BBC TV Tomorrow's World

[John Green]

Well,I've mentioned them on the BFI thread,but I'm hoping that the timings aren't over-optimistic!

If I had a product mentioned on TW,I'd do my best to record it."As seen on TV".You couldn't buy that sort of exposure...not on the BBC,at least.

[markboulton]

So, two revelations brought to light by the archive site:
1. The Johnny Dankworth theme wasn't the first;
2. The Programme was entitled "Tomorrow's World: In the making today" for its first few months (including editions with the Dankworth theme and familiar spacey title graphics)

Funny how retrospectives have always neglected these facts!

[John Green]

There seems to have been a sort of trial series in the summer,then a longer run starting in the Autumn of 1965?

[markboulton]

I've been thinking about this all week because it seems to me almost unbelievable that a programme about the future wouldn't have been largely kept. And of course before you say "well they kept all the films", well, that happened with every programme (or at least, film items were sent to the Film Library - whether they always kept them is a matter of conjecture of course). So the films remaining doesn't seem a systematic choice - i.e. "let's keep the films so we don't have to keep the PasB's". After all, many items have explanation and scene-setting (or debates) set in the studio top-and-tailing the filmed items, so I think it's unlikely there would have been a concerted choice made to not worry about junking the studio presentation.

Of course, all of this supposition doesn't make it untrue, but all week I've been musing to myself that it seems incredulous to believe that there isn't a huge archive of TW PasB's somewhere that have simply yet to be transferred/catalogued (or fell into the pile of tapes earmarked by Adam Lee as 'not selected for retention', thinking that, as it appeared, master materials for those TW shows existed, that the tapes must be dubs, not being aware that those 'master materials' were simply filmed inserts).

Either this or they're all still there, but not located yet. After all, I'm convinced TW anniversary shows have never mentioned, or shown, part of their earlier-1965 archive and have always presented a late '65 edition as being "the first" - so it's quite possible the "real first" edition now online was only located fairly recently (i.e. in the past couple of years). Therefore other editions may lie in wait. Who knows - the VTs may be long gone (as is the case with most 60s and 70s programming) but there may well be cans full of (perhaps even unprocessed) T/R negatives for many TW shows.

I for one am living in hope, especially as the TW editorial teams at the BBC didn't show much evidence of being aware of the early '65 editions until a couple of years ago.

[John Green]

Mark,did the retrospectives tend to show b&w material at all?

[markboulton]

Aug 11, 2012 11:25:21 GMT John Green said:

Mark,did the retrospectives tend to show b&w material at all?

Yes, but they would always introduce it with, "it all started back in 1965..." or somesuch, then show the globe "This is BBC1" and the titles to the late '65/'66 editions with the Johnny Dankworth music (and NOT, note, the late '65 title sequence shown on the Archive site with the 'In The Making Today' tagline).

There were definitely b/w clips, but in rather juddery quality (i.e. looking like they were from a T/R OF a film insert and not THE raw film insert). I suspect each 'look back' used a telecine transfer done for an earlier 'look back' or compilation reel, rather than go back to whatever master materials were known about.

[Deleted]

I seem to recall that a 1968 edition focussing on the first Christian Barnard transplants exists on VT. I've seen bits of this one although probably an exception to the usual t/r rule. No idea how many more survive from the same era though.

[markboulton]

Aug 11, 2012 14:04:36 GMT @laurencepiper said:

I seem to recall that a 1968 edition focussing on the first Christian Barnard transplants exists on VT. I've seen bits of this one although probably an exception to the usual t/r rule. No idea how many more survive from the same era though.

Yes it does. That one is on the Archive site.

[markboulton]

I have to love the sense of humour in the 60's TWs. It became far too dour and worthy and stiff in the Judith Hann/Michael Rodd/Keiran Prendeville era. Even Raymond Baxter got to play the charming chaparone to a Cosmo model dressed in paper and plastic!

James Burke's depiction of a futuristic, robot-driven office is a classic... "Quiet. Efficient. They just allow you to work. No distractions. They just leave you alone. Alone."

Plus, a pub where orders can be placed by dialling a code into a telephone handset at the table? Today we have the technology to do that so easily - but perhaps not the will. After all, there is proof aplenty that human beings will always prefer a human element. But I might have just given away an idea for an app now!

[Luke Phelps]

Sorry for dragging this up, but was researching TW, and saw this on Wikipedia:
"Virtually all the 1970s and early 1980s episodes only survive in their complete form because a viewer recorded many episodes on an early video recorder (a Philips N1500) and made his tapes available for copying during the early 1990s.[citation needed]"

[Sue Butcher]

I'd like to see the episode about the population explosion. The studio backdrop had a pattern of circular insets that lit up every time a baby was born. It looked like a Christmas tree by the end of the show! I was a bit worried that I'd be forced to eat nothing but pills and dumpling in my middle age, but that prediction missed the mark. In the West, too much food is the problem now.

[Peter Stirling]

We use to watch various Raymond Baxter editions at school from a 16mm projector -don't ask me to recollect what those editions were LOL