Night of a Thousand Stars Posted Sat Sep 16 22:44:07 BST 2000 by Simon Harries

15% very badly edited studio bits, especially cutting down the guests who impolitely couldn't keep to their alloted 45 second slots for anecdotes (Barker, Attenborough, Blessed)

70% clips we've all seen a thousand times before

2% clips we'd like to see more of (The Goodies blowing up TV centre

7% hugely embarrassing and utterly pointless Vic and Bob bit

5% Parkie's looking very old now. He's a bit past it, isn't he? Why wasn't the wonderful Dale Winton hosting?

1% why bring up the studio laughter on "Revenge of the Cybermen" just because it's a dated old Dr Who clip deliberately chosen as the most embarrassing and least representative of the series, when they kept the laughter faded down for the rest? I'd have loved to hear all those aged BBC insiders pissing themselves laughing at the other shows and their inadequacies (ridiculously over-the-top, over-rated acting from Keith Michell & Annette Crosbie in "Six Wives of Henry VIII" and Glenda Jackson in "Elizabeth R"; wobbly sets in "The Forsyte Saga")

Subject: Re: Night of a Thousand Stars [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Mr Griffiths on Sat Sep 16 23:00:56 BST 2000:

Good point re wobbly sets - as on tonight's execrable I Love 1978 when everyone turned on Blake's 7 with a similar school bully mentality. Nobody criticizes 70s drama or comedy for having crap production values. Once more, charming old sci-fi gets a knee in the groin for the sake of a pleb-friendly call-and-response ritual laugh.

Subject: Re: Night of a Thousand Stars [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Paul on Sun Sep 17 00:41:27 BST 2000:

>Good point re wobbly sets - as on tonight's execrable I Love 1978 when everyone turned on Blake's 7 with a similar school bully mentality. Nobody criticizes 70s drama or comedy for having crap production values. Once more, charming old sci-fi gets a knee in the groin for the sake of a pleb-friendly call-and-response ritual laugh.

...quite true...for instance, did anyone notice on 'Night of a 1000 Shows' during the Six Wifes of Henry VIII when the camera actually panned up too high and you could clearly see the off the top of the set ????

Personally, I thought the whole 'Night of a 1000 show's was absolute crap. I agree totally with Simon's percentages mentioned earlier in this thread ....

Subject: Re: Night of a Thousand Stars [ Previous Message ]
Posted By McGinty on Sun Sep 17 02:29:25 BST 2000:

I missed this show, but I heard a story this week about Ronnie Barker wanting the Reeves & Mortimer section banned cause they slagged off Morecambe & Wise. Did this happen?

Subject: Re: Night of a Thousand Stars [ Previous Message ]
Posted By george on Sun Sep 17 14:43:19 BST 2000:

I deliberately chose not to watch it, and thanks Simon for comfirming my reasons to miss it.

Shame that they had a dig at old sci-fi. If we are sneering at pre-CGI FX shows, then we are effectively being snide towards our broadcasting history.

Subject: Re: Night of a Thousand Stars [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Justin on Sun Sep 17 14:52:32 BST 2000:

After seeing that this tosh had Caroline Wright as executive producer, I was reminded that I hadn't watched TV Hell (BBC2, 31 August 1992) in some considerable time. (Which she worked as a producer on.)

What truly amazed me about watching it all again with my partner (who had never seen it) was how, no matter how terrible the footage, all the participants possessed a touching naivety about their involvement, and an endearing respect for the medium. Best of all, the talking heads were all relevant and witty (even Hilary Kingsley was amusing on "Triangle") - no room for twats like Arabella Weir or Theakston. More often than not, the talking heads were eliminated altogether, with clips only, leaving the viewers to draw their own conclusions. And there was the sense that here was an era of television which, rubbish as some of it had been, at least contained honourable, well-intentioned failures, rather than cynical, ratings-grabbing shite.

As it was made in 1992, TV Hell therefore had no room for Vanessa Feltz, GMTV, TFI Friday, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Big Brother or Frontal. But none of these would have qualified anyway - they are all "knowing", self-aware, and consequently, almost entirely worthless. If this is me reflecting on the past through rose-tinted cliches, so be it - this is why a theme night like TV Hell could never be made again.

Two signposts of the doom to come, incidentally:

1) TV Hell was co-executive produced by Michael Jackson (now controller of Channel 4, and presumably the man who gave the green light to Frontal).
2) The pointless Phill Jupitus makes a (mercifully) brief appearance in the opening minutes, as one of Paul Merton's neighbours. He is seen having an argument with Edna Dore about what rubbish they're going to watch (their TV is eventually hurled out of the window, and to the ground, where it "kills" Merton).

Let's say it was better than any of Big Brother could ever have been.

Subject: Re: Night of a Thousand Stars [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Mark J on Sun Sep 17 18:23:16 BST 2000:

It just makes one wish that UK Gold or UK Play would just screen an old theme night such as TV Hell once in a while, instead of endlessly recycling repeats of Shooting Stars and The Fast Show.

Subject: Re: Night of a Thousand Stars [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Jo_ham on Sun Sep 17 18:32:19 BST 2000:

re: pre cgi effects.

The early Red Dwarf stuff was all done with model shots and simple effects and proved to be trully excellent.

too many shows and films try to get by on their CGI stuff (alas I think the new Red Dwarf is a little guilty of this too).

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