The Today Show '76/Sex Pistols

[Simon Wells]

We're all familiar with the infamous clip of the Pistols vs Bill Grundy, and it's that portion of the show that's repeated fairly regularily. But what about the rest of the programme? As someone who watched it originally, few know that the Pistols were at the beginning of the programme as well. The question is: Does it survive in its entirity?

[Laurence Piper]

Yes, i'd like to know this too, Simon! There have been threads relating to this in the past although no one has seemed to know the answer.

[William Martin]

does anyone know the source of this clip, if it is from a docu then perhaps not

[H Hartley]

The Today Show was live and in those days would not have been recorded just for the sake of a future archive.
So perhaps the biggest mystery is WHY that Sex pistols
segment was recorded as basically it was a fill in item for the end of the programme?
Unless of course it was pre-recorded which opens up another can of worms?

[Laurence Piper]

I imagine that the show went out live but Thames made a PasB recording simultaneously, for whatever reason. However, if that was standard practice then does anybody know how many other Today editions have been retained in this way? If the answer to that question is "none" then why did the Pistols edition (or clip - we don't know) manage to slip through the net? Anyone Freemantle employees reading this that can say how many Today programmes survive?

[Clive]

I would guess that for a live news programme PasB's would have been made as standard, just in case of anything libellous being said which needed to be reviewed by the lawyers later, as happened on the Sex Pistols addition so I guess that is why this PasB survived. I also believe that Malcolm McLaren made an off-air recording of this broadcast, a clip of which was used in 'The Greatest Rock and Roll Swindle'

[Syd Van Vliet]

Guest-Clive said:

I would guess that for a live news programme PasB's would have been made as standard, just in case of anything libellous being said which needed to be reviewed by the lawyers later, as happened on the Sex Pistols addition so I guess that is why this PasB survived. I also believe that Malcolm McLaren made an off-air recording of this broadcast, a clip of which was used in 'The Greatest Rock and Roll Swindle'

The Grundy interview was not included in McLarens “Swindle” movie, actors recorded an audio version of the altercation whilst on screen there was a caption that read “Censored by Thames”.
Perhaps there is some confusion over the Thames and Granada appearances.
The “Swindle” clip of the Pistols live version of “Anarchy in the UK” is from Tony Wilson’s Granada show which must be a home recording. The original VT was used for C4‘s “Punk” compilation in 1991 and a small section was used on BBC’s R&R years 1976, but was this recording shown on Grundy’s “Today show” earlier in the programme???.

Other clips on “Swindle” also looked as though they had been home recorded such as Bob Warman’s Yorkshire TV interview “People are sick everywhere (McLaren).......you just want to commit suicide (Lydon)” and the HTV Wales(?) report on the religious group protesting outside in the freezing cold.

The Grundy interview IS included on Julian Temple’s Documentary film (quite shocking to see John Lydon breaking down at the end.)

[Simon Mclean]

The TV Hell segment devoted to this had the 'Today' adcap putting in an appearance, so maybe it survives from then onwards.

As for the rest of 'Today', the titles (minus 'Windy') feature briefly in the 'Man About The House' movie - if there's anything more than that, I'd be (pleasantly) surprised!

[SteveP]

Guest-Syd said:

The Grundy interview was not included in McLarens “Swindle” movie, actors recorded an audio version of the altercation whilst on screen there was a caption that read “Censored by Thames”.
Perhaps there is some confusion over the Thames and Granada appearances.
The “Swindle” clip of the Pistols live version of “Anarchy in the UK” is from Tony Wilson’s Granada show which must be a home recording.

Yes. The original recording exists (as does its use on a repeat compilation) but in the film they seem to have chosen to use an off-air with the colour killed. All this stuff was recorded by Julien Temple or a "mate of his".

The original VT was used for C4‘s “Punk” compilation in 1991 and a small section was used on BBC’s R&R years 1976,

The "Punk" version, as with a lot of the clips, was lifted from "The Way They Were" - a much better retrospective done in 1986/7 (? offhand) [It was when I was in the 6th Form, I know, as it was the first night I drank almost a whole bottle of Scotch!]

but was this recording shown on Grundy’s “Today show” earlier in the programme???.

No - the clip on Grundy is a concert performance - Lydon on stage.

Other clips on “Swindle” also looked as though they had been home recorded such as Bob Warman’s Yorkshire TV interview “People are sick everywhere (McLaren).......you just want to commit suicide (Lydon)” and the HTV Wales(?) report on the religious group protesting outside in the freezing cold.

Both from films supplied by the TV companies. May look a bit dodgy because they were probably blown up from 16mm.

The Grundy interview IS included on Julian Temple’s Documentary film (quite shocking to see John Lydon breaking down at the end.)

I think Lydon "breaks down" (some people think this was engineered/encourged/at-least-fuelled-by-lots-of-booze) when talking about Sid's death, not the Grundy thing.

Steve