two escapees plan to get into Cyber Control with one of them disguised as a Cyberman.

There’s more exposition, establishing that Telos isn’t the Cybermen’s original planet, it was taken over and the indigenous Cryons destroyed, so the Cybermen could take refuge in their refrigerated cities and hibernate. Telos was where Tomb of the Cybermen was set. But when Peri asked why the Cybermen needed another planet, and what happened to their home planet, the Doctor gets a bit quiet. He has to tell them that Mondas attacked Earth, and was destroyed. Except that happens in 1986. And was a William Hartnell story. The timeline of all this is a bit confusing, even given the Cybermen have a time vessel of their own, even before the Tardis.

On Telos, in the tombs, the Cybermen appear to have decayed somewhat, so there’s zombie Cybermen marauding around.

After an attack by one such, the cast is split up. Lytton and Glover meet some Cryons, not all dead, and we learn that Lytton has been working on their behalf all this time.

Peri also meets some Cryons. One of them is played by Sarah Greene. I remember being rather underwhelmed by the Cryons – too much bubble wrap, although use of bubble wrap is a proud Doctor Who tradition. They explain to Peri that the Cybermen’s plan is to leave Telos, destroy the planet, then destroy Earth, thus changing history and saving Mondas.

On the surface, Lytton meets the two escapees we’ve been watching from episode one. They are ‘failed’ cybermen, with robotic limbs, but without the final processing.

Even the Doctor meets another Cryon – for a genocided race, they get around. This one is Flast, who has been locked in a vault with some frozen explosive. She’s played by impressionist Faith Brown. She wants to blow up Cyber Control with the explosive, by heating it up with the Doctor’s Sonic Lance.

Lytton is tortured by the Cybermen – more violence, and actual blood this time.

The Time Vessel approaches the base. They’re still shooting their model effects on film, so this doesn’t look bad.

There’s lots of fighting, lots of characters die, and the Doctor gets a pang of conscience when he learns Lytton has been working for the Cryons, so he tries to rescue him from Cyberisation.

There’s a big shootout, and once again, the Doctor’s not shy of shooting Cybermen.

And once the Tardis leaves, the Sonic Lance heats up the explosive and the whole of Cyber Control blows up.

I think the problems I had with this at the time still remain. It has all the structural problems the show has always had – lack of money for costumes, studio scenes shot multi-camera meaning action scenes look stagey and unconvincing. But this wouldn’t matter so much if the characters resonated or the story gripped. But this story just seems to want to kill lots of people, and there’s almost no attempt at humour. I know that some Who fans have a problem with humour in the show, but I’m definitely not one of them – one of my favourite classic stories is City of Death (Fake Mona Lisas, set in Paris) which was written by Douglas Adams and then producer Graham Williams. I didn’t know who Adams was at the time – I think I only discovered The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy after it, but it clearly perfectly suited my comic tendencies. And that kind of writing adds so much to the show at no additional production cost.

In contrast, Eric Saward’s grim and gritty style didn’t suit me nearly as well, so I never really enjoyed this era. Still, you can’t like everything, especially Doctor Who.

BBC Genome: BBC One – 12th January 1985 – 17:20

After this, it’s over to Channel 4 for an episode of St Elsewhere – Rough Cut. It’s towards the end of season two, so a lot of storylines are playing out. Dr White (Terence Knox) has been removed from his previous position by Dr Westphall, and isn’t happy about it. The tense tenor people’s reactions to him here are because earlier in the series, he’d been accused of rape by another of the doctors, but was found not guilty at the trial. Viewers know it was him, though, as the attack was featured in a previous episode, which is a good way to let the show demonstrate how the justice system often fails victims.

Dr Caldwell (Mark Harmon) is getting ready for a trip to Europe when he gets his tackle stuck in a zipper. Always wear Y-Fronts, boys.

Dr Armstrong (Kim Miyori) is having trouble handling a decision she made that resulting in the death of a baby. And Nurse Rosenthal talks to her, learning that she’s suffering from Bulimia.

The senior staff are having to decide which of the first year residents will be kept on for the second year.

Dr Fiscus is persuaded by a newspaper photographer to pose for a section about Boston’s most eligible bachelors. Do you think he might regret it?

Dr White’s one remaining friend is Dr Morrison (David Morse). White rails at him about how he’s been stuck in this dingy office and had his responsibilities reduced, and it’s all the women’s fault. This is pretty spot on writing.

In ER, a drug overdose is brought in and there’s shock as it’s Dr Armstrong. They try to resuscitate her but are unable to.

Dr Fiscus’ profile appears in the newspaper. He’s not too unhappy about it, and his colleagues give him a good-natured ribbing for it, but at least he might get some dates out of it. Unfortunately, the only people who seem to be interested in him are men.

And the episode ends with the surviving residents drinking to their next year, including Dr Morrison, who only got through because Dr Armstrong died.

After this, the recording continues with an odd programme. It’s the first in what was a series of programmes explaining what happened that day in the big court case of the day, Regina vs Ponting. Clive Ponting was a civil servant, accused of breaking the official secrets act by passing classified documents about the sinking of the Argentinian ship the General Belgrano, to MP Tam Dalyell. This had originally been planned to be performed by actors reading transcripts, but the judge in the case made a ruling forbidding that, so in this version, the transcripts are read by retired newsreaders, and therefore is simply a news report. Among the newsreaders is Kenneth Kendall

and Robert Dougall

Like most court cases, this is fairly dry, but as a historical oddity, I thought it was worth including. I don’t expect it to be one of my more popular videos.

After this, a look at programmes on Tuesday.

Then the tape ends.

As an extra treat, here’s the ads that were shown around St Elsewhere. Some classics here, including Roy Kinnear in Peterborough, a short version of the Maxell Tapes ad (plus a Maxell Video Tape ad) and the Renault 25 classic ‘Bob’s with me, and we’ve got the backing.’ featuring Rosalind Landor.

Adverts:

This tape opens with the end of an episode of Kiss Me Kate.

There’s a trailer for The Spice Girls at the National Lottery Draw. Also for a drama, Close Relations.

Then, we have My Summer with Des. It’s a comedy drama by Arthur Smith based on his stage play about the summer of 96, and the European Men’s Football Championship.

It starts with Neil Morrissey in France, as they prepare for the 1998 World Cup. He sports an ill-advised moustache and goes into a reverie as he remembers, all those years ago, when football came home. Well, two years ago.

Flashback to 96 And Morrissey is called into the boss’s office. His boss is played by Graeme Garden. I’m guessing this location was very noisy, as the dialogue in this scene is very obviously re-recorded.

He quits his job, and goes drinking with two random Dutch supporters. It’s nice to see the positive, social side of football for once.

He meets his friends Barbara and Cameron, played by Arabella Weir and John Gordon Sinclair.

Rachel Weisz overhears their conversation and comes over, saying that she’s slept with Eric Cantona. Then walks away. She’s a bit too ‘perfect woman attracted to schlubby loser’ so I think there’s a narrative conceit going on here. It’s all a bit Fight Club.

He’s still getting over breaking up from his girlfriend Anna (Tilly Blackwood). She’s not painted in the best of lights in this, but you can’t help thinking she was right to break up. Here’s how he imagines his meeting her to talk after the breakup.

And here’s the reality.

The film uses a mixture of actual commentary from the tournament and some specially shot bits of dialogue from Lynam himself.

There’s a few cameos dotted around. That’s Ned Sherrin at the window when Morrissey is singing at his ex-girlfriend’s flat.

And at the end, after England lose on penalties, he visits a pub, where the barman is played by Tony Selby.

And David Seaman is the only other person in the bar.

I enjoyed this, despite Morrissey’s character being about as hopeless as his Men Behaving Badly. It does underline something to me, though – watching several penalty shoot-outs, even knowing the outcome, is a very tense experience, and I genuinely don’t think I could bear doing that regularly. I’m regularly in pieces watching my fictional adventures, so I just don’t think I’m emotionally equipped to care so much about stuff that actually happens.

BBC Genome: BBC One – 25th May 1998 – 21:00

There’s an inevitable trailer for the World Cup featuring Gary Lineker. There’s also a trailer for programmes on Friday.

After this, the recording continues for a lot of the tape, so there’s a full BBC news bulletin, leading with the preparations for the visit of the Japanese Emperor, and the anger of former Prisoners of War.

BBC Genome: BBC One – 25th May 1998 – 22:20

There’s a trailer for Crimewatch File and for Out of Hours featuring Dominic West and Toby Jones.

Then, there’s almost the entirety of The Golden Child, which I’m tempted to watch, but I do have a recording of it on another tape, so I’ll wait for that one.

When this recording stops, there’s an older one underneath, with the end of The Glass Bottomed Boat, which stars Doris Day and Rod Taylor.

Looking at the Genome listing for that day (BBC Two – 9th May 1998 – 14:20) it looks like the thing I actually recorded was Caprice and I’m wondering why I taped over it. Possibly because it wasn’t Charade and I had taped the wrong film.

There’s trailers for Aviators and for Fan Night (more football).

Then the tape ends during an episode of the Western series The Virginian. This definitely reminds me of weekend afternoons when I was younger, as there seemed to be an endless parade of Westerns – this one, Alias Smith and Jones, The High Chaparral (which is not, as I thought for years, a name for a fort or big ranch, but for a type of grass or shrub.)

Here’s a tape from Sky One with a bunch of South Park episodes starting with the very first one – Cartman Gets an Anal Probe.

Which we’ve seen before.

Next it’s Weight Gain 4000 which features Cartman gaining weight, and the visit to the town of Kathy Lee Gifford, and her attempted assassination by teacher Mr Garrison

The next episode is An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig. The kids have an elephant and want to splice it with a pig.

Next, another episode we’ve seen before, Death in which Stan’s Grandpa wishes he was dead, and the town protest the kids’ favourite TV show Terrence and Philip.

Another repeat is Pinkeye, a Halloween episode.

Next it’s over to Channel 4 for another episode, Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride, which guest starred George Clooney as a dog.

And after this, because Channel 4 is behind Sky One, a repeat showing of An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig

After this, the recording continues with the start of a programme called Strike a Pose.

After a bit of this, the recording stops, and underneath there’s a bit of the Sky One show The Movie Show presented by Richard Jobson.

Then, after that, there’s the very start of an episode of VR5, the weird Virtual Reality show starring Lori Singer. The tape ends shortly into this.

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First on today’s tape is an episode of Film 86 in which Barry Norman looks at the following films:

• After Hours
• Lady Jane
• The Delta Force
• To Live and Die in L.A.
• The Clan of the Cave Bear

There’s a report on Women in Film, by Tom Brook.

There’s also a short look at the filming of the car chase in To Live and Die in LA (or To Live and Let Die in LA as Barry calls it in his introduction).

BBC Genome: BBC One – 27th May 1986 – 23:00

After this, recording switches to Channel 4 and Cheers – Diane Chambers Day. This is now Season 4, so we’ve lost Coach, as Nicholas Colasanto died during the film of the previous series, and he’s been replaced by Woody Harrelson as Woody Boyd. I was skeptical about bringing in another ‘dumb’ character, but Woody turned out to be a great addition.

After Diane is upset that the rest of the gang didn’t invite her round to Sam’s to watch The Magnificent Seven, Frasier suggests they make it up to her by taking Diane to the Opera. “These seats aren’t even bolted down. That’s class.”

After the Opera, Sam and Diane start smooching, but in the end Diane thinks it’s better not to sleep together that night.

In the next episode, Relief Bartender, it seems that Sam isn’t trying very hard to win over Diane.

Sam tells people that what Cheers needs is him acting as a Host/Manager.

His big booking is a whole Caribou lodge – which turns out to be three people.

The whole thing is not working, so Sam now has to fire the new bartender he hired. Made rather more difficult when he brings his young family to meet Sam.

Sam can’t fire Ken, so he has to try to fire Woody.

Then Ken comes to tell Sam that he’s just been offered a great new job by someone in the bar, so Sam has to apologise to Woody, and offer him his job back. He even offers him $100 a month raise. But when he tries to walk it back a bit, Woody says “I’ll tell ya. I think 100 a month is too steep. I’ll settle for $30 a week.” Sam says “You got it.” straightens his tie, “Host slash Manager extraordinaire.”

The next episode is Strange Bedfellows (Part 1 of 3). Frasier is glum as it’s the anniversary of being dumped at the altar.

A local politician, Janet Eldridge (Kate Mulgrew) makes a campaign stop at Cheers. After flirting with Sam, when she leaves, her campaign manager (David Paymer) gives Sam her private number.

Sam starts dating Janet, and Diane is convinced that she’s only dating Sam because he’s a local celebrity and will encourage votes. She confronts Janet, who admits that she did start dating Sam for more political reasons, but she’s fallen for him quite heavily.

On election day, Janet’s opposition, Jim Fleener, is a bit despondent. the “WIM WITH JIM” slogan was Diane’s idea. “It’s very Joycean.”

The episode ends with Janet thanking Sam at the podium and kissing him. As he leaves, Fleener says “That was my last chance. Looks like I blew it.” And Diane says “Me too.” I did cry, despite Sam and Diane being the least compatible couple in the history of everything.

Before the next episode there’s the end of an episode of What Do Those Old Films Mean?

Then, the second part of this three part season finale, Strange Bedfellows (Part 2 of 3). Sam and Janet are still dating, and Diane is still jealous. She gets annoyed at his name-dropping, but when Gary Hart (one-time potential presidential candidate) pops into the bar to return Sam’s coat, which he left in his car, she gets just as ridiculously star struck.

Diane is closing up the bar when Sam and Janet return, and she hides as they discuss her. Janet is worried about Diane working with Sam given their history, and asks him to fire her.

So Diane decides to quit. By letter. “Does this mean you’re quitting?” “Isn’t that what it clearly states on page 5?”

And the episode ends with Diane storming out, saying “You will never ever see me again”. Then has to try to get her coat from the coat-stand.

And if you’re wondering about the last part of this trilogy, that came up way back in 2016.

After this, the recording continues, with quite a lot of an episode of Budgie, the cheeky, chirpy comedy crime show starring Adam Faith and Iain Cuthbertson.

The tape ends during this programme.

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• Budweiser
• trail: Newhart
• The Color Purple in cinemas
• Dry Blackthorn Cider
• Our Price – Dance Hits
• Allied
• Campari – Lorraine Chase
• trail: The Cosby Show
• Pimm’s
• BP
• Hofmeister
• trail: Kit Curran
• Our Price – Samantha Fox – Touch Me
• Pimm’s
• DIckins and Jones
• Ribena
• Renault 5
• Fosters – Paul Hogan
• Allied
• trail: Equinox
• Milton Keynes
• Budweiser
• Amplex
• Louis Marcel Strip Wax
• Mateus
• Heinz Ploughman’s Piccalilli
• Allied
• Pedigree Chum

On this tape, some episodes from Season 3 of Cheers starting with Teacher’s Pet. Sam has decided to complete his High School Diploma so he’s taking Geography at night school. Coach says he’ll do it with him. “I was missing couple of those whatyamacallits?” “Units?” “No, years, Diane.” Coach is the best.

Diane learns that Sam is the teacher’s favourite, and getting good grades because of it. So she goes in to his office to tell him off about it, but he already knows it’s wrong, so she’s unable to rebuke him. “Stop slouching. Look what’s happened to your posture.”

I do love this episode. Coach’s method for learning is to sing songs with the facts. “Albania. Albania. You border on the Adriatic. Your land is mostly mountainous and your chief export is chrome.” It must work because I can still recite all of that from memory.

I also like the tag at the end, where Sam gets to feel superior over Diane because she gets the capital of North Dakota wrong, and everyone laughs at her. I particularly love her last line. “If ignorance is bliss, this is Eden.”

The next episode – The Mail Goes to Jail – sees Cheers in the grip of a cold snap, and the heating isn’t working. Cliff is feeling lousy, but won’t take sick leave. “Its a matter of principle with me. I’ve got to be on the verge of death before I take sick leave.” Carla: “I thought you used it all up to go to Florida?” Cliff: “You got a problem with that?”

Norm offers to take the few letters left, as they are on his way home, but he’s picked up by the police. Cliff tells the cop “I asked him to” and when the cop tells him he’s out of a job, he says “Excuse me officer, you interrupted me before I could finish. I asked him to quit following me. The guy, I had him pegged as a sociopath right away. He’s a frustrated mailman. We call it Postal Envy.”

There’s a subplot where Diane gets trapped in the heating duct under the floor. This is entirely played for laughs, but this would terrify me.

Norm gets out of jail and he’s not happy.

before the next episode there’s the end of an episode of Gardener’s Calendar.

The next episode is Bar Bet. Michael Richards makes a pre-Kramer appearance as a man who Sam met a year ago, when he was back on the bottle after breaking up with Diane, and who Sam bet that he would be married to Jacqueline Bissett in a year. He even has a signed piece of paper to this effect.

So a plan is hatched to find a single woman somewhere in America called Jacqueline Bissett, and persuade her to marry Sam. They find a young woman and bring her to Cheers on the pretext she’s won a competition.

She’s understandably reluctant but agrees in the end. They get a Justice of the Peace whose wife has just had a child. His part is tiny, and yet his line “…and father of the miracle baby” has stuck with me. It’s the strange little things that you remember.

Before the next episode, there’s a bit of Great Plant Collections.

In the next episode, Behind Every Great Man, Sam wants to date a reporter from a magazine, but his usual chat-ups don’t cut it, so he has to fall back onto stuff Diane has said. This leads, through one of those conversations where the subject they’re discussing is never stated, to Diane believing that Sam has invited her on a date for the weekend, when in fact he was asking her to tend the bar while he’s gone. Which in turn leads to embarrassment when the two women both turn up with luggage, waiting for Sam. Poor Diane.

Before the next episode, another taste of Gardener’s Calendar.

Finally on this tape, If Ever I Would Leave You. Carla’s horrible Ex Nick is back, having been thrown out by his new wife Loretta, who’s taken everything because he signed a pre-nuptial agreement. She’s gone on tour with a popular singing group, The Grinning Americans. So Nick comes to Cheers, and tries to wear Carla down so she’ll take him back. All the men in this show (Coach excepted) are awful, but they’re also very funny, and Dan Hedaya gives a great performance.

Jean Kasem is also always great as Loretta. When she returns at the end to beg Nick to take her back (YOU CAN DO SO MUCH BETTER!) her parting line is great. “This is one American who’s going to have trouble grinning on stage tonight.”

After this, the recording continues for a bit with the start of a programme called Breaking the Silence. The tape ends during this.

Just one thing to mention in the ad breaks. There’s a trailer for Watch The Woman, a programme for women, which has just the faintest whiff of patronisation. Plus are we only allowed to watch one woman at a time? Like a BBC Panel show? I don’t think I ever saw the show, it could easily have been great, but this trailer doesn’t sell it for me.

Adverts:

• Hygena
• trail: The Irish RM
• Tonino
• Out Now!
• Renault 11
• Exchange & Mart
• Englebert Humperdinck at the Royal Albert Hall
• trail: The Great Plant Collections
• Bug Gun – Robbie Coltrane Ron Bain
• Jobmate
• Piat D’Or
• trail: Wanda
• Tonino
• Exchange & Mart
• Clairol Glints
• Sealy Posturepedic
• Turtle Wax
• trail: Gardener’s Calendar
• Sealy Posturepedic
• Cuprinol
• trail: Man About the House
• Scritti Politti – Cupid & Psyche 85
• Tonino
• Tendale
• Coca Cola
• Vauxhall Nova
• Marc Bolan and T Rex
• Bird’s Eye Cod Steaks in Wafer-Light
• Sting – The Dream of the Blue Turtles
• trail: The Paul Hogan Show
• Exchange & Mart
• Tesco Superstore
• Castlemaine XXXX – Steve Bisley
• Alpen
• Ghoulies in cinemas
• trail: Tandoori Nights
• trail: Planet Football
• Heinz Tomato Ketchup
• RAC
• Adidas
• Rank Xerox
• Lamot
• Melody Maker
• Sofa Bed Factory
• trail; Watch the Woman

This tape opens with Yes Minister – Party Games. I’m missing the very start of this episode, which is the last of the series. MP Jim Hacker is struggling with the French government being unhappy with the formulation of British sausages.

Meanwhile, Sir Humphrey is wheedling his way into a new position, Chief Cabinet Secretary.

Again, given current news, of course there’s an inopportune car journey, as Hacker drives home after the Christmas party.

He gets a mild rebuke, but he gets off lightly compared to the Home Secretary. “He caused a lorry to overturn. It was full of nuclear waste. Then he rebounded from the lorry into a private car. It was being driven by the editor of a local newspaper.”

There’s excitement at home as it’s announced on the news that the Prime Minister is resigning, in order to let his successor bed in before the next General Election. The rumour is that he hated the Home Secretary, so he was just waiting until there was no chance he would succeed him before he resigned. Hacker doesn’t know which of the candidates he should support, either the Chancellor or the Foreign Secretary.

The Chancellor is played by Peter Jeffrey

But the two main candidates are both very divisive, each appealing to one extreme of the party from the other. So Sir Humphrey and the outgoing Cabinet Secretary wonder if a more middle-ground candidate might be better. One who’s more pliable. Bernard asks him whether he’d prefer to be Foreign Secretary or Chancellor, but neither job appeals. But Bernard suggests he might “Be the one who takes all the credit.” “You don’t mean…? You DO mean…”

With a judicious use of MI-5 files on the other two candidates, he manages to get them both to withdraw, and put their support behind his candidacy. But he needs something public to raise his public profile. So he calls in the EEC minister to ask about them wanting to stop sausages being called sausages just because they don’t contain enough meat. The EEC minister is played by André Maranne, familiar from the Pink Panther movies.

They agree to a compromise, that they can call it the British Sausage, so all Hacker has to do is leak to the reporters that the EEC is going to ban the sausage, make a big speech about how he’s not going to stand for it, and he’ll fight for the British Sausage, and his profile is suddenly a lot higher.

He even appears on TV, interviewed by Ludovic Kennedy.

Then there’s the nervous wait to see if any other candidates will come forward to fight the leadership election, and Sir Humphrey receives the fateful telephone call. “Is it…? Am I…?” asks Hacker. Sir Humphrey replies “Yes, Prime Minister.”

This is still a lot of fun although it’s rather sobering that our current (a the time of writing) Prime Minister is someone who spent a lot of his early career writing completely fake news stories about the EU, and got to where he is through bashing the EU. These programmes were not supposed to be ‘How Tos’.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 17th December 1984 – 20:30

After this, recording switches to LWT and an episode of The Beiderbecke Affair, It’s actually the last episode in the series, which was on an earlier tape, but it’s quite some time since I watched that. The local election is happening, and Jill Swinburne (Barbara Flynn) is standing as a Green candidate, helped by her boyfriend and fellow teacher Trevor Chaplin (James Bolam).

Detective Sergeant Hobson (Dominic Jephcott) is getting close to rooting out some corruption in the council, and also in the police service itself, int he form of Chief Superintendent Forrest (Colin Blakely).

Big Al, a local businessman and friend of Jill and Trevor, collects a lot of sworn affidavits from local people to give to Hobson. “Some of them are even true.”

It’s Election night. Jill gets 54 votes, while the other three candidates get almost the same number each. Not a big swing to the conservation party.

Coming home, Trevor and Jill find both their houses have been turned over by people presumably looking for the evidence that Hobson is collecting.

Forrest has been summoned to an interview with the Chief Constable. “I told you to catch thieves. I never expected you to do it. First time you ever get anything right, and I’m the one that’s nicked.” “Bang to rights, sir.”

The thing I love most about this series is the leisurely pace, and the low-key nature of any drama there is. And the moments of whimsy, like when Jill and Trevor take the day off to walk on the country. “Well we’ve looked at that view. What shall we do next?” “We should run down the hill in slow motion.” Just lovely.

After this, one of the few episodes of Spitting Image I have in my collection. This one is full of quite familiar sketches, but that’s probably because I would have watched it more than once, when I only had a handful of tapes. Plus, some of the sketches are classics, like the opener which has Thatcher and Leon Brittain discussing the comment an MP had made about ‘Bongo Bongo Land’. “We’ve got no room for racists in my party. We’re chock-a-block already.”

There’s also the sketch where she introduces “our first black minister, Cyril Perkinson,” a blacked-up Cecil Parkinson, then still disgraced for fathering an illegitimate child. Remember when that was a bad thing?

This episode has the running gag about the RS232 Interface Lead.

And it ends with the montage of hits based on the lead. I can still sing the Dolly Parton number. “That Interface Lead’s on fire, along with a photograph of you.”

And the version of Tosca which I’ve always loved, because it’s not only a great gag about Opera, but it’s also accurate about the RS232 Interface Lead.

Finally on this tape, I guess nostalgia overcame me as it’s the first episode of a new series of Grange Hill. It’s quite a pivotal episode as it sees Grange Hill merging with two other local schools, the rough Brookdale, and the posh Rodney Bennett. The Rodney Bennett pupils are not happy with the Grange Hill name outside their old building.

It’s interesting to watch this, as it’s an episode that’s doing an awful lot of work. It has to introduce a lot of new characters, while also establishing what kind of characters they are, and it doesn’t have much time to do so. And the children look so young.

They’re quick to introduce a new school bully, but this one, Trevor Cleaver, is a fairly typical bully, not really up to the level of Gripper Stebson.

The older kids are still there too – it’s the era of Zammo.

Possibly most significantly, this is the first appearance of Michael Sheard as Mr Bronson.

There’s a small subplot involving Gonch and his earphones with his walkman. In-ear earphones were the brand new thing, and it’s brought up at least three times during the episode. When his teacher sees him with them, she even says “RS20s, very impressive” to show that she’s the hip, happening teacher who knows what’s down with the kids. To this day, I have no idea if there was a ‘famous’ make of earphones at the time, or whether ‘RS20’ was a made up thing, this being the BBC and everything. I’m not hip enough to know.

One thing that definitely brought back school memories was the general chaos of the start of the school year. It’s amplified here, as the rather officious Mr Smart has to march his English class to the other building (because of the merger) only to find Mr Bronson is already in the room teaching French. We learn that the rooms in each building are both numbered 1-100, and are only differentiated in the timetable by the colour of the room number. I can totally believe someone would think this was a smart idea, if it saved them having to make a lot of new room numbers for the classroom doors.

Gonch manages to stand up to the bully.Always satisfying, if possibly unrealistic.

This was probably the only episode of this series I taped. I was 20 years old, so it was time I left shows like Grange Hill behind anyway.

BBC Genome: BBC One – 18th February 1985 – 17:35

After this, there’s a trailer for London Plus with Guy Michelmore and Sally Magnusson. Those rumours about BBC nepotism might have had something.

Then the recording ends, and underneath, from Thames, there’s the start of a children’s programme called ‘The Little Green Man’ narrated by Jon Pertwee. I don’t remember this one at all. It’s theme song isn’t as much of a banger as other shows of its era, I’m afraid.

The tape ends during this.

No adverts, despite having a few ITV shows. I was very sharp with the pause button in those days.

Back to the beginning again with another early tape.

First on this tape, Films Of The Year 1984. It’s always fun to see the films that were around, ones I’ve forgotten, and ones I can’t forget.

On Barry’s official list of the best of 1984 are:

• Under Fire
• The Right Stuff
• La balance
• Greystoke
• Splash
• Romancing the Stone
• Broadway Danny Rose
• Paris, Texas
• Once Upon a Time in America
• The Natural
• A Private Function
• The Killing Fields

BBC Genome: BBC One – 22nd December 1984 – 22:15

Next, recording switches to LWT for an episode of Space 1999 – All That Glisters. As I said when I looked at this episode from a later broadcast on Bravo, this was the first episode I was able to record of a show I loved as a child, and it was very sad that the story really wasn’t up to much. Even the inclusion of Patrick Mower as a guest star didn’t lift this out of the realm of the ordinary.

One thing I would say – when they discover that the magic rock that’s menacing them needs water, Alan says “They didn’t have to commandeer our Eagle” and Koenig says “Maybe it’s like humans. When they panic, they din’t think too well” and I can’t help thinking about the current (as I write) kerfuffle with government adviser Dominic Cummings who, when the whole country was in lockdown, decided, when he apparently believed both he and his wife were infected with Coronavirus, to get in a car with his wife and 4yo son, and travel 260 miles to his Parents’ farm, so that his niece could drop off some shopping. And that’s the kind of panicking I feel Koenig is talking about. I know I like drawing parallels with things that are happening today, but I can’t help it.

After this, the recording stops, and underneath there’s an older recording, the end of an old Hammer film, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb. It looks like this was recorded the day after FIlms of the Year, and I clearly didn’t want to keep it, and recorded Space 1999 over the top later. BBC Genome: BBC Two – 23rd December 1984 – 00:00

After this, BBC2 closes down, and that’s the end of this tape.

The adverts on these early tapes can be fun. There’s one for Marathon – back when the world was right – and one for Colgate Blue Minty Gel featuring Madness’ Baggy Trousers – but who is this young performer. I swear he was an actor as an adult, but I can’t quite place him. Any ideas?

Adverts:

• Creme Eggs
• Love Songs
• Weetabix
• Colgate Blue Minty Gel – Madness
• Cardata
• Bovril – Lewis Collins
• Wendy’s
• Marathon
• Batchelor’s Soup
• Coco Pops
• Colgate Blue Minty Gel – Madness
• St Ivel Shape
• British Telecom
• Topic
• Day Nurse
• Cardata
• trail: Saturday Night on LWT
• B+I Line
• Ever Ready
• Leeds Liquid Gold
• Flake
• Love Songs