In case you wondered, this is what BBC1 screened alongside those two TOTPs at Christmas 1976:
CHRISTMAS DAY
8.40am Ragtime
The same episode screened a year earlier. BBC Christmas repeats!
8.55am Sing Noel!
"Pupils of Essex schools" carol their hearts out.
9.45am Hong Kong Phooey
10.10am Appeal
Angela Rippon on behalf of Televisions for the Deaf. Special televisions? Pre-Ceefax?
10.15am Christmas Morning Service from Coventry
11.15am Rod Hull and Emu
Guest starring Rolf Harris and 300 singing children.
11.45am Four Clowns
Clips of Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keason and Charlie Chase, whoever he was.
1.20pm Holiday on Ice
The forgotten lingua franca of Christmas telly as it used to be, ice skating extravaganzas.
2.10pm Top of the Pops
3.00pm The Queen
3.15pm Billy Smart's Christmas Circus
4.15pm Oliver!
The Ron Moody/Mark Lester/Jack Wild 1968 version.
6.35pm Evening News
Peter Woods pulling duty today.
6.45pm Bruce Forsyth and the Generation Game
Which became at that point the most watched single game show ever. Don't know who was on, mind.
7.45pm The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show
With Angela Rippon (yes, that one, and it seems she wasn't even billed in the listings to make sure it was a surprise), John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, Kate O'Mara, Elton John, the Nolans and the Singin' In The Rain routine. It's being repeated on BBC1 on Boxing Day at five to one.
8.45pm Airport
The film that launched a thousand disaster movies. Christmas night, though?
10.55pm News
11.00pm Parkinson's Magic Show
Parky gets his favourite three magicians to perform for him.
12.10am Weather
12.12am Closedown
ON OTHER CHANNELS... BBC2 take up three hours with a clip show, Forty Years, and another 50 minutes with the memories of one man marooned on the remote desert island South Georgia. ITV go with the 1968 Doctor Doolittle, the Please Sir! film, the New Faces Winners Show featuring nobody you've heard of, Christmas Sale of the Century, The John Curry Ice Spectacular and Rod Steiger vehicle Waterloo, but most interestingly at the directly competitive time of 2.15pm Christmas Supersonic from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where in the presence of Princess Margaret, Russell Harty and Joanna Lumley introduce Marc Bolan, Tina Charles, the newly unretired Gary Glitter, John Miles, Guys 'n' Dolls, Twiggy and Linda Lewis. I can't imagine TOTP shook. Here's the big finish.
BOXING DAY
9.25am Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan
Sunday regular doesn't stop for the season.
9.55am Playboard
10.10am The Selfish Giant
Canadian animation based on an Oscar Wilde short story with heavy Jesus overtones.
10.35am The Little Mermaid
The original Richard Chamberlain-voiced version.
11.00am Sunday Worship
From Notting Hill Methodist Church.
11.45am Flash Gordon
Part eight of the original 1936 serial starring Buster Crabbe.
12.05pm Tarzan And The Huntress
Prime Weissmuller.
1.15pm News Headlines
1.20pm The Waltons
Again not stopping just because it's Christmas, this would have been the first run of series 4.
2.10pm Top of the Pops
3.00pm The Wizard of Oz
4.35pm It's A Christmas Knockout
Filmed at the Olympic Ice Rink in Italy, Leeds take on Belgian, Italian and Dutch teams.
5.35pm Little Lord Fauntleroy
The last of the acclaimed six part serial of the book.
6.05pm News
6.15pm Songs Of Praise Special
Families fill the Albert Hall.
7.25pm Dad's Army
The orange-based japery BBC2 are showing in prime time tomorrow.
7.55pm Love Story
Unseasonal prime-time film choices mean often having to say you're sorry.
9.30pm The Val Doonican Show
With Nana Mouskouri, James Galway, Tony Blackburn, Terry Wogan, Arthur Askey, Janet Brown, Henry Cooper and Cliff Michelmore.
10.20pm News
10.30pm A Man for All Seasons
Paul Scofield's masterwork.
12.25am Weather
ON OTHER CHANNELS... BBC2 put out a mid-afternoon review of the golfing year called Of Chips And Putts, which is an excellent title. Later on came a Royal Ballet version of the Tales Of Beatrix Potter, a seasonal Face The Music, The Barry Humphries Show and the autobiographical Summoned by Bells: Sir John Betjeman. ITV meanwhile bought in Bill Cosby-fronted The World of Music and a TV version of Peter Pan starring Mia Farrow and Danny Kaye before Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent's, groo, Rock Nativity, Stanley Baxter's Christmas Box, Kirk Douglas film Catch Me A Spy and, in a very BBC2-like move, Scottish Opera's The Merry Widow from the Theatre Royal, Glasgow.
2 comments:
Cliff Michelmore??? What did he sing? I assume Janet Brown could hold a tune at least when impersonating someone else, and I have vivid memories of our 'Enry's attempt at pop stardom "Knock Me Down With A Feather" - you have to hear it to believe it. I know Cliff's son Guy was a regional BBC presenter and a keen composer who, in fact, composed the theme toon for the London and South East news programme he presented. There's a great clip somewhere showing Guy knocking a plastic cup of coffee over his desk seconds before a live 'taster', frantically mopping up said liquid and hitting the live link on cue as if nothing had happened.
I can't remember what Cliff did but the Val show has been repeated on BBC4 at least twice, and Tel, Tone and Pete Murray join him for a song Val sings about the radio and his favourite presenters ("He's got the gift of the gab/when he's fighting the flab!").
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