TOTP2 returns

[mike phillips]

A three part TOTP2 starts on BBC2 on January 28th. The first episode claims to have "rare 60's archive hits" but more than likely to have the same old clips. Shame.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01br9df

[garyjordanbrum]

A golden opportunity wasted? Will probably be same old same old, just when we thought TOTP2 was getting their act together, after the Bowie footage. And at only half an hour long they might as well have re-run sounds of the sixties. Hope they will learn people DO NOT want to see the same stuff in time for when they put TOTP2 the 70's together, after all the recoveries of 70's material. Learn by your mistakes BBC otherwise people will simply not bother watching them. The only reason most watched the last one was to see the Bowie performance.

[LanceM]

That is very disheartening to hear in regards to the ( agreed ) "wasted opportunity". What an absolute waste, why can't they consider hiring some of us to act as consultants, wouldn't ya think they would want to boost their viewing ratings? Right? We can dream right, no harm there..

I was really hoping seeing this that say Georgie Fame- The Ballad Of Bonnie and Clyde, or possibly some material from the two ex-BBC N1500 1971 editions ( 18.11.71 & 2.12.71 ) would be displayed ( Please show John Kongos and the two Slade Performances of " Cuz I Luv You "!!!) Possibly some of the usable footage from the 1in 67' editions with The Pink Floyd performing " See Emily Play ", or The Turtles ( have been wanting to see both of these quite badly ), or how about the recently recovered Herman's Hermits 1970 TOTP clip? Hello- Love Stealer ? Brotherhood of Man- Save All Your Kisses For Me? Or how about the Queen- Seven Seas of Rhye ( Dave Lee Travis, Duster Jacket and Broom 74' clip ), Queen- Now I'm Here ( as discovered by Keith Badman ). Or how about those Walker Brothers TOTP 16mm insert clips from 1966 that were discovered a few years ago?

Of course can completely understand if time constraints, and the like interjected here, happens at times. You said it Gary my friend, people are tired of watching the same ol' fluff over and over and over, on a perpetual loop it seems ( as they say in the Star Trek universe " A Temporal Causality Loop " (As experienced in the TNG episode "Cause and Effect"). Which doomed the crew of the Enterprise D to repeat about two days over and over again ( which ended in the destruction of the ship through a Warp Core Breach), until a solution could be discovered to break the cycle, and restore the natural flow of time.

Something like that needs to happen here, a derailing of sorts to restore the natural flow of quality archival television viewing, as it should be. We can still dream right?? Who knows, hoping one day they decide to listen to their viewers and the fans, and give the public what they want. Rather than selfishly hold these items for a potential future, commercially and potentially profitable release of some form. This sadly seems to be the trend here. Very glad they decided to break the trend and display Jean Jeanie on the Christmas TOTP edition, what a real treat for all there. Something found so soon, and seen to have the largest public response I can remember from a TOTP discovery in quite some time. You would think after seeing this that they might consider an alternative game plan so to speak. Who am I kidding right? At least we know here, that we are not alone in this train of thought.

As They Say: " Great Minds Think Alike" Gary!!

Cheers, Lance.

[markjhaley]

I see they're showing the Foundations clip again. That has to be some of the worst singing (lead and harmonies) ever. The first note ("Baby") is so far out of tune it's almost back in tune again an octave higher.

[John Green]

I don't suppose the'y ever allow viewers to vote for clips?
Of course,everyone would vote for the same old stuff,and have no way of knowing about the available catalogue.
Anyone else think that the more there is out there,the more (in many ways) homogenised things get?

[Deleted]

Well after all the fuss 'The Jean Genie' caused I am hoping we may be in for a few surprises.
If part 1 is only the sixties then I really hope we get to see that Shadows clip, and I'll also second Georgie Fame. Obviously Pink Floyd would be a treat to see however bad it may look.
My big problem is cropping footage to make it widescreen. Please leave it in it's original state!

[simoncurtis]

Somebody once suggested on here a totp2 missing clips special.

With the bbc making cuts these are probably just time fillers.

They dont care about us!

[Deleted]

My suggestions for a '60s edition would be:

TOTP:
Walker Bros. - Baby You Don't Have To Tell Me (1966)
Cliff Richard - Visions (1966)
The Shadows - Don't Make My Baby Blue (1965)
Tom Jones - Delilah (1968)

If they would bother to finally recover these, they could also show:
The Kinks - Autumn Almanac (1967)
The Kinks - Wonderboy (1968)
Georgie Fame - Bonnie & Clyde (1968)
According to Keith Badman's comments in an old Record Collector, there's also a TOTP clip of The Rolling Stones' Satisfaction residing in an overseas archive that has not been recovered.

Then (using re-dubbing mixed with stills to fill in the gaps) there's:
Pink Floyd / Procol Harum / Turtles etc. 1967 clips (even if they just used a montage with 30 seconds of each)

There are several other TOTP clips out there (location unknown) that exist as VHS quality recordings:
Jimi Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary (1967)
Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze (1967)
The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon (1966)
Manfred Mann - Semi Detatched Suburban Mr.James (1966)
Manfred Mann - Ha Ha Said The Clown (1967)

Outside of TOTP itself, there are in the archives:
Manfred Mann: Once More With Felix (1967, colour) -
several tracks
The Hollies: Bobbie Gentry (1968, colour) - several tracks
Donovan: Cilla (1968)
The Yardbirds: Over Under Sideways Down (A Whole Scene Going, 1966)
Jimi Hendrix: Manic Depression (Late Night Line-Up, 1967)

I doubt many of these will be utilised but i'm just listing them to remind and refer back to what is possible!

[Paul Varley]

Any of these clips which the BBC DO have would be welcome on the show:

Del Shannon- Keep Searching
Brian Poole and Tremeloes- Three Bells (Has this ever been repeated? Not even on Youtube!)
The Shadows- Don't Make My Baby Blue
Rolling Stones- Get off of My Cloud (Yeah I know, but it really isn't seen as often as Let's Spend the Night Together)

And possibly any of the lesser seen clips from any of the few full episodes, but I'm not holding my breath....

[Deleted]

Wasn't the 6th March 1969 episode recovered from Lulu's collection? I saw a short clip of 'Boom Bang A Bang' on a Lulu documentary around christmas time. It didn't look in great shape but would still be nice to see anything from this edition. It would be great to see
Lulu - Boom Bang A Bang
Stevie Wonder - I Don't Know Why I Love You
Bee Gees - First Of May
all from the 6th March 1969.

[Chris Barratt]

6/3/69 was shown at KAL in 2010 and appeared to be in fine fettle - certainly better than the copy of the previous weeks show that has been utilized by the BBC in the past for TOTP2 etc

[Deleted]

Yes, 6/3/69 is not broadcast quality as such but a pretty good domestic recording. Because of this, I doubt they'd use a whole performance from it although short clips in docs might turn up. An important find though, bearing in mind so little '60s TOTP survives. If there was a proper DVD release of whole episodes, 6/3/69 as an extra (along with other items) would be a welcome addition.

[Richard Hunter]

I was fortunate enough to see the 6/3/69 edition at the KAL event two years ago and for a domestic recording I thought it was in excellent condition.

If they gave a copy of this edition to the BBC's restoration team I am sure they could clean it up to make it worthy of being broadcasted.

I too would like to see The Shadows "Don't Make my Baby Blue" & Del Shannon clips. Long overdue.

I would be interested to see who is producing this next batch of TOTP2's. I will watch and try and PM them afterwards with some of the suggestions put forward by members of this message board.

[Steve Williams]

Jan 20, 2012 21:40:01 GMT @garyjordanbrum said:

A golden opportunity wasted? Will probably be same old same old, just when we thought TOTP2 was getting their act together, after the Bowie footage. And at only half an hour long they might as well have re-run sounds of the sixties. Hope they will learn people DO NOT want to see the same stuff in time for when they put TOTP2 the 70's together, after all the recoveries of 70's material.

Except people do want to see this stuff, the Big Hits compilation got BBC4's biggest Friday night audience ever and the umpteenth repeat of it on BBC2 the other week also got another million or so. And they have given viewers the option of voting for clips in the past, in 2002 they devoted four episodes of TOTP2 to a top twenty most requested clips, and apart from New Model Army and the Manics (clearly a fanbase block vote) the results involved loads of familiar stuff. In fact, here's the line-up from one of them, 3rd April 2002 (from z6.invisionfree.com/popscene/index.php?showtopic=9243)

ABBA – Waterloo (TOTP 11-4-74)
NEW MODEL ARMY – No Rest (TOTP 2-5-85)
THE SWEET – Blockbuster (TOTP 25-12-73)
ADAM & THE ANTS – Kings Of The Wild Frontier (TOTP 19-2-81)
CELINE DION – My Heart Will Go On (TOTP 20-2-98)
MANIC STREET PREACHERS – Faster (TOTP 9-6-94)
EVA CASSIDY – Over The Rainbow (video)
QUEEN – Killer Queen (TOTP 27-12-74)
MADONNA – Like A Virgin (TOTP 13-12-84)
DURAN DURAN – Rio (and credits) (TOTP 18-11-82)

So the argument that the public don't want to see them is completely bogus, they want to see songs they know. The actual argument you're making is that they're of no interest to people who have seen every episode of Top of the Pops and TOTP2 and seen every clip on YouTube, and don't want to see any of them again - ie, possibly under a hundred people. Not the kind of audience a mainstream channel wants to be targeting. It'[s not "they don't care about us", it's because they aren't in the business of catering to ridiculously obscure tastes.

And the concept of TOTP2 is not to show rare stuff anyway, it's an entertainment programme. If it's a sixties special it's going to show famous songs from the sixties. If you were doing a TV show about football of the sixties, presumably you wouldn't show the 1966 World Cup Final because you've already seen that, you'd show a mundane fourth division game instead.

If the BBC are going to get this much abuse for showing repeats of Top of the Pops and TOTP2, they may as well not bother. I rather thought the year-long repeat run of 1976/77 that I've been enjoying with stuff like Glamourpuss and John Christie, where they've shown every single existing episode in a regular slot, was a highly imaginative piece of archive programming and one of the best things BBC4 have ever done. Clearly I'm an idiot because I should have watched it on UK Gold twenty years ago.

[Paul Cooksley]

Jan 23, 2012 14:03:28 GMT Steve Williams said:

Jan 20, 2012 21:40:01 GMT @garyjordanbrum said:

A golden opportunity wasted? Will probably be same old same old, just when we thought TOTP2 was getting their act together, after the Bowie footage. And at only half an hour long they might as well have re-run sounds of the sixties. Hope they will learn people DO NOT want to see the same stuff in time for when they put TOTP2 the 70's together, after all the recoveries of 70's material.

Except people do want to see this stuff, the Big Hits compilation got BBC4's biggest Friday night audience ever and the umpteenth repeat of it on BBC2 the other week also got another million or so. And they have given viewers the option of voting for clips in the past, in 2002 they devoted four episodes of TOTP2 to a top twenty most requested clips, and apart from New Model Army and the Manics (clearly a fanbase block vote) the results involved loads of familiar stuff. In fact, here's the line-up from one of them, 3rd April 2002 (from z6.invisionfree.com/popscene/index.php?showtopic=9243)

ABBA – Waterloo (TOTP 11-4-74)
NEW MODEL ARMY – No Rest (TOTP 2-5-85)
THE SWEET – Blockbuster (TOTP 25-12-73)
ADAM & THE ANTS – Kings Of The Wild Frontier (TOTP 19-2-81)
CELINE DION – My Heart Will Go On (TOTP 20-2-98)
MANIC STREET PREACHERS – Faster (TOTP 9-6-94)
EVA CASSIDY – Over The Rainbow (video)
QUEEN – Killer Queen (TOTP 27-12-74)
MADONNA – Like A Virgin (TOTP 13-12-84)
DURAN DURAN – Rio (and credits) (TOTP 18-11-82)

So the argument that the public don't want to see them is completely bogus, they want to see songs they know. The actual argument you're making is that they're of no interest to people who have seen every episode of Top of the Pops and TOTP2 and seen every clip on YouTube, and don't want to see any of them again - ie, possibly under a hundred people. Not the kind of audience a mainstream channel wants to be targeting. It'[s not "they don't care about us", it's because they aren't in the business of catering to ridiculously obscure tastes.

And the concept of TOTP2 is not to show rare stuff anyway, it's an entertainment programme. If it's a sixties special it's going to show famous songs from the sixties. If you were doing a TV show about football of the sixties, presumably you wouldn't show the 1966 World Cup Final because you've already seen that, you'd show a mundane fourth division game instead.

If the BBC are going to get this much abuse for showing repeats of Top of the Pops and TOTP2, they may as well not bother. I rather thought the year-long repeat run of 1976/77 that I've been enjoying with stuff like Glamourpuss and John Christie, where they've shown every single existing episode in a regular slot, was a highly imaginative piece of archive programming and one of the best things BBC4 have ever done. Clearly I'm an idiot because I should have watched it on UK Gold twenty years ago.

I do understand where you are coming from with this - of course.

However, I do also think that a lot of people (not just under 100 of us - I should think an awful lot more!) would like to see the BBC utilise what has been returned and not shown...obviously just perhaps to include the odd clip here and there just to vary it a little.

Here's a classic example: My wife has no real interest in Top of the Pops, but does watch quite a few TOTP'2 with me....

However, even she said to me, whilst watching things like "Big Hits 64-75" ...."Why do they keep on showing the same old clips again? Why can't they show something different?"

She is totally unaware (and has no interest!!) in the huge gaps in the BBC archives, but I mention this as a typical example of someone that really likes 60's music in general (and perhaps TOTP'2 prime audience) and cannot understand why the same old stuff is wheeled out time and time again.... If she feels like this then an awful lot more of TOTP'2 audience will also feel the same....

Don't get me wrong, it's great that the BBC do keep TOTP'2 going every now and again (and I suppose keeping the 'Top of the Pops' name alive!) but I am sure they could do something with some of the other material just here and there to vary it somewhat....