In 1989, C4 Daily would have been coming from Wells Street, but I'm sure I've read somewhere it had a refresh when it moved into GIR. I suppose it's feasible that the old desk might have been used for the new Studio 3 at GIR?
I actually think that at the end the Channel Four Daily was coming from a studio in the Trocadero. I know from the fantastic TV Studio History that the main lunchtime edition of Business Daily came from there and towards the end, when the whole thing was done live in one studio, the business presenter did as much anchoring as the newsreader. I remember Dermot Murnaghan moving over from business to news.
Did TV-am used to show a cartoon in the early part of the show. I know The Big Breakfast did for it's first few years and I think GMTV did originally as well as part of the main show, not just in the dedicated holiday slots.
Yes they did, Pixie and Dixie were mentioned, and they showed lots of other Hanna Barbera cartoons as well, at about 7.20. I've also got a load of back issues of Look In from the mid-eighties where they highlight Popeye in their TV guide. When GMTV started, they had a proper kids spot called Alarm Alert with Simon Parkin every morning but because all the kids had gone to The Big Breakfast and the ratings were rubbish, they stopped bothering with that after a few weeks and replaced it with cartoons instead.
Blimey, I have absolutely no memory of that at all. I remember when Channel 4 Daily began, but I don't remember ever seeing any cartoons. I would've loved watching that as a kid.
This was sort of the problem with the Channel Four Daily, really, in that it really did feature everything so you had cartoons sitting next to intense financial news. C4 said that they weren't expecting to watch the whole thing but just spend ten minutes watching what they were interested in, which is all very well, but that does depend on the bit you want to watch being at the time you're actually able to watch it. With the other breakfast shows, you knew whenever you switched on that within ten minutes or so you'd get the news, weather and a bit of amiable chat. Here when you switched on it was pot luck what you got.
For a bit, there was a proper kids spot called Early Bird, it wasn't there at the start - the cartoons were branded as Comic Book, as mentioned - but came in with the first revamp in 1990, and had reviews and features alongside the cartoons, and there was an omnibus on Sundays. It then disappeared during the Gulf War but then when it came back it had a puppet presenter in the shape of Earl E Bird, which was quite anarchic and I used to really like it. That was how they solicited the contestants for the kids' Crystal Maze, I remember Richard O'Brien appearing to promote it. But then at the end of 1991 that stopped, seemingly they ran out of money, and then in 1992 they just showed the cartoons without any linking at all, which was a bit of a shame.
By the end of it there were actually three cartoons on the Channel Four Daily, which was a bit ridiculous and clearly only there to fill time. At 6am there was a full-length cartoon like Pole Position, but I remember that while it was billed in the TV guides as being part of the Daily, it was actually introduced with a C4 ident. Actually the first half hour was a bit odd, because I remember you had that, followed by an ad break and then at 6.25, Business Daily with its own title sequence, but from the Daily studio, and then at 6.30 you would have the opening titles and the show would start "properly". The "main" cartoon was at 7.35, and then there was another cartoon just before the end at 9.15.
Must have been a shock if the viewer missed the news about the Channel 4 Daily ending and tuned in the following Monday, to be met by a ginger bloke bouncing around the screen. Channel 4 went from one extreme to the other.
Well, this is going to make me sound a stupid kid, but in 1991 when the school summer holidays began I decided that because I had more time on my hands I would start watching breakfast TV every day (which before then, I hadn't) and plumped for the C4 Daily because, as mentioned, for the telly-mad kid it was really quite exciting, although by that point they'd dropped all the different studios and title sequences and so on. I liked Early Bird and also Box Office, because it often talked about the telly, although I did actually usually switch over to Breakfast News after eight o'clock because it got quite repetitive.
When I went back to school I stuck with it, preferably watching Box Office at 6.45 but if I overslept I would have to watch it at 7.45 and then rush to get ready for school. I stuck with it right to the better end and remember writing how sad I was about it finishing in my diary. Then on the Monday I watched The Big Breakfast, realised it was a million times better and forgot about The Channel Four Daily completely.
