|
Tiswas
Apr 15, 2004 16:35:43 GMT
Post by William on Apr 15, 2004 16:35:43 GMT
wet t-shirt
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 15, 2004 22:33:24 GMT
Post by Gareth R on Apr 15, 2004 22:33:24 GMT
I tried watching bits of Tiswas but thought that it was dreadful compared with Swap ShopSwap Shop was watched by the children of librarians and teachers. Tiswas was watched by the cool kids! Although I must have inhabited some strange middle ground, as I was the child of a teacher and I watched the first couple of years of Swap Shop, but once I discovered Tiswas, that was it - Noel could shove his Oddswap up his backside.
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 15, 2004 23:09:26 GMT
Post by Andy Hendeerson on Apr 15, 2004 23:09:26 GMT
Edmonds apparently developed that King Arthur goatee after seeing Richard Harris in 'Camelot'. Presumably cool in 1967, it had lost all of that by the time of Swap Shop and like the rest of him has thankfully evaporated from out screens. Pity the future historian who discovers that one of the BBC High Definition Tests was on one of his shows. The prospect of seeing him in even finer detail is quite a thought. We must also remember him as the man who wouldn't let his kids watch tv because it was rubbish, but inflicted thousands of broadcasting hours on us. At least Jimmy Young used to have a good recipe for fish, even if it was always fish bought in Sainsburys (C).
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 16, 2004 13:11:52 GMT
Post by James Phillips on Apr 16, 2004 13:11:52 GMT
Definitely a Tiswas boy, me. Swap Shop always seemed to be full of horrendously dull films about middle class ballet-dancing schoolgirls and teenagers mountain-biking in the Peak District. Tiswas had custard pies! ;D It was the same with Magpie and Blue Peter - I only ever watched BP if there was a Dr Who item on! And Magpie had Jenny Hanley!
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 16, 2004 22:31:05 GMT
Post by Simon Mclean on Apr 16, 2004 22:31:05 GMT
We were double agents here - one of the first projects when we rented our new video recorder from DER was to tape Tiswas and watch Swap Shop (or vice versa) which is why I've got a few short bits on tape. The Tiswas is from the Gordon Astley era, mind........
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 16, 2004 23:34:20 GMT
Post by DS on Apr 16, 2004 23:34:20 GMT
Swap Shop was dull, conservative television for less imaginative children; a series your grandparents and local vicar would have approved of and designed to be such. Three hours of utterly naff, unrelenting tedium where posh children politely demonstrated their collections of tea-sets and gonks, or Keith Chegwin swapped bags of marbles in a field. Tiswas was of the most groundbreaking and innovative programmes of the decade, with the coolest guests - members of Monty Python, Spike Milligan, Jasper Carrott, the best rock groups. On Swap Shop you could see Paul Daniels or Delia Smith guesting; on Tiswas you'd have Michael Palin, Elvis Costello, Jon Peel and Motorhead. Now which to choose ...
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 16, 2004 23:34:49 GMT
Post by Peter Chadwick on Apr 16, 2004 23:34:49 GMT
Edmonds apparently developed that King Arthur goatee after seeing Richard Harris in 'Camelot'. Presumably cool in 1967, it had lost all of that by the time of Swap Shop and like the rest of him has thankfully evaporated from out screens. Pity the future historian who discovers that one of the BBC High Definition Tests was on one of his shows. The prospect of seeing him in even finer detail is quite a thought. We must also remember him as the man who wouldn't let his kids watch tv because it was rubbish, but inflicted thousands of broadcasting hours on us. At least Jimmy Young used to have a good recipe for fish, even if it was always fish bought in Sainsburys (C). In addition, we should also remember him as someone who asked for too much money in repeat fees for any of his TOTP's to be shown on UKGold in the nineties.
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 16, 2004 23:36:48 GMT
Post by Andy Henderson on Apr 16, 2004 23:36:48 GMT
I never liked TISWAS much and largely because it looked amateur. Some of that was meant, but a lot was made up and under-rehearsed. Often in-jokes were used which were incomprehensible to any of the viewers. Having said that, it was probably superior to some of the other attempts at Saturday Shows. The 'Saturday Banana' was dipped in Bill Oddies need to include environmental issues and 'Fun Factory' wasn't much fun. Although Swap-Shop was generally quite sedate, you often see quotes from people who remembered a partcular edition. Very few people can remember much about particular editions TISWAS (and I'm probably about to be proved wrong). I'm not sure that ITV valued kids shows. They were often a necessary evil to be endured.
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 16, 2004 23:38:30 GMT
Post by DS on Apr 16, 2004 23:38:30 GMT
"No, very few. Most of the few that do exist are in sub-broadcast quality... "
Incidentally, I'm not sure this is really true. Most of what survives isn't especially 'unbroadcastable' quality, but because of the live, contemporary, magazine nature of the show, and rights issues over songs and cartoons and film clips, the vast majority of it could never really be broadcast again, anyway.
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 16, 2004 23:38:53 GMT
Post by Andy Henderson on Apr 16, 2004 23:38:53 GMT
'In addition, we should also remember him as someone who asked for too much money in repeat fees for any of his TOTP's to be shown on UKGold in the nineties.'
wasn't he heavily into buying up chunks of scottish forests (presumably there was a tax incentive involved)?
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 16, 2004 23:49:47 GMT
Post by DS on Apr 16, 2004 23:49:47 GMT
"Very few people can remember much about particular editions TISWAS (and I'm probably about to be proved wrong). I'm not sure that ITV valued kids shows. They were often a necessary evil to be endured."
You know, you really couldn't be more factually wrong. When you look at children's BBC of the era, it was largely propped up by ancient repeats of Champion, Whirlybirds, Double Deckers, Monkees, imported cheap creaky old fillers (Often in black and white) and 18 year old Hanna Barbera cartoons, plus a minimal amount of programmes for pre-adolescents that were repeated until they turned orange. ITV's commitment to quality children's TV far surpassed it; Adventures of Black Beauty, Follyfoot, Soldier and Me, Worzel Gummidge, Swiss Family Robinson, Shadows, Raven, Famous Five, Children of the Stones, Clifton House Mystery, Clapperboard, The Paper Lads, and on and on -the brand new drama, comedy, magazine and fantasy series every week were enormous, and often they were cutting edge and daring. Just look at the old ITV Yearbooks to see how much ITV cared about children's TV. People don't remember much about Tiswas? I could give you about five hundred memories of the cuff and so could many others. Tiswas was supposed to seem loose and anarchic and improvised - in the staid TV climate of the time this made it absolutely unique, extremely exciting and utterly compelling.
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 17, 2004 0:21:14 GMT
Post by Gareth R on Apr 17, 2004 0:21:14 GMT
... and rights issues over songs and cartoons and film clips, the vast majority of it could never really be broadcast again, anyway. Yes, it's a crying shame that Tiswas would require such heavy editing to be broadcastable today... even just repeating the *title sequence* would blow the average clearance budget, given the number of major Hollywood movie clips they used therein... Mind you, it's even more of a crying shame that Tarrant and Lenny Henry (in particular) seem to be so ambivalent towards even edited repeats of the show now. I know that Henry is uncomfortable with Algernon Razzamatazz, but what's Tarrant's problem? Does he not want to remind the general public of how great a comedy talent he *used* to be compared to today?
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 17, 2004 8:39:12 GMT
Post by Andy Henderson on Apr 17, 2004 8:39:12 GMT
'You know, you really couldn't be more factually wrong. When you look at children's BBC of the era, it was largely propped up by ancient repeats'
Please don't state that something is 'factually wrong' just because you might have a differing opinion. I could go on for pages to explain my posting, but my hgripe with ITV was mostly on grounds of quality. 'Magpie' was alwsays an erstaz 'Blue Peter'. 'The Tomorrow People' was never up to the standard of 'Doctorow Who' (and before anyone posts telling me it wasn't produced by the childern's dept, they might do well to remember that many people regarded as such). Of course ITV did make some good drama serials, but none of them had the impact of say 'Grange Hill'.
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 17, 2004 10:22:44 GMT
Post by DS on Apr 17, 2004 10:22:44 GMT
"Of course ITV did make some good drama serials, but none of them had the impact of say 'Grange Hill'."
To say that ITV didn't value children's programmes *is* factually wrong; they were very serious about it indeed, and had some tremendous, dedicated creative teams working on their children's programming. People like Ruth Boswell and Patrick Dromgoole were priceless. You may say that Magpie copied Blue Peter, etc. but that worked both ways. Swap Shop copied Tiswas. Bob Block did his stylistically similar comedies Pardon My Genie and Robert's Robots on ITV before he did Rentaghost for the BBC. ITV had been doing gritty working class 'realistic' dramas long before Grange Hill appeared. Whether ITV's stuff had the impact of the BBC's ... well, Black Beauty was ITV's overall biggest international sale for many years, and was one of the few children's programmes to ever make the top ten ratings. You talk about quality, but did the BBC ever lavish money on such a superior looking programme with such writers, directors and actors - or anything as grand as Swiss Family Robinson? Did they have writers the calibre of J B Priestley who wrote for Shadows? Did they put the time and effort into such a superior and educational cinema magazine programme as Clapperboard? The ITV fantasy series' are, in the case of Children of the Stones and The Tomorrow People, already out on dvd or there's a huge demand for them - Ace of Wands coming soon, and how many people dearly want Sky and The Clifton House Mystery to follow? Conversely who is really that bothered about Grange Hill coming out or not? And Tiswas made such an impact that it profoundly influenced modern TV - it created the 'zoo' format, and its style lives on twenty-two years later in the BBC's Saturday morning show, Dick and Dom, which happily acknowledges how much it copies it - Dom often wears a 'Tiswas' t-shirt.
|
|
|
Tiswas
Apr 17, 2004 11:18:06 GMT
Post by Andy Henderson on Apr 17, 2004 11:18:06 GMT
'To say that ITV didn't value children's programmes *is* factually wrong'
Is is still my opinion. Your opinion is that they did. We can agree to disagree.
It took ITV 24 years to implement a generic children's schedule (and a cohesive strategy). As you know, before the 1980s (probably 1981) each ITV company produced programmes to varying effect, often in competition with each other as much as with the BBC. Granada and LWT could pump more money and talent compared with say STV (who were content in the 50s/60s/70s to mostly buy material). They could achieve a constancy and quality over a period of years. If an ITV programme failed to deliver it was struck off. It was harder for them to maintain constancy. 'HOW' would be a good example of a series which did that and was original. Of course there were many ITV 'hits' and it could be debated till we are blue in the face, but the result seems to be that ITV children's programmes do no linger in the collective public memory as much as BBC programmes. A good example of this is the recent list of top 100 Kids programmes. The number of programmes transmitted by the BBC leads by a majority.
|
|