Dates Of TOTP themes/Logos

[Scott Hunter]

hey, i was curious to know the dates that each theme was first shown and last shown,
for example i know the last 'new' logo/theme was from 28-Nov-2003 and last shown on the weekly show 23-Jul-2006
It would be interesting to to find out the dates of all of the logos the show had over the years.

Cheers!

[Mark Leech]

Here are a few to be going on with.......

9-7-81: 'Yellow Pearl' by Phil Lynott debuted as the TOTP theme tune, complete with the flying records title sequence. The classic round logo remained.

5-5-83: A revised version of the flying records title sequence makes it's debut.

3-4-86: 'The Wizard' by Paul Hardcastle debuted as the TOTP theme, with a brand new logo (the classic round logo retired after 13 years).

5-1-89: A new title sequence makes it's debut - 'The Wizard' remains as the theme tune.

3-10-91: 'Get Out Of That' by Tony Gibber makes it's debut as the new theme tune, complete with title sequence and logo.

2-2-95: 'Red Hot Pop' by Erasure's Vince Clarke becomes the new theme tune, complete with a new logo and title sequence.

1-5-98: A reworking of 'Whole Lotta Love', this time by Bad Man Bad (Ben Chapman), becomes the new theme, complete with new logo and titles.

For a few weeks in 1997, the logo was changed to just the TOTP 'lozenge' (similar to the first TOTP2 logo).


Regards

Mark

[Scott Hunter]

Thanks Mark!! Thats brill, the 1991 era, i thought that it was in the October when the big relaunch was? when it moved to Elstree.
Thanks for the info!!

ScOTT

[Pete Seaton]

Marks " 0 " button isnt working its 03/10/91

[Pete Seaton]

01/01/64 First theme Percussion Piece by Bobby Midgley

05/01/65 : Viariation of percussion piece / Logo a la pipecleaners

20/01/66 to 13/11/69 : Show moved to London and the titles are new

27/11/69 : First colour and Rank styled titles

05/11/70 : Whole lotta love "arrangement" by CCS

04/10/73 to 02/07/81 : from the 500th the classic round logo

09/07/81 to March 1986 : updated classic round round logo

[Scott Hunter]

Cheers Pete! looking on the logos page on the totp2 site, there is a blue and pink neon logo and it says it was used briefly in 1972, do any of these shows exsist, and does these titles still exist.
does the first ever titles exist anywhere, i know the end credits from the elections in 1964 exist somewhere. ?

[Deleted]

The first titles do exist of a 1964 edition (as tagged on to the recording of another show - the rest of the edition is missing). There is discussion of this in another TOTP thread here somewhere...

[Steve Williams]

Feb 28, 2009 17:20:30 GMT Mark Leech said:

3-10-91: 'Get Out Of That' by Tony Gibber makes it's debut as the new theme tune, complete with title sequence and logo.

2-2-95: 'Red Hot Pop' by Erasure's Vince Clarke becomes the new theme tune, complete with a new logo and title sequence.

1-5-98: A reworking of 'Whole Lotta Love', this time by Bad Man Bad (Ben Chapman), becomes the new theme, complete with new logo and titles.

For a few weeks in 1997, the logo was changed to just the TOTP 'lozenge' (similar to the first TOTP2 logo).

Yes, that new title sequence with the logo simply saying "TOTP" was introduced, I think, in about October 1996, but after about two shows they brought the old one back. They did however continue to use the end of the sequence for the copyright logo at the end of the show until May 1998. I don't know why they changed it, but I didn't like it, especially as there's no point in abbreviating it to TOTP as it's no quicker to say than Top of the Pops.

When Ric Blaxill took over in February 1994, the opening titles and Tony Gibber theme were re-edited and were much shorter than before. From June 1997, the Vince Clarke theme was dropped, the opening titles played over the intro of the first track (although they still used the theme a couple of times until October when the first track didn't have a long enough intro). When the show went widescreen in October 2001, the old titles were still used with a dodgy widescreen bodge - new updated titles (the same logo and theme but with different animation) arrived on the Christmas show that year.