>Obviously, I'm going to suggest a Goodies episode for I Love 1980 - that's beyond argument.

'Saturday Night Grease' from that year would go down very well. Or 'Animals' which will kill all PC arguments about the show in a single bound.

>1981 Innes Book Of Records
>1982 There's A Lot Of It About (or maybe even The Black Adder untransmitted pilot)
>1983 Carrott's Lib
>1984 The Young Ones (35 minute version!)
>1985 Happy Families
>1986 Alas Smith And Jones

Yep yep. I need to think about this, but I know 'Nothing To Worry About' is Granada and possibly difficult to obtain. Series 1 of 'Alfresco' would go down better.

>1987 French & Saunders (I'm curious as to what that first series was like). Or It's Garry Shandling's Show, of course. No, what about A Bit Of Fry & Laurie from Boxing Day 1987?

All worth considering. I'm curious to know how people would take 'Shandling Show' 10 years on.

>1988 Thompson (only joking).

It's not actually that bad, having seen the first episode a couple of months back.

>Alexei Sayle's Stuff instead.
>1989 The KYTV pilot (as featured in Comic Asides)

I bet they'll pick 'blackadder goes arse' instead.

BH - is it worth suggesting non-BBC shows in all this? On that basis, would love to see Alfresco again, Wood & Walters (Granada as well), Whoops Apocalypse (LWT), even a decent Spitting Image episode (Central, from the second or third series). And I haven't mentioned Channel 4 yet (Comic Strip/Saturday Live/even Absolutely first series).

I do remember BBC2 putting out an episode of LWT's Agony a couple of years ago after a Maureen Lipman biog. So maybe all this is possible after all.

I just don't want I Love The 80s to end up with four episodes of Blackadder and six of Fools & Horses or whatever.

I might well be being terribly unfair towards Thompson - I only saw one programme, but I think it was hyped up so much beforehand it didn't stand a chance. Particularly on BBC1 - maybe if it had been on 2 it might have had a slightly warmer reception.

It has never been repeated, has it?

For 1987 how about an early episode of Fry & Laurie?

>For 1987 how about an early episode of Fry & Laurie?

I mentioned the pilot in my original posting (Boxing Day 87). Although anything from the unrepeated first series (1989) would be great too.

Fry and Laurie is universally great and you're right, Justin. 'Thompson' didn't stand a chance.

As for the buying in of independent programmes, just judge it by the current 70s season - cheap programming and as little thought as possible. It ought to have been like 'TV Heaven'(y'know - 6 hrs or whatever per week) and apparently that very idea was ditched quite early on. Ditto 'Goodies'.

>As for the buying in of independent programmes, just judge it by the current 70s season - cheap programming and as little thought as possible. It ought to have been like 'TV Heaven'(y'know - 6 hrs or whatever per week) and apparently that very idea was ditched quite early on. Ditto 'Goodies'.

So, am I wiser to suggest BBC stuff only, BH? btw Both Goodies episodes you suggest were absolutely fantastic for me aged nine, and sounds like they're still worth a look.

>As for the buying in of independent programmes, just judge it by the current 70s season - cheap programming and as little thought as possible. It ought to have been like 'TV Heaven'(y'know - 6 hrs or whatever per week) and apparently that very idea was ditched quite early on. Ditto 'Goodies'.


Have to agree with you there - TV Heaven was good as it showed a mixture of programmes, allowed people to judge for themselves, rather than being told what to like, or desperately using Theakston and his ilk to make hoolow comments descriping culture and the spirit of the era. Even the Rock n Roll Years treated the subject matter better (and is due for re-run). Also(if I remember rightly) in the TV Heaven season, Frank Muir's links were better than any vacant talking head.

Incidentally, does anyone have suggestions for 1980's films they could show?

>Have to agree with you there - TV Heaven was good as it showed a mixture of programmes, allowed people to judge for themselves, rather than being told what to like, or desperately using Theakston and his ilk to make hoolow comments descriping culture and the spirit of the era. Even the Rock n Roll Years treated the subject matter better (and is due for re-run). Also(if I remember rightly) in the TV Heaven season, Frank Muir's links were better than any vacant talking head.

TV Heaven was an exemplary piece of archive television - everything stood on its own merit, without a patina of wanky irony and Frank Muir handled the whole thing beautifully. Why can't Channel 4 or BBC2 do something similar again? With FM six feet under, who could do it? I'd vote for Cliff Michelmore.

And why are BBC2 theme nights getting shorter and shoddier? In a scheduling lull t'other night, I dug out my tape of highlights from Lime Grove Day. Superb - all day devoted to commemorating an old BBC building and its workings in admirable detail. They even, shock horror, had a documentary about the studios themselves, which they should have done for 40 Years of the Concrete Doughnut.

>Incidentally, does anyone have suggestions for 1980's films they could show?

John Carpenter's The Thing

An American Werewolf In London

Brazil

Ghostbusters?

I would also include:

Dick Emery (he was still going in 1980, wasn't he?)
Saturday/ Friday Night Live
A Kick Up the 80s (Kevin Turvey, at any rate)
Absolutely
Vic Reeves' Big Night Out (that was '89, wasn't it?)
Hello Mum
As Seen On Tv (apologies if we've already had it)


But no F&S please. The 1st series wasn't very good.

Also, let's chuck in 1 episode of either Full House or Duty Free, just to show the grandchildren what we fought the war for.

Re: Dick Emery.

I don't know if his sketch show was still going, but he definitely did those 2 comedy-drama series in the 80s: Legacy of Murder and Jack Of Diamonds, which I remember thinking were alright at the time.




Also: how about Filthy, Rich And Catflap? I bet half the people who slag it off never saw it, they just rode along on the backlash at the time.

And dig up some Jerry sadowitz live footage. There must be some.

Show a 1st series ep. of The Last Resort. And a decent Comic Strip ep.

>Re: Dick Emery.
>
>I don't know if his sketch show was still going, but he definitely did those 2 comedy-drama series in the 80s: Legacy of Murder and Jack Of Diamonds, which I remember thinking were alright at the time.

Emery died in 83, and I think his sketch show finished about 81. Mind you, they've already shown one of those for I Love The 70s (1973, I think it was). Haven't seen the comedy-dramas you cite.
>
>
>Also: how about Filthy, Rich And Catflap? I bet half the people who slag it off never saw it, they just rode along on the backlash at the time.
>
Two episodes really deserve reshowing: the Oo-er Sounds A Bit Rude one (show 2, I think), and certainly the TV-am one (show 5) which is worth it for the Trivial Pursuit routine ("Reykjavik, comma, Iceland, full stop"). The rest of them, imo, weren't really up to scratch, but hey! why not repeat them anyway?...


>And dig up some Jerry sadowitz live footage. There must be some.
>
He was on The Happening, apparently, in about 1990, but Pall Bearers Revue wasn't till 92.

>Show a 1st series ep. of The Last Resort. And a decent Comic Strip ep.

As Bent was saying above, don't know how realistic the possibilities of getting non-BBC stuff would be. The answer, of course, is for E4 to screen it all - better than the new stuff they're proposing, certainly.

>Ghostbusters?
>
>Saturday/ Friday Night Live

Might be possible - don't know if LWT still own the rights to it all. I think the first two series (86-87) were made "in association with Paul Jackson Productions", so who knows? Maybe he can help...

>A Kick Up the 80s (Kevin Turvey, at any rate)

I was thinking of this. But what would we do about Richard Stilgoe's contributions?

>Absolutely
>Vic Reeves' Big Night Out (that was '89, wasn't it?)

1990, in fact. Although there was an untransmitted pilot directed by Geoff Posner
in 1989 - maybe Channel X could oblige...

BH - if they were made by independent production companies for C4 (not ITV), could they be reshown by the BBC (in theory)?

>Hello Mum

Don't think it really caught fire on TV (unlike In One Ear) - still, maybe the celebrity of Clive Mantle might sway them for a repeat. And anything featuring Arnold Brown has got to be worth it. That was 87.

>As Seen On Tv (apologies if we've already had it)
>
No, that would be great, though! It would act as a reminder that there was more to it than Acorn Antiques... This one will probably turn up anyway.
>
>But no F&S please. The 1st series wasn't very good.
>
I don't remember it being very good. Ended up getting in to Moonlighting (which ran after it, followed by Hello Mum) at the time.

>Also, let's chuck in 1 episode of either Full House or Duty Free, just to show the grandchildren what we fought the war for.

Not sure I can stomach those. Why not Ever Decreasing Circles, which was at least funny, and had a dark heart beating behind it?